I love my pastor.
I love going to church and coming away both encouraged and convicted. Both.
I have so many thoughts lately--thinking about my baby, my husband, my home, my job, my parents, my brother.... I alternate between thoughts: I worry, I recognize how blessed I am, I plan, I fret/worry some more, I cry because I'm both hormonal and happy...but all the while, there is always this thing inside me that craves...more. I think I'm craving peace.
But it's the kind of peace that my dad first taught on and then Beyers taught again today: the word "peace" means, in the Greek, to "set at one again" (this is my own translation-- I'm just sketching here). Beyers put it like this: drop a glass and it shatters into a million pieces. The process of putting it back together again is what it means to be set at peace: to be re-made whole. Dad, as a counselor, added his own twist to it: to have one's mind set at peace is to have it restored to sanity. I love both of these definitions.
I worry constantly-- some days I'm cool, but some days...wow. Stupid worrying. The kind of worrying that...well, yesterday Don and I went to the car wash (a really good one in Snellville-- I'm going to tell all of my students that they need to get jobs working at one of those this summer. Hard work, but honest and pretty good high school pay) and we were watching my car come through the wash itself (you could watch from picture windows-- my son will love watching this one day!). I knew that there is this one piece on top of my car that keeps wanting to come off-- it's a strip of something... I cannot describe it, but it's purely cosmetic and you wouldn't be able to tell if it came off completely. Anyway, I was watching and I said to Don, "Honey, what if that thing comes up?" and he looked at me and smiled and said, "You worry all the time, don't you?" It wasn't offensive and he didn't mean it to hurt me-- it was an observation. I had worried all day about little things. Worried that I wasn't entertaining him enough as we ran errands together-- our first day together, just the two of us, in ages. Worried worried worried.
It's not the first time we've talked about it. And I don't know where I picked it up-- I guess I've always been a worrier, and I'm praying for my children that this worry thing will not be passed along to them.
But Paul said that if we set our minds on Christ, that if we spend time before Him in prayer, that He will set our minds at peace. I can just imagine putting these things I worry about straight into His capable hands and Him putting those hands on my head: peace, be still. Where my mind has been fractured with worry-- doubleminded-- He will make it whole with trust.
Let it be, Lord. And thank You for the word.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Saturday, December 13, 2008
And then all is fine!
Fear is so fickle. It never tells you when it's going to show up, and then it leaves and doesn't call again until you have no time for it.
Today, no fear. Most days, no fear.
Until day before yesterday, when I started thinking about labor. :) But I have to admit, that was rational, "oh my gosh, you'd better get thee to a labor class thingy, and quick" kind of fear.
And today, I bought maternity tops. WEIRD!! But cool, too.
This whole thing is blowing my mind all the time. And can I just tell you, people treat you like stinking royalty when you're pregnant? My have-been pregnant friends know this already. I suppose that I have also made much of pregnant women in the past, but it's really precious. I'm not showing really, yet, to anyone but myself (stuff fits funny, etc.), but my friend Paige and I went shopping today and she's hilarious-- she tells everyone. Suddenly, people get really, really happy. The waitress at Longhorn's brought us EXTRA bread :) straight out of the oven and made sure to remind me that it was multigrain and good for me and the baby. A cashier at another store decided to give me a short dissertation on breastfeeding and the proper time to introduce cereal. At school, I've heard kids say, "Dude, be nice. She's pregnant!"
That's my favorite.
The only complaint I have today is this: I would LOVE Bailey's Irish Creme. It's not something I ever want, really. But today, it would be yummy. I'll settle for cocoa.
Today, no fear. Most days, no fear.
Until day before yesterday, when I started thinking about labor. :) But I have to admit, that was rational, "oh my gosh, you'd better get thee to a labor class thingy, and quick" kind of fear.
And today, I bought maternity tops. WEIRD!! But cool, too.
This whole thing is blowing my mind all the time. And can I just tell you, people treat you like stinking royalty when you're pregnant? My have-been pregnant friends know this already. I suppose that I have also made much of pregnant women in the past, but it's really precious. I'm not showing really, yet, to anyone but myself (stuff fits funny, etc.), but my friend Paige and I went shopping today and she's hilarious-- she tells everyone. Suddenly, people get really, really happy. The waitress at Longhorn's brought us EXTRA bread :) straight out of the oven and made sure to remind me that it was multigrain and good for me and the baby. A cashier at another store decided to give me a short dissertation on breastfeeding and the proper time to introduce cereal. At school, I've heard kids say, "Dude, be nice. She's pregnant!"
That's my favorite.
The only complaint I have today is this: I would LOVE Bailey's Irish Creme. It's not something I ever want, really. But today, it would be yummy. I'll settle for cocoa.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Fear is like...
