The Baby Is Here!

Praise the Lord, Joshua's arrived!!!

Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD:
and the fruit of the womb is his reward.
As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man;
so are children of the youth
Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them:
they shall not be ashamed,
but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.
-Psalm 127:3-5

God is so good!!! I'm an aunt!!!
Joshua James Gregory Blanchard was born at 4:30pm!! Christa and baby are healthy and doing wonderfully!

I'll get y'all the weight, measurements and maybe a photo or two as soon as I can!

In Christ Alone,

Jessica

P.S. Mom and I are flying to see Daniel, Christa and Joshua tomorrow morning and we won't be back till Tuesday, so if I don't reply to y'all's comments, that would be why. :-) God bless!

Happenings...

Let's see what has happened lately...

On Saturday, we attended the lovely wedding of Joshua Erber and Abbey Hill. The wedding (and the bride) were beautiful. It was so encouraging to see God's working in the lives of two young people! It brought to my mind a picture of Christ and the Church and the union that all Christians will someday experience - the Great Wedding, where Christ will come take His bride away to be with Him forever in Glory.

The church was lovely and the ceremony and reception went smoothly and beautifully! It was so wonderful to see old friends that we haven't seen in a long time!! Tiff got a few photos at the reception, so I'll try to post some soon.

Hmmm...otherwise I just finished reading R.C. Sproul's (he's one of my very favorite authors, by the way...) Surprised By Suffering. I didn't choose this book for any particular reason, save that I do so love a good theological book! He went through questions people ask about why they suffer and why "good" people experience pain and death. It was an extremely good book; well written and well presented - very thought provoking. I highly recommend it!

Now I've begun reading "Loving God With All Your Mind" by Elizabeth George. Very good as well (though I'm only on chapter two so far). Anybody have any good fiction/non-fiction suggestions? I'm always on the look-out for good books!!

We also watched the most entertaining movie the other day - "Dodge City" starring Errol Flynn and Olivia De Haviland. Completely clean and hilarious (well, if you're a Southerner anyway, or have Confederate leanings *grin*...). A good old western where the good guys chase the bad guys out of town. I'm not a big fan of westerns myself, but I happened to really enjoy this one.

Oh, and a dear friend from church let us borrow the *new* film version of Persuasion. It is far better than the old one (in my opinion), and if you love Jane Austen's works as much as I do, I think you'd enjoy this. The costumes were alright (better than the old one but not amazing), and though I have never read the book I hear it followed the story pretty well, also it was clean which was wonderful! :) The only thing that bothered me was the camera man was driving me crazy at times with the strange camera angles. Otherwise, I liked it. :)

Well, Tiff, some of the little ones and I are supposed to head over to JoAnn's today to pick up some fabric and notions and then to the library, so I'll go ahead and sign off.
Have a blessed day and may the Lord bless and keep you!

In the Service of my Lord and Savior,

Jessica Nicole

Here's the photos I promised! :)

The Bride and Groom!


Dad and Mom talking to Mrs. Serven

Jessica Erber, Anna Von Holten and I watching the goings-on.

Mrs. Erber and Joshua Erber dancing. :-)

Me...I know, you're thinking "what a crazy face" but Tiff kept chasing me with the camera (being the dear sister that she is. *GRIN* Love ya, Tiff! :D) so I decided to make a strange face and...well...it turned out kind of funny. At least, I happened to crack up when I saw it. :D lol. And those are hair sticks in my hair...not "bunny ears" as some of the little ones were inclined to think. :)

My sweet Father and Mother. Don't they look wonderful? :-)

Isn't William adorable? He decided he liked weddings very much and he told us the bride was "pretty" :) He was very well behaved during the ceremony, and loved every bit of it. (Now who says we can't have modern day Mr. Darcy's? *smile*)

One of the darling flower girls. She's so cute!!

We were thrilled to see some of the Hubers, Nathan DeLauderanty and the Servens there!

The wedding party watching the festivities!

A sweet little girl that attended, Anna Von Holten and Katherine Huber!

