My RAW Story

Life gets in the way sometimes… or should I say, throws curve-balls…

~ wine&myrrh ~ 2 Comments

Oh goodness… where do I begin? I was sooooo excited and motivated when I started my blog, but here we are more than 6 months since the last post.  Why? Life! So much has happened in the last few months, that I have had so many, “I should blog about this” moments, then… the thought passes and I get sidetracked or think, “oh maybe next time.”   What’s been going on?  Way too much for one blog entry…  so, here’s a summary of the last 6 months and my goal is to come back frequently and write more in detail… I need to… it’ll be therapeutic and healing for my heart.

In April I wrote about my journey  with Essential oils which I am still passionate about, and then…

First week of May I decided to pursue my passion in sharing the oils to help others, and specifically the Healing Oils of the Bible and the history of anointing… but then…

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Mid-May – I found out I was pregnant with #4 and for the first time in all my pregnancies, I really struggled with this news… it was NOT good timing in my book. My energy level plummeted… A good day was getting out of bed. Our finances were going the opposite direction than they should be and a dear friend was battling for his life.

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Mid June – One of our dearest 36 year old friends passed away from a brain tumor. I really don’t want to go here tonight… but my heart had been aching since March when the tumor reappeared and his last week or two of life was the hardest thing my heart has ever been through. Ever.

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June/July/August –  Summer time I was still insanely tired from being pregnant. I had some really good days, but most of the time I felt super accomplished if I got out of bed, fed my children, made sure they were entertained, and got them back into bed. Essential oils? Oh, I used them a lot, but no energy to study or share them.

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September/October – Life got crazier, but brighter… On September 1st, we had our first ultrasound and found out we would be welcoming another princess to the family. My heart instantly grew when I saw her and for the first time I could say I was truly excited to be adding to our family. Finances were still tight and yet Jorge decided to make a career change and pursue his life-long hearts desire – aviation.  Not exactly the “right” thing to do when you are needing an income, but the smile on Jorge’s face after his first flight… absolutely hands-down priceless. I will give 110% to make sure that the joy his heart feels and the smile on his face stays.  God’s got a plan with this… and I KNOW that it is good.

Jorge's new Piper Warrior!
Jorge’s new Piper Warrior!

November… here we are. We are overwhelmed by so many emotions and the whirlwind of life… yet, so excited and at peace about what the future has in store for us.  I have so much to share on this blog about things I have learned about pregnancy, motherhood, life in general, oils, parenting and marriage… all in the last 6 months.

I know SO many others are in a similar season as we are. So, my prayer for each and every one of you is that YOU would seek out your passion. It might seem silly to seek it out, but if God has planted that desire in your heart, wouldn’t it be silly NOT to pursue it?  I pray that God would reveal the deepest desires of your heart to you because so often we lose sight of them along the way.

Thanks for reading!

Sarah

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Babies in Heaven… and the Love of a Father. Part 5.

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Supernatural Experience #4:

If you haven’t read my previous blogs please do so… this is a continuation of our miscarriage story…

In my blog “Part 3” I shared about our miscarriage. I shared the following experience on my Facebook page last October 15th, 2014 on “Remember your Babies Day”. The amount of support and encouragement I received that day is a big part of the reason why Wine & Myrrh exists. My story had touched others and I felt the Lord prompting me to continue to share more of my story and revealing more of Him along the way.

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There’s more to the miscarriage story: Before I got pregnant I had been praying quite a bit about getting pregnant again and I felt the Lord asking me to be more specific and share with Him my heart’s desire… So, I told him that my hearts desire was for a beautiful little girl with brown hair and blue eyes. I imagined a small little girl with long wavy hair and blue eyes like my mom. (The brown hair wouldn’t be a stretch, but the blue eyes were a long shot with such a strong gene for dark brown eyes). We NEVER shared the pregnancy or miscarriage with our boys….

