One School year down!!!!

The 2009-2010 school comes to end today! I am am excited. For me personally this has been a year that has stretched me further then I have been stretched. I started a new job at my kids school this past fall, which is attached to our church. I am now a librarian. I love my job, and have learned that this is not an easy job. Shayla completed preschool, and is now moving onto kindergarten. Curtis just completed 4th grade and now is on his way to 5th grade. My husband Joe is done being a full time student at CCC and is now heading into a new career field. He starts his new job being a machinist on the 14th. I am looking forward to a peaceful summer. I am looking forward to my garden growing, canning and spending time with friends. Thank you Lord for such a good school year, a year of firsts. Good bye to a wonderful school year, hello summer!!!

Just me...what you see is what you get

I am hear listening to "my song", Alive and Awake by Skillet( see lyrics at the end of this) and it prompted me to blog. This year I decided (with the conviction of the Lord of course) to be me, 100% all natural me. My only accountability that I need is Jesus and my husband Joe. When I was growing up, I lived in a "perfect" world with a "perfect" family. I know that many people can relate to what I am saying. My mom never rested during the day, at least not the I can recall. The house was spotless cause you never knew who might drop by or who was watching. Us children had to have clean faces and fresh clothes. Heaven forbid we get dirty. Me, well I was the black sheep and took the title seriously. I never felt like I matched up to the rest of the family. Well after 20 plus years of flakeness I completely crashed. I have been cracking the shell for a while, but now the shell is gone. In January 2010 I started a new devotion about taking off the mask and loving myself the way the Lord loves me. That was a hard devotion, but over the course of a few weeks that Lord started to soften my heart little by little. My biggest struggle was stemmed from this verse: Psalm 139:17-18 How precious also are your thoughts to me, O God. How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand. When I awake, I am still with you. I couldn't get past this question. How could the Lord love and think about me as much it says He does in His word, when everyone else could claim those verses. I couldn't personalize this verse. I prayed my way through it and the Lord changed my perspective. He let me know that I can personalize this verse and so can everyone else, because the depth of His love towards His children cannot be measured or understood. He is now beginning to move mountains in my life. It has been a challenge but I am enjoying the freedom I am experiencing. I realize through all this that I need to fall in love with myself the way the Lord has. He created me the way He planned from the beginning. How awesome is our God. It blows me away that God is that big hearted to have a bazillion thoughts for each on us all the time. The best thing is that when He created everyone none of us are the same. No duplicates, not even twins. Praise you Lord for your creativity. I am enjoying myself. I am continuing to find out who Christina is and I really like her. She is a follower of Christ, a devoted wife, and a dedicated mother of two beautiful children. Thank you Jesus for the blood You spilled on the cross. You hung there for me, for all the sins you knew I was gonna commit. Thank you for forgiving me for not being who I was created to be. Thank you for working hard on me. At times I wanted to pull my hair out cause life was too hard, but as always You were faithful to help me overcome. I love myself more and more everyday. Thank you Lord Jesus for freedom I am experiencing. In your mighty name I pray. Amen!


Awake And Alive lyrics

V1
I’m at war with the world and they
Try to pull me into the dark
I struggle to find my faith
As I’m slippin’ from your arms

It’s getting harder to stay awake
And my strength is fading fast
You breathe into me at last

Chorus
I’m awake I’m alive
Now I know what I believe inside
Now it’s my time
I’ll do what I want ’cause this is my life
here, right now
I’ll stand my ground and never back down
I know what I believe inside
I’m awake and I’m alive

V2
I’m at war with the world cause I
Ain’t never gonna sell my soul
I’ve already made up my mind
No matter what I can’t be bought or sold

When my faith is getting weak
And I feel like giving in
You breathe into me again

Bridge
Waking up waking up

In the dark
I can feel you in my sleep
In your arms I feel you breathe into me
Forever hold this heart that I will give to you
Forever I will live for you




The second hurdle is to be blogged about later, I am on a journey and I am gonna share it later.

