Our Family:
David and I were engaged 10 days after we met. I was only 19. There was a pink bikini involved…don’t judge. It worked.
I grew up as an only child, I had never babysat or changed a diaper, and now we have 16 kids at the breakfast table.
We have added to our family four times through the miracle of adoption.
We have three dogs. I love one of them, like the other, and the third is available…seriously.
We do sports. Triathlons, Cross Country, half-marathons, and marathons.
Our boys do football, and like any good Southerner, it’s part of our religion.
I am passionately patriotic, and can’t sing the Star Spangled Banner without bawling.
I’m just crazy enough to believe God will use your children and mine to be the change this world so desperately needs. Won’t you believe with me?
Our Story:
Our four oldest girls: Kemper (15), Ryli (19), Bliss (18), and Daly Kay (21)
Having a newborn at age 21 drove me to a Savior I had accepted at age five but He and I hadn’t exactly been tight since I was 10. All I knew was I wanted to do this parenting job right. I prayed this simple but powerful prayer when Daly Kay was just six days old…
“Please God, Don’t Let Me Screw This Up!”
I think He smiled.
He finally had my heart and my attention.
Because that’s how He works. He grabs our hearts with what matters most to us and then uses that desire to bring Him glory. He got a hold of me through my children and then drew me near to Him because I was completely devoid of the ability to do this job “well enough” on my own.
Our five boys: Ransom (6), Shepherd (9), Judson (8), Courson (10), and Stone (2)
From that point forward, I began to devour the Word and develop the idea that God could use my kids to change the world. Teaching parenting classes and ministering to families became something David and I enjoyed doing together. Over the last few years, it has become our mission to encourage and equip parents in their calling of raising up the next generation. We believe that God is going to do His greatest work yet… through the moms and dads of this generation who will raise up some planet-shaking prodigies.
We just might be a special kind of crazy…but what if we are right?
Praying over my children after our morning Bible study.
What if we are right that God wants to use those gremlins around your dining room table to squelch diseases, preach the Gospel in as-of-yet un-deciphered languages, or become the future President of the United States? What if your child could be “trained up in the way he should go” because you were just nuts enough to ask God for this kid’s purpose and then prepare them for it ahead of time? What if you could change the lineage in your family tree to include servant leaders who reach the height of all God created them to be and do? Because…maybe we are looney, but it’s more likely that He is a loving Heavenly Father who delights in giving us the desires of our heart.
Because I don’t just want you to survive parenting. I want you to thrive in it. Revel in it. Get up and take the world by storm with it. I want you to see your job as a parent as a mission from God to change the world one child at a time.
And with His help– that’s exactly what we’ll do.
Why Do You Blog?
The Internet is filled with mommy blogs. Mommies telling their stories, mommies complaining and commiserating, mommies doling out compassion and understanding, and even more moms just posing questions and begging for help.
There is a real need for moms to communicate. We are such social beings and at times parenting can be isolating. We need each other…that’s what has driven up this incredible panacea of available content.
But not all of these blogs are helpful and many of them lack real answers. You may find empathy but help is not out there in abundance. And that’s what makes TheRebacks.com so different.
I can empathize…but I’m here to offer hope too.
I can hear your challenges…and I can give you solutions.
I understand your complaints but I will not allow you to commiserate here. Soldier, we have a world to change and there ain’t no time for groaning!
You need compassion from someone who has walked in your adorable little flats but someone who will also strengthen you when your want for compassion becomes crippling to your mission and what you really need is a solid kick in the right direction.
By God’s amazing grace, I hope and pray that this is what you find in this ministry. Real help. Real hope. The kind of faith that gives you boldness and courage in the face of every parenting challenge you get thrown. I hope you find wisdom from His Word here and how applicable the Bible is to the demands of parenting.
