The Wall, The Wordle, and The Word

Last weekend, Justin and I finally picked pictures out to put inside the empty frames in Caden's room! Yay! It has been so nice to sit in his glider, rockin' him to sleep and see his pretty little face staring back at me.

In the middle of the photos is Caden's wordle. What's a wordle you ask? Are you prepared to become extremely addicted? Okay, but don't say I didn't warn you. You thought facebook and blogs were bad... wordle is even worse!

First a little background... Since I became pregnant it was Justin and I's goal to seek and pray through God's word to find the perfect verse for Caden. This would be Caden's verse. The idea was that we would post this verse in Caden's room and the verse would follow him to every new room, every transition he encountered throughout his lifetime. It would be the piece of scripture that would watch over him, a verse or passage that he would be able to claim and that we too, as his parents could claim as we prayed for him each and every day.

So we began our search... and search is a very loose term. We didn't sit down and comb through the Bible until we found a verse that we liked... we just kept that thought in the back of our minds while we did our quiet times, attended church, small group, were driving around town, etc. We trusted that we would eventually "find" his verse. Oddly enough the verse that jumped out at both Justin and I was actually a passage, one of our favorites, about the Armor of God, but we wanted just one verse and this passage was close to 10! Ug! Didn't God know that aesthetically just one verse would look better in a frame to put on his nursery wall? 

So as he typically tends to do, God said who the freak cares... go with it! And as I typically tend to do, I said NO... I'll just find another verse. Well you know who won this battle don't you? Yep... not as cut and dry as it sounds though...

One morning, Justin and I were talking about Caden's verse (we still hadn't found the ONE, and it was November!) and we decided to look up the origin of Caden's name... where did it come from, what did it mean...maybe that would help us. We didn't pick the name because of any particular meaning, we just liked it and it sounded great with Cox! :)

After some research we learned that Caden comes from an Irish word meaning "battle." Hmmmm, battle... interesting. What does every soldier need before going into battle? Armor! Ha! That's odd... 

Okay, okay, I get it! That's it... we'll use that passage to pick Caden's verse. Yep, that's right...still being stubborn I decided that we could just pick one particular verse... that makes sense right?

Then it came time for Thanksgiving and my Aunt Terry made these great gifts for each family using a free computer program called wordle. I was completely intrigued by the idea of creating my own word art so I started to play with the program once we got home. I created all sorts of fun things and then it dawned on me. I could create a great work of art for Caden's room using wordle...

And maybe, just maybe I could create something so great that I could use it as his "verse" frame. But with wordle, the more words the better... so maybe I could include the entire passage of scripture not just one verse... PROBLEM SOLVED! GOD WINS! And so do I!

Check it out!!

Alongside pieces from the passage, I included all of the people who were important to Caden... his Nana, Paps, KK, Albi, Emmie, Josh, Cori, Tag, etc. I also included words that defined the attributes that I wanted to raise Caden to live out like, courageous, bold, compassionate, leader, etc. I finished this up a few weeks before Caden was born. Little did we know that Caden would literally come out of the womb having to be prepared for battle. What a little solider he was during those first few hours of life!

And for Justin and I... the armor was of even greater importance as we trusted and had faith in God's plan for Caden, good or bad we were prepared!

As I read this passage again and again, I see how critical it was to our birth story, to Caden's arrival into the world and to our transition into parenthood. This is more than Caden's verse that hangs on a wall, this is the Cox Family motto... the way we are going to live life, the way we are going to survive any messiness that comes our way and the way we will enjoy every good thing God blesses us with! This is our truth...

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all of the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions and with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

Ephesians 6:10-18

The best thing about this passage is that God promises that we will STAND... after EVERYTHING. We will stand!! Awesome!

Make your own wordle by going to wordle.net. Be sure to read the FAQs...they give you a great overview of how wordle works! 

Also, I would encourage each of you to take time to find your truth. What message is God wanting to share with you? 

Tomorrow's Friday! Happy Thursday!