Together Herron

Moving to Florida caused me to take a close look at my motives. Literally, driving away from almost everything I had known for the past twenty five years caused me to think about life and my purpose with urgency. God showed me that I was believing a lot of lies about life, purpose, and happiness. He is so generous to show us. I practically kicked, screamed, complained, and worried the whole way here...and put on a smile to cover it up. If only I was focused on God's purposes. His ways are so much higher than ours. He cares about us. I found myself allowing life's circumstances dictate my emotions. I found myself praising God when life was going well and turning into an emotional basket case when life didn't go as I planned easy.  What were my motives? My motives were rooted in finding happiness, security, and predicability. If God is making me move far away from all my family and friends, I won't be happy.  If I can't predict the next few months of my life an...

It was February of 2011 and I was facing one of the most challenging conversations I've had to this day. I worked at a specialist's office in Hendersonville, TN for a few short months and discovered that some people in this world just don't care about following any set of moral standards. I was asked and refused to comply with many of my job requirements that would cause me to break the law. I had never been under someone's employment that asked me to do so many illegal things. Word got around to my boss that I wasn't quite the right fit for this office. He sat me down, red faced and white knuckled, and among many hurtful (and loud) statements, he proclaimed, "I respect what you're trying to do with the church and all, helping people, but it seems like you can't help me anymore." He was referencing the fact that Blake and I were in the ministry, but that I could no longer be an effective employee now that I was refusing to comply with all the ille...

Thanks to mister Dwayne, we have this lovely family photo! Last year, we had such a great time at the Flamingo Road Nursery here in town so we decided to go back this year. Pumpkin patches here in Florida don't quite deserve to be called patches because there really is no patch... it's more of just a pile of pumpkins. However, the festivities surrounding the pile of pumpkins is always exciting! There's ice cream, corn on the cob, smoothies, frozen cider, candies, and my favorite BBQ in town! Despite the hot sun beating down on our faces, we had a fun time with friends. Yin, Amber, their twins, Katie, Jeremy, Liam, Lincoln, Kelsey, and Dwayne were all able to come.  I just have to tell it like it is, it was a stressful day. Blake had just gotten off work so he was pretty exhausted and I was kind of grumpy because it's a very crowded and stressful environment with a huge stroller, too many bags, my pregnant belly, gravel, Jude who was delirious from his refusin...

I didn't want last week to end for many reasons. My sister Amy, brother-in-law, and niece came to Florida for a week. Blake's lovely mom came to visit us too; we just had a big time. A busy house makes me feel at home. Just when I needed some family hugs, they showed up! All of us were able to go to church together which was a little bit of heaven. We played games, read books, ate homemade Chex mix, Chocolate Bar Cake, tackled children, tackled a stormy beach day, went on power waddles/walks around the neighborhood, laughed, told stories, wiped noses, went on dates, swapped baby clothes (I'm just blown away by God's goodness), swapped maternity clothes, swapped recipes, talked about the next chapter of our lives, having our second children, and God's goodness.  Amy is so talented! She's a teacher  which  I think lends to her natural inclination to read all these awesome parenting books full of tips and tricks that I've never heard of. She's ...