Fabulous Fifty...

Well...TODAY IS THE DAY THE QUEEN TURNS FIFTY!!!! Hmmmm....for some reason I think there are going to be a few surprises happening around me this week...little clues lead here and there, but nothing firm quite yet! This is going to be a fun day, I can tell already!
I have not minded turning Fifty in the least. To me it just gives me one more reason to be myself, not worry about what others think and to speak the truth, be transparent and enjoy who God has made me to be!!!
And to top it off, it is SUNNY here in Alaska today and we have had sunshine for the last two weeks! That is longer than we had in the entire Summer last year, so it means everyone is happier right now! I love the Sunshine! Thank you Lord!

Right Now I have 109 more hours...

This is the last time I got to hug my son, right before he went to get on the plane. He left for Hawaii, where he is based, and in 109 more hours, as of right now, he will leave the country for WAR. Now, I know that there are lots and lots of parents out there that have to say goodbye to their children as they send them off, but, I personally have never had to do this before, and frankly...I WANT TO SCREAM...NOOOOOO...you can't have him. And it is probably a good thing that I cannot go to Hawaii to see him off, because I am not sure I could do it. I am pretty sure I would embarrass him, by not letting go, and they would have to sedate me to get my arms off of his ankles...So Praise God, I can't go. I would hate to embarrass him in front of his Marine friends.
But, this photo speaks a thousand words, as I look at it, and I remember what was going through my mind. This is my SON...I love him SO MUCH...I just never knew it was going to be so hard to let him go. I truly hope I can get through this next few days without becoming dehydrated, from crying so many tears. Note to self "Drink lots of water this week"...just in case.

Being the Mother of a Marine

Jan 14, 2009 8:34 PM

Subject:

Afganistan (my heart revealed)

Body:
Are you gonna get to take you computer and have skype?
I know you are excited and you want to go see what war is all about...but oh my God...how does a mother do this? How do I let you go to war and not know for sure if you will get to come back to me alive? For you it is all excitement,(I am not angry about that, I just need you to see the difference) something you have been training for, for a year now, and you get to go to a different part of the country, and even shoot your rifle, or possibly kill a man.
For me....I just have to picture myself placing my first born son on the altar at God's feet, and telling God....you just gave him to me for a short time God, now I am giving him back to you...You, God, have to keep him safe...You have to bring him home....He is yours, and my heart is yours, and I trust YOU will do what is best for both of us....Oh LORD God....be real to him....he's MY Boy!!!! How can a mothers heart live through this? SCREAMING NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO at the top of my voice. But KNOWING that it will happen, it has been meant to happen for a long time, and I will live! But my heart feels as if it will BREAK and never be put back together again!
Panic sets in and I think....I have to go...I have to see him one more time before he goes away for a year...my mind darts to and fro...how can I do this? HOW CAN I DO THIS GOD?????????????
But you will go son....it is your calling....I have known that for a very long time....but I don't think a mothers heart can ever be prepared for this.
As you will find out that a man's heart can never be prepared for killing of another. May God make it so that never has to happen, but Tedward, if it does, may God make you whole, and may you always know that HE is the Healer of our Souls....You may not even get that right now...but you will. One day you will.
I pray that you will always know the love your Dad and I have for you and that you will just always be aware of the fact that we will pray without ceasing for you protection and your mission.
You are MY SON...A GIFT FROM GOD...and I give you back to the ONE who made you!
With all my love and my heart....
Your Mom

Keep Praying for Sarah

I was at a meeting last night with some folks here in Wasilla that have a true heart for God and for Sarah Palin. We have been lifting her up in prayer and keeping ourselves aware that the ENEMY is out to destroy her. How does she have the victory? Well, there has to be people that are willing to be her Aaron and Hur...ones that will lift her arms up and hold them there while she is in the most vicious battle of her life! We have got to be willing to fast and pray, pray and fast...She is so very real and we sang a song last night that the last line in it was something like "Oh God, your Beloved one needs you now"...Sarah needs our God to be her stronghold right now. She needs to know that she has women and men praying over her constantly 24/7. Jesus said that He is the Way, the Truth and the Light. When she gets up on the stage on Thursday night, she needs Him to speak the Truth through her. Lets get our hearts wrapped around supporting her and encouraging others to do the same. Sarah is God's Beloved Daughter, and she needs the rest of us daughters to rise up and lay claim to the territory that God has given her. Pray for protection, for annointing to rain down on her, for strength when she is weary, for peace in her heart, for the Truth to be known, for her family to be protected, for anything that the Lord gives you to pray. But PRAY...Pray, Pray and Pray some more!

