Feeling my faith...

I felt the overwhelming presence of my faith today. Most days my faith in my Heavenly Father comes in the form of a thought, it is a thought that passes through my head, and I remind myself, "my faith in God will get me through this, or give me guidance on this topic." But my faith is seldom something I feel in every fiber of my being, its not usually something that keeps me physically calm in chaos. Now don't get me wrong I fully believe that my faith should be the thing that brings peace that passes all understanding (Philippians 4:7) but to be completely honest this isn't always the case. Sometimes I have to go many times in a day reminding myself that I need to chose my faith over my own plan and my own ideas but today was a day where I literally squeezed 100 tasks into a 50 task day, and did it all on faith. Several things I started were important pressing things that I wanted to finish today, normally that's how my overly type A self works, if I start something I wanted it finished and completed in its entirety with no holes, gaps or question marks, and if at all possible I would also like to know the outcome and result of everything I just did so I can rest assured that everything is just perfect. But like most my tasks, they somehow include something or someone else and once my part has been done I have to patiently wait.... I am waiting on email responses, phone calls from insurance agents, and electricians and plumbers. I am waiting for answers, and questions, and texts, and appts, and of course I am waiting for there to be 12 more hours in a day. These are my days, and these are the days the Lord has made and he has made them this way for a reason....so in the meantime and in between time you can still find peace if you are living on your faith. Quite honestly I was surprised and how much I trust my God. I was surprised that when I reflected on how many times I have "made it through" certain situations that there wasn't a single time I could remember that I hadn't made it through. And then it dawned on me... if that's the case if I really can't think of a single time the Lord hasn't gotten me through a certain season of life or through a long day then what in the world to I keep stressing for?

As I am quickly approaching mommy hood I am acutely more aware than ever that being a mother, being a parent is all about the unknowns. Even if you accomplished your every wish for that day with your child there is always the ambiguity of tomorrow. There's a world of possibility for tomorrow that is COMPLETELY out of your control. Though I may protect baby girl on Monday and do every art and craft and read every book, and feed and nap her just according to my plan... there is always a tomorrow where my every success today can completely fail me tomorrow. Now I am only guessing here but something tells me that the only way someone who loves control as much as I do is going to get through parenthood is with faith. Unwavering, unshakable, passionate faith. Sometimes we act as though God hasn't promised much in his word, that he hasn't promised things specifically enough like the promise of  money, health, wealth, fun, etc. But he has promised to provide us with our every NEED. He promises to never leave or forsake us. He promises to give a future and a hope. He promises that he who seek shall find, and he who knock the door shall open, and those who ask will receive in the Lords perfect time. These are the promises that give me faith I can feel.  No they aren't a timeline of my future encompassed with several details on exactly how every situation in my life is going to work out just as I hope, but it is a promise that it will work out, that all things work out for the good for those who love the Lord. I don't feel sad for people who don't know Jesus for religious reasons, my heart aches for these people because I know how they get through their days, and its overwhelming, and exhausting, and full of pressure. Its a tough load to carry having to rely on only you, your mind and whatever you hope the world can provide.

I am feeling grateful today. Grateful that I felt my faith as clear and as vividly as I feel this precious little baby in my stomach. I felt my faith and I didn't need to feel it to know He is real, but to remind me that I don't have to go it alone, that even when I try to do it alone He is right there waiting for me to feel the peace of not needing to have it all figured out.