It's so weird how fear seems to just strike...like a snake: coiled, waiting around the corner for you to trip or pause or sit....
Things are coming along swimmingly and then I go and break my own rule: online medical info. Why? Why do I do these things to my brain? I can do nothing about the fact that I am 37 years old and pregnant! I'm a bit stuck on getting pregnant while not-exactly-skinny, too. Why do I have to go read the complications?
I am insane! Because this thing that has happened is a miracle! And I am doing everything that I am supposed to do to make sure this baby (boy) is born healthy and whole. And the rest, as my dear friend Amy says, is up to God. "He is knitting this baby!"
But the fear... the only thing I can compare it to sometimes is the feeling I used to get about 45 minutes into a flight (I haven't flown in so long...): oh my gosh. OH MY GOSH. How is this thing in the air? What happens if a bird flies into the engine? What if another plane's radar goes down? What if I poke this pen realllly hard through the wall of the plane? What if someone else does? I want off!! I WANT OFF!!
And there's nothing you can do once panic hits on a plane. Just breathe deep and pray and recognize that your butt is on the plane for the length of the flight no matter how you happen to feel about it. And repeat that one verse again and again:
God has not given us a spirit of fear but a spirit of power and love and a sound mind. 2Tim 1:7
The same with now: I am thrilled to be pregnant. I am beyond happy to be expecting a baby boy. I am amazed and astonished and blessed and overwhelmed. But I'm ON this ride, scary possibilities and all. I can't get off. I'm in. 100%. And if I let panic seep in, like the cold flush that rushes through my face and hands whenever it happens, I'm sunk.
So I put my trust in Him. And if you think of it, I'd welcome prayer :)
Things are coming along swimmingly and then I go and break my own rule: online medical info. Why? Why do I do these things to my brain? I can do nothing about the fact that I am 37 years old and pregnant! I'm a bit stuck on getting pregnant while not-exactly-skinny, too. Why do I have to go read the complications?
I am insane! Because this thing that has happened is a miracle! And I am doing everything that I am supposed to do to make sure this baby (boy) is born healthy and whole. And the rest, as my dear friend Amy says, is up to God. "He is knitting this baby!"
But the fear... the only thing I can compare it to sometimes is the feeling I used to get about 45 minutes into a flight (I haven't flown in so long...): oh my gosh. OH MY GOSH. How is this thing in the air? What happens if a bird flies into the engine? What if another plane's radar goes down? What if I poke this pen realllly hard through the wall of the plane? What if someone else does? I want off!! I WANT OFF!!
And there's nothing you can do once panic hits on a plane. Just breathe deep and pray and recognize that your butt is on the plane for the length of the flight no matter how you happen to feel about it. And repeat that one verse again and again:
God has not given us a spirit of fear but a spirit of power and love and a sound mind. 2Tim 1:7
The same with now: I am thrilled to be pregnant. I am beyond happy to be expecting a baby boy. I am amazed and astonished and blessed and overwhelmed. But I'm ON this ride, scary possibilities and all. I can't get off. I'm in. 100%. And if I let panic seep in, like the cold flush that rushes through my face and hands whenever it happens, I'm sunk.
So I put my trust in Him. And if you think of it, I'd welcome prayer :)
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Baby books...
One of my sisters-in-law (both of my sisters-in-law have been life savers during this pregnancy!) recommended a book to me and I finally got it today-- can't remember what it's called... oh yes-- The Pregnancy Journal: A Day to Day Guide to a Healthy and Happy Pregnancy. It's really good-- I appreciate the guided journaling that it provides. You know, I give my students writing prompts every day-- they write for the first 10 minutes of every class, and my hope is that it is helping them, but it never occurred to me that I might find my personal journaling helped with questions, too.
Because I have so many thoughts when it comes to this pregnancy. This baby. Worries (though not as many as at the beginning) about everything-- funny skin coloring (is it a melanoma? is it just my skin getting older? is it weird pigmentation the books all talk about), minor aches and pains (early labor or the uterus growing?), when will I feel the baby and know for sure that it's him/her? What am I really going to do about raising this child? Do I want to be a burden on my parents (who do not see it as a burden at all, not remotely, not slightly, not close to even hardly), will my child be scarred because I wasn't home with him/her, is it going to have some significant birth defect because I still cannot choke down vegetables? Is the baby being hurt when one of my students decides to show his/her butt and my blood pressure spikes suddenly?