Attitude adjustment

Changing my attitude has been the best thing for me. For the last couple months I had a complaining spirit. I would complain about everything. I was so sick of life not going my way. Well, when I went to church a few weeks ago there was a word spoken. The word was that if you have a bad attitude you should stop and put on a garment of praise. So I went home and through thought and prayer I did just that. I slipped on my garment of praise and have not taken it off. I wrote all my complaints on one side of the paper and then on the other sides I wrote out my prayers of thanksgiving for each complaint. My heart was in the right spot finally. I didn't expect anything in return. I just knew that my mouth was not honoring to the Lord. Later that week I was talking to friend and telling her that I hope the Lord blesses us with a portable dishwasher come canning season. She told me that her parents had one that they didn't need and that it was sitting in their front yard for the last 2 weeks getting ready to go to the dump. She called her parents and they said take it. We rescued the dishwasher and brought it home. It is only 5 years old at most. We had to change the nozzle on our faucet to make the dishwasher fit. So for $5 we were able to get our dishwasher. I know that when I changed my attitude and the way I look at life the more clearly I am able to see the blessings of Christ. Thank you Jesus for the dishwasher!

I am back

I am back now so I will be on here more often then I have been this past year!

I just can't stop falling in love again and again!

Now that it is February, I think now would be the appropriate time to blog mine and my Joe's love story. I am not airing out dirty laundry, every thing has been forgiven and we have moved forward from our numerous mistakes and learned from them. I think the one lesson we have learned the most is that there is consequences for the sins you commit. We made choices both together and individually and walked away from the Lord for a bit. He forgave us and forgot about those sins when we left them at the Cross, but the consequences of our actions still needed to be dealt with. The Lord has tested our faith and it has been rough at times, but through it all I have learned many lesson's. Here is our story:

