Today
Today you can find us on a little piece of land with 2 barns and a windmill. We recently moved into our new home we built and now we are renovating the barn! During the day you can find me taking care of my kiddos, attending bible studies with friends, talking theology with my husband, working on designs for Yee Yee apparel, or listening to a great book on audible. Today we are in a joyful place of hope, healing, growing, grace, trust and love.
The beginning
I grew up in Fort Worth, Texas with my mom and step dad. My parents divorced when I was 4 years old, but for the most part, I had a good, normal childhood. I played outside a lot, rode bikes with my friends and was a cheerleader for a lot of my grade school years. We went to church, but I didn’t have a true relationship with Jesus until much later in life.
I was living a very worldly life in my teens and twenties, seeking things that wouldn’t fulfill me. I sought love in the wrong places and tried to fill my mind, body and soul with things that just left me feeling empty and lost. I went through my share of really rough relationships, making poor decisions and really didn’t know what I believed anymore.
I graduated from UTA in Arlington with a broadcasting degree and thought I would one day be an entertainment reporter for E! I ended up falling in love with acting and signed with an agency in 2008. I worked on commercials, tv shows and a couple movies but still never truly felt fulfilled. I still felt like I was searching for my purpose.
Finding love
I met Granger in 2009. He messaged me on Facebook and asked if I wanted to audition for his first music video. I was already acting so I thought, “why not?” We met at Starbucks in Waco, Texas on a rainy day and headed to Killeen to shoot the video. We spent the day together, pretending to be in love and when I left that night, I knew I had to see him again. We met for coffee a month later and we were together ever since. He asked me to marry him in September of 2009 and we were married in February 2010. The day we said I do, we promised before God that we would always choose each other. For better or worse. It was the first time I really made a promise to God. It was then that my faith began to grow one day at a time.
Our Family
We had London in 2011, Lincoln in 2014 and River in 2016. It was hard having 3 kiddos under 5 with a traveling husband, but I wouldn’t change a thing. Our children are magical. They are funny and kind, smart and ornery, talented and strong and I’m so blessed to be their mama. Being a mother is all I’ve ever wanted to be. I love them with all my heart and soul and I love the beautiful, crazy, challenging, fun, life we live.
Our First Heartbreak
Our first battle with loss was when we lost Granger’s dad in 2014. A heart attack took him home unexpectedly. Chris was such a godly, genuine, kind, funny, loving, wise man. He always gave me the biggest hugs with his whole body. He had the best laugh. He first spoke scripture to me, with tears in his eyes, one day in 2011 and it’s something I’ll never forget.
2 Corinthians 12:9 - But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.”
I didn’t know then how much I would need that verse, but God did. After Chris’s passing was the first time I saw how close children are to heaven. London was 2 and would talk to Chris all the time, she said he was “spilling hearts from the sky”, and would laugh and say “papa” like they had this little joke no one else knew. I know her innocent heart felt her papa. We still miss him every day.
Growing Faith
The years that followed, Granger and I grew closer to Christ. We started reading devotionals and I began to take the kids to church. I was attending Christian women’s conferences and bible studies. I was beginning to feel God so closely in my life and I loved it. We were by worldly standards, "happy". We moved into our “dream home” on a little piece of land. Granger’s career was booming. Kids were doing wonderful. Life was good. And then it wasn’t.
Broken
Heartbreak hit our family again in June of 2019 when our youngest son, River, drowned in our backyard. It still hurts so much to even type that. Our precious, wild, happy, barefoot, red headed boy was taken home at just 3 years old. I have never felt a pain so deep in my life. Not just emotional or mental pain, but physical pain. My body, my heart, my stomach, my entire being, ached. The trauma we faced that night and the days, weeks, months after is inexplainable. There is so much to this story that I will post in a blog post, but I will say here, that even through all of this unbearable pain, the Lord made himself known to me in a way that changed my life. I have felt His peace where there should be no peace. I know He is sovereign and I know He purposes all things for my good and His glory. His power is made perfect in my weakness.
Healing
Our family has been broken open in the worst way, but by the grace of God, we are healing. He is redeeming our story and restoring our hearts. We were blessed with Maverick in 2021 and he has been such a joy in our lives. Our marriage is strong, our kids are doing better than I could ever hope for, for having gone through such trauma, and we are learning how to move forward, not move on, but forward carrying the pain with us. Our true joy, we now know, comes from Jesus, not the things or people of this world. In Him we find true peace, true rest, true life.
From me to you
I am so grateful that you are here with me on this journey of loss, faith, love,
hope and healing. My prayer is that by joining me on Arise with Amber, I can ignite a desire for you to want to grow closer with Christ. I want to grow with you! We will never understand this fallen world or why things happen the way they do, but I can promise you that God will work it all out for good for those that love Him and are called according to His purpose. I hope that I can show you that you can do hard things, that you can find meaning and purpose through your pain and that you are never alone. God has a plan for your life, though it may not look like you thought it would. You can trust Him.
You are a beloved child of God and you are chosen.
Let’s Arise together!