But one of the questions in the journal that I bought asked, "Is there anything you want for your child that you didn't have growing up?" and Don and I both sat there for a couple of minutes, thinking about it... and we could both honestly say that we want our child to have EVERYthing we had growing up-- neither of us feels that we lacked anything. We had (have) godly, wonderful parents and siblings. We grew up in homes with adventurous fathers and nurturing mothers. And lots of laughter. The only thing that we came up with just highlighted that point: more time with the grandparents. We lived in Georgia while my grandparents all lived in Tennessee-- we saw them once or twice a year-- maybe more sometimes. Don really only knew his maternal grandmother. I have vivid, wonderful memories of all four of my grandparents, but I would have loved to have been able to spend more time with them. Don and I fully plan to have our child spend as much time with its grandparents as they can stand :).
But the other thing that this question made me think of was my spiritual inheritance. I grew up in a home with parents who were constantly seeking after the Lord. Mom and Dad became believers when I was a little child, so my earliest years were defined by my parents' radical baby Christian zeal: Keith Green and Second Chapter of Acts concerts, not to mention other Christian artists who were cutting edge at the time. I remember having communion in the living room of a young pastor named David, in a house that sat right beside the spot where the old town Ace Hardware store sits (the house has been torn down... I think a used car lot sits in its place). We had grape juice and pita bread. I remember sitting in Ronnie Starmer's living room while he led the simplest worship song, which he had written: "Jesus I love you, Jesus I love you, Jesus I love you, yes I do," while his little daughter, Holly, danced around in the middle of our circle. I remember Big Eddie, who was crazy as a loon-- a new Christian whose brain was fried from so many drugs and whose life tragically ended by his own hand-- and all of these other folks who were students at Heritage at the time (Randy and Lori-- they were seniors in high school and I thought they were the coolest. Their youngest child just graduated from Heritage last year. I love this small town). Mom and Dad drug us to every church imaginable-- from small house churches to huge mega churches, both filled with the Holy Spirit, to the more mainstream Southern Baptist where we learned the word of God in such a solid way. Always searching. But always cleaving to the Lord. I learned that the kingdom of God was made up of all kinds-- my dad always says that the kingdom is made up of "odd birds" :). I learned that Christians worshipped in so many different ways and while I was more drawn to the charismatic, I could appreciate the less demonstrative. I remember playing mom and dad's records in the den at our old house on Peggy Lane-- I would listen to the words and sing and dance and I remember feeling so strongly the presence of the Lord every time.... My childhood was saturated with God. Listening to my parents and their friends talk about Him, talking about Him with my friends (usually scaring each other while talking about the rapture), and thinking about Him. God is what I remember most about my childhood.
And that's what all of my hopes for this baby are wrapped up in. Don had a similar childhood (remarkably similar), but we both recognize that the times were different. It was the beginning of the Jesus Movement and so many former hippies were getting saved. Evangelism was a huge topic in the new charismatic renewal movement and the rapture was a constant topic, too. It was the 70's and, at least in my mind, the adults seemed less jaded than the adults I know today. Am I just exoticizing my own childhood? Entirely possible.
But even if I am, I still want my child to grow up in a God-soaked existence. I know that I walked away from the Lord for a season, when I was a teenager, but He was always real to me. I don't know how He did it, but there was this hook in my heart-- a huge place that always came back to Him. I remember a morning after a really long party. The kids had drifted off to spots on the floor to sleep off whatever they had done the night before and I was the only one awake-- I still hadn't come down off of whatever substance I was on and I was afraid that I was "stuck" like that. I remember looking at the ceiling fan in the room I was in and praying, "Oh God, I am so sorry. If you'll let me go to sleep-- if you'll keep me from going crazy-- I promise that I will serve you for the rest of my life." Two years later, I was on the mission field. My first thought in my moment of extreme panic was probably not unique-- I've heard of more than one person offering verbal contracts to the Lord in moments of extreme panic-- but God was always where I looked when I was afraid. My parents were praying for me daily.
And Don and I want our child to grow up in an environment where his/her first thought is always "God." We want the Spirit of the Lord to be so evident, so strong, so pure in this place... that our child will grow up with the faith that he and I have: steady and real. Through all of our mistakes and failures and expeditions as far from the path He had called us to as possible, we always held the knowledge of the Lord in our hearts. And when we were old, we did not depart from it (proverbs 22:6).
But I can't reproduce my childhood. I can't reproduce the same living room and den. I can't reproduce the moment when I saw that my father's nickname on his fire department helmet was "Radical" because once he found the Lord he couldn't shut up about it. I can't reproduce the kitchen table where my friends would end up sitting to talk to my dad about the Bible. I can't reproduce house church and watching my parents being totally free in the Lord, teaching me that it was okay to do whatever you wanted in worship. Surely, I have a rich inheritance. Now, how do I give that to my child?
