Andrea O. Freeman

  If you have had a conversation with me the last couple of months, you know things are - for lack of a better word - INTENSE in my house.   We just celebrated Ryan graduating MSU in May with his Bachelor's in IT CyberSecurity.  Our oldest daughter Rylee has been offered a full time teaching position, teaching English at Nixa High School just outside of Springfield this Fall.  We are in the countdown to her move into her first apartment in a couple of weeks.  Our older son Bailey has ventured into a new job this summer with a friend, and is loving it.  Our younger son AJ started his first job this summer at Taco Bell.  Our youngest daughter Chloe is living her best pre-teen life this summer hanging out with her bff's, swimming, sleeping in, etc.  Ryan is hard at it on the 'hamster wheel' of job hunting post graduation:  apply, interview, wait, get passed over, and repeat ......That last piece has been quite frustrating and disappointing ...

  I'm currently in the middle of a beautiful Lent devotional study "Waymaker: Finding the Way to the Life You've Always Dreamed Of" by Ann Voskamp.  She has become one of my favorite authors the last few years, among several that I cherish in my daily devotional times.  She speaks both in tone and context in a way that is incredibly comforting and clarifying, and entirely necessary as I am journeying forward in this life God has given me.  I shared at a recent women's breakfast event with our church about a piece of this devotional that has been speaking into my life, and today I was struck once again by the focus she is delivering to us through her writing.  Her writing inspires me also to write, to share out of the abundance God is pouring into my own journey along this treacherous and blessed pathway unfolding ahead of me day by day.   Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.  Each day has enough trouble of...

'To find the peace and productivity we desire, we need to come back to the basics of the first commandment.' - ( Staying Focused in Uncertain Times, Elizabeth Grace Saunders-Real Life E Time Coaching, DivineTimeBook.com ) You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. -Matthew 22:37 I was warned by my parents, by friends, and by others who have far more years of life experience ahead of me, that time moves faster as we get a little older.  2022 started off with a couple of  'unexpecteds' for my family.  And if I'm being honest, it has shaken my focus.  I wasn't always the most confident one in the room.  I'd say it wasn't until my 30's when I really started feeling comfortable in my own skin.  I would dare say nobody is born with full and complete confidence in themselves.  Life experiences shape that for the good and for the bad over time.  What the Lord gives and takes, it tests our focus....

'A woman is like a tea bag - you never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water.' -Eleanor Roosevelt 'Listen to your life.  All moments are key moments.' -Frederick Buechner 2022 has arrived, and little did I know what would start it off.  January 3, Ryan got a late night call from his Dad, the kind of call that nobody wants to get.  It was apparent to Ryan when he saw the phone call coming that night, that something must be wrong because it was not like his Dad to call us that late normally.  The next 24-48 hours, the days that followed were blurry, painful emotionally and physically, and just the beginning of a process we know we'll be working through with Ryan's Dad as we help him with this painful transition in life without his partner, his love, Maggi.  Right away, Ryan and I took time that evening to bring our children together, to embrace and weep, but also to know and grasp the beautiful hope that she was free from her body's struggles and ...

  Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.  -Ephesians 3:20 NLT The Christmas season is upon us and we are just one week away from the day we celebrate the coming of Christ to this world.  God knew what He was doing when He planned this entire happening.  Joseph and Mary had no idea this was coming, but through scripture we read how God prepared and informed them of His plan as the earthly caretakers for His Son Jesus.  God provided an angel to both of them to tell them precisely what they needed to know, but I can only imagine how absolutely terrified they both must have been.  This is a situation that in and of itself, its format if you will, plays out in one way or another in our own lives.  Not exactly the same scenario, but a version of it in terms of its play by play.  I can recall several situations that played out in my own life, but I was not p...

 As I write this entry, just hours from now my son Bailey will be returning from a 12 day experience touring Spain with his collegiate choir.  I had a beautiful writing come across my social media feed from Ann Voskamp this morning about the beautiful opportunity we have every single day with Father God to thank Him for who He is and what He has provided to us.   When we struggle to find and know our God, on what seems to be the worst of days or maybe just a brief moment in a day we are experiencing.....what is the grounding here?  We need Him, every hour of every day and we need to spend more time with our hands lifted to Him in a posture of thanksgiving rather than raising our fists and our voices in anger and frustration, or pounding our chests and crying out in anguish because He's not who we need right now or He's not doing precisely what we expected in our greatest hour of need. "I need Thee every hour, most gracious Lord No tender voice like Thine can pea...

 I was thinking a few days ago, there are blocks of time since my Mom's diagnosis and since her beginning full time care in a memory care facility, that I am living in a new rhythm of life-a new 'normal'.  It's not a 'normal' I would have expected about 9 years ago.  2012 was a year our family did not fully understand the direction we would be going in life.  A job transition we didn't plan for hit us in 2011, and so we put our prayers, hopes, blood, sweat, and tears into doing whatever we could to ride it out.  Entering 2012, we learned quickly the job market was not as healthy where we resided at the time, and as our parents were aging and facing health challenges, we found ourselves exploring the possibility of moving to the Springfield area.  I'll be honest:  we had dreams early on in our marriage to live and work and thrive outside of Missouri and didn't have an interest in coming back here.  We are thankful, and we have been stretched and ch...