Testimony I am sharing at the AK Right to Life Fundraiser tonight!

I just want to say Thank you to Karen for giving me the privilege of getting to share my story tonight.

At 14 years old I found myself at Planned Parenthood. One thing that Planned Parenthood did not tell me when I was there was that what I was about to do would scar my heart for a lifetime. They also never told me that every anniversary of the death of my baby my heart would ache for that child or that I would never forget that moment. What they did say was that the baby I was carrying in my womb was really just a mass of tissue.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I was Five Months Pregnant!

In the year 1973 I was taken to Planned Parenthood by my mother and forced to have a Saline Solution Abortion. What that means is they took all the amniotic fluid out of my womb, replaced it with a Saline Solution, and this solution literally burned the baby to death. 24 hours later I was brought to the hospital, labor was induced and I gave birth to my dead baby. I asked the nurse if she could at least tell me what the baby was, a boy or a girl. She had just placed my baby in a bucket at the end of my bed, and once again I was told that it was really just a mass of tissue.

After that I spent most of my teenage years on drugs and drinking. I got married at the age of 17 because I was pregnant again and my mom insisted that I get married this time. I gave birth to a beautiful daughter named Vanessa, two days after I graduated from High School.

I then proceeded to drink and drug my way through life, divorcing my first husband at the age of 19, marrying another man, and leaving him by the time I was 21. I was drinking and drugging and I finally reached the bottom of my pit at the age of 21. I admitted myself into a drug and alcohol rehab center.

I was clean and sober for a little over a year when I got pregnant once more at the age of 22. This time I called my Dad and asked him if he would help me kill his grandchild. While he was poo pooing me on the phone, he asked me how much money would I need to get the abortion.

Three days before the abortion one of my coworkers invited me to go church. I went that night, March 14^th, 1982, and God began to draw my heart to His.

On March 17^th, I aborted my third child. This time I knew exactly what I had done and as I laid there on the table, when it was all over, shaking uncontrollably and sobbing, the nurse asked me if there was anyone I wanted to talk to.

The lady that had taken me to the clinic came into the room, wrapped her arms around me, and asked me what was wrong. I sobbed out that God could never love me now, how could He, I had just killed my baby.

I like to say that at that moment God came into my life with such grace and mercy that it changed my life forever. He grabbed a hold of me that day and has never let me go.

I was 22 at that time and I am 49 today. I have been married to a wonderful man for 21 years, and I have 4 awesome children, a son-in-law, and two grandkids. There has been a lot of living in those years in between then and now.

In 2005 a couple of things began to happen in my walk with the Lord. I began to Believe God, because of a Bible Study I was facilitating in my home by Beth Moore. I began to understand that God really is who He says He is, and that I am who He says I am!

I also went to Wellsprings School of Ministry in November of that year. At Wellsprings the teachers will teach on a subject then they will give you a chance to share if it has touched off something in your heart and they take the time to stop and pray through the situation.

Well, this one particular day, Art was talking about ministering to people who have a blank area in their lives~something that had happened that was either so tragic or traumatic that they had totally blocked it out. I raised my hand and said I had one of those areas. We were in the middle of the teaching, so Art said “we are giving you the tools that you need to deal with it and you know what to do.” I listened a little bit longer and raised my hand again and said “I need to tell you what it was.” I told him about the abortion at age 14. He asked if he could pray with me and we began to pray. I was following along with him but got to the point where I could not talk because I was sobbing so hard.

He then asked two of the ladies who counsel there to take me to another room and continue to pray through this with me. I went with them down a hall and into another room.

One thing that I had always longed for my mother to do with me was when I was having a hard time, I wanted to be able to sit at her feet, put my head in her lap and have her pat my back and tell me everything would be okay. My mom never did that. But God knew my hearts desire.

As I walked into this room, Nancy sat down in a chair and I dropped to my knees and put my head in her lap, as she began to pat my back and pray me through these things. We went to places that had been locked up in my heart and that I had never wanted to go back to. There were things that I had forgotten that needed to be released. We prayed through the hatred I felt for my Mother, for the doctors and nurses who preformed the abortions and for Planned Parenthood. I chose to forgive them all, and in doing so it released my heart so that I could truly forgive myself. I gave it all to God.

In the end, after sobbing my heart out I went as limp as a dishrag. Nancy gently laid me on the floor, covered me up with a jacket, and told me to rest in the Lord. She said I needed to just let the Holy Spirit come and speak the Fathers truth to me now. She said she would come back and check on me but to just let the Father speak to my heart.

