New Year... New Life

2013 is shaping up to be a year full of anticipation for many.  I know of couples planning for a new life as husband and wife, others looking forward to new life as parents for the first time, and even more just looking to welcome a second or third child into their family.  My prayer for the New Year is for a blessed New Life for all. 

Whether it be a new life season, or a new life in Christ, times of change evoke strong feelings.  In 2012 God's brought our family through a pretty wide range of feelings and transition.  We started the year saying goodbye to two uncles and a grandfather, walked through our second miscarriage, wished many friends well as they left to start their own new seasons, and managed to re-rent our home in Texas from a thousand miles away.  Through each  transition a choice exists, to conform to the response the world would expect from change, or to be transformed as you allow God to renew your way of thinking.  We've been blessed in the past couple years to be surrounded by a community that challenges us to transform, and for that I'm thankful.

I'm praying as we enter 2013, myself along with everyone else can release feelings of anxiety we hold over situations we cannot control, that we forgive past hurts and release any bitterness or resentment that stem from them.  I pray our eyes can be opened to the needs of others we encounter, and the blessings we've already been given, rather than being jealous of the blessings we perceive others to have and our eyes blinded but what we think we lack.  I pray for God's protection over the innocent, the unborn, the abused, and the unwanted, that He provide as only He can.  I'm praying for the lives to be born, and those needing to be reborn, and for the grace we ALL will need to figure out how to deal with all this transition.  There is a whole lot wrong with the World, but I'm praying in 2013 we can focus on what is right, on life, and light, and hope.

"Finally, brothers and sisters, (as we exit 2012) whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things." Phil 4:8

Don't dwell on the negatives from 2012 and look forward to 2013 with this promise in mind: "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for good and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope". Jer 29:11.

Happy New Year!

Resurfacing

Now that the all consuming, mind numbing, anticipation of life or death dramatics has passed, I feel like I'm just coming up from a very long submersion under water.  I don't think I realized it before, but I'm pretty sure I was holding my breath all last week.... Kevin kept wondering if something was wrong all afternoon as I sighed, over and over and over again. 

I noticed a few other things upon coming up for air.  My house is in absolute dissary, I have no food in the fridge, and the bright orange shutterfly box of my christmas cards has been sitting on my counter for over a week now.  This promptly caused me to start freaking out again.

Does anyone else get totally distressed over the Christmas Card process?   Because I'm cheap fiscally responsible, I opted for the cheapest most price concience card, and it still cost a small fortune.  Ofcourse, shutterfly would send out a coupon exactly 10 minutes after the 30 minute window to cancel my order had passed. Lovely. 

Everytime I get to that page of selecting order quantity, I freeze.  Every year I order slightly more, and every year its not enough.  I consult my 'list'.  My running address label word document, that allows me to avoid the inane task of individually addressing enevelops.  My head says its surely impossible to order this many.  My list says otherwise.  Then the heart palpitations start when I think about forgetting someone.  So when I resurfaced today, and realized if I were to send a card to everyone I loved, I'd need to order 300, I got overwhelmed and sat down with a handful of chocolate chips to think.

Upon realizing Christmas cards were not intended to cause this much stress, a concept more sane people grasp much more quickly, I decided the cards I have will go out, and after the appropriate amount of time for delivery, I'll post the card to FB.  I think the absence of air to the brain for a week, may have had something to do with how I prioritized Christmas cards above food and shelter, in the list of things to do.

Thank goodness its Tuesday and whole foods will feed me pizza again.... I guess that leaves the house!

Sono Update

We have a HEARTBEAT!!!!!  Hip Hip Hooray!!!!  Thank you God!!!!  Some people are good at dragging out news, really setting the stage and creating a build-up.  Me, not so much.

I actually slept alright last night, thanks to the many prayers I'm sure, and only really started to freak out again when I sat on the exam table.  It was shockingly small.  To the point that my heart actually dropped at first sight, convinced this was round three.  The tech did her thing, and was amazingly reassuring.  The baby is measuring smaller than I had anticipated, by almost a week, but the tech assured me that is likely attributed to being off on my count (which is certainly a possibility given how off EVERYTHING has been with the multiple miscarriages).

She looked into the bleed, and said it was a 'subchorionic hemmorage', which apparently is common and she said it was healing, and that everything else looks good.

We aren't out of the woods for sure, the baby is only measuring just under 7wks, so still 5 more weeks until we would pass the 12wk holy grail mark.  Still praying for health and protection all the way through, but thanking God for his faithfulness in answering my prayer for a healthy heartbeat.  150 BPM's.... I heard it.... I saw it.... Thank you God! 

Kevin asked on the way home if I was going to be more 'normal' now.  Its debateable if I've ever been normal, and most people reading this are likely female and can attest to the insane nature of our fantastic hormones.... so we'll see how normal I can be :)   I did reassure him however, that the heartbeat has calmed my immediate fears, and was the best possible gift I could get heading into the holiday season!

Thank ya'll again for the support, prayers, encouragement, and love this week!  So much to be thankful for, my heart is very full this morning!!!

Anxious For Nothing

I love people.  This week has not been an easy one, but there is power in prayer and I've felt it.  Thank you!

