Karen Goodman, author of Unafraid: Living God's Plan on a Ladder and a Promise, contacted me several months ago to see if I would join her blog tour for the month of April.

At the time, April seemed so far away!  (The fact that we were snowed in at the time probably made life seem a little less demanding too!)

Well, lately my Mondays have turned into Fridays way too quickly, and my quiet time has been forced into minutes here and minutes there....and honestly, April is already slipping through my fingers like sand.  So, when I received a reminder from Karen that "this was my month," I couldn't believe it!

I have wrestled with what to say regarding fear........

That is, until this weekend when I took the photo below and realized instantly that my words on the topic of fear and "living God's plan on a ladder and a promise" were being written for me by God Himself.  Why do I ever think that I am going to have to come up with the right thing to say when God is the Creator of all messages??????

See, my mom and dad came to visit this weekend, and Saturday morning mom and I went on a walk.  When we returned to the house, we were sitting in the back yard talking when Mom noticed how "crooked" and worn out our swing set had become.  We've had this wooden structure for almost 20 years, so I guess the swings, slide, and eagle's nest have put in their time by now.

After discussing the idea of "letting go" of this part of our kid's memories and then using some of the lumber  to build a raised garden for the summer, Mom and I took the idea inside to Tim and Dad.

Within an hour, the guys were outside tearing down a once VITAL part of our kids' time outside. (Tim has been trying to talk me into this for a while now.) By the end of the day, a neighbor (thank you, Chad), the fire department who was collecting scrap metal for a fundraiser, a friend from church with a trailer (thank you, Brett), and good ole Mr. Ludwig (an area man who hauls off loads of junk as part of his livelihood) had all visited our home and helped in their own special gifted ways to tear down and clear out a lot of unneeded stuff from our backyard.

I took pictures off and on throughout the day, and as I was looking through them later on in the evening the photo above caught my eye...

UNAFRAID, Living God's Plan on a Ladder and a Promise!

See, God waited patiently for me to take this step on "the ladder of letting go."  And He promised to be with me all along the way...

So, I took a step of courage Saturday.
Allowing myself to let go of part of my boys' and Olivia's past so that our family could move forward with a better use of that area of our yard. (I promise that the swing set didn't look this dangerous before they began taking off pieces!)

I'm so thankful that my dad and Tim were willing to help me move on when I was ready.

Taking this step inspired me to expand Adrienne's Memory Garden on Sunday afternoon so that it could become a memory garden dedicated to both her and Nick.  It was a perfect way for me to spend my Easter afternoon.. The melody to "I come to the garden alone" was in my head off and on all day long.....

The frames hanging on the fence were made by my grandpa out of wood from one of his barns...my mom painted the floral designs inside the frames, and the angels in the garden are from several different friends.......I love this little memory garden because every part of it is special in some way.

The random paintings on the fence have been done through the years by Olivia and her friends.

  One of my friends showed up with this little garden plaque on Saturday afternoon!

My sister gave me this garden angel right after I created the space in Adrienne's memory, so it is still very special to me...rust and all!!!

I share all of this simply to say,

The first step in overcoming fear is exactly that:

THE FIRST STEP

If I hadn't had the courage to let go of an old, leaning, unstable piece of my family's past, I wouldn't have been able to step forward into the future by working on our memory garden.....

Now my back yard has room for a summer garden of vegetables

(I'll keep you posted with pictures as I work on this new project.)

as well as a place to soak in the memories of my two sweet angels in Heaven.

I've missed blogging as frequently over the past week......life has been so, so busy here that I have barely been near my computer.

But I'm back, and I'm thankful for all of you who still check in on me.

If you would like to know more about Karen's book about overcoming fear, here are a few links:

**Here's the blog address: http://ahundredfearlesswords.blogspot.com/

**The Bible study for the month is Peter, it's here: http://karongoodman.com/clientimages/45123/Peter.pdf

**The schedule and link to all partner bloggers is here:

http://ahundredfearlesswords.blogspot.com/2010/01/our-schedule.html

Have a wonderful week!

Thankful Thursday will be here before we know it!

Climbing the ladder..one rung at a time,