Introducing Truitt Ross

I finally did it! Here he is! Joshua Truitt Ross! Isn't he gorgeous?!?

We are so excited! He was born on May 5, weighing 6 pounds and 4 ounces - 20 inches long. Check out his blog for more pics: truittross.blogspot. com. Today is his Mommy and Daddy's 5 year anniversay. Happy, happy, Josh and Kayci! We love you and are so proud of you! Thanks for giving us such a doll to love! We can't wait 'til Thursday! (That one pic is of both our sons with their sons - aren't they all adorable? Jenny and David are on their way to Houston to introduce Malaya - more pics to come.)

Truitt has a high bilirubin count - home health is bringing over a light to keep him under. Please pray for him - and his Mommy and Daddy.

Truitt is coming!

Today is the day - we got the call this morning and we are heading to Houston. Josh are Kayci are at the hospital - they are keeping her! I am gathering my cameras and running to get packed but wanted to write a quick message seeking prayer coverage over this day and the days to come. I'll write more as soon as we know details - like hopefully, very soon!
(I know I have been lax in writing lately - but retreat season is officially over and I plan on slowing down a bit beginning ... well, soon.)
I love you, my friends!

Proud Mama!

Check out Brandon Scott Thomas' blog from yesterday! This mama is beaming! BST writes about Josh and the comments include both "Ross boys". The address is brandonscottthomas.blogspot.com.

I'm home!

Six days ago, I landed back in Texas - a very tired, but extremely energized woman! (Is that possible?!?!?!) I LOVED my time in Africa! The safari was a super (stay tuned for pics); the scenery gorgeous; but the friends - oh, my! I was so blessed! The Lord was so good as He showered me with sweet, precious relationships! I have tons of picures to post this week. I will try to write and highlight some of the highlights throughout the week.
I would love to take Rick back to meet all my new friends!
Only one week until Easter! I LOVE EASTER!!!! The empty tomb makes me want to dance and celebrate! Isn't it totally delightful that we serve a risen Lord!?!?

I'm off!!! and leaving as a 50-year-old!

Well, this is it -- I leave for Africa in a little over 12 hours! It has been a great week - full of rich memories! Last Wednesday I turned 50 and the celebration began! Rick took me away on a very relaxing day away. We spent the night at the Hilton Thursday night, hung around on Sundance Square, and ate dessert at Marble Slab (YUM)! Then spent Friday back and forth between the Botanical Gardens and the Stockyards -- only to get kidnapped at Joe T.'s!! My family was waiting on me there! What a surprise!!!!
Then home to 'hang out' -- SURPRISE!!! What a great party with my friends from church! I love our church family!
Can't wait to share stories from my time in Africa!!!
Rick, I love you more than I have words to tell you! I count it a HUGE blessing to share like with a man becoming more like Jesus every day! There will not be a moment you will not be in my thoughts! You make my dreams come true! I will so miss your touch and your smile! Only a few day, my man, only a few days!
My children, you are the best! I treasure what the Lord is doing in each of you! May you continue to hold strong in the faith!
Malaya, you have changed my life forever! I love looking at the Lord through your precious innocent eyes! I can't wait to read your sweet notes!
Jed, I love you emerging personality! I woke up this morning thinking of how it will be to hear you say 'Jesus'!
Truitt, I can't wait to hold you! and to add to my picture collection! You are already being covered in prayer!

Blessings, sweet friends and family!

Pleading for prayer over our trip

Well, it is ten days until our little group leaves for Kenya and I want to beg you to lift your voices to the Lord on our behalf. We will not be able to one thing without Him! There are some general prayer requests that have gone out on behalf of the entire team but I want to ask you, friends and family, to pray the following for me:
* For may family's health while I am away, especially my dad and my pregnant daughter-in-law.
* For my clients since I will be gone 2 weeks.
* That Rick will be protected and not feel alone.
* For the flights over and back to be smooth, easy, and free of motion-sickness and anxiety.
* For wisdom and discernment in this ministry.
* That I will rest in Him and serve in His strength.
* That our team will be of one heart so that God will be glorified and magnified.
* That the Lord will use this experience to further caputure our hearts.
* My parents will be moving to Decatur while I am gone! Can you believe it? Pray that goes well for them and that they will be calm in my absence.
* Please pray for our God to cover our team with His traveling mercies!
* I will be facilitating a workshop on grief - please pray the Lord will use our time together to work His healing.

