Annual Happenings '07

As I said yesterday, this year's letter is not like the others. I feel convinced that this is the letter that the Lord wanted me to write, just like every other year, but this one was against my better judgement. God knows best, though. He knows that there is someone, or more than one someone, that needs to read this letter. Enjoy!

Once again, Merry Christmas from the Carlsons! Be forewarned, this is not going to be a "gather the family around the dinner table-we got another letter from the Carlsons!" letter. The boys are doing wonderful. I am teaching all three now. Jordan is preschool, Jeffrey 1st grade, and Michael 5th grade. They seem to love homeschooling (although it is all they know, of course) Michael is reading at an 8th grade level and absorbing everything that he can find. Jeffrey is starting to read pretty well himself. He is really good at Math, too. You would be amazed at the things that Jordan remembers. He knows all of his colors, numbers, shapes and recognizes some of the letters. Once again we put the boys in wrestling. Jordan was able to participate, even at 3 years old! He adores the sport. Jeffrey really loves it, too. Michael still is not that fond of it, but he loves being involved in something that Riky love so much. I am able to get some evenings off every week for a few months during the Wrestling season. I got last year’s vacation scrapbooked while they were at practice and absolutely went crazy with all of the quiet. Riky is now working for Schaff Concrete here in Shepherd. He has been able to mix his love for concrete work with the enjoyment that he gets out of driving together to become a concrete truck driver. He has no commute time to speak of, it takes 7 minutes to get to work from here.
We are steadily involved in our church and keep busy with the same ministries that we have been in for what seems like forever.
But, I feel that the Lord has burdened my heart with the fact that it has not been forever. We have only been saved for 7 ½ years. Before that... well... buckle your seatbelts and excuse the children from the room... Have I got a story for you.........
Some of you have been on this ride with us for a while and some of you have recently met us. Our testimony is not something that I would have shared unless and only if I felt that the Lord was forcing me to share it. I feel like I have no other choice. Every time that I think of this letter, this is what I keep coming back to, so I will write our testimony out... To keep some sense of decency in our lives, I am going to jumble us up together as one. You will see what I mean as we go along. Here goes.
There is a song that comes to mind when I think of this letter, also: Only a sinner, saved by grace. Only a sinner, saved by grace. This is my story, to God be the glory, I’m only a sinner, saved by grace.
Riky and I have a sordid background. Growing up with chaos was the norm for most of the families that we knew. Alcoholism, abuse, adultery, divorce, drugs, dominant children, pornography, teenage tyranny, violence, oh my- the list could go on and on. We met in sin and stayed in sin. The list of personal misdeeds were many. Most of them are repeats of the above mentioned ones, but it seems that as the generations go by, things escalate. Premarital relationships were the norm with everyone we knew and we were no exception. Our altercations were often so heated that the police were called on us for domestic disturbances. We were guilty. We weren’t even ashamed of our actions. At some point we thought that it was a good idea to get married and bring children into all of our chaos. Michael was born into a home that was borderline broken. Jeffrey was about to be added into the mix by the time that I was ready to call it quits and follow all of my foolish friends into a life of single motherhood. Riky wanted to give us one last chance to be a real family. He and I both knew the effects of a broken home. We did not want this for our precious boys, but also felt that it was better to be single parents than to have them living through the mess that we were making for them. At this exact moment we were invited to Gospel Baptist Church. I thought that it was worth a shot to see if God could fix our marriage. I wasn’t even sure that I wanted it fixed. Having weekends "off" while the boys were with Riky seemed somewhat glamorous compared to what we had been going through. I wasn’t even sold on the idea that God would even be interested in me, or us. I felt that we were too far gone at that point and that "finding God" was too little, too late. I begrudgingly started attending church at Riky’s side on Sunday mornings. We were still slathered in sin as we walked through the doors of that church and returned home with the same baggage that we left with. Arguments were still heated, alchohol, cigarettes and hatred were still present in our home and we were still miserable. I was still planning to leave as soon as this "God-thing" was proven not to work, just like everything else had failed to work in and around our lives.
