Rooted and Built Up Blog

November is such a beautiful month! The leaves are falling and the air is crisp and filled with the fresh smell of apples, pumpkins, and the musky scent of smoke from the wood stoves that are starting to be lit. It is a time of thankfulness and a time of preparation for the coming holidays. It’s also a time where we are moving our activities inside for the winter. For me, there’s no better season! I love to curl up by the fire with my yarn or my bible and just soak in the heat and start preparing for the bitter cold of winter that is fast approaching. God has provided for me and my family as well as other families though our fostering this year. When we didn’t think we would be able to make it through another day emotionally, financially, and physically, God has responded and has blessed us beyond our needs. Though we have faced many struggles this year, God as been so good to us through it all. It often just takes a second to turn our day from good to bad so consider the s...

As Christians we are called to love our God, that is a given and tends to be pretty obvious. What I think a lot of us, myself included, forget though is that we are also called to love others. Jesus says in Matthew 22:37-40 "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind' This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: 'you shall love your neighbor as yourself' On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets." For me, it seems easy to love God, and difficult to love people. God is perfect but people are flawed. Too many times I've been hurt by the words or actions of others. Too many times I have seen the sin in peoples lives. Too many times I've heard lies and seen actions that make me start to think that it is impossible to love others.  I find myself saying and thinking things like "I hate people". Its so easy to consume myself with what I think of o...

Have you ever stopped to think about how fast the world is changing? Nothing is the same as it was even just 5 or 10 years ago. Change can happen slowly and it can also happen in an instant. Just this year I have seen changes in technology, health care, schools, government, entertainment and countless other areas. In my house alone we have seen changes in career, changes in schedules, changes in the children that reside in our home, and changes to the people we care about and love. Even myself and my husband have changed.   It seems like the world is fixated on change. I am constantly being bombarded with the enticement of change...change your style, change your diet, change your relationship status, change is coming, change is good. And while I know that change can be important, I’m not convinced that change is all that great. With everything changing at such a rapid pace its hard to keep track of what is right and wrong, what is up and down, how should I be referring...

After last weeks post, some of you may be curious about how I plan to grow my relationship with Christ. Well I’m happy to tell you that this is exactly what my blog will be about. My goal is to share my journey to becoming on fire for Christ again and through my journey I hope to inspire others to look at their relationship with Christ As well. Before I get into talking about how I am improving my relationship with Christ, I would like to explain what it means to me to have a relationship with Christ. I know that I have at least a few family members and friends who do not know Christ but are still choosing to read this blog to support me and my venture. For them, I want to explain what it means to be a Christian and why I have chosen to follow Christ so passionately.  I know that before I became a Christian I used to think it was ridiculous  for anyone to believe in God and Jesus and I know I’m not the only one who has ever had ill informed thoughts about Christianity. ...

When you suffer a loss, you lose more than just what was lost. You lose a piece of yourself, of the life you once had. Things aren't the same as they once were and you struggle to find happiness and balance in your life. When our first foster placement was preparing to return to his family after a little over a year with us it hit me hard. As much as I was overjoyed that he would be reunited with his family, I had not prepared myself for the grief I would feel. In the time he was with us I got to see him heal and grow. I came to love him as if he were my own. So when it came time for him to leave, it felt as if a piece of my heart was leaving me.  Along with the grief came anxiety. I started having severe panic attacks and it became crippling. I could not even pull it together enough to go to work. It felt like my whole life was caving in around me and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I ended up quitting my job as that is where my anxiety seemed its worst. Though the grie...