Thank you so much! I would be delighted to pray over you while I am gone. Please send me your requests! What a blessing we have when we take each other's name to the throne of the Almighty! Amen and Amen!

Two Weeks from Today!

Two weeks from today, on March 13, I will leave with Come before Winter ministries for a trip to Africa. Come before Winter is a group of women that travel together to host missionary women in a weeklong mission - our aim is to provide them with rest, refreshment, and renewal from Monday through Friday. For this trip, the destination is the coast of Kenya. We are all stressing over the current luggage issues and the shots and various departure dates - but when we get there, our hearts will be one and we will lay aside all 'issues' for the common goal of ministry. I love that! Sixteen girlfriends with one heart and one aim for two weeks! Yes, Lord!

A Thought about Love

I could not help but sense the intense sadness of the vet and the owners that had to make the decision to euthanize Barbaro. Wow! They worked so hard for so long!
As a professional counselor who deals with grieving people on a regular basis, there was a quote by one of Barbaro's owners that struck my heart: "Grief is the price we pay to love."
Ah, yes, it is! Love is risky - always a sacrifice at some level. What we have to decide over and over is if it is worth the risk. Healthy love is always worth stepping into more, truth?

Happy New Year!

Well, this is it! 2007 is officially in full-swing for this girl. Back in the office and back to trying to catch up.
I loved our holiday season this year! Jed's first Christmas with us was a blast! We have taken great delight in watching Malaya open gifts for 7 years now and she is quite the little pro! So grateful! She knows exactly where to add the ooooh's and the aaaahh's!
To make resolutions or not, that is the question. I am a resolution-maker. I love them! I love writing them down and checking them off as I accomplish them. Yes, I make some that can never be finished and some that give me pleasure to say 'done' and add the little check.
This next year, I really, really want to step in closer to the Lord - to experience His fullness.
I want to again learn more about practicing Sabbath.
I want to scrapbook.
I want to cross-stitch.
I want to decorate for Christmas over Thanksgiving.
I want to try to mail one of the first Christmas letters people receive instead of my traditional New Year's letter.
I want to unleash my soul - to allow myself to love freely and in richer abundance.
I want to love my people well!
I want to know Jesus better!
I want to pray with Rick more.
I want to have more parties!!!
I want to hear more stories!!!
I want to really see the hurting.
I want to follow the Spirit's prompting to do random acts of kindness.
I want to do nothing to cause me shame.

May you be richly blessed in 2007 as you serve Him and His! May the Lord take great delight in you! And may you live in the sunshine of His face! Radiate on us, Lord! May we line up under your Light!

Merry Christmas

Today is Christmas Eve. Growing up it was the day we opened all our gifts, ate special foods, and anticipated hearing the reindeer paws on our roof before morning.
Now, at almost 50, I love remembering Christmas long ago, but I have found none sweeter than the one I am living right now.
I have learned that Christmas it is so much more about Jesus! Today, Rick's class was encouraging us to ponder about what life would be like without Him - if He had never been born. YUK! I can't! I don't want to think about it! But -- if I don't, I miss the blessing and the joy of His life - He did come - He changed the world forever! The lives of women, of children, of poor, of the sick, of the heavy-hearted, of the wounded, of the empty -- would never be the same!
Jesus has made a difference - and continues to change hearts as we allow Him to invade us, to transform us, and to radiate through us!
May we become totally obsessed with Him in '07!

Malaya story

Malaya spent the night Sunday night. We had planned to go see Happy Feet Monday afternoon. I was so excited about having some buttered popcorn. We were running errands before leaving town and she said, "Grammy, you know what I really want to do? I want to go the Decatur library and get my own library card." Wow - movie versus reading! Well, for this six and a half year old, reading won! Yea, Malaya! What every former grade teacher loves to hear!

Happy Thanksgiving, my friends!

Tomorrow is one of my favorite days of the year! All our children are coming in today and spending a few days! YEA!
We will eat and eat and laugh and laugh and talk and talk and eat and eat! Eating in our family is a definite time of sweet sweet fellowship! I take great delight in cooking for 'my people'. There is very little that I do that is more therapeutic. Yesterday morning, in the kitchen, I chose to have some time with the Lord. My soul was thirsty and my body was longing for some time with Him.
Silence is rare for me - must be intentionally planned. It is the end of a fun, busy retreat season for me and I was needing some uninterupted time with Him.
Then, in the afternoon, I listened to tapes of Josh preaching. He is going through Luke too and he is an amazing teacher of the Word.
This year, my dad is not feeling well but they are coming anyway! I am so excited to see the generations around me spend some time together.
May your Thanksgiving be filled with spiritual blessings!

