The Valley of Vision

YOU MUST BUY THIS CD!!!

www.sovereigngracestore.com

If you have ever gone through a valley in your walk with Jesus, this is the CD that will help carry you through it. Thanks to my dear friend Heather’s advice, it has ministered to me so much!!!! Thanks Heather. Here is my favorite song on the CD:

In The Valley

When You lead me to the valley of vision
I can see You in the heights
And though my humbling wouldn’t be my decision
It’s here Your glory shines so bright
So let me learn that the cross precedes the crown
To be low is to be high
That the valley’s where You make me more like Christ

Let me find Your grace in the valley
Let me find Your life in my death
Let me find Your joy in my sorrow
Your wealth in my need
That You’re near with every breath
In the valley

In the daytime there are stars in the heavens
But they only shine at night
And the deeper that I go into darkness
The more I see their radiant light
So let me learn that my losses are my gain
To be broken is to heal
That the valley’s where
Your power is revealed

Let me find Your grace in the valley
Let me find Your life in my death
Let me find Your joy in my sorrow
Your wealth in my need
That You’re near with every breath
In the valley

A Walk Down Memory Lane

I was looking through some old papers where I found a game we played from my shower with Noah. We had no idea whether he was a boy or a girl, but most, including my nurses, thought girl. We played a guessing game, which included gender, date of birth, weight, and length of baby. We now know that Noah was a boy (thank Goodness with the name Noah=)), he was born 12/31/03, he was 7 # 13 oz. and was 21.5 inches long.

As follows, here were the stats:

boy= 14 (included David’s mom, his grandma, and my mom)
girl= 14 (included me LOL)
date of birth= ranged from 2/2/03 (what? I wasn’t even pregnant then…) to 1/2/04
weight= ranged from 5 # 10 oz. to 11 # 3 oz.
length= from 12 inches (i think she thought they meant length of labor LOL) to 22 inches.

My favorite part of the game, however, was the advice section. Veteran mommies and even friends who weren’t yet mothers gave me their best advice for motherhood. They included:

• Trust in the Lord with all your heart and not unto your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge HIm and He shall direct your paths. (Prov 3:5-6)
• Get baby on Babywise
• Read to baby
• Rest NOW!!!
• Practice patience
• Sleep when baby sleeps
• Love each other (David…I suppose she meant)
• Show baby all the love in the world
• Have fun
• Don’t spoil baby!
• Look to your Heavenly Father who has all the answers you will ever need. He is faithful, all knowing, and nothing takes Him by surprise. “Cast all your cares on Him for he cares for you.” 1 Pet 5:7
• Don’t neglect time for yourself and for each other (David’s mom)
• Relax and pray (this one makes me laugh…the two go hand in hand, don’t they?)
• Pray and rest in the Lord. He is the best Parent and will direct your steps
• Trust your maternal instincts
• Enjoy EVERY moment…even when baby cries.
• You are there to hold and and comfort
• Treasure everything your baby does…they aren’t babies for long!
• Talk to your spouse often!
• My personal favorite (you have to know my friend Betsy): Don’t breastfeed in public, without a blanket of course!
• And from my mom: Know that it’s alright to make mistakes. The baby won’t know it. As long as you are putting your faith in the Lord and trusting Him to lead you, all will be well.

I think these are some good “pearls,” don’t you? I was needing to be reminded. Especially the part about breastfeeding. I am so kidding…for all you public nursers. Enjoy your day!

My lil man…

9 months:

1st Birthday:

2nd:

another 2nd bday pic (before his BIG haircut):

3 years old:

Noah is such a blessing. A great helper. A Thomas train lover. Defiant at the toilet. But a lover of life. I love to watch him grow and to share in new conversations with him everyday. He is very quick to let me know if something isn’t his “favorite”, but just as quick to let me know that he loves me “SO SO much.”

I love being his mommy.

