Thankful and Joy

 It has been a full and wonderful Thanksgiving break around here.  I love time off together and I love it when our schedule allows for shopping dates with Mike, family night at the movie theatre (boys saw Creed and girls saw Grinch), family time in Radford, and.......


the annual Virgnia Tech and UVA football game!  It was cold, and dramatic and some of us left the game smiling when VT pulled it out in Overtime!! It was such a fun time with extended family:)

Thanksgiving Day was spent in Radford with this strong-willed, hilarious woman and my parents!  She is doing well despite her cancer diagnosis.  She is sweet as pie but can give the nursing home folks a run for their money. :)  She is something else!

It is officially basketball season here in our home!!  Kyle is on varsity and Dave is the middle school team manager.  Hope is also on her Daddy's AAU team and they play in tournaments on Saturday.  This is the time of year when life gets busy but we love every moment of it.  Hope is also swimming one day a week, taking piano one day a week and is learning the basics of volleyball.  I keep reminding myself that one day we will have no one to take to practice anymore and we will miss this. 

Hope recently had her piano recital and did amazing!!!  Piano has taught her so much confidence and we love it.

Recently we had a stock holders dinner at youth where our youth served a dinner for  those who have supported their faith development and they spoke about their experiences in youth.  It overwhelmed me to hear in their own words how God has been working in their lives.  My hearts was so proud and happy that I could have wept tears in gratitude.  GG and Pops came down for the dinner and here are our kiddos with them.  Youth ministry is a family affair in this house and we love every moment of it. 



Speaking of youth, we have launched our big Christmas project through Santa's Elves.  We have adopted 40 kids to shop for for Christmas.  The youth LOVE doing this and it blesses my heart to see how much love and care they put into shopping for our kids.  We will be hosting a party for the kids on pickup day before Christmas.  We are all pretty excited about this.

This month I have been doing a daily bible journaling on gratitude.  Between the bible journaling and spending a weekend at Hearts on Fire with some awesome senior high girls from church it has been a wonderful month.  I have slowly realized that happiness and joy are two different things.  Happiness is dependent upon circumstances and joy is feeling content despite your circumstances.  I am focusing on joy for the rest of 2018:)  Joy is time with family on a break, watching my youth serve so well, watching my kids play a sport they love, and spending time worshipping God. 

October

October despite the rain and sudden temperature change... you have treated us well.  Life is full but life is good.  I am finally OFF of the scooter and trying to live my best life despite all the hardware in my ankle which makes each step a wee bit painful.  I am so so so thankful to be on this side of the ankle drama of 2018, but I have learned so very much during this painful season and I am thankful. 


One of the blessings of the month so far was traveling to Knoxville on a random Thursday night to hear Jen Hatmaker!  I have read many of her books and I have learned so much from her books about widening who is invited to God's table.  One of my favorite Jen quotes is "As Jesus explained, the right things have to die so the right things can live-we die to selfishness, greed, power, accumulation, prestige, and self-preservation, giving life to community, generosity, compassion, mercy, brotherhood, kindness, and love.  The gospel will die in the toxic soil of self." 

I aspire to be an includer-one who invites all to God's table to taste and see that He is so good.  I am not always a model christian (hello, road rage...) but I try so hard to boast about God every chance I get.  It was a wonderful and unexpected evening and it blessed my soul.  We also were blessed with Nicole Nordeman's gorgeous voice. 

Our "girls" are getting so big and I love them.  They are funny, they are curious and they make me happy.  We are somewhat concerned Tractor Supply may have mislabled one of our girls and that Felicia may indeed be a rooster instead of a hen.  I cannot even imagine saying "bye felicia" to her but if she is indeed a rooster we will have to rehome her.  We should know in the next month or so if Felicia is a boy or girl by the scientific method of waiting to hear her crow! Ha!