I know, I know-- it will happen. It will just happen that we will be who we are and our little one will grow up in the family God called him/her to be in. If He had wanted him/her to be in a family in the 70s, that would have happened. But this baby was chosen to be born now, for such a time as this. And my prayer for him is that he would grow in the strength and knowledge of the Lord. That he would fear the Lord from his first breath. That even now, he would sense the presence of the Lord. And that he would crave understanding from an early age. My prayer is that he will choose God always. That he will passionately crave Jesus. That he will be odd, unique, curious, and always drawn to the things of the Lord. I think of Hannah, and secretly thought of her so many times before I knew that I could actually get pregnant... in my heart of hearts, I would pray, "Oh God, if I could only have a baby... I would commit him to you from the very beginning. I would bring him to the temple to serve you all the days of his life."
It is the cry of my heart to invest all of this in this little one. My heart is huge with it. I sense the fear of the Lord, coupled with a realization that while this responsibility is enormous, it is not wholly in my hands. There is One who loves this one far more than I can even imagine already. One who is knitting him/her together right now. The only One who knows whether it is a him or her! So my prayer is that He will help Don and me to do our version of what our parents did for us. I can't imagine how He'll do it. But I'm starting early-- this baby has already heard (I know he can't "hear" yet, but you know) lots of Keith Green being sung in my car!
Because I have so many thoughts when it comes to this pregnancy. This baby. Worries (though not as many as at the beginning) about everything-- funny skin coloring (is it a melanoma? is it just my skin getting older? is it weird pigmentation the books all talk about), minor aches and pains (early labor or the uterus growing?), when will I feel the baby and know for sure that it's him/her? What am I really going to do about raising this child? Do I want to be a burden on my parents (who do not see it as a burden at all, not remotely, not slightly, not close to even hardly), will my child be scarred because I wasn't home with him/her, is it going to have some significant birth defect because I still cannot choke down vegetables? Is the baby being hurt when one of my students decides to show his/her butt and my blood pressure spikes suddenly?
But one of the questions in the journal that I bought asked, "Is there anything you want for your child that you didn't have growing up?" and Don and I both sat there for a couple of minutes, thinking about it... and we could both honestly say that we want our child to have EVERYthing we had growing up-- neither of us feels that we lacked anything. We had (have) godly, wonderful parents and siblings. We grew up in homes with adventurous fathers and nurturing mothers. And lots of laughter. The only thing that we came up with just highlighted that point: more time with the grandparents. We lived in Georgia while my grandparents all lived in Tennessee-- we saw them once or twice a year-- maybe more sometimes. Don really only knew his maternal grandmother. I have vivid, wonderful memories of all four of my grandparents, but I would have loved to have been able to spend more time with them. Don and I fully plan to have our child spend as much time with its grandparents as they can stand :).
But the other thing that this question made me think of was my spiritual inheritance. I grew up in a home with parents who were constantly seeking after the Lord. Mom and Dad became believers when I was a little child, so my earliest years were defined by my parents' radical baby Christian zeal: Keith Green and Second Chapter of Acts concerts, not to mention other Christian artists who were cutting edge at the time. I remember having communion in the living room of a young pastor named David, in a house that sat right beside the spot where the old town Ace Hardware store sits (the house has been torn down... I think a used car lot sits in its place). We had grape juice and pita bread. I remember sitting in Ronnie Starmer's living room while he led the simplest worship song, which he had written: "Jesus I love you, Jesus I love you, Jesus I love you, yes I do," while his little daughter, Holly, danced around in the middle of our circle. I remember Big Eddie, who was crazy as a loon-- a new Christian whose brain was fried from so many drugs and whose life tragically ended by his own hand-- and all of these other folks who were students at Heritage at the time (Randy and Lori-- they were seniors in high school and I thought they were the coolest. Their youngest child just graduated from Heritage last year. I love this small town). Mom and Dad drug us to every church imaginable-- from small house churches to huge mega churches, both filled with the Holy Spirit, to the more mainstream Southern Baptist where we learned the word of God in such a solid way. Always searching. But always cleaving to the Lord. I learned that the kingdom of God was made up of all kinds-- my dad always says that the kingdom is made up of "odd birds" :). I learned that Christians worshipped in so many different ways and while I was more drawn to the charismatic, I could appreciate the less demonstrative. I remember playing mom and dad's records in the den at our old house on Peggy Lane-- I would listen to the words and sing and dance and I remember feeling so strongly the presence of the Lord every time.... My childhood was saturated with God. Listening to my parents and their friends talk about Him, talking about Him with my friends (usually scaring each other while talking about the rapture), and thinking about Him. God is what I remember most about my childhood.
And that's what all of my hopes for this baby are wrapped up in. Don had a similar childhood (remarkably similar), but we both recognize that the times were different. It was the beginning of the Jesus Movement and so many former hippies were getting saved. Evangelism was a huge topic in the new charismatic renewal movement and the rapture was a constant topic, too. It was the 70's and, at least in my mind, the adults seemed less jaded than the adults I know today. Am I just exoticizing my own childhood? Entirely possible.
