The Gift of Birth

I've just begun week 37 of pregnancy. That means I only have 3 more weeks (give or take) until I meet this little guy. It's been quite a journey!

When I first found out I was pregnant, I was more horrified than I was excited. After all, I was in the midst of one of the worst periods of anxiety I've ever had in my life (How could I take care of a baby when I can't even take care of myself?), I had only been married for 3 months (We haven't had enough time to establish our marriage!), and worst of all, I would have 9 months of no control over my body. It took a few weeks to get used to the news, a few more weeks to accept it, and it wasn't until I was 19 weeks along, when I began to see the tiny twitches of his body against my stomach, that I began to feel an emotional attachment to my baby.

Most of my second trimester was great. I felt really good, and giving birth, while I knew it would happen "some day," seemed like an eternity away, so I didn't worry about it. The first day of my third trimester the labor, the pain, the unknown became all too real to me. I got really serious about learning relaxation techniques, became educated about exactly what would happen on D-day, and generally became a bit more anxious about that day. But earlier this week, I spent some time with God laying down my worries at His feet. While I was praying, He helped me to realize the TRUE wonder of what was going to happen!

I get to deliver God's creation from my own body...

I get to witness God being Creator first-hand...

I get to partake in a love between God and me, Tom and me, and my baby boy and me that I have never yet known...

I get to give my husband a gift of love that no one else on earth has or ever will be able to give him, and I get to receive likewise!

Thank you, Lord, for the gift of birth!

Recipe: Avocado Burrito

I have been a vegetarian for about 4 years. I must say, I have yet to figure out how to really eat a vegetarian diet. For the first year, I ate very simply. For example: I'd eat a couple pieces of fruit for breakfast, a salad for lunch, and whole wheat pasta with broccoli and olive oil for dinner. I can't say I've made a whole lot of progress since that first year, and I would have to say that I've even digressed since I got pregnant. My poor baby is going to exit the womb craving pizza and peanut butter! But every once in a while I'll fix something up that is quick, healthy, and tasty. This is an extremely easy and filling (and quick, healthy, and tasty) lunch I made for myself today.

1 whole wheat tortilla
1/2 avocado
1/2 cup diced tomato
1/4 cup mozzarella cheese
1/3 cup black beans
Salt to taste

Mash up the avocado and spread it on the tortilla. Add the rest of the ingredients. Fold the tortilla. Eat, and be filled!

New Week New Worries

There is no doubt that this pregnancy has been a prime time for God to teach me about trust, love, and relationships. The lessons are essentially the same, but over time the focus has changed from me to this baby and me, and finally to God and this baby and me.

Seven months ago, my main concerns were: "How will I get through this? How will this change my relationship with my husband? Do I have what it takes to get through this pregnancy? What symptoms will I experience? Will I be able to handle them?" Ten weeks ago, the concerns were about the health of the baby: Are all his limbs present? Is his brain developing correctly? How could I handle it if he died? And in the last few weeks I've begun to worry about the relationship we'll have. Will he recognize me when he's born? Will he love me? What if he doesn't like me? Will he want to tell people how wonderful his parents are? When I think about those questions I comfort myself, justifying, "Of course he'll love me! I'm his mother. I'm his life source. We've been attached all this time, his love will come naturally." I hope that this baby chooses to love me; that he'll know that I love him; that he won't be ashamed of me, and that he'll be proud to have me as a mother. But the reality is that this is as close as we'll ever be. Once he is outside my body, that's when he begins to have choices. I'm convinced that giving birth is taking a huge risk with your heart.

I can't help but wonder if I may be getting a glimpse of how God felt when he chose to conceive Adam and Eve. I wonder how badly it hurt when he gave birth to humankind, knowing that he also had to give them free will...and that they would grow further from him for it. That some of his children would not love him or even recognize him. Some of his children would claim to love him, but would never talk to him, or try to live like him, or tell others that they have a Father and that he is the greatest Father ever. I know God isn't naive enough to think that humankind's love for Him would come naturally just because he created us, but I know he does say, "I love you! Love me back! I'm your life-source! I've always been attached to you; I hold you in my right hand!"

No doubt God took a risk with his heart when he created human beings.