Thankful I had an unexpected night out to see Jen Hatmaker.  I have always shared that I would have loved to have had a bigger family but our kids are at such a good age and because my parents came to help chauffer kids and feed them it was pretty painless to head out of town for a night that was good for my soul.  Mike was out of town teaching his heart out to fellow administrators.

A joy this fall so far has been family and friend time at VT games.  We love our Hokies but spending time together trumps what happens on the field.  We are a dysfunctional bunch but we do love each other and have a lot of laughs.  My brother is the tailgating drill seargent getting us all organized and hyped for the game.  All of our boys are growing so fast.... Pops looks like he is shrinking but our boys are catching up to him.

Kyle was blessed with a great day of ACC football with his friend Jonathan and our friend, Dr. Bill.  They were gone to North Carolina for 20 hours and caught the UVA football game followed by the Va Tech football game.  They had such a great time making memories. 

This has been a busy season with our youth at church.  Each week I lead a bible study for middle schoolers after school on Wednesdays, we then have breakfast club at Mcdonald's every Thursday morning before school at 7:15 a.m., and then Mike and I are leading a study to guys and gals on Sunday nights.  I love every moment of it.  Youth ministry blesses you when you least expect it.... One of our girls admitted at bible study Sunday night that she finally "gets it" and it starting her journey of faith after being involved in our minsitry for several years.  To see these kids fall in love with Jesus is amazing and blesses my heart.  This is a place I never ever dreamed we would be yet here we are surrounded by teenagers....Life is good and God is so very good. 

October you are living up to your hype! 

Hearts Full

Life has been busy and here in the Robinson household but we certainly have been blessed with the addition of six sweet little chicks that we are now raising!  Mike and I are clueless chick parents but we have read a lot, fretted over them and they seem to be growing.  We hope they will be laying eggs by late winter.  We are raising them all natural with organic feed so we are super excited for farm fresh eggs down the road. 


Here is one sweet little chick sound asleep in my hands.  They are curious, a wee bit smelly, but they are so sweet!!

Here is one of our more curious chicks-we named her James Harden after the NBA player!  She is super nosy. 

We always love having kids over and here is Kyle with two friends during the Hokie football game. Raising teenagers is such an exhausting joy...

But I absolutely love it when our house is loud and full of kids.  I love it because it means kids are safe, kids feel welcome here and my job is to listen and to keep the food coming.  Kyle and Mike went on their first college visit this past weekend and it hit me hard.  These are the days.  It is loud and exhausting to have a houseful but I know I will miss this all one day.  (I may not miss the slime making these girls are doing though)

Another blessing that has happened in the last two weeks is our youth bible study at church.  We typically start a new curriculum each fall for our youth, and this semester I am leading Dare Greatly for our teen girls and Mike and our friend, Chris, are leading the guys in a Tim Tebow study.  Hope went into Mike's class and made sure all the guys knew who was leading the study for last week.  They take turns leading these guys and it has been great.  So thankful for these guys investment in our teen guys. 

Preschool is back in session and so far it has been a great start to the year.  We have some funny kiddos this year and despite the fact that I am still on my scooter it is going well.  Speaking of my scooter, I have a doctor's appointment this week with my orthopedic doctor.  I humbly ask for prayers that after being on this scooter for 23 out of the last 29 weeks of my life that this ankle will finally be healed. 

Between preschool, our new little chicks, our youth, and our own kids and their friends life has felt very full lately.  My focus this year is on kingdom building.  I do not want to get distracted on anything that does not bring glory to God's kingdom.  I feel like time is ticking so quickly with Kyle under our roof and our other kiddos growing so quickly that I need to focus on what is important-teaching God's word and pointing all kids to Christ as the ultimate example on how to love and serve others. 

I am so thankful for a full heart!

I Got Saved

One of my all-time favorite praise songs is I Got Saved by Selah.  I have been singing it all day remembering our beautiful service of Baptism last night at Hungry Mother State Park.  Eight of our youth that participated in our Philly mission trip took a big step in their faith and got baptized.  It was beautiful and wonderful and made this youth leader so very happy!! 


