Years ago inSpring with the Moodys, Book 4 in the Moody Family Series, the Moody children plan and execute an anniversary dinner for their parents. We regularly hear from parents who share sweet stories of their children learning from the Moody children and doing an anniversary dinner for them.
Nathan and Melanie’s children have adopted that same model for their parent’s anniversary a couple of times in the past few years when it worked. Tuesday evening, the children prepared a special dinner and served it to their parents.
Decorations
Nathan and Melanie
The serving crew
As a grandparent, it blesses my heart to see my grandchildren love their parents so much that they want to make their anniversary special and do something that involves planning, time, and effort and is just for their parents to enjoy together.
If you’d like to read an excerpt from Spring with the Moodys about the anniversary dinner, Sarah pulled it together below. (If you’re on a smartphone reading this or Feedly, you’ll need to go to this link to read the excerpt.)
“And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God” (Revelation 19:9).
Wow, what an exciting day! Nathan and Melanie are celebrating their 19th anniversary. This incredible couple loves the Lord, each other, their family, and those God has placed in their lives. They’ve been through so much together: 4+ years of infertility, losing their first daughter at 3 days old, the roller coaster of high-risk pregnancies and births, and miscarriages. Their steadfast trust and faith in God have been a testimony.
We love you all and look forward to seeing God continue to use your family!
Happy Anniversary!
“And again, I will put my trust in him. And again, Behold I and the children which God hath given me” (Hebrews 2:13).
Happy Monday! I know we’re a month past Christmas, but we still have some Christmas memories to share of the day itself. Christmas Day tends to be quieter since we do our big extended family Christmas on the 24th.
We enjoyed a relaxing morning with leftovers from the day before and then exchanged some gifts.
We moved on to making cookies for our police force, which is a yearly tradition, and a friend from church joined us. We also played games and went on a walk. Gigi came over for a mid-afternoon “big” meal, and we had such a sweet time.
While the cookies cooled, we took a walk.
Sequence 🙂
A Christmas gift from a friend.
“The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD: and he delighteth in his way” (Psalm 37:23).
We love you and are grateful to the Lord for you, Sarah. You are not only a special member of our family, but for over twenty years a major contributor in Titus2.
You minister to countless families through the blog and your books. The emails and letters from moms and children expressing gratitude for the Moody and Hill Top Adventure books are a testimony of how God uses you to encourage families around the world. There are even some who read your books as a child who are now reading them to their children. We are excited to celebrate your birthday with you and that God has given you another year that we can serve Him together. We love you! Â
“Delight thyself also in the LORD, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” (Psalm 37:4)
Anna Marie reflects back on the events of last year and wrote a post to share what is on her heart. —Sarah
Our family after Simon Peter was born and the children got to meet him
As Simon Peter’s brothers and sisters excitedly prepare to celebrate his first birthday, my mind has been traveling back to a year ago and all the events surrounding his birth. I find rushes of emotion catching me by surprise as we begin to pass these one-year milestones. But the overwhelming emotion (often through tears) is one of gratitude because God has shown us over and over again that He is good and He is faithful; that His grace is sufficient and His strength is made perfect in our weakness. I don’t really think I’m crying for the loss of normal last trimester, normal birth, normal nursing, normal routine and life with a baby. Because God gave us infinitely more than “normal.” He gave us Himself. What we knew in our heads a year ago as we entered a “Red Sea place” in our lives, God has proven in our experience as He showed His goodness and faithfulness leading us each step forward.
Also thinking back to the birth, there are some special memories and tidbits that I don’t think I shared before. As many of you know, Christopher and I have enjoyed working together on our babies’ names for months leading up to their birth. But because of everything else going on during my pregnancy with Simon Peter, we ended up finalizing decisions on his name and verse while waiting for my Pitocin to kick in at the hospital—which made for special memories of writing names and definitions and verses on the whiteboard in the delivery room. 🙂 Simon means “he hears” or “God has heard;” and Peter means “a rock.” The meaning of his name to us is two-fold. First, it is a reminder to us that God hears us and is our Rock as we go through this trial. And second, our prayer for Simon Peter is that he will have a close relationship with Christ, hearing Him and seeking Him; and that he will be firmly planted on the Rock and unmovable in his resolve to follow Him.