But even if I am, I still want my child to grow up in a God-soaked existence. I know that I walked away from the Lord for a season, when I was a teenager, but He was always real to me. I don't know how He did it, but there was this hook in my heart-- a huge place that always came back to Him. I remember a morning after a really long party. The kids had drifted off to spots on the floor to sleep off whatever they had done the night before and I was the only one awake-- I still hadn't come down off of whatever substance I was on and I was afraid that I was "stuck" like that. I remember looking at the ceiling fan in the room I was in and praying, "Oh God, I am so sorry. If you'll let me go to sleep-- if you'll keep me from going crazy-- I promise that I will serve you for the rest of my life." Two years later, I was on the mission field. My first thought in my moment of extreme panic was probably not unique-- I've heard of more than one person offering verbal contracts to the Lord in moments of extreme panic-- but God was always where I looked when I was afraid. My parents were praying for me daily.
And Don and I want our child to grow up in an environment where his/her first thought is always "God." We want the Spirit of the Lord to be so evident, so strong, so pure in this place... that our child will grow up with the faith that he and I have: steady and real. Through all of our mistakes and failures and expeditions as far from the path He had called us to as possible, we always held the knowledge of the Lord in our hearts. And when we were old, we did not depart from it (proverbs 22:6).
But I can't reproduce my childhood. I can't reproduce the same living room and den. I can't reproduce the moment when I saw that my father's nickname on his fire department helmet was "Radical" because once he found the Lord he couldn't shut up about it. I can't reproduce the kitchen table where my friends would end up sitting to talk to my dad about the Bible. I can't reproduce house church and watching my parents being totally free in the Lord, teaching me that it was okay to do whatever you wanted in worship. Surely, I have a rich inheritance. Now, how do I give that to my child?
I know, I know-- it will happen. It will just happen that we will be who we are and our little one will grow up in the family God called him/her to be in. If He had wanted him/her to be in a family in the 70s, that would have happened. But this baby was chosen to be born now, for such a time as this. And my prayer for him is that he would grow in the strength and knowledge of the Lord. That he would fear the Lord from his first breath. That even now, he would sense the presence of the Lord. And that he would crave understanding from an early age. My prayer is that he will choose God always. That he will passionately crave Jesus. That he will be odd, unique, curious, and always drawn to the things of the Lord. I think of Hannah, and secretly thought of her so many times before I knew that I could actually get pregnant... in my heart of hearts, I would pray, "Oh God, if I could only have a baby... I would commit him to you from the very beginning. I would bring him to the temple to serve you all the days of his life."
It is the cry of my heart to invest all of this in this little one. My heart is huge with it. I sense the fear of the Lord, coupled with a realization that while this responsibility is enormous, it is not wholly in my hands. There is One who loves this one far more than I can even imagine already. One who is knitting him/her together right now. The only One who knows whether it is a him or her! So my prayer is that He will help Don and me to do our version of what our parents did for us. I can't imagine how He'll do it. But I'm starting early-- this baby has already heard (I know he can't "hear" yet, but you know) lots of Keith Green being sung in my car!
Monday, November 3, 2008
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Tomorrow
I'm completely crazy.
No, I'm serious. When it comes to worrying, I tend to be incredibly creative in figuring out new ways to do it. It's almost like there is something in me that craves worry... something so drawn to paralyzing fear. But it's something I am committed to giving over to the Lord. My pastor spoke of having the mind of Christ today, and this passage comes to mind tonight--
ICorinthians 2:13-16
13And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.
14The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
15 The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one.
16 "For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ.
There is so much here, but the idea of having the mind of Christ...that humble mind of Christ that trusts God and His wisdom. That mind of Christ that trusts that His Father is perfect. That cannot ever fathom the sovereignty of God and chooses to look Him in the face and just trust... like the eyes of a little baby when it looks into the face of its mother: I don't completely understand you or who you are or why you love me, but you keep doing it and I trust you and look only to you. Simplicity.
We have an ultrasound tomorrow afternoon-- it's a perinatal exam; there will be some special stuff because I am over 35 and am considered "at risk" (for some reason, these words do not bother me one whit. Maybe because I watched my friend Ericka have 5 children, all over the age of 35). Anyway, we'll get a good look at the baby tomorrow and I am both excited and afraid-- and I hear that this is normal. I went to the doctor last week because I had some spotting the week before and they tried to hear the baby's heartbeat and weren't able to-- the doctor wasn't worried about that because I was only 12 weeks and she said that it was a bit early with the external thingy, but I wanted to hear that heartbeat again...