I leave you with the lyrics to a song I often sang to Noah while he was in the womb. It is still my prayer for him to this day:

Let Mercy Lead

Aidan you’re young
But Aidan you’re growing fast
Me and your mom
And all the love we have
We can only take you so far
As far as we can
But you’ll need something more to guide your heart
As you grow into a man

CHORUS:
Let mercy lead
Let love be the strength in your legs
And in every footprint that you leave
There’ll be a drop of grace
If we can reach
Beyond the wisdom of this age
Into the foolishness of God
That foolishness will save
Those who believe
Although their foolish hearts may break
They will find peace
And I’ll meet you in that place
Where mercy leads

Aidan the day
Aidan the day will come
You’ll run the race
That takes us way beyond
All our trials and all our failures
And all the good we dream of
But you can’t see yet where it is you’re heading
But one day you’ll see the face of love

Let mercy lead
Let love be the strength in your legs
And in every footprint that you leave
There’ll be a drop of grace
If we can reach
Beyond the wisdom of this age
Into the foolishness of God
That foolishness will save
Let mercy lead

Who Knew?

I found my journal from 4 years ago and immediately opened it to a page with a verse that I would have never known 4 years ago would have the kind of mpact on me that it does today.

Regarding our current life situation, I find comfort in Genesis 28:20-21:

“Then Jacob made a vow, saying, ‘If God will be with me, and keep me in this way that I am going, and give me bread to eat and clothing to put on, so that I come back to my Father’s house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God.’”

On Sunday morning, we had a couple from the IMB in our church. They are missionaries to Afghanistan and I don’t think that it is a temporary appointment. I can be so quick to wallow in my own grief of being so far from home while others are serving so much farther away and so much farther away from their family and friends. New Mexico is hardly Afghanistan. I feel very blessed to be where we are…knowing that we are doing what God has called us to do. Some days may be difficult and some are VERY difficult, but we are blessed to be here. As Elizabeth Prentiss said:

“We want to know no other will but God’s in this situation.”

Well said. And I believe it. But sometimes I just wished I lived it out in a more Christlike manner.

Simon’s New “Do”

Dad perfected this style when we walked in to church out of a monsoon. Eeveryone…and I mean everyone thought it was just precious. Here is a pic I took when we got home.

Ok the background is dark so it doesn’t show it very well. Maybe I will try another one tomorrow.

Tuesday Musings

We went made our trip to the grocery store on Saturday. An executive decision was made on the part of my husband: no more children. I was either go alone or we will have a sitter. Besides the fact that we had to buy pears that we didn’t even want (thanks to Sammy) and the fact that Simon can’t fit in an infant seat anymore (thus making his napping impossible), it is just too difficult. I told David to imagine trying to go by himself with all 3. Now that is interesting.

Secondly, graduation was Friday night. Sitting in the bleachers listening to “Pomp and Circumstance” took me back to my own graduation. So many hopes, so many aspirations. It is such a neat time. I have found myself quite cynical concerning the rite of passage than I used to be as I joked of how all these friends that they spoke of being there for them for the rest of their lives was probably not going to turn out that way. Any amens on that one?

Saturday night was another trip to the ER with abdominal pain that nearly killed me. One CT scan and much blood work later, still no answers. I am not kidding about the pain. 4 pain pills and 2 shots of demerol later, the pain was not even phased. I went back to my gallbladder surgeon yesterday and he couldn’t find anything wrong with me. I was listening to one of our counseling cds yesterday and Dr. Wickert said that sometimes God will keep your doctors from finding out what’s wrong with you so that you are forced to trust the Great Physician. How true that is. I wish I could say that I was doing better at the whole trust and joy in the midst of suffering thing, but I am not. I am lonely. I am hurting. I want Louisville. And I want my family. It’s hard being alone. Never-the-less, God is calling us to persevere. It is so hard, but necessary for Him to sanctify me.

Fresh Air to a Weary Soul

http://girltalk.blogs.com/girltalk/2007/05/shall_i_indeed.html

I suppose perhaps a valley has to go deeper before the ascent begins?

