The "little" Bulge

This is for Emily and Kim:




Okay...here's a picture from about 3-4 weeks ago. I have one that is more recent but I CAN'T FIND IT ON MY COMPUTER! So...I will update as soon as I can. Kim said, "it doesn't take that long to upload a picture!" So...I'll try to do better :0

Snow!

I woke up today to our first "real" snow. I absolutely love the first snow of the season. Ask Brian...I get giddy and foolish. In fact, my goal is to dance around the kitchen until Brian laughs. Once I've done that, my most favorite activity on a day like today is to turn on the Christmas tree lights while Brian starts a fire and read a book that is only interrupted by short sips of hot chocolate and lazy glances out the window. That's my perfect snow day.

Unfortunately for today...it will have to happen only in my daydreams. The reality for today is research papers.

Someday...

The Baby

I've been a bit hesitant to write about my pregnancy for various reasons. One is that so many other people have already gone through one or many pregnancies and in my mind they probably have absolutely no desire to read about another experience. They have their special memories. I also have received various reactions when talking with people about my pregnancy. Some discount all the fun things happening right now...and I'll hear things like, "just wait until you're eight months pregnant, then you won't be so excited." Or what about, "just wait until you actually have the baby. Your life as you know it is gone and your life is no longer your own. Time for yourself will be a long lost thing of the past." I know that all of these things are true. I do. I wouldn't have decided to have a baby if I wasn't ready to accept giving up my "life as I know it." Sometimes I just want to enjoy the now. I just want to be 18 weeks pregnant and feel the baby move for the first time. I want to just enjoy the present moments when God reminds me quietly of the little miracle he's given. I know the future is coming but it's so easy for us to live life looking to next month or next summer. I'm trying to just look at now and enjoy it while it's here.

So...with that long introduction, this post is especially for Judy B and Kim. They both have asked for specific posts, so here it goes...

In the last three weeks people (and even my doctor) have asked if I've felt the baby move. Each time I said "no" the woman would smile and say, "oh, it's the best thing! Don't worry, you'll feel it." The first time I felt the baby move I was sitting in the Kansas City airport at about 6:00 a.m. Brian and I were waiting to fly to Indiana for Thanksgiving. I was reading and waiting when all of a sudden a little flutter kissed my slightly growing belly. I knew right away. I closed my eyes to fight the tears that were threatening to come. I wanted time to stand still for just a moment. I wanted to cherish this moment that God gave to just me in the midst of hundreds of other people. Most of all, I wanted it to happen again...so I waited for a few minutes. Nothing. But, I wasn't quite prepared for the immense joy I felt when I leaned over to Brian and whispered, "I just felt our baby move." Tears lined his his eyes and we just sat there smiling for a moment...our moment.

There is nothing more relieving than to feel that flutter. I can't express fully the complete sense of joy. However, I would be lying if every day in the past 18 weeks I've been so sure of the next step in my life. Not because I'm not sure I don't want children, but because I doubt my ability as a mother (as I'm sure all mothers do). It's one thing to be an aunt to 20 little kiddos...it's another thing entirely to be responsible for the spiritual growth and development of my own. It was during a conversation with Brian that the words just spilled out of my mouth without even realizing it..."I won't be a perfect mother, but I'm the perfect mother for this child." It hit me then that God has hand-picked me to be the mother of this particular baby...humbling and comforting at the same time.

Today I'm relieved that we serve a sovereign God.

I'm Free!

It's a strange dichotomy that I can be free and a servant at the same time. As a young girl growing up in the church and then attending a christian school this is a truth that has been preached about, taught on, and actually debated through. However, lately I have come back to this truth over and over again in the past 2 1/2 years since returning from Turkey.

On my way to school the past couple of days I have asked myself what I am actually free from. Well, the right answer is that I am free from sin and death, right? Oh but it is so much more than that. The complete question does not stop with what I am free from, but what I am free to do.

I am memorizing part of Psalm 119. The perfect time for me to do this is on my way to school in the morning, so as I was reciting verse 32 over and over and over and over and over ten times it finally hit me. A light bulb went on in my blinded brain. The psalmist says in verse 32, "I will walk in your commands for you have sent my heart free." You ask what the switch was and I can only say the Holy Spirit. But ask me what the light was and I will reply with numerous illuminations.

We aren't just free from sin and death. The freedom that comes from sin and death is a freedom which now allows me to obey. My heart is free to serve the living God. My heart is free to love the Lord my God with all my heart, soul, and mind. My heart is free to love...not as the world loves...but as God loves. Freedom from sin and death frees me to show love and grace and mercy...to work towards being clothed with Christ. I have the freedom to read God's word and understand, to worship in truth and spirit, to understand that this world is fleeting yet I am safe in the shelter of His wings. I am free to be a child of the King. I am free from sin and death, and now free to serve my God in truth and joy.

Do I do these things to perfection? Absolutely not! However, I am now free to make the choice. If all of these things, and many more, I am free to do now that I am a child of God...how great is the hold that sin has on our lives? How blind is the individual who is still in slavery to sin? How deceived by the prince of darkness they are. But today I am rejoicing with the psalmist when he says, "I have chosen the way of truth, I have set my heart on your laws; I hold fast to your precepts, O Lord. Do not let me be put to shame. I will walk in your commands for you have set my heart free." I am free to serve and obey!

Our Times

It's been a while since I've written...or really felt moved to write. My life has been hectic, as life for Americans seems to be. In the past couple of weeks I've had ups and downs and various other things that seem to steal my mind from one of the things I love to do most. Today, however, I have decided that it's time. My spirit is a bit unsettled and it's necessary for me to sit and write a few things down.