That tied in perfectly with Psalm 18:2 which we chose as his verse. Shortly after we settled on that, I received a couple of texts and emails from different friends and family who sent that very verse to encourage me! I love when God puts things like that together—another reminder to me of His care for each detail of our lives!
I think we mentioned before that the birth team was such a blessing to us. My day shift nurse was great, and then the night shift nurse went above and beyond helping me to be as comfortable as possible through transition and delivery. Christopher and I were really blessed by her servant spirit. To my surprise, a few weeks ago when I went for my targeted cancer therapy shot at the hospital, my nurse at the cancer center for the day was that same delivery nurse! She just switched to working at the cancer center and it was a happy little reunion when we recognized each other. Since she’s a believer, it was special to reminisce together (and share with other nurses) about the little ways we saw God work in Peter’s birth.
Simon Peter is such a delight to our family. His sweet, laid back personality has blended perfectly with the unusual circumstances and events of the past year. It’s been amazing to see how God has taken care of him for things I was most concerned about for him physically and emotionally. We were overwhelmed by the generosity of a few mamas both here and in Washington who provided milk for him to receive that incredible nutrition for the first six months of his life and he has definitely thrived!
Simon Peter has been my little buddy through this whole journey. From the time I first noticed the tumor a couple weeks after finding out he was on the way, it was precious knowing that he was growing and gaining strength for whatever lay ahead, and that God would give him the grace needed as well as us. He was my traveling companion to Washington and kept me in my role as mommy while I was away from everyone else at my parents’ home for those few months of chemo. During that time, despite being a sixth born, he was an only child in a household of four adults! He got to visit mountains and seashores, and loved staring up at the tall evergreens on our daily walks.
He adjusted well getting back to life in the Midwest with five doting older siblings. He loves interacting with everyone and is becoming quite the little explorer as he “army crawls” all over the house. As I mentioned earlier, all his brothers and sisters are thoroughly excited about his upcoming birthday, and even though he has no idea what they are excited about he gets fired up with their enthusiasm.
After Simon Peter and I got home from Washington, the children were so happy to see him!
Thank you all for your investment as you prayed for him and us through this journey! We are so thankful for you!
Love, Anna Marie
The three boys: Joshua, Simon Peter, and Daniel
“The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.” Psalm 18:2
With the blog post on bluetooth headphones, I was asked this question:
Do you have any good recommendations for audiobooks or places to find good sermons to listen to? I have found that I like to listen to things when I am doing my daily cleaning or go out for a walk. Would love any suggestions for good things to listen to.
We are able to listen to audiobooks for free through our library and Hoopla. Lately, I have been listening to Thomas Watson books. He lived in the mid-1600’s. My favorite Thomas Watson books are:
The Art of Divine Contentment, by Thomas Watson The Doctrine of Repentance, by Thomas Watson The Ten Commandments, by Thomas Watson
Other books:
Knowing God, by J. I. Packer Rediscovering Holiness, by J. I. Packer The Attributes of God, by A. W. Tozer Delighting in God, by A. W. Tozer Worship, by A. W. Tozer Absolute Surrender, by Andrew Murray Of The Mortification of Sin in Believers, by John Owen
Those would provide many hours of great listening. I regularly re-listen to the books as well.
For sermons, perhaps your church’s sermons are available online and you could re-listen to them
I use Sermon Audio for finding messages. When I hear a recommendation for a preacher, I see if he has sermons on Sermon Audio. For example, I like Jim Berg books. I found out he has quite a few sermons on Sermon Audio.
Trusting in Jesus, Teri
“The LORD is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth.” Psalms 145:18
The Maxwell family and ministry blog of Titus2.com.