I'd post more photos that we have, but Tiff is going to post some as well so I'll leave the rest to her. :-)

Happy Birthday, Tiffany!

Tiffany and I with a Jamestown reenactor. Unfortunately, we forgot to take our name tags off, which takes away from the "historical-ness" of it, but it's a delightful memory, all the same. :)

Today is the birthday of one of my sister, Tiffany Faith, who turned twenty-two years old today.
It seems so strange to me how the years fly by. I remember the days when Christa, Tiffany, Melissa, and I were little girls running about, sliding down bannister's (I know, it's dangerous! *grin*), running through the sprinkler, eating Popsicles on hot days, and running in the sun. We were (and still are) as close as three sisters could possibly be. We did (and, thank the Lord, still do!) nearly everything together.

I just want to write and thank the Lord for the family that He has given me, and for sisters, some of the best friends that any girl could possibly have.

So, Happy Birthday, Tiffany! I love you!

Trí Chríost Amháin*,

Jessica

*Gaelic for- In Christ Alone

The Character of God

Last night some of the women from our Church (and one, not from our church) and their older daughters attended the Women's Meeting that our church puts together. The book we're reading though and discussing right now is "Damsels In Distress" by Martha Peace.

Some things really stood out at me last night in the book that I thought I'd share with y'all. The author mentioned how learning about the character of God and knowing what He is like helps us Christians to work through problems and issues that happen in life. So then she went on to give a list of scriptures on the character of God. I thought I'd write them out here for y'all.

I pray that y'all find them as encouraging as I do.


God Loves Us.

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. - Romans 5:8

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principlalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to seperate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. - Romans 8:38-39

See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. - 1 John 3:1

We love, because He first loved us. - 1 John 4:19


God is Compassionate.


Therefore the Lord longs to be gracious to you And there he waits on high to have compassion on you. For the Lord is a God of justice; How blessed are all those who long for Him. - Isaiah 30:18

Seeing the people, He [the Lord Jesus] felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. - Matthew 9:36

The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness. - Psalm 103:8


So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. - Romans 9:16

But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ...- Ephesians 2:4-5


God is Faithful.


God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. - 1 Corinthians 1:9

Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass. - 1 Thessalonians 5:24

If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself. - 2 Timothy 2:13

let us hold fast he confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. - Hebrews 10:23

Therefore, those also who suffer according to the will of God shall entrust their souls to a faithful Creator in doing what is right. - 1 Peter 4:19

And as a side note:

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

The other day the Candler family invited us over to spend an evening at their house. So Tiffany, Caleb and I made our way over with the game "Cranium" and a camera (of course!).
It was a wonderfully refreshing evening full of laughter, fellowship and delicious honey popcorn (courtesy of Mr. Candler). Here are some photos of the evening:


Some of us posed for a quick photo before the games began...


My team (and the other team...) watches as I draw a man walking on a tight rope blindfolded (I'm blindfolded, by the way, not the man on the tight rope. *smile*) They didn't actually end up guessing right but it was fun anyway! :)


I love Lenna's face in this one. She's looking at me and at the card like "How in the world am I going to do this?! You nut!" *grin* I'm smiling like "Oh sure...it'll be easy..." :D


Lenna and I again (she was on my team, by the way.) looking at some more cards (now I'm the one that's looking not so sure)...


Everyone's huddled over the game board planning their next move!


Sierra stands atop Caleb and Josiah. You can probably tell we were all in a pretty goofy mood! :)


More photos to come later! (I would put them all up now, but blogger is acting up and won't let me post anymore for the time being...)

Also, could I ask y'all to pray for my Mom? She had a fever of 102 yesterday, and it went up to 103.4! Thank the Lord, it went down again this morning, but she feels really dreadfully, and your prayers would be appreciated! Thank you!

In His Service,

Jessica


P.S. Tiffany posted about our thrilling sledding expedition with the Ryken family. You can view photos and read about it here: www.itsthesimplethings.blogspot.com