Fast-forward a few months… Gabriel told us he had gone to Heaven again. He told us a few details and then he nonchalantly says this… “Oh, and I met my sister while I was there.”  I still remember my heart skipping a few beats. “What Gabriel?!?! What do you mean??” I asked. “Yes, I met my sister, she went straight from mommy’s tummy to heaven”. I had to take a few deep breaths and brace myself a little. How in the world did he know that? I asked him what she looked like… he responded. “Oh, she was really pretty with brown curly hair and BLUE eyes”.  I only remember sitting there shocked and in awe. “How did you know she was your sister?” I asked. His response didn’t give me the detailed answer I was looking for. He somewhat shrugged and just said, “I just knew it was her.” God is so good. Our baby girl is up there with my grandparents and others waiting for the rest of us to join her.  I have such a deep longing to see her beautiful face… I have another Liliana Sophia here on earth and she will be 3 years old this year.  When I imagine her with blue eyes… I believe I am able to have a glimpse of our Liliana Sophia who is waiting for us up in heaven.

So many of us have loved ones that we hope have gone to heaven before us. Although it ought to be a time of celebration that they are experiencing the King of Kings, it doesn’t take away the pain of not having them physically in our lives anymore.  If I can reassure you of one this it is this. God is Good. SO SO good. If you have had a miscarriage or lost a child, without a shadow of a doubt I can tell you where they are. Why? Because God is good. Heaven exists and where else would an all-loving Father place His children except near to Him.

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Super Natural Experience #5 – The Faith of a Child

Around the same time we were hanging out as a family and Gabriel says, “oh, I forgot to tell you something about heaven.”  From everything else he had told us, of course we were “all ears”.  He said that he had seen the throne room and had seen God’s and Jesus’s throne up close. He started out by telling us that both thrones where covered with the word LOVE in all different languages and that one of the thrones was made out of gold and the other out of silver.  I asked him, “what else did you notice about the thrones?” He said, the Gold one has a star at the top and the silver one has a big heart.” Without a doubt, there was at least one question remaining… “That’s awesome Gabriel, who was sitting in each throne?” Gabriel said, “Jesus is in the gold chair and God is in the silver chair.”   I had him. I knew I had caught him fibbing… I just knew it.  Mind you, Gabriel was only 5, what did he know about the value of gold or silver? . “Gabriel, are you sure God was in the silver chair and Jesus in the gold chair?” “YUP!” “Hmmm, are you sure?” “YUP!” “I would have thought God would be in the Gold chair and Jesus in the silver.” “Oh mom…. God loved Jesus so much that he gave him the Gold chair.” I rest my case. No rebuttal. Gabriel clearly knew better than I did. Now THAT is the faith of a child. Simple. Out of the box. The  unconditional LOVE of our heavenly Father towards His own Son.

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When I saw this picture it made it gives me a vision of what it might have looked like when Gabriel saw the Father and Son.

I pray that my experiences encourage you to seek God and then seek Him some more. Cry out for Him to show you all of Him… to get to know Him more. He is good and has SOOO much more in store for YOU. For all of us. Everyone has a different story, but God gets to use our whole story for His glory. All of it. It is NEVER too late.

Do you have a ‘lil one in Heaven? I would love to hear your story.

Healing my heart – From feeling like a failure to finding passion & achievement. Part 2 of my story…

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This blog is throwing me for a LOOP! I had a completely different picture in my mind of how my blog would flow for the next few months, but I have definitely learned over the past couple of years that when the Lord lays something on your heart and you actually let HIM lead… He likes to mix things up a little. He’s funny (and frustrating) that way. I thought I was going to write my auto-biography chronologically, but I don’t think it’s headed in that direction. . I thought my non-blogger self would only “blog” once a week or so. Yup… this will be 4 posts in 12 days. Apparently I have a lot on my heart.