So the Father and I began to have a conversation. I said to Him “Lord, all I ever wanted to know was if it was a boy or a girl.”

He said to me “The first one was a boy, the second one was a girl”

I said “But God, I always wanted to name them, so I could call them by name”

He whispered “My daughter, I have named them”

With anticipation I asked “What Lord? What are their names?”

“Their names are Redeemed and Loved ~ and you my daughter are Redeemed and Loved also. I want you to walk in this, for this is who you are.”

Now my babies have a name! And I am forgiven! Even more so, I have truly forgiven myself!

I now Believe God…that I am a Daughter of the King and I am Redeemed and Loved. God has completely healed my heart.

Redemption is when the pain is treated and turned around so thoroughly that it not only loses it’s power to do you harm, but it also gains the power to do some good.

Beth Moore said that.

It is my heart to share this message of God’s redeeming love with every woman who has experienced an abortion.

If He will do it for me, He will do it for you too! Thank you.

My life:

Wow...there has never been a time in my life where I have been so proud to be an American. I have always been grateful to live in this beautiful country, but my heart strings are tied in more and more all the time. One reason is because I have a Marine for a son, and a daughter that leaves to go to Marine boot camp soon. I am so very proud of them and the choices they have made.

I go to one of the most inspiring churches that I have ever had the chance to be a part of, and I LOVE it. God is doing amazing things in our midst and I am so blessed to be a daughter of the King! I know it and I believe it!

My husband and I have been married 21 years, and God is doing some real transformations in our marriage too. Earlier this year I asked my Heavenly Father to fillet my heart. I told Him that if there was ANYTHING in there that He did not want there, then to PLEASE remove it and He has been doing so. Not a painless undertaking, but oh my gosh, it is an incredible one! And because of it, my marriage is growing and getting better all the time!

I have a son who is 16 and he will be the only child left at home with us this year. So this is a life changing year for us! We have never just had one kid at home, and it will be interesting to see how it all pans out. He has just recently been ignited in his heart for Jesus, renewing his commitment to Him, and I can't wait to see what the Lord will do. It is so exciting!

I also have a daughter who is married and has two children. They recently moved to another state and we miss them a lot!

I love that I live in the hometown of Sarah Palin! I must tell you that she is REAL...she is not someone who thinks more highly of herself than she ought. She truly is just like us and I really am inspired by her. Never before have I ever wanted to be involved in politics the way I do today! I support her with all my heart and I believe she has what it takes to lead this country into a better place. I thank God for allowing her to have this opportunity!

My other hero is Beth Moore. I am so blessed to have a woman who teaches in such a way that every woman I have ever been with in a Bible Study by her can relate to it in some way. She speaks the truth and the truth sets us free. Beth Moore's teachings have been a key part of the reason I am walking in freedom today! My only wish is that I could actually sit down and have a true conversation with her and pray for her and with her. When I get a chance to speak to women, I always try to be as real as I can and she inspires me to continue being ME!!!! I hope that makes sense! LOL...

Two of my favorite quotes are:
"Live your life in such a way that when your feet hit the floor in the morning, Satan shudders and says "Oh no...she's awake!"

AND

"I may look harmless, but I raised a Marine!"
(soon to be two!)

Sarah Palin

Hi there,

I feel like it is important to say something to those people that I know, that may be hearing so many different stories about Sarah Palin. I have sat here on my computer and read story after story and been amazed at how horribly the press/media construe the truth. It is like they take one thing that is mentioned and blow it into whatever spin they want to take on it. For instance: The media heard somewhere that Church on the Rock is Sarah's home church. Now I personally have attended COTR for 8.5 years, and I know that our church is not her home church. She has attended our church on several occasions, and before she was Governor she attended regularly for about a year, but has since moved on to another church in the Valley that her sister and parents attend also. But on Sunday morning we had so many reporters at our church, and they even video taped the service. WOW...They have inundated our community and tried to find as much dirt on her as they possibly can. The worst they can come up with is that back in 1986, her husband got a DUI, (this was before they were even married) and of course now the big thing is that Bristol is pregnant. Yes, she is pregnant. Yes, she is unmarried. Yes, now her life will be changed dramatically. I have three teenagers myself right now, and I can tell you for a fact, that we can teach and train all we want, but when it comes right down to it, the teenagers will choose for themselves what they will do. And there is always consequences. Thank God that Sarah is not forcing an abortion on her daughter. Having had that done to me when I was a teenager, I personally know that abortion leaves scars that they don't tell you about at Planned Parenthood. Being a Christian is about knowing who you are in the sight of God, and standing up for what you believe in. I believe in Grace and Mercy being shed on all of us who have sinned. The Bible says that there is nothing that can separate us from the Love of God. This is true for the Palin family also.

