A year later...

Today marks a year since I popped Phil a big question on our date at Bonefish. "Are you ready to start trying to have another baby?" This felt like a much bigger deal than when we decided to start trying with our first (Cora).  Phil and I never had a formal talk and we were really laid back about it. We wouldn't try and we wouldn't prevent. A month later, Cora was conceived. It happened fast and before we knew it, we had the most perfect baby girl. We never knew we could love anyone so much. Being pregnant, Cora's BIRTH day, and family memories together are some of my happiest memories to date. I have LOVED every second of being a Mom (even the difficult moments have been very fulfilling). 
Well, back to our date at Bonefish... We chatted and decided that we were both ready to try and have another baby and felt like it was a good choice. We were happy and excited. Nothing was wrong with this situation. But, this is where I spiraled. In my mind, I began to proceed to figure out which month would be best to give birth to a baby in Michigan... because a baby in the winter? What if it snows? What would I do for a nursery this time? What names would sound cute with Cora? I started planning. Again, nothing wrong with this situation, but, looking back, I see it differently. 
Why do I see it differently? A year later, we don't have another baby, and one baby we never met is in heaven. God has used the waiting and the loss to show me why my feelings and the way I've been thinking has been wrong since the second I popped the question. 
First, God showed me that babies happen in his timing. Planning what month to have a baby in just seems crazy to me now. I'm embarrassed to even admit that I thought that, but I'm being real. Now, I'd be happy to have a baby in rain, snow, or shine. I have confidence that whatever the weather would be, it would be okay because God is in control. The baby will happen in His timing.
Second, God has allowed me to experience a SMALL taste of what many women have gone through. I have friends and family who have had multiple miscarriages and struggled with infertility for YEARS. Waiting one year and going through a miscarriage has helped me to understand these feelings in a small way. Cora has always been a blessing, but now I see her quick conception, safe birth, and current health in a completely different way. I'm thankful God has allowed me to be blessed by her all over again in a new way. 
Third, God  helped me to stop focusing on what I didn't have and allowed me to start focusing on what I did have. A wonderful husband, healthy daughter, loving family and friends, amazing church, my salvation, etc...

Finally, during the miscarriage, God brought a verse to me and the Lord used it to begin a chain reaction in the way I've been thinking and feeling. 

Psalm 43:3
Send out your light and your truth; let them guide me. Let them lead me to your holy hill and to your dwelling! Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy, and I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God."

I read that verse in my Bible Study called The Wisdom of God by Nancy Guthrie. She explains it this way, 

"But he [the Psalmist] knows his feelings are not telling him the truth, so he asks God to break through his emotions so he can embrace the truth." 

This is when it hit me. My feelings had not been telling me the truth for months. I hadn't even recognized it. I had let wanting to have a baby and anxiety about many other things consume my mind and feelings, and I hadn't even recognized that. The thought terrified me. This verse was such a healing balm during that time, that it brought me a real peace, because I had hope that the feelings I was experiencing, could be replaced with the feelings of Christ.

Then came the next verse, 

Psalm 51:6

"Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart." 

This verse came from my Bible Study too. (The Wisdom of God by Nancy Guthrie) She says, 

"David wants truth  from God to replace the lies he's listened to and the wisdom from God to replace the foolishness that he has tolerated." 

This verse went deeper. Not only were my feelings not telling me the truth, my thoughts weren't either. I need Christ in every fiber of my being. Again, I was terrified that I hadn't recognized this. This verse gave me peace too, because I had hope that the thoughts I was thinking, could be replaced with the thoughts of Christ. 

These verses have been constantly playing in my mind for weeks now. This year looks a lot different than what I thought it would be a year ago, but it sure is a lot better than I could have ever planned it. This year, I have a calm realization that my feelings and thoughts are not best, and that God's feelings and thoughts are best and exactly what I need. God is not pacing around, unaware of any situation. He is seated, powerful and sovereign, working out all things for our good. I don't need to try and take control and make things happen and get frustrated when they don't work out. His plan is so much better.

Psalm 2:4a. says, "He who sits in the heavens laughs..." 

Nancy Guthrie says, "...the next voice we hear speaking in the Psalms is the voice of God, who is seated in serenity, unperturbed, confident, enthroned in heaven." 