Three more pictures!

Rick was so surprised last Friday - we went to Houston - ok - I lied (along with the rest of my precious family) and told him I was doing a retreat for Josh's church. We stopped at Jonathan's to pick Josh up and - voila! All the kids were there! We wanted to celebrate Rick's 50th in a BIG way and - mission accomplished! Malaya wrote a tribute for Grampy (she is sharing it in the above pic) The guys all golfed on Friday; we all met in Galveston for dinner and Josh had reserved us hotel rooms on the beach! Malaya spent the night 'at our place' and Jed came over first thing Saturday morning (the pic on the left). The weekend concluded with a lunch at Tortuga's where a waiter made Jed a paper hat (the picture on the bottom left). We are blessed! Truth?????

Please note Rick's glow in all the pictures - yesterday and today - he had a great time!!! And we did too - lies and all! Ha!

Great Weekend!

Here are a few pics from Rick's surprise weekend! We had a BLAST! We love our family! I have three more pics to post - stay tuned tomorrow!

Happy Birthday, David

Eight years ago, I became a mother-in-law for the first time ever! David Shawn Bizaillion became part of our family - life for the Ross' has never been the same! We love him so much! Today we celebrate David's birth! He is 32. David is an amazing husband - my precious daughter trusts him; he is a joy to watch parent our delightful Malaya. David has been so patient with me as I continue to learn what it means to be a m-i-l. Thanks, David, for all the wisdom and kindness you bring to our family! We thank the Lord for you!

Catchin' up - again

Two weeks ago today, I had my first fund-raiser for Wise County Christian Counseling. It went unbelievably well!!!! We raised $12, 571 that night with monthly commitments totalling
$26, 480 for the next year. I spoke last week for the Decatur Women's Club and they voted to let WCCC be one of three recipients for their proceeds from the Christmas Tour of Homes. This has been an amazing journey so far! God has been so amazing - more than I could ever ask or imagine!!!!

A few highlights from the night:
The centerpieces that Sandra Shabay made - beautiful!
Darla Cole's brave testimony - totally powerful!
Robert Isham's words of validation and support
Runnin' on Faith's performance
Jenny's presence even though she couldn't eat or drink a thing we had!
Colby Maddox's $1 contribution
Rick Ross' unending support and encouragement

I could go on and on..
It was a blessed night! The Lord was in the house!

Happy Birthday, Rick!

And not just any birthday - happy, happy 50th! I love being in love with a 50-year-old! Especially as I have been blessed to a front row seat for the last 30+ years of watching him transform more and more into the image of Jesus. Sweet anticipation fills my heart as I contemplate the future with him.
Yesterday was his actual 50th. I had saved the date for a year - no retreats or plans at all, just being with him to celebrate. We did end up, however, having to reschedule a retreat we do together in Lovington, NM. We had a blast traveling together and hangin' out with friends.
Rick, I wish you many, many more blessed years!

Catchin' up...

The last few weeks have been craziness for me. I am using this morning to catch up and writing this blog made the to-do list.
On September 15, my dad was careflighted to Tyler with all his systems shutting down - respitory and kidney failure, congestive heart failure, heart attack, the list could go on. It was a scary time as I drove to be with my mom. Josh and Kayci arrived shortly after I did (they will never know how wonderful it was to sit with me in that waiting room - but heart leaped when I saw Kayci's sweet smile and knew Josh was right behind her).
The second time Mom, Barbie, and I went in to see dad, he was very alert even though he had a breathing tube in - he couldn't talk but my dad has the gift of getting his message across with intense eyes and flamboyant gestures. He wanted to thank God and then he 'asked' my mother what had happened to him. Then he looked at me and pointed - he wanted me to pray! As we huddled over his bed, I voiced our praise to the Lord and our joy in the legacy of having a dad like Billie Jones, then he motioned to my sister - she, too, prayed over Daddy. What a blessing to have a dad so much in love with our Heavenly Father!
I am extremely grateful to be part of a nurturing community of faith. Jane Jones (Jeff's mom) beat me to hospital in Tyler with my favorite cookies in hand! We spend several nights with them in their lovely home! What wonderful new friends!
Dad went home for three days and is back in the hospital in Crockett with congestive heart failure but feels great and should go home early next week. Please pray!
We want to get them to Decatur asap!

