Trial Scheduled

It looks like Tuesday is the day.

It has been three years. October 1st of 2009 our lives were flipped upside down. My husband was falsely accused. It has been a long, long road to get to the point we are at now. I'm excited and nervous to go through trial. The case is so ridiculous that I am excited to see this go to court and actually be expressed. After reading through it myself, I can't imagine...well, I can't imagine a lot. It will be good for the craziness to get out there and have the chance to stand up for innocence.

There are things we need prayer for. We ask that there be prayers for protection over our family. It's going to be a rough week for us all and we need to stand firm in our faith. I've been doing a Precepts study on Joshua and it has been amazing how it speaks to me right where I am at. I have been struggling so badly with my faith and with anger at my Father...but, through this study I am being renewed and reminded what an amazing God we serve! I need to hold firmly to those verses that tell us that He will never leave us or forsake us. We need protection around my husband as he sits there and listens to the blatent lies being told about his character. He has a "bracelet" that says, "Man of God" on it and I have encouraged him to wear it throughout the trial. That way when he is feeling weighed down by the accusations, he can remember who he is. Man of God? For sure. :o)

Our girls will be kind of on their own during this time. I will be working to set up extra help if she needs it, but mostly our oldest will be in charge of the youngers, which she is good with, but it's an awful long time for her to have to care for them. I'm praying that she feels a sense of responsibility and care for her sisters and that the time flies for her. She is one of the only people that our little one with go to. She is a wonderful big sister. I just can't stand thinking about leaving them for any amount of time.

Chris will have to take off some time from work. This is going to be very difficult for us financially. I have already lost a couple weeks of pay from a job I was working on and now he will be losing a good deal of pay as well. We are trying to figure out how to cover our bills. A few people have talked to us about living within our means and I just want to say right now that this is not a normal circumstance. We were fine when he had his teaching job. We are not on a regular basis "bad" with money. Of course there have been times when poor decisions were made, but overall we strictly adhere to whatever of Dave Ramsey's principles we can follow. We have always done our best to stretch our income and save what we can. At this point, three years after losing a fairly good income, we have exhausted all savings. We no longer have anything saved toward retirement, no life insurance, etc. It's all gone. We have done everything we can to not be burdens on others and it kills us to ever ask for help. At this point, though, we just don't know what else to do. We may lose about two weeks of work which is about $700 (approx). I have already lost about $400 worth of work and will not be able to work during this time. It just feels like we aren't going to make it...but, I have to hold on to God's promise to not forsake us. Right? When our human minds cannot figure out what to do, we must turn to our Abba and cast our burdens on Him. So, we ask you to pray over this with us.

Over the years we have been praying specifically for confusion in our enemies, for these girls and their families to find a faith in God throughout this experience, for the attorneys involved (even the D.A.!!!), and the judge. And of course we need to be praying for the jury. Pray that they have clear minds and will be able to see exactly what is going on here. Pray for our attorney to know exactly how to fight this. Pray for those who are willing to take the stand on Chris' behalf...pray for their protection and that they will be strong in their testimony. We are uber thankful for the amazing people who have come forward to vouch for his character.

Three years ago Chris and I worked together to teach a call full of kids during Rosh Hashanah. Three years ago we spent a weekend going to a friend's congregation and visiting the Skirball. Three years ago we read daily in Psalm about God's protection and confusion in our enemies. Three years ago my husband was arrested. We were asked to leave our congregation right before Yom Kippur. This year on Yom Kippur we were told we were going to trial. This year on the first day of Sukkot we are going into the trial time. We pray that by the end of Sukkot we can truly stand up and declare victory in His name! I pray that at the end we will indeed harvest joy and this will be an amazing beginning to a sweet year!

We are ready to have this over with and build our lives up in the name of Y'shua!!!