I know that Sarah is a strong Christian woman who knows the difference between right and wrong. Do you think that she didn't have a gut wrenching moment when she found out about Bristol being pregnant? As we all would have as a parent. But she is doing the right thing in making the best of it, and showing her daughter unconditional love.

I am amazed at the way the media has descended onto our town and done every thing they can to find out who Sarah Palin is. I know several people who have been interviewed, taken photos of, even called and asked if their son was the father because his name was Levi! OMG...They are grasping for straws and going on rumors that are not true.

So, who would have thought that this town I live in would become forefront on the National and Worldwide news?

It is just incredible what these people have come up with. I just want you to be sure to not believe every thing you read and hear. They lie and misconstrue so many things. Sarah needs our prayers now more than ever. She is an amazing woman, and she has been the best thing that has ever happened to the state of Alaska. She is just like you and me, and she is the most real political person I have ever met. And I have met her, several times. She is honest, brave, and a woman who keeps her promises. How many politicians do you know that actually do that?

Anyway, I know this is long, but it is just so pressing on my heart that we need to be praying for her and lifting this Republican National Convention up to the Lord, that she would be full of wisdom and grace as she faces this week and the next two months on the campaign trail. I hope to God that she isn't reading all this crap about herself and her family, because for those of us who know her, it really makes us angry that this is what America is getting, when we know it isn't true. They take one little thing that may be true and make it into some enormous lie that isn't true at all.

I have never been a real politics kind of gal, but this is just too much. So please, pray for Sarah and her family.

Please be careful about how you judge others. And most of all please don't take everything you hear and read as truth. I have never before realized how lopsided the media really is. It is so sad that we can't trust them to tell the truth.

So now I will get off my soapbox and wish you all a good day!

God Bless,

GayleAnn

I Miss My Son

Here he is the day he swore in and left home for the next five years...Oh My...over the last six weeks it has been such a rollercoaster ride...Now let me preface this with the fact that I KNOW that this is where the Lord has my son. I also KNOW that the Lord is with him, that he is in fact drawing closer to the Lord through this, and that the Lord is with me and comforts me through all this...That said: I HAD NO IDEA it would be so emotional for me! I did not get to talk to him at all for five weeks. I got several letters, but that is NOT talking. And then on the day he called me, the minute he heard my voice he began to cry...it was just overwhelming for both of us! He is so much more homesick than he ever expected to be. He made the comment that he has never been away from home this long before. Yep son, I KNOW...and my heart beats every day with thoughts of you...I feel like my thoughts are silent prayers sent up to the ONE who loves us best. He is in some of the most intensive training that a young man can go through right now. The Marines are famous for taking boys and making them into MEN...they call it the Man Factory! I have decided that the reason they don't tell Mothers what they do to our son's there at the Man Factory is because if we Mothers KNEW...there would not be any Marines!!! LOL...On the other hand, I am so stinking proud that I have a son who desires to fight for his country and believes in what America stands for... when I lay in bed at night I wonder how he is ever going to get over his cough without going to the Medical staff, and pray that the Lord will just completely heal him, without having to go to the Dr., (he won't go because he doesn't want to get dropped back a week or two, because then he will miss his High School Graduation, and he really WANTS to walk with his class, in full uniform) I wonder how he gets over his loneliness...does he feel the Lords presence more than ever? Is he making friends? Are his DI's meaner to him than they have to be? How does he deal with them swearing at him on a 24/7 basis? Does he know how much we all miss him? Does he have what it takes to be a Marine? I believe he does, but does he believe it too? I can't even put into words the things I feel...it's just too much...the mixture of pride and pain, laughter and tears, trust and fear, doubt and assurance, oh there is so very much going on in this old head and heart...I JUST MISS MY BOY!!! Father God, PLEASE TAKE CARE OF HIM FOR ME!!! I CAN'T RIGHT NOW...AND I MISS HIM SO... I know You see him, and You know where he is and what he is doing...so once again, I give you my son Ted...Gift of God...He was yours before he was ever mine anyway...But I love him so...Thank you Jesus, I love you too.

New Slide Show

Click to play | Make your own Smilebox

We had our family photos taken...it was so much fun!

Bummer

I thought the photos would come out clearer on here. The one of my girlfriends son is good, but the other two are still not showing up too good. I know they print out better than that though. I love my new camera...and can't wait to use it even more.