So, finally, I end with this thought from Changed into His Image by Jim Berg, 

"The toxicity of this heart is so potent that when God wants to judge a man, all He has to do is turn that man over to his own heart. What a frightening thought! You and I have enough evil residing in us that if God were to let us have our own way, we would destroy ourselves. Rather than demanding our own way, we ought to be begging God never to let us have what our flesh demands. We ought to pray, 'Dear God, limit me, bind me, restrict me. Do whatever you have to, but please don't let me have my own way.'" 

Book Review: Lizzy and Jane

I laugh, because I went straight to Lizzy and Jane by Katherine Reay after I read The Hardest Peace thinking, "Surely this can't be any more sad than the last book." The irony is that Lizzy and Jane is about relationships and particularly one between two sisters, one of which has cancer. Although this story was fictional and not as raw and real as The Hardest Peace, it still pulled at my heart strings. I enjoyed it though, and I felt like reading The Hardest Peace before this book gave me a better understanding what Jane (the sister with cancer) was experiencing. This book was similar to Dear Mr. Knightly, because the main character, a NYC chef named Elizabeth ie. Lizzy, figures out shes been hiding her pain and loneliness in her career. Her Mom dies of cancer when she's young, her Dad can't handle it so he disappears from Lizzy mentally, and her sister (Jane) deserts her when her mom gets sick. The irony is she runs away from her problems loneliness in her hometown Seattle to NYC where she opens her restaurant, Feast, and discovers that not only is she lonely still, she feels no purpose in her life. Her food lacks quality and creativity and she's distant from everyone in her life. Her sister, Jane, is diagnosed with cancer and she is rocked. This is the situation with her mom all over again. Although she doesn't really have a relationship with her sister, she can't come to terms with losing another person. She leaves NYC for a short term trip to take care of her sister and her sister's family and finds purpose again. Through taking care of others, she forgets about herself and sees how she's been searching for the wrong things. It has a Christian perspective, but it is an undertone. The ending is really happy, so I enjoyed that too. 

Book Review: The Hardest Peace

Where to even begin. The Hardest Peace by Kara Tippetts was wonderful and all kinds of sad. I knew going into it that I would probably sob through the whole thing... and I did. I wanted to read this book, because I think a lot about what would happen to my family if Phil or I died. I think Kara did a good job of giving a real, raw and balanced look at what life was like for her during this hard season of life. A lot of my biggest fears, she experienced. The part that probably gripped me the most was when she had to have a conversation with her seven year old daughter about how she probably would die of cancer and not of old age. Her daughter had asked her Dad what he thought Mom (Kara) would die of...old age or cancer. He couldn't answer because his grief suffocated him in the moment. God gave Kara the grace to have the conversation with her little, but it took my breath away. It was horrible and beautiful and sad. It's not the pain of dying or even dying itself that scares me. Like Kara, it's leaving behind the ones you love and knowing that they are suffering and you are not anymore. It's maddening to think about. There were a few things that stood out to me in her book that brought me comfort and reminded me that God's grace is big enough for anything that may happen in our life. She reminded me that God's the author of life, joy, sadness, suffering, etc...

1. Even frustrations or routine are a luxury in our life- Kara longed for normal. She longed to WAIT in car line, make lunches, sign permission slips. Do I need to say more? Really sheds a new light on today's problems. 

2. God may not take our suffering away, but Kara came upon a verse where the psalmist prays to take the dread away from the suffering. That resonated with me. This is a real fear for me and I think for many people. Nobody wants to suffer, even though God uses it for his glory and for our good. The verse is Psalm 1:33,"Whoever listens to me will dwell secure and will be at ease, without dread of disaster." 

3. Every day is a gift, don't waste it- This about sums up the book. Every day is a gift. Embrace God's grace in your life. Suffering will come. God will be near. This makes me think of the last sentence in a prayer I pray every day from Valley Of Vision called Morning Dedication. It says, "May I speak each word as if my last word, and walk each step as my final one. If my life should end today, let this be my best day." 