And on top of that, I've been feeling better-- who gets freaked out because they are feeling better? My goodness, what a nutcase I am! It was right on time, too--everyone has told me that I would begin feeling better around the 12th or 13th week (honestly, though, I am so easily influenced-- if experienced mothers had all told me that I would begin growing acorns out of my nose, that probably would have happened...). I told Don the other day that I just didn't feel pregnant any more because I didn't feel like youknowwhat any more. He just cocked his head to the side, looked at me funny and told me that I was insane.
It's true.
But if I have the mind of Christ, I will walk with faith. This baby is a miracle all around. But I go cold at the thought of walking in there and getting a bad report tomorrow...what if... OH but why dwell on such thoughts?
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things (Philippians 4:8).
If I have the mind of Christ, I will be constantly distracted with the goodness and the wisdom of the Lord. I will trust Him that whatever is happening in my womb is under His strictest care. I will trust that He put that baby there in the first place, without us trying but always hoping in our hearts, and He has a purpose for it. Him. Her.
Whatever is true. Honorable. Just. Pure. Lovely. Commendable. Excellent. Worthy of Praise. I will stay my mind on Jesus. He is all of those things.
I remember when I was a teenager my mom handed me that verse written on a piece of paper during church one day. She must have discerned that I was walking through something that was bumming me out (who knows what it was-- teenagers... so happy to be done with that!) and those words were straight from the Lord. If I'm a worrier now, how much more will I be when this child is a teenager, aching and hurting like I was so much of the time? I want to be like my parents-- I know that they worried, but they prayed, too. Whatever is true. Whatever is lovely.
I will think on these things. And I will expect a heartbeat and a perfect report tomorrow. More than that, I will just expect the will of the Lord and the mind of Christ.
No, I'm serious. When it comes to worrying, I tend to be incredibly creative in figuring out new ways to do it. It's almost like there is something in me that craves worry... something so drawn to paralyzing fear. But it's something I am committed to giving over to the Lord. My pastor spoke of having the mind of Christ today, and this passage comes to mind tonight--
ICorinthians 2:13-16
13And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.
14The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
15 The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one.
16 "For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ.
There is so much here, but the idea of having the mind of Christ...that humble mind of Christ that trusts God and His wisdom. That mind of Christ that trusts that His Father is perfect. That cannot ever fathom the sovereignty of God and chooses to look Him in the face and just trust... like the eyes of a little baby when it looks into the face of its mother: I don't completely understand you or who you are or why you love me, but you keep doing it and I trust you and look only to you. Simplicity.
We have an ultrasound tomorrow afternoon-- it's a perinatal exam; there will be some special stuff because I am over 35 and am considered "at risk" (for some reason, these words do not bother me one whit. Maybe because I watched my friend Ericka have 5 children, all over the age of 35). Anyway, we'll get a good look at the baby tomorrow and I am both excited and afraid-- and I hear that this is normal. I went to the doctor last week because I had some spotting the week before and they tried to hear the baby's heartbeat and weren't able to-- the doctor wasn't worried about that because I was only 12 weeks and she said that it was a bit early with the external thingy, but I wanted to hear that heartbeat again...
And on top of that, I've been feeling better-- who gets freaked out because they are feeling better? My goodness, what a nutcase I am! It was right on time, too--everyone has told me that I would begin feeling better around the 12th or 13th week (honestly, though, I am so easily influenced-- if experienced mothers had all told me that I would begin growing acorns out of my nose, that probably would have happened...). I told Don the other day that I just didn't feel pregnant any more because I didn't feel like youknowwhat any more. He just cocked his head to the side, looked at me funny and told me that I was insane.
It's true.
But if I have the mind of Christ, I will walk with faith. This baby is a miracle all around. But I go cold at the thought of walking in there and getting a bad report tomorrow...what if... OH but why dwell on such thoughts?
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things (Philippians 4:8).
If I have the mind of Christ, I will be constantly distracted with the goodness and the wisdom of the Lord. I will trust Him that whatever is happening in my womb is under His strictest care. I will trust that He put that baby there in the first place, without us trying but always hoping in our hearts, and He has a purpose for it. Him. Her.
Whatever is true. Honorable. Just. Pure. Lovely. Commendable. Excellent. Worthy of Praise. I will stay my mind on Jesus. He is all of those things.
I remember when I was a teenager my mom handed me that verse written on a piece of paper during church one day. She must have discerned that I was walking through something that was bumming me out (who knows what it was-- teenagers... so happy to be done with that!) and those words were straight from the Lord. If I'm a worrier now, how much more will I be when this child is a teenager, aching and hurting like I was so much of the time? I want to be like my parents-- I know that they worried, but they prayed, too. Whatever is true. Whatever is lovely.