There was a river of gladness
That pours from Emmanuel's veins
This sinner was plunged beneath the flood
and got Saved.

Since then I walk in forgiveness
All of my guilt was erased
The chains of the past
Are broken at last
I got saved
Oh, I got saved

I'm undone by the mercy of Jesus
I'm undone by the goodness of the Lord
I'm restored and made right
He got a hold of my life
I've got Jesus
How could I want more

I've received nothing but goodness
I've tested and tasted your grace
I was so lost
Till I fell at the cross
and got saved
Oh, I got saved


Jesus-he is worth it all.  As a youth leader I desperately want these youth to taste and see how FUN and GLORIOUS a life with Jesus is.  I want them to see that life with Jesus is not guaranteed to be an easy life but it will be a full and beautiful life.  To see Him show up in our darkest times and then also to  bless us with mercy, grace, and provision is worth it all.

I want them to know He will never let us down.   My meager words could not portray what I wanted to say which was choosing Jesus is the best decision you will ever make.  You have now secured your heavenly home and signed up for a life of joy pursuing God. 

That trip to Philly was just that wonderful.  We worked hard, oh so hard, yet we grew as we were stretched in our faith.  We heard powerful sermons each night and heard testimonies from our youth hosts (Micah and Dalton) who encouraged us with their different testimonies.  It was a hard and exhausting week but God did a mighty work in these youths lives and last night they took the next step in their faith.  It was beautiful...simply beautiful. 

Beauty from Ashes

I have fallen in love with gardening.  I was so excited this spring to plant my new plants in my newly tilled garden.  Back in May I was so optimistic my injury was on the mend and I had a summer full of fun, veggies, and quality time with my kids.  I love summer and I was so excited!

So it grieves my heart to see my gorgeous garden look like this.  I have named it the hot mess express because it is so full of weeds, grass, bugs, and more bugs.  My tomatoes have blight, my green bean leaves are so bug-infested they look like swiss cheese.  I am so embarrassed how ugly my garden is.  My heart is broken that I did not get to spend many hours lovingly working and weeding my garden.  My ankle injury sidelined me and hence my garden is the ultimate hot mess express.  

But guess what..... it does not know it is a hot mess.  That little garden is the little engine that could and has no idea how ugly it looks.  It has produced sooo many vegetables this summer.  From the ugly and blighted leaves ....

All this beauty has emerged.  All this goodness not only has fed us healthy awesomeness, but it provided a great multi-generational day this past weekend with four generations under one roof cooking, eating, and sharing around the table together.  Saturday was a beautiful day of love and good food brought to us by the ugliest garden in southwest Virginia.  My grandma (who was recently diagnosed with cancer), came to my house from her nursing home and spent the day here prepping and eating this wonderful food.  Well, to be clear, I am on a scooter and she is in a wheelchair so my Mom did all the big cooking and Mike manned the grill. 

How like our God to use this ugly garden to teach/remind me that beauty does indeed come from ashes.  That is one of our God's specialties....beauty from ashes.  Over and over in the bible there are examples of evil that man tried to conjure up but God brought goodness and beauty from it.  We on this Earth deal with evil everyday-mean people, spiteful situations, jealousy, laziness, .... sometimes it seems like evil is everywhere and navigating it all is so hard and exhausting. 

Yet God is in the business of bringing beauty from the ashes of our hard times.  It is no secret that this has been a rough season for me and this stupid ankle.I will never understand why it has been so hard yet I trust and believe that our God will bring so much beauty from the past few months of despair.  I have spent so much time with Him that I know I will look back on this as precious spiritual growth time for me.  Life is hard folks, but our God has our back.  Everyday.