It's the holiday season and I absolutely love this time of year. Maybe it's the music...maybe it's the food...maybe it's the family reunions...and maybe it's just a break from the normal daily grind. November 1 is the date set in my world when Christmas music is appropriate to listen to on a regular basis. Thanksgiving and Christmas work together to create the holiday season...and truly what could I be more thankful for than Jesus?

So as I've been gearing up for the holiday season I walk into school today and am told about a bulletin board that reads: "Three wise men? Be serious!" Now, this can be taken two different ways. We can look at this quote as a religious statement or extremely sexist. Either way there is absolutely no place for it in school. Based upon these two interpretations I have two main thoughts.

First, if this is a religious statement...a sacrilegious statement...it confuses my mind how these types of anti-religious expressions are allowed but people all over have trouble accepting any type of pro-religious expression in school. It is offensive to someone...it is offensive to me.

Secondly, if this is a sexist statement (mind you a woman put the bulletin board up) then I find it offensive as well. We talk in some circles of reverse racism. Where those who claim oppression due to racism in turn are racist themselves which makes reconciliation rather difficult. This is a similar situation. Yes, women have had to push and fight their way into the professional world in order to obtain equality with men. However, it is just this type of thing that makes reconciliation and true equality difficult to achieve. Not to mention in order to gain respect we must give respect and I, for one, feel this bulletin board is extremely disrespectful. In fact I know many wise men in this world.

Regardless of the interpretation, this is not just an expression or statement made to adults working in a government establishment, this is placed in the hallway where impressionable students may take license to splutter the same offensive remarks to others as well.

So today I keep reminding myself that we cannot be surprised when lost people act like lost people. They are not held to the same standard as I am...their eyes are blinded. So, I can only do my small part and keep my candle burning where I am. "I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord; Be of good courage, and He shall stengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the Lord."

Family

A couple of weeks ago Brian's sister and niece came to visit along with his parents. We had a great weekend together. Let me tell you...they were troopers going through a football weekend at our house! There's just not much else going on other than football and naps. :) This is a picture of our niece Jenna. She sat during the entire game and I honestly think that she may surpass me in excitement. She had both cowbells at one time ringing and cheering. She kept saying, "come on!" She did a fantastic job cheering Uncle Brian and his team.



We had a great time...thanks for making the trip out to see us!!!

Moments Just for Me

I know that God exists. More than that...I know that He is a personal God and that He desires to have a relationship with me. This is something that I've been taught since I was a young child and even though it has been a teaching repeated throughout my life, it is a fact that until one experiences for themselves that which they are being taught...that lesson could be doomed to failure. Fortunately, God has allowed me to experience that He is a personal God. What grace and mercy He bestows on us each day that I can freely enter before His throne and speak to Him, plead with Him, praise Him, and confess to Him. Personal? Yes. He hears my prayers and even though He may not answer them the way I would wish...I know, I know, I know that He hears because His word tells me that He does.

Prayer is just one way that I know God is personal. In recent years there have been other ways that He has shown me His desire to have a relationship. One way that has been sweet to my soul is the many moments that he has just for me. If you have experienced these types of moments, you know what I'm talking about. I believe that God gives us special moments and experiences that are reserved just for us alone. Those moments when you are alone and only you get to see the full, resplendent rainbow in a cascading arch over a perfectly green wheat field. Or what about the moment you are driving down the road by yourself on a Kansas winter evening and as you look up at the sky your breath is stolen by the brilliant display of stars radiating a diamond-like glow from a black abyss. You realize at that moment that there is light that shines brightly in darkness. An overwhelming sense of appreciation and gratefulness overtakes you as you fight the tears that escape from your eyes.

A particular one I remember happened one morning on my way to school. It was deer season (one of my personal favorites) and everyone had been talking of a big, prize-winning buck that was wandering the area. Now...I don't love the season for the hunting but for the beauty and regal look of the deer. They are incredibly graceful animals and stunning to behold. On this particular morning I was alone. Not just alone in my car, but there seemed to be an unusual emptiness to the road. About three miles from town I gazed around me and there to my right...hidden amongst dead tree limbs and colorful prairie grass was an absolutely kingly sight. A large buck stood there demanding the kind of deference a king would require. He stood tall, regal, with a shining coat that implied the standard of health. He did not run, he did not jump, he simply stood there watching me as I passed. He was well-trained in knowing true danger and fear was not something he possessed. This may sound silly and over exaggerated but it felt like we actually made eye-contact. He saw me...and he knew I saw him. This was a moment from my God.

I find that these moments are only there if I look for them. Unfortunately, I allow life to steal my mind. I'm running here or finishing that "to do" list. As I'm finishing one task, I'm already thinking about the next one and how to most efficiently use my time. Being alone is often used as simply time to make a new "to do" list without interruption. But on those rare occasions when my mind is still and my heart is soft I find that God often has a gift, a moment just for me. Those are the sweetest moments of my day. Oh that the world would not occupy my mind but God. How much sweeter my days would be.

News

Okay...since I can't get to facebook on my school computer (and I'm still here working) I guess I'll post our great news on my blog. After 30 years of living, 1 1/2 years of marriage, and a ton of anticipation, Brian and I are expecting our first baby in May. We are so grateful for God's blessing in our lives. Please pray with us that the baby and I will be safe throughout the pregnancy an even now we long for God to give us wisdom as we strive to bring up a child in this world.

Thank you for all the encouragement that you've already sent to us. We are grateful to friends and family for your support!

Blessings to each of you.