Almost Wordless Wednesday.

***Update***
Baby Stellan was born with no complications. You can click the Mck Mama link to read all about it!

We are in prayer this morning as we await news of the birth of baby Stellan. Please keep Mck Mama and her family in your prayers with me as they welcome thier son with uncertainnty, but with complete trust in God.

Not Me Monday.

Not Me Monday is from Mck Mama's blog, click the button above to view her crazy Not Me Monday!!

I'm trying this for the first time, let's see how it goes.

I did not go to a Starfield concert this weekend. And I certainly did not join all the teenagers at the stage to jump up and down like crazy in a mosh pit having the time of my life. Because no self-respecting, almost 39 year old would do that, nope NOT ME!

I did not spend over $100 buying t-shirts and CDs for my daughter and her 3 friends. And I did not get a CD autographed by a band member. And I most certainly DID NOT fail to mention the expenditure to my husband. Nope, not me!

When my daughter came home from the concert and puked in the middle of the living room floor, I assure you, I did not immediately run to wake my husband at 12:30 am to clean up the mess. And I did not tell my daughter's friends that they could spend the night anyway, because I didn't want to take them home, and then not tell any of their parents that they were exposed to the pukeys. Certainly, not me!

And lastly, I did not spend the rest of my weekend in bed with a fever fighting the pukeys, leaving my dear husband in charge of all 5 children and making him take our 5 children plus our neighbor's 3 children to the Fall Festival at church and making him costume all of them on his own and escort them around to get candy, see puppet shows, play carnival games, and jump in inflatables by himself. And I did not make him bathe them on Saturday night and get them all ready for church on Sunday by himself. Nope, that was most definitely, NOT ME!!

Hey! That was fun wasn't it!? I'm so glad I didn't do all those things!

Suffering.

Nice word. A lot of things come to mind when I hear the word suffering. Not all of them good, but amazingly, not all of them bad either, though it wasn't always that way.

God has been talking to me about suffering a lot recently. And in my realm of influence there seems to be a LOT of suffering going on. My niece found out two months ago that her unborn baby will die. My friend has pancreatitis that even after surgery they can't get under control. An internet friend went to the doctor for a severe headache and found that she has brain cancer. Two other internet friends went in for hip/joint pain, one found her breast cancer, presumed to be in remission, had metastasized to her bones and one found that undetected lung cancer had moved to her bones. My aunt took antibiotics for chronic UTIs and the drug caused severe scarring in her lungs that she may have to live with for the rest of her life. And these are just to name a few.

So, here's what God's been showing me. Isaiah 54:10 says, " "Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed," says the LORD, who has compassion on you. " The word compassion that I've emphasized here I've learned comes from the Hebrew word el rachem. El rachem means the kind of love that a mother has for a newborn baby.

This I understand, with my whole being I understand it. I'm a mom. I have five children. And the moment of birth is like no other in this life. If you're a mom, you know exactly what I'm talking about. The moment you first lay eyes on your baby and gather him into your arms this incredible, unexplainable feeling comes over you and every fiber of your being, every cell of you body is filled with a passionate, all encompassing, unconditional desire to hold, protect and LOVE your baby forever and never let go. It's physical, emotional and spiritual. These mere words can't even come close to describing it.

And that is how God loves us when He says that no matter what happens His love for us cannot be changed. When my world is shaken, when my stability is removed, when things completely fall apart in my life, God is holding me in the safety of His arms with a love that comes from the very origin of who He is, and He will never let me go.

I have peace. And rest. I can walk through anything the Lord asks me to walk through, not because I am particularly strong, I am not, but because I know without a doubt, without having to analyse or question that my God, the God of the universe, holds me close to His heart and never wants to let me go.

Wordless Wednesday.

Sixteen months old today! Time flies.

A Time to Reminisce.

TWELVE years ago right now, I was napping in a hospital bed with a prostagladen supp on my cervix.
Which led to contractions that started about 2 am.
Which led to my water breaking at 3 am, to which the nurse told my mom that if we could have frozen the floor we could have ice skated! (nice.)
Which eventually led to the birth of my firstborn, and only daughter around 5:07 pm later that evening. I remember very well the events of that day as they happened, but I will spare you the minute details. I will tell you (and you all KNOW) that it was the most amazing moment of my entire life! As her shoulders came out my Dr. had me grab ahold of her. Then I had to stop and hold her mid-air while they untangled her foot from her cord. It seemed like an enternity that I held her at arms length seeing only her sweet face and upper body. And then, FINALLY, I got to pull her to myself and hold the most precious gift I had ever been allowed to put my arms around. She cried for just a few moments and lay content in my arms while we counted her toes (which btw, looked exactly like her Father's, only cuter!)
Happy Birthday to my sweet Letha May ("great joy")!!!! I love you my precious girl!!!

Scrapbooking.

My passion, besides my Jesus and my children, is scrapbooking. And I don't mean the fru-fru stuff where every page takes 6 hours of crafting to complete and has 3 pictures and 2 words. No, I'm far too frugal with my time and money for that. The scrapbooking that I enjoy is simple story telling with lots pictures added. When my children look at my books I want them to remember the stories and details that the pictures don't show and to SEE and KNOW how God worked in our lives in the process of our experiences.

I spent last night and the better part of today "cropping". I had many pages that I had put together but not taken the time to journal, so that was my project. Journalling requires a certain mood and atmosphere for me, and yesterday with the weight of my niece's situation weighing heavily on my mind, I just wasn't in the mindset to jouranal my wedding or family album. I kept telling myself to buck up and not cry, but it just wasn't working.

One of my girlfriends offered to pray for me, and the other agreed. So they prayed. They had no clue what was on my mind, they just prayed simple prayers that God would give me his peace and that I could focus on the joy of my albums for the time, that Jesus would take my burden on himself. I could almost physically feel the weight lift from my shoulders and heart. Thank you Jesus.

I did tell them after, and we talked. We each have been through losses. We cried together and talked about the Lord's precious healing and how he draws us to Him in times of pain and sorrow, when we need Him most.

I had a wonderful time. I finished my project in a good frame of mind and with much joy looking over my niece as a 4 year old flower girl and reliving the birth of my 4th child through the pages I journalled. I'm more thankful today for the blessings I've been given than I was just yesterday. And God is still God and He cares for me enough to carry my burdens when I turn to Him.

Trisomy 18 and Thankfulness

My mind has been filled recently with thoughts of my niece. She's 21 and pregnant with her second son. He was diagnosed last week with trisomy 18 and has 0% chance of survival. To say that I'm sad for her is an understatement. I have been through many years of infertility and have lost 3 babies of my own to early miscarriages, so life, especially unborn life, is SO precious to me. And that my dear niece has to face something so big at such a tender age just makes me ache. I pray that she comes through this stronger and closer to God and that in some miraculous way she comes away from this heartache with something positive to hold onto even though there is nothing positive about saying goodbye to a tiny baby. I am also praying that she will have the opportunity to hold her baby while he is alive, even if just for a few minutes, so she can tell him how much she loves him.

Other thoughts? I love my kids. I am thankful that I have to clean up after them. Thankful that I have to do ever increasing amounts of laundry. I'm thankful for throw up, poop, and toilets filled to overflowing with tp. I'm thankful for marker stains on my carpet, chocolate chips spilled on the floor, and handprints on my walls and windows. Because all these things mean that I have kids living and growing in my house. I do not know how long God has ordained for them to walk this earth, so I will be thankful for every moment and appreciate what I've been given, even the unpleasant.