  ..and provide for those who grieve in Zion- to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes.  the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.  Isaiah 61:3 

So I do not know about you but I am eagerly waiting for that display of His splendor that is talked about in Isaiah 61:3 I am ready to wear my garment of praise and witness 7 youth getting baptized this upcoming weekend!!!  I am excited to begin another year of morning youth group time at McDonalds that we call Breakfast Club this week with our youth.  I am ready to see how the Lord is going to use this stupid ankle for His glory. 

I am so thankful for the lessons learned from the ugliest garden in Smyth County.  Because of God... beauty can and will come from the ashes.

July 2018

I am stunned that it is the time of year again to drag out those backpacks and head back to school.  This has certainly been a different summer than I pictured, yet for lots of reasons it has been one of my favorites.  Watching my boy work his first job ever (cutest lifeguard I have ever seen), working my garden on my hands and knees, and lots and lots of time in God's word and Netflix have all been good for my soul.  God is up to something with a close group of people I adore and we are trying to pray and follow His lead.  I wish I could tell you more, but we have no idea what God is up to....just that it involves service and as families being the hands and feet of Christ. 

God and I have also wrestled a little bit this summer.  I have no idea why this ankle injury has been so freakishly awful.  I have very little faith in the medical community and just know that there has to be a special place in heaven for Mike Robinson for what that man has done and endured for me.  It has been so hard to travel on a scooter and the most I have mustered is some housework via my scooter and some garden time on my hands and knees.  On this side of heaven I will never understand why this happened but this is what I know.  God loves me.  God's plan is perfect for me.  God understands my anguish and even can handle some hard questions I threw at him.  He is sovereign, perfect and in total control.  Those are the truths that have helped me this past month.  Without Jesus this would have been a very hard month. 

On a different note this past Saturday was our fourth annual trip to VT for Buzz's Bunch.  For real, this is David's favorite day of the year.  We all love Coach Buzz and of course my boys love basketball. 

Here is David with his favorite basketball coach!  Buzz! 

This year David loved Buzz's beautiful daughter as much as the basketball!  Ha!  We had such a good day with them and Dave announced to Coach Buzz he wanted to date his daughter.  Crazy boy-we need to coach him on his gentlemen skills!  This day is so special because of the love and enthusiasm from the players, the Williams family, and the staff. 

Caroline also was there and here she is with Hope and another of Buzz's daughters.  So much fun!

After returning from our trip to Philly we traveled to Greensboro for Kyle's basketball live period.  Our last tournament of the season was then to Myrtle Beach.  I learned a scooter is really hard to use on sand (God bless Mike for getting me out there once) but it such a fun trip. 

Here is Kyle with most of our 16u  guys and a few 15's that had to fill in.  Kyle was challenged and had to play post most of the weekend which is hard around those big guys.  There is such amazing talent at these tournaments and we just wanted him not to get hurt while getting better. 

Kyle loves his teammates and they have such fun together.  Between games they had some beach time, ate of course, and just enjoyed their time together.  They all go to different schools between east Tennessee and southwest Virginia.  They are a great group of guys.  We have such fun traveling with these families and making memories. 

Our three growing babes on the beach.  Kyle got stung on his neck by a jellyfish on this trip.  That was a new one for us.  Me being the one that often gets a little dramatic, almost called 911 but wise Mike called a pharmacists and was told a Bendryl and warm compress should suffice. 

Of course Coach Buzz is our favorite college basketball coach ever, but I did happen to run into this famous Duke coach in Greensboro.  He was at the same tournament we were at recruiting.  He was very gracious:)

I captured this sweet picture of my Kyle working the projector at church.  This is what he does on Sunday mornings.... perfect way for a shy guy to serve the Lord.   I am so excited for our youth activities to get back into full swing.  I am so thankful God called me (and therefore our family) into youth ministry.  We have a service of baptism coming up later in August and I already have a lump in my throat thinking of those teenagers who are taking that big step in their faith. 



