"Y2K OK!!"

Claire was born July 8, 2000.

You may remember all of the hype about the year 2000 and the concern or (for some) expectation that at 12:01 am on January 1st 2000 all of the computers were going to crash because of some programing glitch! Jeff and I decided that if the world was going to come to an end we wanted to be doing something great! So we got tickets to the Gaither New Year's Celebration in Charlotte, NC. My parents met us there and we enjoyed a wonderful night of celebration and worship. Mark Lowery was there and he came out on stage with a yellow hard hat with "Y2K OK" written on it and a flashlight taped to it. It was a great evening! Abbigayle was with us and she retold stories from that night for a very long time, she would probably recount a few now, if asked!

Of course, we all know now that the midnight hour came and went with little disruption!! Throughout my entire pregnancy with Claire, I prayed and wondered many times what the world with be like for this child. With the heightened awareness of the "end times" around December 31st 1999, it was concerning to me what my child might deal with in his/her lifetime. What would a child born in the year 2000 face?

Even though Caroline and Sarah were born after Claire, I never had those same wondering thoughts as I did with Claire.

Today, almost all news stories are centered around the upcoming presidential election, the gas crisis or Wall Street. This is a pivotal time in our nation's history! Jeff and I are praying for our national leadership to seek God's wisdom in decisions that must be made for the betterment of our great nation.

Honestly, it is difficult to not be anxious about what tomorrow may bring, in light of all we have been through, but we try to daily surrender our anxieties to God and trust that He knows what is best for us and we continue to believe in that truth!

"As Jesus entered the village of Capernaum, a Roman captain came up in a panic and said, 'Master, my servant is sick. He can't walk. He's in terrible pain.' Jesus said, 'I'll come and heal him.'

'Oh, no,' said the captain. 'I don't want to put you to all that trouble. Just give the order and my servant will be fine. I'm a man who takes orders and gives orders. I tell one soldier, 'Go,' and he goes; to another, 'Come,' and he comes; to my slave, 'Do this,' and he does it.'

Taken aback, Jesus said, 'I've yet to come across this kind of simple trust in Israel, the very people who are supposed to know all about God and how he works. This man is the vanguard of many outsiders who will soon be coming from all directions—streaming in from the east, pouring in from the west, sitting down at God's kingdom banquet alongside Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Then those who grew up 'in the faith' but had no faith will find themselves out in the cold, outsiders to grace and wondering what happened.'" Matthew 8:5-10 (The Message)

If the Centurion, not a follower of Christ, had such great faith and recognized that Jesus had such incredible power, then shouldn't we have that same faith?