Book Review: Dear Mr. Knightly

My most recent read, Dear Mr. Knightly by Katherine Reay, was not at all what I expected. Many of the blogs that I follow wrote about how much they loved this book, so when I saw that it was on sale on amazon, I went for it. I am soooo glad that I did. This book had me up reading to all hours of the night. The main character, Sam, was intriguing to me. I love the style that the author wrote in--a series of letters between Sam and her mysterious benefactor. The ending shattered me, because it's not what I wanted, but I was okay with it, because the ending made sense. 

This book really messed with me though. Although I in no ways shared the childhood that Sam Moore Muir had in the book, I felt like I related to her in SO MANY ways. Because of her childhood, she retreated and hid in her books (particularly Jane Austen) so that she didn't have to be real and live in the real world. Throughout the book, Sam learns that although it's painful to live in the real world, it's worth it, because along with the bad comes the very very good. When she steps outside the world of her books, she meets friends, her future adoptive parents and her boyfriend. I related to Sam in the way she hides. I don't think I hide in books, but I think I've hid in being what people want me to be. Instead of focusing on my identity in Christ, I tend to focus on what other people want me to be. It's easier to be a peacemaker and avoid conflict if you just do what others want all the time. The problem is that it isn't real and it isn't right to behave that way. I've tried to spend a lot more time in God's word this year and what I keep realizing is the more I become like Christ, the more glory I bring to God and the more I become like him. The more I am like him, the more fulfillment and peace I will feel. There won't be the need to hide in who I think people want me to be or "figure out who I am" (a common theme in many books today), because my main goal will to be like Christ. I guess the Lord has been working on this lesson before I actually pinpointed what the problem was, but I see it now and I was excited that he brought this to my attention. It makes sense with everything he's been showing me in my Bible and at Bible study. 

Book Review: The Atlantis Trilogy

I've had the best time reading the fictional sci-fy series, The Atlantis Gene, The Atlantis Plague, and The Atlantis World. I haven't read a fictional book series in a while, so this was a welcome change. I signed up for the free kindle unlimited trial and saw this series pop up. It was a spur of the moment decision, and I didn't know much about the series before I began. If you enjoy suspenseful syi-fy books with lots of detail, these are for you. There were so many times in these books that I was in awe of how much research the author must have had to do for the backstory. The books have few swear words and no explicit scenes--which made me like them even more. 

Book Review: The Fringe Hours

I recently finished reading the book The Fringe Hours by Jessica Turner. She is well known for her popular blog called The Mom Creative. The book was on sale for $2.99 on Amazon Kindle, and I snagged it up as soon as I could. It was on my book list for this year which made the deal even better in my eyes! I have mixed feelings about this book. I love most of what she says, but there are a few things I disagree with. When I finished the book, I felt inspired. Here are a few of my "take-aways."

1. Take Care of Yourself- I know this seems like a weird and obvious thing to take away from a book, but it's true...Drink water, floss your teeth, go to REGULAR Dr. appointments, when something doesn't feel right--go to the Dr...Once babies, jobs, husbands, etc... come along, it somehow becomes easier to put all of these things on the back burner. There is ALWAYS time to do these things. 

2. There is ALWAYS Time to do What you Love-Jessica really challenged me to figure out what things I enjoy doing and what things I want to learn. After that, she challenged me to figure out a time frame where I can make those things happen. Because of this thought process, I've decided to wake up 30 minutes earlier than I have been this past month (6 am) and use that time to study the Bible more. I also decided that I want to learn how to sew. I've said for the longest time, "I wish I could sew, I just don't have time to learn." No more excuses. There is time. I just finished a Bible study with my friend, which frees up my Tuesday mornings. I'm going to ask my Grandma if she can teach me. If my Grandma is unable to teach me, I am going to ask for a paid class at JoAnns for my birthday. It's never too late to learn and make time to do things we are interested in. 

3. Use your Fringe Hours- Use the little minutes we have here and there to finish a task, and do something we enjoy. I put this into practice this week while I was cooking dinner. While I was waiting for the water to boil, I pulled out my kindle and got extra minutes of reading in. That was a full chapter. I was so thankful I didn't pull out my phone and aimlessly browse. 

There were a few things in the book that I didn't love, and I believe they are my own personal conviction...not anything the author is doing wrong. Overall, I felt like this book gave me a renewed vision on figuring out what I love and making time to do those things. God, my husband and Cora come first, but there is always time to do something I enjoy...even if it's just for a few fringe moments.