New Baby Bump Pics

Well, I'm pretty sure I have now graduated from looking like I ate a large dinner to actually looking like I'm pregnant. Last week I actually got my first "pregnancy privilege" as two ladies let me go in front of them in the line at the grocery store :) I still wasn't sure even then that I looked pregnant...until that special moment at the store.

I've been feeling pretty good this trimester. I've had more energy and much less/no nausea. I'm feeling much more ready to meet this little guy, but I'm glad there's still 17 more weeks to go. God really knew what he was doing when he gave mommies-to-be 9 months to prepare physically, mentally, and emotionally for a baby. I seem to be growing right along with him :)

20 weeks

22 weeks

23 weeks

recurring dream

I've been talking with a couple of friends of mine about the weird dreams we've been having lately. Now I'm not a crazy dream interpreter that thinks that all dreams have some hidden meaning. You can't tell me this dream is anything but random: One of my friends was in a singing competition at church, but her hoodie got ripped. When she and I and her husband were on our way to Wendy's in a speedboat that was actually a canoe, we started being chased by another boat. Of course, there were whales in the water and we almost fell out and were eaten by whales. Despite surviving manhunt lead by savage humans and hungry whales, we tragically did not make it Wendy's for our frosties before I woke up.

Dreams like that are a nice rest from the recurring one I've had for the last few months. All the dreams vary slightly, but have the same frightening details. 1.) there is an evil presence that I can't see, 2.) I can't turn on the lights, 3.) either I can't speak or I'm not heard, 4.) I am never touched or harmed in the dream, only frightened. The first time I had a dream like this was probably the most frightening because it started in a scene that almost exactly duplicated a scene that took place right before I went to sleep...only in my dream the lights were out. I was sitting next to my husband on the couch and all I could see was his profile against the dim light coming in the window from the outside. I kept trying to ask him to turn the light on, but I couldn't speak and it seemed that even if I could have, he wouldn't have been able to hear me. Gradually, I became frightened and I began to feel something evil in the room with us. It became more and more urgent for me to have the lights on and I kept trying to scream at my husband to turn the lights on but he couldn't hear me! Finally, I said "Get behind me Satan" and I could feel the presence right behind me hovering over my right shoulder.... I woke screaming and had a hard time calming down after that.

I know these dreams have some real-life significance to them. Before I ever say anything to the evil in the dream, I always think, "do you really believe the words you're saying, or are you hoping these words will just perform a magic trick for you?" When there is such a presence of fear it's easy to pull out all the verses and godly language just to get myself out of the fearful situation, but if I don't really believe it or have faith in God's authority, how much good will it do? That seems to be the main point in these dreams. When I'm awake and I think about this, I have to admit that I know that God has the authority over Satan and fear, but I honestly don't think I'm completely convinced of it. My first reaction in my dreams is fear. My first action is to try to turn on the light or call out to someone. My last action is to call out to God. So now my goal is to react in faith instead of fear and to rely on God's authority over Satan...both in my dreams and in real life....

Test of Faith: The Result Show

A couple weeks ago I wrote about the impossible financial situation we were in. I chose to trust God and I was blessed with peace about the situation. And now I have a story to tell!

Here's the math:

$90 - what we were left with after paying bills
$180 - what we needed for Tom to get to work for the next two weeks
$60 - what we needed for groceries for two weeks
$82.80 - amount needed to pay a toll violation (we didn't miss the tolls on purpose) (it needed to be paid before we would get paid again, otherwise $50 would be added to each toll fee of $20.00).
5 - number of bills that still needed to be paid

So, you can see we were short by over $200 for the two weeks. Here's where the miracle begins. The following day, Tom's parents came over and brought with them a HUGE box full of food and toiletries. Later that day, they bought us another entire order of groceries. We didn't need to buy groceries for the entire two weeks!

Additionally, my parents offered to pay the toll violations. Also, my birthday was coming up and they gave me an advancement on my birthday money.

The next week we sold one of the Playstations that Tom had fixed. $225.
Bought another broken Playstation in order to continue the business: -$90
The next week we headed up to my parents where Tom trimmed the hedges and did other projects around the house: $200.
The Playstation we sold crashed for the second time. We refunded the customer. -$225.

At this point, I started to get discouraged again because I was banking on the money Tom would make trimming the hedges in order to pay the rest of our bills, but it looked like we would have to return all that money, plus some, to our customer.