In my last post I opened up about my biggest struggle… feeling incompetent, like I’m never good enough, someone else is always better at xyz, never reaching a goal, essentially a failure. Don’t get me wrong, those thoughts don’t consume me at all times. I have been on a journey of healing my heart the past few years, but every now and then, those thoughts sneak right back in. During ministry school I read a book called Super Natural Ways of Royalty by Kris Vallotton and Bill Johnson and it really spoke to this area of my heart.  It really helped me to see my identity in Christ. That I am a Princess of the Most High King. Not in a snooty kind of way, but that I can stand up straight, firmly, in who I am. He is my Heavenly Father, and as His daughter, He has put passions in my heart and given me qualities that NO ONE ELSE HAS. Not better, not worse, just different.

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During this time at ministry school I learned and saw a lot of INCREDIBLE things. Like I said in a previous post, ministry school changed my life. But the absolute most priceless thing I learned, after being a Christian for nearly 20 years, was to recognize the voice of the God.  Up until the age of THIRTY-ONE, I had NO CLUE that God spoke to me. I had NO IDEA how to hear His voice and plus… why on earth would HE the Creator want to speak to me? But… it was all in His timing and I am so thankful for that.

The photos below are of a journal entry I made on 2/17/2013. While in ministry school I journaled A LOT, otherwise I normally only journal about every 6 months or so. I probably ought to more, but I guess that’s what my blog is for now. 🙂

Journal1    journal2The majority of the writing is what the Lord was telling me, what is in parenthesis is my response to His questions. Essentially He was asking me what I wanted to do and what I had in my heart. My response:

“I want to help with our financial burden to allow for more ministry, use my talents, help others financially and physically. To make an impact. To make a difference.”

… This journal entry will be looped back in in a few seconds…

Fast forward 3.5 months and my 2nd son Lucas started getting a croupy cough (he battled chronic croup for years… was on massive amount of steroids, 2 ER visits, etc…), but this time I had had enough… way too many steroids. I researched anything and everything I could which led me to Young Living Essential Oils. I prayed and asked God if i was going nuts to actually try essential oils. His response to me… “You (meaning you all) have forgotten about MY PERFECT PROVISION”. Sold. Done. Nothing more to ask. The Bible says that God has given us EVERYTHING we need. EVEN MEDICINE. There’s a lot more to this journey, but I want to get to the heart of this particular post. For more than 6 months we began seeing the power of essential oils in our home.  We saw God’s own medicine do what it was supposed to do…. for croup, warts, pollen allergies, feminine infection, respiratory infections, cuts, bruises, headaches, stomach problems, etc…

After seeing this… I became passionate. Passionate about spreading the goodness of the Lord through something so old, yet forgotten. How did I miss the fact that essential oils or the plants that produce them are mentioned in the Bible over 600 times? I had NO CLUE that Frankincense, myrrh and spikenard still existed. (How cool is that?). As I began to share with others I saw the health of friends and family changing for the better around me. As they began to share, they started becoming passionate too. About a year after using essential oils in my family I felt the Lord urge me to do this as a formal business. REALLY?!?! Me? There’s no WAY IN THE WORLD I would be successful at something like this… achievement and I are not usually in the same sentence.

The beginning was very very slow and HARD… very hard. But God is so good and patient with me. From the beginning my focus has been to keep my heart in the right place. Little by little my business has grown. I had to set my first goal – Silver level within 6 months. Deep inside it was scary to have a goal. I don’t make goals, because then I don’t have to reach them. I stayed focused… prayed A LOT… and rather than 6 months… I made my goal in 4 months (Oct 2013). Are you KIDDING me?  I’m still in disbelief…because the prize for reaching my goal was a kit of 120 oils and it just came in the mail a few days ago.

Silverin6Just after achieving my goal I opened up my journal to begin writing and accidentally turned it to my journal entry from Feb 2013. I had completely forgotten about it and honestly don’t remember writing about it. What impacted me so deeply is that… 1. I am financially contributing to my family 2. I am using talents God has given me. 3. I am helping others with their health AND finances and 4. I am starting to see that I can make an impact/difference.

God has taken my struggles and turned them into something incredible. I still struggle and wonder if I will make it to my next goal… but there’s a little voice inside that says… “go for it. you got it. take a risk. push on”.