So as the new school year begins I am excited to see what the Lord has in store for us.  For me personally it has been a hard season but I know that God makes beauty from ashes.  He is so very faithful.  Even to this grumpy, peg-leg, drama queen! 

Highs and Lows

Life is certainly a roller coaster full of highs and lows.  Two weeks ago I went to my surgeon for my last follow-up.  I thought for sure he would tell me to have a great life and stay off the hiking trails:) Instead he came into my room and broke the news to me that I have another fracture-straight up my tibia. I was shocked and frankly cried so hard I could not get it together.  It was pretty obvious it is broken and that more surgery would be required.  Blessedly the surgeon agreed that if I would get out my scooter and put no weight on it at all, I could still go on the mission trip I have been planning for 8 months for our group of 57!!

So with doctor's permission, off our whole family went on a mission trip to Philly with lots of friends and youth from church.  We took in a phillies baseball game, saw the Liberty Bell, and ate lunch at the Reading Terminal before checking into our campus dorms for our mission to start.  It was a wonderful trip and I am so thankful I could still go.  The whole week was amazing-watching our  adults and youth get split up into different ministry sites and serve so well around Philadelphia.  We had three give their hearts to the Lord for the first time, and several that want to get baptized now.  It was magical-we had six families go with lots of other teenagers.  Our day was filled with worship, bible study, ministry site work, and some downtime for showers and rest. 

Blessedly I got to serve with Mike, Kyle, David and all these other wonderful people at the homeless shelter named CHOC.  The staff at CHOC modeled true ministry to me everyday they were there.  They treated the homeless folks with respect and dignity and they are truly saving lives at this shelter.  I was so thankful to learn that my stereotype of a homeless person is actually very different than the reality.  We were encouraged to sit down and visit with the clients and I learned so much about life and grit from theses brave souls who came to CHOC for help.  Our group did some painting of walls for them, minor maintenance, and we were asked to design a mural on a wall!  Their goal is for CHOC to feel less sterile and more friendly and welcoming. 


While I was with the boys serving at the homeless shelter, this little love went to West Philly and played with children in the housing projects.  One of the chaperones sent me this and it melted my heart.  This girl has a heart for children and Jesus.

We will all remember 7/4/18 because we were in Philly serving the Lord.  We had a few hours of group time and we chose to go to see fireworks.  It was awesome to have such a large group with so many families participating in this trip.  It blows me away each year that parents take off from work to go sweat, get up early, chaperone teenagers, and sleep on crunchy and flat dorm mattresses for a whole week to invest in our youth.  Even on a scooter with limited mobility I had an amazing time.  It never gets old when teenagers ask you to pray with them and you get a front row seat of what God is doing in their lives.

Here is the mural our group painted and we added paintings from many of the clients to go on the wall!  It was amazing!

This is Mr. Charles who helps run CHOC.  He has literally and figuratively saved so many lives at CHOC in the last decade or so.  It is obvious he loves the Lord, loves his clients, and I was so thankful that he took time to teach our youth how to do small jobs.  They truly modeled genuine ministry.  I think sometimes we feel like "true ministry" has to be this expensive and overdone book or program, but Mr. Charles reminded me that ministry for the Lord involves listening, accepting folks for who they are, and helping them get their feet underneath them while showing friendship and love.  I will never forget those clients we met and how willing they were to share their stories and hearts with us.  It was a humbling reminder to me to never judge a book by its over. 

We came home from the trip with 6,978 loads of laundry and wonderful memories of serving together as a family.  Not even 36 hours after we got home, Mike and I were headed down the interstate to Kingsport for my third surgery on this ankle.  The ankle saga of 2018 has taught me so many lessons but here I am one day post-op and it hurts.  Sigh. 

One of the reasons I was so devastated to have more surgery is because David was scheduled to have his first ever visit at the survivors clinic at UVA.  Mike had to take him solo because I cannot travel this soon after surgery.  We are still waiting to hear about his echo and his labs, but everything else looks very good!  He is 5'1 and weighs 125 pounds!  Ha!  Here is David with Nurse Pat who is a legend and one of the best nurses ever.  She will be retiring in one month and I am so thankful Dave got to see her one last time.  The UVA pediatric oncology team will always be special to us. 

