You will lose your baby teeth
at times you'll lose your faith in me
you will lose a lot of things
but you cannot lose my love.
You may lose your appetite
your guiding sense of wrong and right
you may lose your will to fight
but you cannot lose my love.
You will lose your confidence
in times of trial, your common sense
You may lose your innocence
but you cannot lose my love.
Many things can be misplaced
your very memories be erased
no matter what the time or space
you cannot lose my love.
You cannot lose my love.
-Sara Groves
September 15, 2010
September 10, 2010
Religion vs. Relationship
Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Psalm 34:8
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"There is all the difference in the world between knowing a thing and feeling a thing- between having a knowledge of a thing and having a sense of it. There is all the difference in the world between knowing that honey is sweet and tasting that it is sweet in order to have a sense of its sweetness. There is a great difference between knowing that a person is beautiful and actually seeing in order to have a present sense of the person's beauty. There is a great difference between knowing that a glove will fit the hand and putting the glove on in order to have a sense of its fitness.
Likewise, brethren, there is all the difference between having a head knowledge of Christ and His righteousness and having a heart feeling of His fitness and preciousness. The first may be acquired from flesh and blood, or from books; the second must come from the Spirit of God.
The Devil plainly has much knowledge of the Bible. From the quotations he made to Christ, it is plain that he understood much of the work of redemption. Yet he is none the better for it; he only trembles and gnashes his teeth more. Ah, my friends, if you have no more than head knowledge of Christ and His righteousness, you have no more than the Devil.
Robert Murray McCheyne
September 7, 2010
12 weeks
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Here's 12 weeks... 3 months... however you look at it!I promise I will not turn this blog into an every-pregnancy-detail, every-baby-spit-up blog with painstakingly private details about the body ie lose my filter. Tell me if I do, or if I get to one-focused :p
In other news, Ben and I went to Charleston for the weekend to celebrate our 2-year anniversary and our last trip alone together before we have an addition to the family. We couldn't afford anything longer or farther away, because I'm in a far-away wedding in November that I'm going to solo. Luckily Charleston was the perfect place to go for a few days! I had never been before.
Outside the bed and breakfast where we stayed.
Rainbow Row.
85 Tradd Street- where Ben's parents lived during their medical school days.
I found my all time favorite childhood candy... rock candy! I haven't seen it in years...
August 26, 2010
The Story behind the Peanut
I don't really need to get in to how exactly it came to be, but here's the background story :)
Ben and I had not been planning on having a baby. We were really excited to have one someday, hopefully when he graduated from PA school, but that was two years away. I am the currently the only breadwinner, and Ben has to study or be in class a total of 70 hours a week, so we 'knew' it 'didn't make sense' and of course we had to be in the 'right financial situation' to have a baby, because that's what society says is responsible.
We had been having mixed doubts about taking total baby control. We don't want to have 19 children like the Duggars, but we also knew that I had some symptoms in the past of what could possibly be infertility-related and that this is a real issue for a lot of women, especially as they get older. We wondered in the back of our heads if taking our family plannng completely into our own hands, based on finances, would backfire. We had some questions that if we waited, would we regret it? What if we had trouble having a baby at all? Ben's family has 5 siblings, and children are so important to him, as they are to me. We didn't want to imagine a life without them.
But like I said, these were just thoughts. We didn't act on them. I think they were more premonitions of what was to come. I think God was preparing us for what he wanted. He was opening our minds because he knew we were going to be having a baby NOW!
About two weeks before I had any physical sign that I was pregnant, I found out I was pregnant... from my husband! Ben said he had been praying and felt like God was telling him to read Psalm 127:4. He's never read that verse before and had no idea what it would say. When he opened to it, it read:
Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one's youth.
That was the specific verse 4 he was given. Then verse 5 continues with one we've all read:
Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them.
"What does that mean?" I asked. "We should try to have a baby?" He said, "I think it means you are pregnant". The Holy Spirit directed Ben to this verse, but also spoke into his spirit about its meaning for us. And it meant not that I should try to get pregnant, but that I was already pregnant.... and it was a blessing.
It's interesting how the verse specifically mentioned it being a blessing to have sons in one's youth, because that was one of the very things we were struggling with in waiting (Ben is 32, 6 years older than me).
I was surprised but still wasn't sure it was possible that I was pregnant. 2 weeks later, I found out via a test.