**On Tuesday night, October 3, the Tommy Maddox Foundation is hosting a free dinner to introduce Wise County Christian Counseling - that's me! We have had a GREAT response so far. I pray the Lord will have His hands all over this ministry!

**I leave in a few hours to do a Ladies' Day tomorrow in Temple. I am so excited! Retreat season is here! Lots of travel in the weeks to come. I pray I will bring glory to His name and reflect Him in my words and interactions with my new friends.

Happy Birthday, Josh!

Well, I have just a few more minutes to wish an extremely happy birthday to my oldest son - Joshua Louis Ross - better known as Josh, Joshy, or Boss - depending on who is calling him.
Today, Josh is 26. He was born in 1980, which still holds the record for the longest heat wave in Abilene, Texas.
I love to use birthdays to reflect on the treasures in my heart. With my firstborn son, there are many, many, many - so here are just a few:
*When he was little, he wanted to be exactly like his daddy -- wear a cap if Rick did, only wear zipper jeans because Rick did, sit like Rick, etc.
*He loved his Maw-Maw and Paw-Paw (my grandparents). They let him hammer real nails into a piece of wood. They let him work on all their doors. Paw-Paw chewed tobacco so Josh had a little spit can too! He still loves 'squirt cheese' and crackers - just like Maw-Maw always kept for him.
*Josh loved the Astros! That was a major bedtime issue for us! He learned his ABC's by their names.
*He loved football - could count by 6's and 7's before he could start to school.
*When he was in first grade, I got a call from his teacher - he had made an F on a spelling paper. When we questioned him, he said he felt so sorry for his friend that sat next to him who struggled in school! He didn't want him to feel alone! Compassion has always been in his heart!
*When we moved to Crockett, he was going into 2nd grade and Jonathan was going into Kinder. Jonathan had difficult time going to school. We thought maybe if Josh took him to class on the second day, he would do better. Josh had to peel his little brother's hand off his; so instead of having an unhappy Kinder son --- we now had a crying Kinder son and a crying 2nd grader. Toooooo sad!
*Beginning in about junior high, Josh turned into a major prankster! He got his teachers, principals, next-door neighbors, and even his father in on tricking me! Too many times to name here!
*He does a great Fresh Prince impersonation!
*His senior year, there was a tragic car wreck involving some fellow students. The student body was going assemble at night to draw strength from each other. Josh was called to speak and did an excellent job comforting his classmates with the Word of God.
*Josh has always had a heart for the lost. Several of his friends in Crockett and Mesquite were into the Lord Jesus.
*Watching him play football and lead his team, on and off the field, were a blessing to Rick and to me. (He and Jonathan still play flag football together - winning a game in Houston tonight.)
*He is a fabulous uncle to our precious Malaya - she adores him! (Can't wait to watch what he will do at night on our next vacation for Jed!)
*It is a blast to watch his tight bond with David, Jenny, Jonathan, and Jennifer!
*He brought Kayci into our family!
*Two years ago, when Rick and I began to catch on that things at Lake Cities were not going well, Josh rallied around us. He called us everyday. He cried with us and prayed over us. He spoke many, many words to refocus us.
*Today, Josh is known as a man of strength, tremendous wisdom, prayer, fasting, not only a gifted preacher, but a serving minister.
*Josh is a family man, planning time for us to all be together.
*He is not a middle child - he is our oldest son - a son that we are so proud to call our own.
**And he is going to be a daddy - a wonderful, wonderful daddy!

We love you, Josh, and are so proud of you! What a blessing you are to so many!

Grandbaby #3!!!!!

Josh and Kayci are pregnant!!!! YEA!!!!! May 5 is our date!!!! Can't wait!!! Malaya wants a girl!!! Josh and Kayci, we love you and we pray for a healthy, healthy baby. We know precious cute is a for-sure!!!!
More to come - just wanted to shout it from the rooftop for now!!!!!!!!
Side note: 3rd blog of the week!!!!!