So I am so thankful for the wonderful memories we have already made with David's good checkup so far, our amazing trip to Philly, and lots of family time.  I am not thrilled to be back at square one with this stupid ankle, but I know our God can take everything and make it good:) He is so faithful!

Welcome Sweet summertime!

We are so thankful for summer!!!!!!! We are almost as busy in the summer as we are during the school year but it is mostly fun stuff! We have certainly had some Robinson highlights that I wanted to get documented.

This kid and his tennis team had a phenomenal season and made it to state!  We never dreamed Kyle would play #1 seed this year, but we watched them play some amazing tennis and earn a trip to state.  All six guys were so much fun to watch! Kyle's team not only won District, but Kyle won District for singles and he and Alex, his doubles partner, won district for doubles. 

Then after a match in the Regional tournament in Wise County that began at 5 and did not end until after midnight, they stunned Eastside and made it to the Regional Finals which also punched their ticket to the state tournament.  They lost to John Battle in Regional finals and here is Kyle with the runner-up trophy for Regionals.  Don't let his smile fool you.... he was not happy to be runner-up!  Ha!

Then we headed to Virginia Tech to play Galax in the first round of the state tournament.  Galax was tough and we were tied after singles.  The whole match literally came down to Duncan and Trey in #3 doubles in the third set.  We won!!

It was an exciting day to cheer on our boys at Virginia Tech-we had lots of fans including GG and Pops. 

Any parent of a teenager will tell you it is rare to capture a picture of your child much less with this big of a smile!!  Sarah Martin captured this at Virginia Tech when Kyle realized we may win the match!! 

The tennis boys had a weekend before the second round of state where they would once again face John Battle.  Half of the team came to church for youth Sunday and I was blessed enough to get to speak during the service that morning.  I preached on Mark 10.  I was so nervous!!

Sadly the next day the boys lost in a close heartbreaker to John Battle who went on to the state finals.  We were so close and Kyle was crushed.  It once again came down to the #3 doubles duo and they played their hearts out, but we fell a little short.  It brought to close a Cinderella season none of us could have imagined. 

As soon as the tennis match was over we headed up the interstate for summer league basketball.  His school team has played in lots of team camps and a summer league this month. Sarah Martin captured this picture of Kyle!

Summer also means the Nurture program at FUMC!  Once again our youth step us and show up each week to nurture the little ones that God sends to us.  We read books, play, eat, and have lots of educational fun.  Here is Kyle with one of my favorite kiddos ever!  If you heard my sermon on Mark 10 this the sweet preschooler I referenced who "ain't no loser!"

Another June highlight thus far was David being involved in Amber and Adam's wedding. This is the second wedding where one of David's helpers has gotten married and he was asked to be apart of the service.  He did amazing and the wedding was beautiful!!!!!!!!  Dave loves Amber and Adam but rest assured he still feels like he is the main squeeze in Amber's life:)

here is a family picture from the wedding just in case you need a reminder that Southwest Virginia is God's country. 

Well, after parenting for 16 years, we had a first around here this week-we hosted a sleepover.  Our best girl ever turned 9, and she had a sleepover.  It was precious and I loved every moment of having those girls over.  I cannot believe she is 9..... It was full of lots of giggles, lots of food, and a marathon of When Calls the Heart. 

I have also (with enormous help from Hope, bless her heart) have a full and big garden again this summer and just today I got my first little harvest from it.  It has been a challenge to put it in and keep it up with all the rain and my stupid ankle, but I am so thankful to garden again.  I have had many dark days where I have wondered if life will ever get back to normal after my fracture, but with Jesus, my Physical therapists, and my village of family and friends I am getting better each day!  Happy summer!!