I met Joseph Loy on January 15, 1998. I was on AOL messenger looking for a friend in high school who was stationed at Ft. Lewis Army Base, and instead I found Joe. I was in Portland, Oregon at the time. We started emailing each other back and forth and started a friendship. He was coming out of a bad break up and was making some poor choices. I also came out of a bad break up and was starting my rebellion phase. On September 12, 1998 we finally met up at Ft. Lewis. My friend and I drove up and picked him up and went to the Puyallup fair. That is when I knew he was the one I was going to hang onto. Well choices in our lives caused us to break up almost every month after that until January 1999. On New years eve of 1999 I made the choice to run from my problems and the Lord and stole my parents car. Joe had no clue what was going on, I picked him up and told him to get into the car and ask no questions. Then I drove up to Canada for the weekend. Worse time of my life. I hurt a lot of people that weekend. I am sad for that. On the way back to the states Joe kissed me on the border, which was surprising since I kidnapped him and took him up there with me. We decided to give our relationship another try. When I got back home, I was officially kicked out of the house. My parents were nice enough to find me a place to live. Joe proposed to me in March. In May of that same year I moved up near Ft. Lewis to be with Joe. I tried to convince my parents we weren't living together, but the are a lot smarter then that and knew the truth. I severed the relationship I had with my parents. I also got pregnant with our son that same month. The next few months were really rocky. Joe decided he wanted out of our relationship and I was scared that I was gonna have to raise our son by myself. I was a mess. In January of 2000 we got married. Not for love mind you, but of convience. We believed that our son needed two parents. I was 8 months pregnant when we got married in the little chapel. No one in our family knew for about two weeks that we were married. About a year later, February of 2001 the Army packed and shipped us out to Buedingen Germany. In March of 2001 while in another hotel room, awaiting housing on base, I surrendered my life back to Christ. I was sick and tired of running my own life. I had rededicated my life before in high school, but this time was for real. My life, and the life of my husband, was out of control. The peace and the burdens that were lifted off my shoulders is nothing I will forget. Forgiveness is a powerful thing! We eventually got housing. Joe was assigned to a Cavalry unit. We were introduced to the rigid training schedule, and working 12+ hours a day. Joe was gone every May and every October/Nov. We got used to not being together. We avoided problems in our marriage because we just figured we didn't have time to deal with it. Avoidance doesn't solve problems,. In August of 2001 I left Joe. I flew back to Portland, not expecting to come back to Germany. I had had enough and wanted to start over with just Curtis and I. Then September 11th hit and I realized I shouldn't give up. Some of these people involved in the terror attacks would never be able to see their loved ones again. I finally made it back to Germany in October. Things were slowly getting better after that. Then the accident happened. November 8 2002 my 24th birthday to exact, while Joe and his unit were at training on the south-eastern side of Germany there was a fatal tank accident. One of the tanks in my husband’s troop had hit a sink hole and was half way submerged in water and mud trapping the driver. My husband and the rest of the soldiers jumped in the freezing cold water trying to save Spc. Jonathan Stehle. My husband was in the water for over 4 hours until he was forced out by someone in charge. My husband suffered severe hypothermia and couldn’t feel his legs. I got a call from a sergeant. asking my approval if Joe needed his legs amputated. His platoon sergeant called me and told me that it wasn't good, and that they didn't know what would happen through out the night. I told him to do whatever they needed to do to keep Joe alive. That night Jonathan Stehle was not able to get out of his tank, as his tank filled up with water he lost his life. He died of hypothermia. He was 22. When my hubby finally came to it he called me and told me that was hurt, but that his legs were feeling better. We found out shortly after he came home from training that he wasn’t ok. Barely being able to walk and being dependent on me was a challenge for both of us, but it helped us mature and grow up really fast. That is when we became the best of friends. It also started us on the healing path of our marriage. We didn’t know what would happen to Joe's injury. None of the other soldiers involved were hurt. He has since been diagnosed with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, in english severe nerve damage in his legs. Less then 6 months after the accident they were all shipped out to Iraq. 1/1 Cav was shipped out for a what suppose to be a year long deployment to Iraq in April of 2003. His troop had not had time to fully cope or deal with the accident but still shipped out. I wrote to Joe almost everyday, he wrote and called when he had the time. Through our correspondence while he was in Iraq I fell madly in love with Joe. The Lord taught me to forgive and love again. It was a time when I had to depend on Christ at almost every minute of the day. That is when my walk with the Lord took off. I had to trust in him and live by faith knowing that whatever the out come of this deployment that the Lord was in charge of it. He would have a plan for mine and Curtis’ life. Our son Curtis was three when he left, but prayed almost every night for daddy to come home soon and safe. In February of 2004 they sent my husband and a few other soldiers to Qatar for R&R. When he was there we had the most amazing phone conversation. We were talking about our marriage and somewhere in that lengthy healing conversation my husband said "Christina, if you knew everything I did that went against our marriage you would not be with me." My reaction I don’t remember if it was verbal or just in my heart but I said I forgive you. I believe that he forgave me too for all things I did to contribute to our pain. We learned to let go of the past and enjoy what we have now. That is when I knew that my husband was truly in love with me. He also rededicated his life to Lord while in Iraq. We both decided to let Christ rule our lives and our family. So we tried to hang on till the end of April when they should be coming home. Well as luck would have it on April 12 2004, Good Friday to be exact us wives got word that our husbands tour had been extended for another 120 days, which would put them home in August. I hadn’t seen my husband in almost a year and I was UPSET. They eventually sent him home for two weeks that May. Then the most awesome day had finally arrived, my hubby was coming home from war. July 19, 2004 our soldiers finally came home after a long 15 month deployment. In one of the letters I wrote my husband I told him that the only material item I wanted from him was a wedding band. (I only wanted one when he was ready to be committed to me and to our family.) On the night he came home he handed me a purple box and a love letter. It was the most beautiful letter I had ever read. It was what I needed to hear to know that our marriage was going to make it. When I opened the box it was a wedding band. He bought it in Kuwait on the way home. My husband has not gone against anything he said in that letter. The Lord made it clear when he came home that we needed to expand our family. My son prayed for a sister even after we found out I was pregnant. Then in December 2004 we found out we were having a girl. Curtis was so happy that Jesus answered his prayers. Because of Joe's legs the Army told my hubby that he would no longer be able to serve our country. My husband took 60 days terminal leave in February 2005. We moved back to Portland to start life without the Army. Joe was honorably discharged on April 11, 2005. Our beautiful daughter Shayla was born on April 14, 2005. We bought a house in Portland to live the civilian life which was challenging to do when you have lived by the government for 8 years. The Lord has continued to bless us. We moved out of Portland and into the small town of Molalla, Oregon. Right now the Veterans Administration is paying for Joe to go to school full time. Joe is an amazing man of God. He goes to school full time with a 4.0 GPA, works part time and takes care of us at home. Amazing man. We just celebrated our 9 year wedding anniversary. We NEVER EVER thought we would still be together, but the Lord knew. It has been a rough eleven years that we have been together, I have to regrets. Everything that has happened in the past and the things we will go through in the future will be used for the glory of the Lord. I serve an awesome God who is proud of Joe and I for sticking it out and depending on him. I almost lost my husband many times, while serving under our flag, but the Lord didn't let it happen because this love story needs to keep on growing. I continue to fall more and more in love with my husband. I am so appreciative of him and all he does for me and my family. The lesson the Lord has been teaching me the last few years as Joe's disability has worsened, is to slow down. Joe walks slower and with a cane, but it is time to appreciate things at a slower pace. I wouldn't change anything from my past. I look forward to the next chapter in our lives. I want this story to bring glory to the Lord. Don't ever give up on your marriage. Depend on Christ and He will give you the light at the end of the tunnel. He did for us. May the Lord bless all who read this!