Any thoughts?

For thought and reflection

“Worship is the opposite of worry,” said John Macarthur in my latest read this week. I am clinging to that thought throughtout my days this week. Whenever I am finding myself tempted to be anxious or fearful surrounding my current life circumstances, I worship. I worship again. And I worship so more.

My children found me eyes shut, hands in the air, surrendered yesterday morning in my kitchen floor, iPod in hand and dishes in the middle of being unloaded. It is such a blessing for God to have opened my eyes to the knowledge that despite anything I face, He is still God. He is who He says He is. And He is going to do what He says He is going to do. And in that, I find peace. A flicker of peace. But the peace is there.

So, one might say, “When life hands you lemons, make some lemonade.” But I say ”When life hands you lemons, worship!” 

A New Mexico type of dinner

The church staff had dinner together tonight at the associate pastor’s house. It was not until AFTER dinner that they informed me that I had eaten ELK! That’s right…Elk. I nearly died, but then enjoyed more of it=) Mmmm…we also had corn on the cob, chips with green chile, and ice cream sundaes with fresh fruit. It was definitely a New Mexico type of dinner.

Mission: Organization (Update)

The kitchen is looking better by the minute. I am so into it now that I am having to remind myself to eat and drink. I feel like I am nesting and I am not even pregnant. I wanted to share some insight on how I did what I did.

First I started out by emptying everything! EVERYTHING! Everything has it’s place and everything in my kitchen needed to find its place. Once I took everything out of the cabinets, I separated them into categories. For example:

Appliances:

Bakeware:

Entertaining:

After that, I needed to begin to find a place for it all. I remembered what Mrs. Walker said in Redeeming The Time to not necessarily put all the cups together and all the bakeware together, etc…coffee cups don’t necessarily have to go next to the glasses and coffee doesn’t necessarily have to go next to tea. Instead put your coffee filters, coffee, and coffee cups in one cabinet. This saves time when you want to make a cup of “joe”. Also, I put baby bottles with baby formula, baby food, a bottle warmer, jarred baby food, and cereal. I love it that way!

A note on spices. My spices were in dire needs of help. Everything was flung everywhere and nothing was stored in a tidy fashion. Don’t believe me? Check it out for yourself:

Now…I shall confess. When I am not losing my mind with unorganization, I am pretty anal about my spices. I have a system that works for me. Wanna see?

First I separate by color:

Then I make sure that all the labels are facing out so that I don’t have to search when I need them:

 The end result:

A before and after:

Pots and Pans before:

And after (I even switched cabinets here cause it just wasn’t working):

I have a before and after of the medicine cabinet as well but you can’t really tell the difference over the computer.

In conclusion, one day of hard work has helped me to make things easier for myself and my family from now on. Given we keep it that way…

P.S. The response of my children following this day-long charade:

Forget cleaning, Mom! Let’s hit the beach!

Do ya reckon they need haircuts?

Christ as Sustainer

http://www.lifetomotion.com/login/coble/index.html

My friend Nicole sent me this link. I am devastated for this family and cannot simply begin to imagine the grief that they are experiencing. My prayer is that they are believers.  How could a family possibly deal with a loss of this magnitude were they not resting in the Hope that they will one day see those precious babies again? Were they not experiencing the profound peace of our Lord Jesus? Please pray for this family. They will be needing so many prayers over the next months. I would beg to say even over the next years.

This story serves to remind me as Christ as sustainer.

Psalm 3:5 says: I lay down and slept; I awoke, for the LORD sustains me.

We don’t sustain ourselves. God sustains us. Despite our efforts, we play no role. David and I were discussing the “unthwartableness” (I know that’s not a word) of God’s will and it is very hard to accept and also comprehend.

An encouragement to all those hurting, however, remains:

God is our refuge and strength, A very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change And though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea; Though its waters roar and foam, Though the mountains quake at its swelling pride.  Psalms 46:1-3