What is YOUR passion? What has the Lord laid on your heart? Have you achieved something you never thought possible? Or do you need to revisit your passions and take a small step forward towards those dreams?  I believe the Lord places passions and desires on our hearts and is SO happy when we realize they are from Him and take a chance towards those dreams. I would love to hear your stories or know how to pray for you.

Love, Sarah

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As RAW as it gets. My story(ies)… Part 1 of many.

~ wine&myrrh ~ 7 Comments

Meet Sarah. Me. This is my story… an auto-biography of sorts. I will take you on a journey through my life… my ups and down, misconceptions, “legalistic religious” beliefs, dreams, passions, crazy experiences, hurts, joys, my challenges and challenges to you… everything. How they have all evolved into who I am today.

I know I am about to be vulnerable. That’s a weird place to intentionally choose to walk into. But, I feel it is important. I have a story to share, and if I can impact one person’s life in a positive way… it was all worth it.  All I ask from you is to be open, sensitive to my heart, and before judging me, please ask questions and open up a conversation.  And please, if something impacts you in a positive way… I would love to know about that too.

I was born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska as a city girl. My mom grew up as the farm girl, not me. (I’ve never shared this before, but I secretly wish I had been a farm girl because now that I would love to garden and have animals, but am utterly CLUELESS). I grew up with my mom (Jennifer) and dad (Art) ( they are still married) and my older brother A.C. (His real name is Arthur Carl Jetter III, which I think is pretty cool. My second son’s middle name is even Arthur.)

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(Photo 1: Family farm in Louisville, NE & Photo 2: Jorge and I, 3 kiddos, My parents, and My brother and his wife Sara. )

I don’t have the a lot of memories from my childhood… I wish I did. But what I do remember was good. Holidays, Vacations, Family times, etc… Thankfully my mom has been amazing at keeping photo albums, so we can look back at so any good times. One of the things I remember was my mom taking us to church on Sundays to King of Kings Lutheran Church. I honestly don’t remember if it was every week or sporadically, but eventually we only went on holidays. Then at some point in junior high, my mom told me that I had to do Confirmation Classes at church. I was NOT HAPPY to say the least, but it was a non-negotiable as far as I remember.  So… my 8th grade year I started going to church again. Little did I know that this was just the beginning of an amazing journey.  Low and behold I met some new friends and loved the new “social” scene. Once confirmation classes were over and I was “confirmed”, I continued to go to church so that I could hang out with my friends.  That’s not a “holy & righteous” thing to admit. But it’s true. What I know now is that God is good, can turn anything for His glory, He is interested in the journey, and cares about my heart TODAY. It’s not about how pretty the journey began.

During my sophomore year of high school my life/heart began to shift… the Lord was calling me into a deeper place with Him. All of a sudden it wasn’t about seeing my friends anymore… there was something else I longed for when I went to church.  While in high school I was very involved in school activities: tennis, gymnastics, and band. Yes, I was a band nerd… a cool one though, right? Anyway. I began to play piano when I was 5 and saxophone when I was 11, and played both until I graduated.

RAW Heart #1… I LOVED playing music… both saxophone and piano. It gave me joy and touched my soul, BUT I always felt like I wasn’t as good as the others around me.  I have so many shoulda, woulda, coulda thoughts whenever I think about music when I was younger. Maybe had I just expressed to someone, probably my mom, how important it TRULY was to me, I could have had private lessons to improve my skills. But… I didn’t. When I went to college (TCU), I toured the music building to see how I could fit music in, but felt so incredibly incompetent that I walked out and stopped playing music all together.   The saxophone stayed in the closet and I didn’t make the effort to find a piano.  I have played the piano probably twice a year since then. My husband even bought me one in Guatemala, but it was hard to find the time with 2 little boys running around. Then, I started worship classes through ministry school a couple years ago, but that was entirely overwhelming and again, I felt like a failure.  This is definitely one of my biggest “regrets”, yet it’s not too late.
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Challenge for myself: Find time for music. Get a piano or learn guitar… this year !
Challenge for you: What do you love? What is your passion? How can you fit it in this year? If you are willing to share, I would love to hear your story.
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