The Name Game: Meet the Reback Children
The Name Game: Daly Kay - Frequently, people write me about my children’s names, asking the meaning behind them. I have even been honored several times by a family choosing to use one of our names– what a joy! But since the question comes up so frequently, I’ll be sharing the meanings of each child’s name. Enjoy! Daly Kay. I have […]
The Name Game: Ryli RaVaye - Ryli RaVaye. Ryli had so many challenges in the womb. Amidst a list of names that mixed David’s names and mine together, we had Eve, Lydia, and Eva. None of those really hit the spot. When I discovered that the name Ryli meant “Victorious,” I was compelled to use it because it left me with […]
The Name Game: Bliss Berit - Bliss Berit. I became pregnant with Bliss when Ryli was only three months old. Whew! And when we discovered she would be our third daughter in a row, I was emphatic that her name must mean we were HAPPY to be having another girl. I told David the name “Bliss” early on, but he thought it […]
The Name Game: Kemper Clara - Kemper Clara was our fourth child in a line of all girls. The year she was conceived, David was competing in the Ironman World Championships. We were also quite a fan of a triathlete named Hunter Kemper. He was a phenomenal athlete with a strong faith and a reputation of kindness and steadfastness. I was […]
The Name Game: Glory Grace - Glory Grace. Glory was the first child we decided to NOT find out ahead of time the gender of the baby. We figured since we kept telling people we didn’t mind whether we had a girl or a boy, let’s just prove it and wait to find out! I honestly can’t remember what our boy […]
The Name Game: Trinity Tate - Trinity Tate. Trinity is one of the only names David has chosen. We were away for a rare weekend together and David declared that if this baby was a girl she would be named Trinity Tate. Born the day after a hurricane, little Trin was a happy little muffin from the start. Early on she […]
The Name Game: Jon Courson - Trinity was just eight months old when we were given our first son. He was born months early weighing under two pounds and when we met him he was two weeks old. Courson’s adoption story is miraculous and you can read more about it in my book. Since we had no idea such a gift […]
The Name Game: Liberty Cross - Trinity was a little over a year, Courson was about six months old and healthily growing after his premature birth, when we discovered we would be adding to our family through adoption again with another baby girl. We decided her name months in advance of her arrival and while on vacation in Israel also discovered we […]
The Name Game: Judson Worth - We discovered we were expecting with Judson while on vacation in Israel. David said when I told him I was pregnant he knew two things immediately in the depths of his soul. It was going to be a boy. And something was wrong. He kept his trepidations to himself and over the duration of the […]
The Name Game: Shepherd David - As if life wasn’t crazy enough with nine children 11 and under, the months following Judson’s birth I had this feeling down deep in my gut that we would be adopting again soon. Judson was born the end of February and as my tender heart worked through dozens of doctors appointments for his little hand, […]
Name Game: Ransom Witness - I’d been over and over section of the Bible for several months before and during my pregnancy with Ransom, and the word just stuck out to me. I loved the name and the meaning: that Christ paid our ransom and freed us from sin. I loved the word Witness because I wanted this new little […]
Name Game: Sojourner Hope - When Ransom was in my belly, we learned of a baby girl needing a home. She was due eight weeks after Ransom and since our lives were already full-time crazy we decided what’s one more? Bringing this little girl into our home was nothing short of miraculous. The journey it took us through was faith […]
The Name Game: Victory Rose - David and I had decided to not find out the sex of our baby. I was pretty darn sure it was a boy. So sure that I sewed everything and even monogrammed it for a boy. I laughed when people guessed girl and proudly proclaimed I “had never been wrong.” God was laughing. Because when […]
The Name Game: Stone Prosper - It was Christmas. Crickie was over a year old and David and I wondered if maybe our little family was finished. I sat by the lit tree looking over our dozens of family ornaments early one morning and asked God to give us a son. I thought about the gift God gave us in His […]
The Name Game: Verity Banner - “You have given a banner to those who fear you, that it may be displayed because of the truth.” – Psalm 60:4 I discovered I was pregnant for the 11th time with our 15th child only a few months after Stone was born. In the crazy mix of my father’s death and moving to a new […]
The Name Game: Vaughn McCrae - Baby Vaughn: The Vaughn and Only I discovered I was expecting on Good Friday…and before the day was done I was bleeding. A lot. I called my obstetrician and he said just to come in on Monday. It was most likely another miscarriage. That made Easter difficult to celebrate. Actually, the entire weekend all I could […]
Missing the Siblings…#Stetson2020 - This picture perfectly describes the mood of these kiddos as we took Ryli and Bliss up to university. Soji, Crickie, Ransom– fine. Little Stoney– not so much. He’s been so easily ruffled these past few days. Bliss is his obvious favorite and he’s taken her absence pretty hard. I keep telling him we’ll be visiting […]