At some point I stopped wanting to leave. I started wanting God to fix our marriage. I don’t even know when it happened. I just know that looking back I see that the desire to give up left me. Giving up was all I knew. Was it possible that this could really work? My thinking started to change into wanting to prove to others that we were somehow better. We could pull ourselves up and change things. We would be different. If only I knew then how different, I am sure that I would have scoffed at the idea of ever being happy with Riky or him with me. It wasn’t something that happened overnight, but the turning point was Riky getting saved- just as he was- on Easter Sunday in 2000. I was skeptical. I picked fights with him and then accused him of not changing because his reactions were the same as before he got saved. One night while he was out of town I was broken, emotionally beaten down, and felt as if I couldn’t go on the way I was. I was so full of hatred and loathing that I couldn’t even stand myself. I recalled Riky’s salvation story. Pastor had taken him to the side and talked to him that Easter Sunday about heaven and sin. Pastor asked Riky if he wanted Jesus to save him. Riky said "no". Pastor was taken aback. He asked Riky why not. My husband said that he didn’t want to give up his sin and wasn’t willing to change, that he liked his sin. Pastor then asked him if Jesus would accept him as he was, right then, sin and all, would he accept Jesus’ gift of salvation. Riky said "only a fool would say no." I was that fool. I was wallowing in self-pity for my failed marriage, hatred was oozing out of every fiber of my being, I had bottled up years of resentment and failure and was using it to lash out at the one man that had loved me at one time. I had turned my heart away from Riky and was angry at him for not chasing me down and begging for my love. I didn’t love my husband, myself or my children. I was unlovable and unloving. At that moment I decided to give God my life to do with what he would. To salvage. To save. I accepted Jesus as my savior and steeled my heart to the fact that Jesus would possibly be the only man who could love me. I thought I had too little to give and it was indeed too late for Riky and I. But, I wanted better for my children and the man who saw something loveable in me at one time. I longed to be loved. Jesus could give that to me. Maybe He could salvage my marriage, too. I didn’t tell anyone about my salvation until the morning that Riky was to be baptized. I asked Pastor to baptize me too. He looked at me with a question in his eyes and I told him that I was indeed saved. I still was so full of pride and doubt that I didn’t even want others to know of my moment of "weakness." The moment that I realized that I NEEDED something. That something was missing in my life. I did get baptized that morning. There was no life changing, earth shattering moment of peace that came over our household. Slowly, ever so slowly, our lives changed. Arguments were not so heated, nor so frequent. Alcohol was not so tantalizing. Hatred was not so prevalent. God was indeed changing us. We stopped referring to divorce as an assumed end and started talking of our future together. Our lives and our family’s goals became priorities. I fell in love with my husband, my marriage, and my boys. God pulled us up out of the wreckage that we had created for ourselves and dusted us off. He has used us in ways that I never would have thought possible. I have had people who didn’t know us before the last few years who think that we have a "heavenly marriage." I must say that they are almost right. We are working toward one. And we are getting closer. We laugh, we love, we enjoy each other and our boys. We think alike and share everything. God is great. He can take trash and turn it into treasure. God saved us from ourselves in such a subtle steady way that we don’t even see the changes unless we look back over the years. We have changed our habits, our lives, our goals and our thoughts all because God saw fit to send a Savior. For me, for us and for you.
I have used these pages, this story, this time to tell you of our miserable lives. I know that there are some of you who have already accepted this gift and are encouraged by our letters. I hope that you will join me in praying for the people who have not accepted Jesus as their Savior and receive this letter, whether they are struggling through pitfalls and frustration, or think that they are "Just fine" how they are. Last Saturday God chose Riky and I to lead 4 people to Him. We believe that Salvation is so ultimately important that each week we go out with a group of people at our church knocking on doors and asking the question "If you died right now, do you know for sure you’ll go to Heaven?" Most people that we talk to say they don’t know for sure. What a scary thought! Everyone needs a Savior. There is no sin too great or too small for Jesus to forgive. But all sin does need to be forgiven. There is no sin allowed in Heaven--and Hell is real. It is a horrible place. It is where all people will go when they die if they don’t give their lives to Jesus. Jesus paid the price for our sins. He will take all our burdens from us if we will just let Him. He will lighten our load and sustain us if we only trust in Him. He did this for us in such a gentle way that we barely noticed it. If you can’t remember a time in your life that you asked Jesus to forgive you of your sins and accepted His gift of salvation, then you probably are not saved yet. Right now is the best time to give your life to God. Just as you are.
We love you all!
The Carlsons