Up until my previous post, I'd been a straight up basket case, nut job.  I'm not kidding ya'll, loony toons.  My farthest stretch was when I was rationalizing that God, being good in all things, and having purpose in all things, meant if I were to miscarry 3 times in a row, that meant I had cancer.  Again, you probably think I'm kidding.... no one could make that far of a leap right?  My awesome brain can.  Let's see if you can follow my amazing logic.  The Dr's had confirmed after my last loss that if it happened a third time I would be tested.  So, logically, holding to the promise that God works all things together for my good, the purpose of a third miscarriage would be for me to get tested, so that they could discover some potentially fatal disease at stage 0 and take care of it.  Makes sense, right?

Logic has not been my strong suit recently.  Kevin deserves an award or something for listening to my insanity and responding with encouragement.... most of the time....  At one point he did express his deep appreciation for not being a woman, admitting we're crazy.  I couldn't argue with him.

I've found a lot more peace and hope in the last few days.  My anxiety has been replaced by an excited anticipation, knowing that I've done what I can and trusting God to respond to the faith filled prayers of so many.  The flip side of that, is no matter what I do, I don't control God and cannot manipulate His plan for my life, so holding my desires loosely is still a practice I'm working on.

With that being said.... now that I've posted my prayer request to the world, and have an indeterminate number of people wondering what the outcome of my Dr's appointment tomorrow will be, I figured a follow up would be appropriate.  There is a good reason why people don't discuss the potentially dark/scary sides of their life, because walking through it is painful, and reminders or feedback on how your handling it (or not) can make it even worse.  I will post an update after my appointment tomorrow.  Promise.

Holding on to this guidance tonight: "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." Phil 4:6   Thanking God tonight for the MANY blessings in my life, and presenting my request before Him for a healthy heartbeat for baby in the morning!

Brutal

It bothers me that the Christian stereotype generally seems to fall in one of two camps: straining towards perfection or a hypocrite.  Why is it so difficult to comprehend that when someone accepts the truth of Christ, its only the beginning of unlearning everything the world taught you and being taught it from a new perspective.  There will be mistakes.  Depending on the age this truth is grasped, that can be a LOT of learning to un-do.

Our world teaches self-preservation.  It was a lesson I learned well.  One I'm having a rather difficult time un-learning at the present moment.

If you remain unattached to something, aloof, ambivalent its easy to not let it affect you.  If its taken from you, you really don't care.  It's a passionless way to live, but it does keep you from getting hurt.  When I feel like I can't control a situation, I give up and shut down emotionally so whatever fall out may be I can walk away at the end of it unscathed.  Sounds pretty heartless and cowardly... I know... I didn't say I was proud of it, it's just the way it was.

That was before I learned that the same God that created me and everything around me wants to fight my battles.  Funny side story.... Sunday School for the boys, gives them different memory verses for the month. A few weeks back was a subset of 2 Chronicles 32:8 "We have the Lord our God to help us and to fight our battles for us".  After dinner, we sent the boys downstairs to clean up their toys, and out of nowhere Caleb starts shouting a Logan "You WILL help me or God will come down here and fight my battle against you second Chronicles 32:8!  You want that?  He will battle you!  You better start helping right now!"..... Might not have been exactly what God was referring to, but with the faith that child has, if I were Logan I would have started picking up just to be sure.

When I lost our first pregnancy.  I had remained aloof.  It happens, this was just my turn.  Unattached.  When I lost our second pregnancy, I was straining toward perfection... Having the perfect Christian response to a loss..."It wasn't meant to be, it will happen in God's time."  Ambivalent.  Unattached.
I thought I was losing our third yesterday.  I went to the gym for the first time in forever and ended up rushing home in tears at the scare.

God is using this process to break me down.  It is BRUTAL.  It is brutal because I know He's trying to break me, because He loves me.... and I know that makes no sense to people that don't understand the God I'm learning to love, but it's true.  He sees how paralyzed I am to even move, the fear that grips me that one false move and I will lose it, my constant anxiety and inability to rejoice in a pregnancy that I can't control.  He doesn't want me living, captive to the insane thoughts in my brain.  He wants needs me to rest in Him, to not only attach, but to love this baby so fiercely because He gave it to me, and to trust that He is far more capable than I to nurture and protect it. 

I'm know its just as brutal for Him, to see how strong the fight in me still is.  To know, all that I know of Him, to live surrounded by His blessings in my life, and yet not fully trust Him to carry me through this.  One thing that is giving me peace, is that He will win.  I may battle Him, and suffer the consequences of the fear and anxiety that comes from withholding my trust in Him.... but He will not lose energy or interest in fighting with me, and eventually He will wear me down, I will stop beating my fists, and He will win.  I have peace knowing He won't gloat, that He'll pick my tired self up and say... finally sweetheart, thank you.... and that we'll be fine.   But right now.... its Brutal.

I know in our bright shiny world, we don't normally share the scary dark sides.  We suffer in silence, wait till we overcome, then come out to share how much we're capable of overcoming.  Whatever.  That's lame, and I need prayers.  We have our sono on Monday (as long as things hold through the weekend), and for the two pregnancies that we lost previously that is where we learned that things were not progressing as they should.... so that is were a LOT (o.k. ALL) of my anxiety is stemming from.  Please pray that God protect this sweet little baby bean in my belly, that it's growing as it should, and that I will give up my fight to retain control or try and protect myself, and trust God to do it for me.  That no matter the outcome I hold fast to the knowledge that He loves me and will reveal the reasoning behind it to me someday.