Recollection...

Ok so, who was I kidding. In the last post I wrote that I would "run downstairs and find my journal." There are two things that are funny about that sentence, 1. I DON'T RUN! :-) and 2. If you have ever seen our basement which most people have not you would know I am not going to find anything down there today! So I am going to retell the story of Isaac Bolte from my perspective NOW. (when I DO find the journal it should be neat to compare as I am sure I am in a completely different place as I write this today, so it will be a little experiment so to speak.)

So here we go...

Howard and I were married in 2001, two weeks after I completed student teaching. We were both believers in God, yet lacked a personal relationship with Him in many ways. We had Luke in 2003 and somehow having children really makes you rethink the way you are doing life. We were doing life with God in the picture, but not at the forefront. It was tough, we lived about three hours from home and it was just the three of us, Howard, Luke and myself. It was really hard raising a baby without the support of family so the following year the Lord blessed us with a job for Howard close to home. We jumped at the opportunity.

We moved home and that fall found out we would be expecting our second child. I was less than thrilled at first. I was hoping to wait a while longer and was terrified. I was barely staying afloat as a stay at home mom (which I never imagined myself to be) to one child. How on EARTH would I handle two? We were also living in a trailer at the time which was another sore spot for me. There was barely room for three of us, how could we possibly squeeze four? I had a lot of anxiety about a lot of things and was relying on myself and Howard to get us through, I was putting all of my eggs in the wrong basket.

That was when I said to Howard, "I think we need to find a church. I grew up in a church and I want my kids to have a church family." Howard wasn't sure. We had been to many churches and always felt uncomfortable. After much deliberation we decided to begin the "church shopping" process. We started very close to home and worked our way outward. We had heard of a church that was being run in an old "Ames" department store about twenty five minutes from here we had heard it referred to as "St. Ames", we thought it was funny. Their motto was "a different kind of church". We hadn't had any luck thus far so we figured what could it hurt?

We showed up and were immediately greeted with such kindness. People seemed genuinely happy to have us. It wasn't a stuffy environment, all kinds of people of all ages just getting together to worship God!

What sold me though was the children's ministry. There was a window in the back of the worship center that looked in at the nursery. I could stand at the back, hear the message, worship and still see Luke. (He was my first child and I was as overprotective as they come.) So we went to church off and on that year. It was a big church and we somehow were able to slip in, go to service, slip out and never really make any connections.

In June of that year we heard that there was going to be a baptism service. We had both been baptized as children but were feeling led to take the "plunge" for ourselves. At the end of June I stood before our congregation of about 1000 people and said "I am just so thankful for all God has done for us, life just doesn't get any better than this.", I waddled my 8 month pregnant self over to the pond and made public what I felt in my heart. Howard and I were baptized together and we were on top of the world.

We had no idea that that world that we knew was about to be rocked.

(to be continued....)