The three of us reunited after the 15 month long deployment!

Our daughter is one of the many

blessing the Lord has given us since Joe has come home form Iraq!

The Loy family, on vaction at Hume Lake in California.

Who am I to Complain?

I have been on an emotional roller coaster this month. I have to deal joy to the highest level all the way down to the pit of despair. I have pouted when things didn't go my way and bounced off the walls when I was overly excited. I don't understand now what the Lord has store for us. It is frustrating to not know what He is doing. I am glad I can depend on him to take care of us. We are planning on moving again. For the last 11 years of my life I have moved every two years, except for the 4 years I lived in Germany. I am SICK and TIRED of moving. I crave stability. I know one day my prayers will be answered but right now I am a little frustrated. Thankfully I can have stability in my Saviour!
Today on the way to taking Curtis to school/home from school we listened to the story behind the hymn "It Is Well With My Soul." That is my most favorite hymn! Listen for yourself the story behind this amazing song!


I have nothing to complain about. This story and song brought me to a place of conviction. If this is all I have to deal with I am doing pretty good. There are children who are starving, there are men and women sacrificing their lives daily and leaving a family behind, there are children and adults battle all kinds of diseases, i could go on and on. Yes my pain is real, but everyone hurts. Who or what I turn to in my hurt defines who we are. I am going to try and always turn to Jesus. I want to say in hard times and good, It is well with my soul! May God bless you

Proud to be an American

Hello Friends, I hope you are all doing well. I am very very proud of our country. Yesterday our first African American president was sworn into office. I honestly never thought that I would live to see that day. Thank you America for tearing down the racial barriers of this country. 50 years ago we going through civil rights and many many leaders rose up and stood their ground about the injustices being done. Many many people shed there blood just trying to get the right to vote, to get the same rights as everyone else and to just live a normal life and look at us now. WOW I am am honored to have witnessed history unfold. I did not vote for Barack Obama (because I don't agree with him on key issues), but I do believe that the Lord has a plan for our nation. The Lord is still in control and I know he is proud of how far our country has come.
As president Bush gets back to "normal" life in Texas, I wonder what his reflection is about these last 8 years. I am proud of Bush and all he did. I may not agree with it all, but I don't know the whole story and I am not going to pretend I do. I am torn that our nation is at war and we have lost and will continue to loose innocent people, but at the same time our country is better off because of the fight this brave souls. So thank you president Bush for doing what you thought was best for our country. President Bush took care of Veterans and military personnel. Every January we get a pay raise. Not little one, but usually around $50-100 a year. He made sure that they were not forgotten. He truly has a heart for this nation and tried to do his best with what he had. My dear friend Ann had this video posted on here facebook account and I thought it was awesome. So I will leave you with that. Thank you America, what a ride you have been on. May the next 4 years be AWESOME!