I will think on these things. And I will expect a heartbeat and a perfect report tomorrow. More than that, I will just expect the will of the Lord and the mind of Christ.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Up late
Hm. For some reason blogger won't let me give this entry a title. No big deal.
I'm up late. Thinking. Hungry. Blown away by the pictures in the book Don and I were looking at tonight-- "In the Womb" is the name, I think. It's a National Geographic book, I think, and it follows the growth of a baby from conception to birth, with some of the most fantastic (in the truest sense of that word "fantastic") images ever.
Did you know that right now my baby has a face??? Oh my gosh. A face. And little tiny hands and feet. And it's the size of a grape, about 1 and 1/2 inches long. That its little placenta is now doing most of the work of balancing hormones and providing perfect amounts of nutrients and oxygen, etc., to the baby.
I can't sleep, I'm so amazed at this. This is a miracle.
I mean, okay-- I'm sick all the time. Who cares??? I'll get over it-- and this little person is my reward!!
Wow.
Wow. Imagine how God feels? Watching this kind of thing over and over again, breathing life into it (wow-- I have my spirit in here, the Holy Spirit in here, and my child's spirit, hanging out inside me, growing every second). It can't ever get old. I'm sure it doesn't.
I'm up late. Thinking. Hungry. Blown away by the pictures in the book Don and I were looking at tonight-- "In the Womb" is the name, I think. It's a National Geographic book, I think, and it follows the growth of a baby from conception to birth, with some of the most fantastic (in the truest sense of that word "fantastic") images ever.
Did you know that right now my baby has a face??? Oh my gosh. A face. And little tiny hands and feet. And it's the size of a grape, about 1 and 1/2 inches long. That its little placenta is now doing most of the work of balancing hormones and providing perfect amounts of nutrients and oxygen, etc., to the baby.
I can't sleep, I'm so amazed at this. This is a miracle.
I mean, okay-- I'm sick all the time. Who cares??? I'll get over it-- and this little person is my reward!!
Wow.
Wow. Imagine how God feels? Watching this kind of thing over and over again, breathing life into it (wow-- I have my spirit in here, the Holy Spirit in here, and my child's spirit, hanging out inside me, growing every second). It can't ever get old. I'm sure it doesn't.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Baby ....
Oh my gosh, I saw the most amazing thing today.
Today, I saw the beating heart of my unborn child.
Selah.
I cannot properly describe how that felt. Maybe I haven't even organized it into words in my own mind. I held Don's hand as we looked up at that screen and my fears were completely forgotten-- there was this gorgeous dark spot, with this tiny (I'm only 6 weeks) wooshing sound and this faint pulsing white spot (his/her heart only started beating this week) and it was like nothing I have ever seen.
It was a miracle.
How can you look at that and not believe? How can anyone remain in the darkness of unbelief when they are faced with the mystery of new life-- new life which has taken up residence in what you thought was a barren womb? And how can we ever fathom the mystery of what it means to be knit together in the smallest place by the biggest hands that ever were?...
There is so much to think about. So much to ponder. But here is this-- my heart does magnify the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant (Luke 1:46)
Wow.
Today, I saw the beating heart of my unborn child.
Selah.
I cannot properly describe how that felt. Maybe I haven't even organized it into words in my own mind. I held Don's hand as we looked up at that screen and my fears were completely forgotten-- there was this gorgeous dark spot, with this tiny (I'm only 6 weeks) wooshing sound and this faint pulsing white spot (his/her heart only started beating this week) and it was like nothing I have ever seen.
It was a miracle.
How can you look at that and not believe? How can anyone remain in the darkness of unbelief when they are faced with the mystery of new life-- new life which has taken up residence in what you thought was a barren womb? And how can we ever fathom the mystery of what it means to be knit together in the smallest place by the biggest hands that ever were?...
There is so much to think about. So much to ponder. But here is this-- my heart does magnify the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant (Luke 1:46)
Wow.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
So here it is...
I'm pregnant.
Crazy, right? How wild it is to even type those words in such an incredibly public forum. 7 weeks pregnant. What a miracle.
And the crazy thing is, we weren't even trying-- and I didn't think it could even happen. I was fully prepared to see a specialist this fall in order to start trying in January. But the Lord? He knew. He always knows.
But I had no idea how scary it would be. At once, I'm completely excited and totally petrified. I've been surrounded by all of these pregnant women all of these weeks with no clue about what was going on inside my own body, but mesmerized at what they must be going through. But I didn't consider the constant awareness that your body is not your own. That every weird ache or pain would send my mind down fourteen possible paths, none of which are positive. That I thought hypochondria was bad when I was alone in my skin...but now, there's two of us and I need to get. a. grip.
But I never was alone. The constant, never-fading presence of my God was and is felt.
