This week I was looking through old photos of Joziah’s first year. He is three years old now and even though I am a little late I really want to do a photo album of that time in his life. As I was going through the photos I found so many wonderful memories. The moment I first laid eyes on my baby boy and seeing a picture of Travis seeing Joziah for the first time. I was reminded of that moment of finally having the baby that the doctors had been so worried about, healthy in our arms.
I also saw photos of Kiara and Joziah. Oh, how many photos of those two I have and man were they cute as little babies.

I even found a moment of when Joziah started sleeping with that monkey he still has to carry everywhere. It shows me how much he has loved that thing when I look at how nice and new the monkey looks in this picture. (I will say that the past two weeks he has traded that monkey for a hat he took from my dad which he says is TobyMac’s hat).     

As I was going through my different albums I came across this photo. This picture was taken the night before Travis and I ever attended First Baptist Church in Orillia. 🙂

This picture took me back to remember the time when Travis and I knew the church that we had been attending was no longer where we were supposed to be. We knew God was calling us somewhere else but we didn’t know where. It is weird because I right away wondered if we were supposed to go outside of our hometown but thought that was kinda crazy. I mean really why would we go outside of Barrie when there were lots of churches right here in the town we live in? We searched for a church for over a year. We attended different churches but none we attended felt like it was the one we were supposed to be at. We started attending one church but I wasn’t happy there. I used to love to go to church and yet now I was struggling every Sunday to get up and go. It was hard! I had complete peace of leaving our old church, but did not have a peace attending the church we were at.

My friend Amanda knew my struggle with attending this church and knew how unhappy I was going to church every Sunday. She told me I should check out her church and I was willing but Travis was concerned about the distance. Amanda and I started praying that Travis would change his mind and be open to checking out First Baptist Church. Eventually Travis said we could go one Sunday but we weren’t going to be attending there. So the night before we went there, my friend Amanda and her husband came over for dinner and games. We took this picture and then we stayed up till late in the night talking about God and a hard topic that often comes up. To our surprise when we got to church the pastor was talking about this same topic and answered so many of the questions we had been struggling with. We were in shock and we learnt so much. I knew right away that this church was the one I wanted to continue to try out but Travis was hesitant. Though he enjoyed the speaking and music he still struggled with the distance. So we kept going to the church we had been attending and then sometimes would go to Redeemer City, which is a campus of First Baptist Church. Amanda and I continued to talk and pray and then all of a sudden I just had this peace. I really felt like God was telling me something was going to happen in three months. I had no idea what that meant but I told Amanda my feelings. I didn’t know what it all meant. Maybe it meant that in three months I would just start enjoying the place we had been going or maybe we would all of a sudden find another church we both enjoyed or maybe it meant we would start going to RCC. I wasn’t sure what the three months meant but all of a sudden I had a peace and left it all in God’s hands. I decided not to ask Travis anymore if he would consider RCC and just sat back as he decided each week where we would go. Then all of a sudden, three months after I had that feeling that God was telling me “wait three months” we were driving out of the parking lot of RCC and Travis said “I think we need to make this our new home church.” 🙂 🙂 🙂 I was so shocked but so happy. I couldn’t believe Travis had just said that but I was so excited to think of RCC and our future there.

Week after week we learn something new from the Bible. We have enjoyed the teaching so much and are so thankful we are at a church that is not scared to preach about controversial issues. We do a family devotional tool with Joziah that was developed by the church and we are so proud of the way Joziah is learning the answers to the questions. He knows the answers to questions like:

• “Are there more Gods than one?”
• “In how many persons does this one God exist?”
•  “Who are they?”
•  “How many books are in the Bible?”
• “Why did God make you and all things?”

He still answers, “Adam and Steve” when Travis asks him who our first parents were but we know one day he will say, “Adam and Eve.” Travis and I have grown in our relationship with God and continue to want to learn more and more. We do the RMM which is a Bible reading plan that the church does together and I have a friend who is my accountability partner. Speaking of friends we have been so incredibly blessed by friendships at this church. God has placed some amazing people in our life that I just can’t imagine my life without. Every week I have one or more people text me, message me and ask me what they can pray for. Travis and I have loved being able to have deep conversations about the Bible and God with numerous of those friends and we are just so thankful for our church family and all the memories we have already made with them. Years ago we never would have imagined that God would lead us to Orillia to church but I am so happy that He opened the door and that He had plans for the Gosselin family at Redeemer City Campus. 

A couple months ago I was driving downtown in an area that is not the nicest of the city I live in. As I drove down the road and saw the construction in front of me I also noticed a woman walking down the road and it was very obvious she was someone who used her body to get money. I couldn’t help but look at this woman and see her dark sunglasses that were on her almost as if trying to hide the person underneath. She had a huge wig on and everything about her just seemed like it was this mask and not really who she was. As I got closer I realized this woman that I had been watching was once my roommate.

Years ago when I left the church after being incredibly hurt I moved in with some people that were not in the healthiest place. Two of the women I shared a house with used their body to get money and I very quickly learned what their job really made them do and all that went on in that industry. It was sad but what made me even sadder was when I heard the background of these women’s life story. Both had very sad situations happen in their lives and they kinda gave up and got into things that were not good and ended up needing money and found the industry they were in an easy way to be able to pay their bills. The truth is while I lived life away from God and lived with my two friends I got to know their bosses and I too was offered a job if I wanted it. I thought about it but something about all I had learnt as a child and growing up kept me from making the decision to go that route. I am so thankful that God saved me and that even back then I made the decision to step away and not get involved in what my roommates were doing.

Watching my old roommate walking down the road made me so sad! To see this woman I knew and lived with and see she was still hurting and living the life she probably never grew up wanting made my heart ache for her. On September third it will have been ten years since God opened my eyes and made me realize truth and changed my life completely. Sadly it would appear it’s been ten years that my old friend has continued to be in a horrible industry and probably has continued to experience more hurt in her life. How I wished I had realized it was her sooner and I could have stopped to talk to her. I have driven down that road many times now and every time I am there I drive very slowly looking very closely at everyone around trying to look out for her but…I haven’t found her. I really hope that one day I can run into her again and can share about God and his salvation and how He has changed my life and how He can change hers.

It still amazes me where I am today. Lately the song that has really hit me is “Creation Calls” by Brian Doerksen. One line this song says in the verse is “A newborns cry at birth”; man how that hits me now. I know I was amazed by what God creates when Joziah was born but I don’t know this time with Westyn my whole birthing experience was different and just to hear my baby’s first cry, to hold that little precious baby with wrinkly skin in my arms and to stare at his little details just really hit me again in a new way. It was so amazing when the midwife examined and showed us all these little things about Westyn’s body making sure he was healthy. It made me be in awe and I still get teary eyed thinking about it.

That’s why this song has been on my mind lately. How could I have ever been in a place where I believed there was no God, where I believed that everything my parents told me and taught me was a lie? I was so hurt and betrayed I blamed it on God. I can remember the absolute sick feeling I felt when others would talk about God around me or would pray around me and how I would want them to just stop talking and praying to God. How blinded was I by Satan to not see that everything around me is spectacularly made by God?

I have been praying for my old roommate and will continue to. I hope one day she too will experience life in a whole new way and she will know what it is like to have her eyes opened up and she’ll be able to understand what Gods love is all about. May she one day be changed and look at life differently. May she want to please God in every area of her life and may she too hear the words to this song and sing,

“How could I say there is no God?
When all around creation calls!!
A singing bird, a mighty tree,
The vast expanse of open sea”