The great thing about how this happened is that we know God intended for us to have this baby now... and the first thing he spoke to us about it was that he or she was "a blessing" to us.... when our situation and society would say that it's NOT a blessing, but rather a burden, to have a baby at this point in our lives ... after all how will it be taken care of? It's not a matter of going from 2 incomes to 1 income- I am the 1 and only income until August 2012! So once I deliver we will be down to exactly 0 income.... and we all know how long a family can survive on that! Probably not even the length of the standard unpaid maternity leave, if that were even a route I felt comfortable taking. How will something be managed with a newborn, and without compromising what a newborn needs from his/her mother?
I don't have the answers, but I have the faith. God has spoken that this baby is a blessing, and I'll fight to believe it is so, even when I'm not sure exactly how. My friend who's a missionary in the middle east has reminded me that "hope that is seen is no hope at all".
I love how God operates so contradictory to how our world operates... the world sees children as a financial and emotional burden, one that requires the utmost planning- having all the proper ducks in a row, and being steady in one's career first and foremost. God sees any child as one of life's greatest blessings.
God remains as he always was... good. And he has given us the blessing of a future baby. We couldn't be happier, and more dependant on him, all at the same time. Isn't this what life is all about?
Ben and I had not been planning on having a baby. We were really excited to have one someday, hopefully when he graduated from PA school, but that was two years away. I am the currently the only breadwinner, and Ben has to study or be in class a total of 70 hours a week, so we 'knew' it 'didn't make sense' and of course we had to be in the 'right financial situation' to have a baby, because that's what society says is responsible.
We had been having mixed doubts about taking total baby control. We don't want to have 19 children like the Duggars, but we also knew that I had some symptoms in the past of what could possibly be infertility-related and that this is a real issue for a lot of women, especially as they get older. We wondered in the back of our heads if taking our family plannng completely into our own hands, based on finances, would backfire. We had some questions that if we waited, would we regret it? What if we had trouble having a baby at all? Ben's family has 5 siblings, and children are so important to him, as they are to me. We didn't want to imagine a life without them.
But like I said, these were just thoughts. We didn't act on them. I think they were more premonitions of what was to come. I think God was preparing us for what he wanted. He was opening our minds because he knew we were going to be having a baby NOW!
About two weeks before I had any physical sign that I was pregnant, I found out I was pregnant... from my husband! Ben said he had been praying and felt like God was telling him to read Psalm 127:4. He's never read that verse before and had no idea what it would say. When he opened to it, it read:
Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one's youth.
That was the specific verse 4 he was given. Then verse 5 continues with one we've all read:
Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them.
"What does that mean?" I asked. "We should try to have a baby?" He said, "I think it means you are pregnant". The Holy Spirit directed Ben to this verse, but also spoke into his spirit about its meaning for us. And it meant not that I should try to get pregnant, but that I was already pregnant.... and it was a blessing.
It's interesting how the verse specifically mentioned it being a blessing to have sons in one's youth, because that was one of the very things we were struggling with in waiting (Ben is 32, 6 years older than me).
I was surprised but still wasn't sure it was possible that I was pregnant. 2 weeks later, I found out via a test.
The great thing about how this happened is that we know God intended for us to have this baby now... and the first thing he spoke to us about it was that he or she was "a blessing" to us.... when our situation and society would say that it's NOT a blessing, but rather a burden, to have a baby at this point in our lives ... after all how will it be taken care of? It's not a matter of going from 2 incomes to 1 income- I am the 1 and only income until August 2012! So once I deliver we will be down to exactly 0 income.... and we all know how long a family can survive on that! Probably not even the length of the standard unpaid maternity leave, if that were even a route I felt comfortable taking. How will something be managed with a newborn, and without compromising what a newborn needs from his/her mother?
I don't have the answers, but I have the faith. God has spoken that this baby is a blessing, and I'll fight to believe it is so, even when I'm not sure exactly how. My friend who's a missionary in the middle east has reminded me that "hope that is seen is no hope at all".
I love how God operates so contradictory to how our world operates... the world sees children as a financial and emotional burden, one that requires the utmost planning- having all the proper ducks in a row, and being steady in one's career first and foremost. God sees any child as one of life's greatest blessings.
God remains as he always was... good. And he has given us the blessing of a future baby. We couldn't be happier, and more dependant on him, all at the same time. Isn't this what life is all about?
August 15, 2010
Surprise!
I'm going on my third month of being pregnant! Surprise! Baby G is on the way (hence the new ticker). More on this story later. Right now I'm so tired I could sleep 10 hours (and that's after sleeping 10 hours last night :)
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