Snow Day Update & Patience

We have waited the entire ski season for snow on our local mountain and just weeks away from Spring Break it's coming down! We had one snow day earlier this week. Today is Ryann's birthday. She's turning eleven and it will be a snowy one!

Haylee has been training on Mt. Bachelor in Eastern Oregon and qualified for State earlier this month, winning a GS race and placing in the top four of all of the other races. She's making her comeback! We put her on longer skis this year and of course Derek helped ensure the wax on her skis was super fast. She doesn't know how lucky she is to have such a dedicated Dad who cares deeply about being FAST!

We've heard through the grapevine that a certain team will be making an announcement involving Derek this coming Monday. We will also be shouting from the rooftops (and our blog) with the news. Fingers crossed it all goes according to plan. The most recent lesson we are getting as a family lately is patience.

My dad always used to remind me of the passage in the Bible from James, "Patience has her perfect work." Why is this so hard for us sometimes? I was chatting with a friend last night and we were talking about how everything happens for a reason in its perfect time. But then we laughed and agreed that it would be so nice to have the plan ahead of time! After a brief pause, my friend Tim said, " Well, not sure that would work as we would most likely second guess the plan." So true! Whenever you set out on a big journey and put it in God's hands so much patience and trust is required. I have to say though, that God hasn't let me down yet. When I think about the pain I've gone through losing relationships, pets, things I thought I wanted...always and without fail, when I get to the really humble place of asking God for guidance, I am rewarded eventually with something way bigger and better than what I could have ever dreamed of.

Let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. -Tweet This

I can think of several examples of how this trust and patience paid off. One stands out in particular...when I met Derek. I had gone through so much, had worked through a very challenging relationship just a year prior. I was learning how to be healthy on my own and to be happy with myself. I really prayed, I mean really prayed hard about listening better to God. It seemed that I kept making the same mistakes, giving so much of myself to relationships that I would lose myself and some of my values in the process. God became second to my human relationships. I had to get really real with myself and let God in. The discomfort of the loneliness and depression forced me to reach out like I had never done before. I started to get little "angel thoughts", I call them. They would be things like, "You are loved, you are whole, you are strong, you can do this!" I pushed myself to believe them because from my Sunday School training I knew that I was a loved child of God. I knew that he wouldn't leave me lonely. Slowly I started to believe it. Then, when I was least expecting it, I got a call from my friend Molly. She said Derek is coming up to Portland and he wants to see you. This was a long process, about a year, that I was doing this work. There is much more to the story that I hope to write in my upcoming book, but the point is. I was patient and I was trusting.

When I met Derek, I knew very quickly that this was a different kind of relationship. He was respectful, kind, a gentleman. He was open, he didn't have walls up, he was honest and pure. It was refreshing. We laughed together, we talked for hours on our first date, it was easy. The connection was right!

Derek and I have now been married for 19 years and two months. We have had many lessons in patience and trusting God over the years. We have learned to pray together and how to teach our kids to pray. The most important thing we have learned is that when you trust God's plan, it protects you, it's fun, it can be hard so you grow, but ultimately it is a far better and more rewarding path than to try to muscle through on your own! One of my favorite passages in the Bible is from Proverbs 3:5-6, "Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him and he shall direct your path." I highly, highly recommend this approach.

FASTLIFE would not be a thing without God and trusting his plan. We can talk about that one later! So much to share and so much to do.

Season 2 is being created now. We hope to continue sharing our journey as a family. I keep trying to talk my kids into writing blogs too. The process of interviewing them has been fun to hear and understand better their perspective of the things we are all doing. We love to hear from you. If you think they should write, tell us! Comment below and share with us your experiences and what you want to know about our family and the dreams we are striving for! One of the main reasons we are doing this is to use the platform of racing to change the world for the better and it takes a community to do that. We are all in this together!