Now, before I go on I have to insert that for the last 8 months the number 222 has come to mean something to me. I don't know why, but whenever I see that number I just remember God's love and faithfulness....now for the rest of the story.

Yesterday we received a check in the mail for, can you guess how much? $222!!! Praise God!!!! We now have more than enough to get us through until the next paycheck!! AND we were still able to tithe!!

It's been a wonderful two weeks of watching for God's faithfulness. All I can say is GOD IS GOOD!

Baby Bump Pics

Pre-baby

14 weeks

17 weeks

18 weeks

Not much to see here...yet. And I had to archive my pre-pregnancy belly since I will probably never see it again.

Today I'm contemplating the pain. I made the mistake of YouTubing women having contractions...ouch! Of course, these ladies weren't employing the methods I've been reading about. Even though I haven't received it yet, I am forever grateful to my cousin for sending me a relaxation method she used while she gave birth at home to her FOURTEEN POUND BABY!

I'm also contemplating the term "labor." Labor means hard work. I'm going to need some endurance for the pain and the labor...I should probably start exercising. It's tough just to walk briskly for a half hour, and that's with NO pain. Hmmm....yes, I should definitely reconsider my exercise program (or lack thereof).

Test of Faith

Whenever a pay day comes, we breathe a sigh of relief at having been able to scrape by until the last day. That relief only lasted for about the half hour it took me to pay bills today. The situation comes down to this: if all we believed and trusted in was our paycheck, then the amount of money we are left with for the next two weeks will not get my husband to work and we will not be able to buy groceries. I'm not writing this to make anyone feel sorry for us. I'm simply writing to be held accountable to faith. After a fairly brief encounter with panic over this situation, I decided that 1.) there really isn't anything we can do about the situation and 2.) I can't and won't put my body through the stress of...well, stress. I claim to believe God loves us and is faithful, now it's time to put that talk to the test. Jesus tells us not to worry about what we will eat or drink or wear. He provides for sparrows so I know he'll provide for us. It will be interesting to see it all unfold.

Happy then and happy now

For some reason I'm doing a lot of reflecting on the past today. I'm not sure this is always a good thing to do--not because the past was necessarily better than the present, but I think that Satan tries to make you think it was. It's the old "the grass is always greener" syndrome. The fact is that I was happy with my life a year ago and I'm happy with my life now. Life is just different.

Sometimes wish I was the "confident," "independent" person I was a year ago, but I remember that a year ago I wanted to be a stay-at-home wife. I got both. But the best part is that any confidence and independence that I've gained over the last few months is much deeper and more real than the confidence I had then. A year ago I had to put forth confidence or else be eaten alive by life. Now I don't have to fake it. I'd rather have less real confidence than all the manufactured confidence in the world. And I know that I gain more of that real confidence every day. In another year I may not recognize myself as the person I was a year ago--in fact, that person is becoming less and less familiar already.

I expect that a year from now the memory of the person I am now will also begin to fade. In a year, I expect that my confidence in who I am will be more developed, I will no longer feel so vulnerable to slipping into the paralyzing grip of fear again, and I will probably look back on my life and sometimes think that things were better in the past than they are at present, and I'll have to remind myself again that things are not better here, they are just different.

Remembering Today

Fresh spring air is drifting through the open front door. The sun is shining and the birds are singing. It's a little after noon and my tasks for the day are almost complete so I can enjoy the rest of the day outside. I'll sit out there and read, pray, and relax until it's almost time for the man of my dreams to walk through the door and greet me with his signature, "Hello, my beautiful bride!" Take a deep breath. Ahh...life is good!

The best part of this good life is that even if the sun wasn't shining and the birds weren't singing, I am still content. I've finally come to a place in my life where I don't need more. If we live in the same house and we never have more money or more things, that's ok. God always has, is, and always will provide us with more than enough.

I'm not just content with what we have, but I'm finally content with who I am. For the first time, I feel like I do deserve my husband. I am confident in my ability to be a great mother. Pregnancy is finally fun, and I'm confident in my ability to give birth without medication. For the last two months, I have had more peace and confidence in Christ's work in me than I have had in my entire life.

I know that not every day will feel like this, but I know that there will be more days like this than days in the shadows. Praise God for His Holy Spirit living in me!