I woke up with spotting this morning. Just a bit, and it stopped after the first...well, I won't go into details, but it didn't last at all and was always pink and that was incredibly early this morning. I've downed about a million ounces of water today and haven't seen anything to lose my mind over (except for a tiny amount of darkish brown this afternoon and that was it). I called several of my pregnant or have been pregnant friends and got a ton of sympathy and advise and also called my doctor, who told me to lie down all day-- so I did and was bored like crazy. Called my mother about 20 times. And felt all kinds of ghost pains.
You know I'm not allowed to look at WebMD. I'm not allowed to even peek at online medical symptoms sites. Because if I read it, I've got it. So of course my left shoulder has hurt (ectopic pregnancy), but so has my entire body-- I'm aching like I'm about to get the flu-- but it's normal.
So I turned over a new leaf midday. I decided that I will only read the positive comments on this website my sisters-in-law both told me about (it's a great site: babycenter.com). Look, if something bad is going to happen, something bad is going to happen-- there is nothing I can do about it. I am taking great care of myself and am doing everything I can. The rest is up to the Lord and I trust Him. But I can't go feeding my imagination.
For 9 months. OH, the drama.
I need to be delivered of this fear!!
So, in the spirit of the Year of Not Taking Things for Granted, I am not taking these days and this feeling of something amazing happening inside me for granted. No matter what happens tomorrow, next week or next year, this is now and it's unlike anything I have ever experienced. And I am not alone in it-- even in the dead of night when my child's father (oh, the awe of those words) is sleeping peacefully and my usually-exhausted self can't go to sleep, I am not alone. My earthly father has always referred to the verse that talks about the fact that the entire universe is held together in the expanse of God's hands, and I've been thinking about that today, wondering what is going on with this little one buried deep inside me. God's huge hands hold the expanse of the universe but somehow, miraculously, can go so small and tiny that they hold the life of this baby in perfect balance, too. Amazing.
Not taking that for granted, no sir.
Thank you Lord!
Crazy, right? How wild it is to even type those words in such an incredibly public forum. 7 weeks pregnant. What a miracle.
And the crazy thing is, we weren't even trying-- and I didn't think it could even happen. I was fully prepared to see a specialist this fall in order to start trying in January. But the Lord? He knew. He always knows.
But I had no idea how scary it would be. At once, I'm completely excited and totally petrified. I've been surrounded by all of these pregnant women all of these weeks with no clue about what was going on inside my own body, but mesmerized at what they must be going through. But I didn't consider the constant awareness that your body is not your own. That every weird ache or pain would send my mind down fourteen possible paths, none of which are positive. That I thought hypochondria was bad when I was alone in my skin...but now, there's two of us and I need to get. a. grip.
But I never was alone. The constant, never-fading presence of my God was and is felt.
I woke up with spotting this morning. Just a bit, and it stopped after the first...well, I won't go into details, but it didn't last at all and was always pink and that was incredibly early this morning. I've downed about a million ounces of water today and haven't seen anything to lose my mind over (except for a tiny amount of darkish brown this afternoon and that was it). I called several of my pregnant or have been pregnant friends and got a ton of sympathy and advise and also called my doctor, who told me to lie down all day-- so I did and was bored like crazy. Called my mother about 20 times. And felt all kinds of ghost pains.
You know I'm not allowed to look at WebMD. I'm not allowed to even peek at online medical symptoms sites. Because if I read it, I've got it. So of course my left shoulder has hurt (ectopic pregnancy), but so has my entire body-- I'm aching like I'm about to get the flu-- but it's normal.
So I turned over a new leaf midday. I decided that I will only read the positive comments on this website my sisters-in-law both told me about (it's a great site: babycenter.com). Look, if something bad is going to happen, something bad is going to happen-- there is nothing I can do about it. I am taking great care of myself and am doing everything I can. The rest is up to the Lord and I trust Him. But I can't go feeding my imagination.
For 9 months. OH, the drama.
I need to be delivered of this fear!!
So, in the spirit of the Year of Not Taking Things for Granted, I am not taking these days and this feeling of something amazing happening inside me for granted. No matter what happens tomorrow, next week or next year, this is now and it's unlike anything I have ever experienced. And I am not alone in it-- even in the dead of night when my child's father (oh, the awe of those words) is sleeping peacefully and my usually-exhausted self can't go to sleep, I am not alone. My earthly father has always referred to the verse that talks about the fact that the entire universe is held together in the expanse of God's hands, and I've been thinking about that today, wondering what is going on with this little one buried deep inside me. God's huge hands hold the expanse of the universe but somehow, miraculously, can go so small and tiny that they hold the life of this baby in perfect balance, too. Amazing.
Not taking that for granted, no sir.
Thank you Lord!
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