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Baby Girl Update-

Switching gears, for blogging, journaling purposes I must note that today I am 26 weeks. Not sure if I am still measuring a week ahead but I will know tomorrow, or at least I think I will know. I am currently at the same weight I have been for the past 3 weeks, which I find extremely odd since my belly has grown significantly lately. I FINALLY ordered baby's bedroom furniture and now just need to order the bedding, which by the way I had NO idea would be so hard to pick! Baby H has had a name change and may not be Marleigh anymore. For many reasons, none of which I need to document right now due to my extremely heavy eyelids we have decided to wait and see what we think baby looks like when she arrives. It's kind of weird spending the first 6 months calling the baby a name and now calling her baby girl, but we are rolling with it and feeling more peace than we thought with this decision. We are overwhelmingly grateful for another day and another week and almost another month of having a healthy baby growing in my tummy and a healthy body to host this baby. I do not take any part of my body for granted anymore and after recovering from a 6+ day cold I am now truly appreciating and reveling in this miraculous creation the Lord designed known as the human body. The fact that it can grow a human with fully functioning organs and cells all the while heal and fight against the crap trying to attack my immune system is waaaaay beyond me. All I know is these days I don't need to look far to be reminded that God is very real!

I am hoping as I get a better feel for this blogging and get more consistent at it that maybe I will eventually get good at also posting pictures so I really can use this as a scrapbook. My hope is that by month 9 week 3 I will have posted pics consistently every week. Haha and if not well then I guess there is always after the babe is born!

As I reflect on my gratitude for the Lord simultaneously growing another human and fighting viruses all at the same time I pray tonight for my close and wonderful friend Stephanie who needs that same healing in her body against the cancer that has fought hard to take up residence in her body. I am believing for healing, full healing with a new found quality of life both spiritually and physically. I am believing that the same God who performs these miracles in my body is performing miracles in hers as well, and also praising him that she see's the blessing in this struggle and see's it as another way for her to share her faith and her love for the Lord. I am surrounded by amazing people and she is one of them.

A few years in the making...

I have never been very good at journaling. I have always been one of those people that journal for a day or two and get bored and quit. My desire for journaling and having a written record of my life has always been very strong but for some reason I just can't seem to get myself to sit down consistently everyday and log my daily thoughts and travels.One struggle I always had was that writing for a long period of time gave me hand cramps. Now as wimpy as that sounds, if you know me you know I love to talk and talk and talk... My journal entries are never short and sweet but more long and full of run on sentences :) I had always wished I could have some sort of audio journal where I could speak to my journal and the words would translate to print and magically end up on the pages. Unfortunately that invention hadn't been created so I gave up on journaling and waited till the technology of the Jetsons was a reality. I discovered the "blogging world" about two years ago and thought this would be PERFECT for me. I can type WAY faster than I can write, I dont need to keep up with the pokes, friend requests, and news feeds of facebook, and best of all I can post my thoughts, pictures AND video and have it printed out scrapbook style for me to have forever!!! I just can't figure out why it has taken me so long to actually START this blog. The only real think I can equate it to is that it kind of takes me forever to start any new thing. I dream about it, talk about it, plan it out in my mind and then at the very last minute I decide I better get started. This pattern is all to similar to how I navigated my way to school. Procrastination has been one of my things you could say. Something some people saw as a negative but something I thought I did really well . Hey I mean I made it through high school and college so this way of life didn't fail me.

I arrive here now at the "last minute" to try to capture my life before baby. I can't believe in the past 10 months I have started a new job, built a home ( partially with my own hands,)  planned a wedding, got married, savored my last moments on earth with my precious nana and somehow managed to create a little life now currently doing turbo jam in my belly. I can't believe all of this has happened and I have no written or visual record of all the thougths emotions and memories that were a part of these past months, all I have is the memories in my head. I wondered recently what if something terrible happened to my mind and I no recollection of all of this. I wanted to have my story documented somehow so that Derek could sit by my bedside and read me the story of my life, just like the notebook :)

 So this is it.... this is bits and pieces of my life documented for all or some or maybe no one to see. I haven't yet decided exactly at what capacity I will use this blog but these are the things I do know. Once I get comfortable enough to share I will invite my loved ones to this page so that I can share the things I may not always be able to update them on. I will be real and candid on this blog but may not share my every last personal detail for the privacy of myself and my loved ones. I will post pictures and videos of my life so that printing this blog into a scrapbook every year wont be a complete eye sore to look at; and of course also because I have accepted that I will most likely never be a true "scrapbooker." I need something a little less time consuming and a little less to do with arts and crafts. Although I love looking at others scrapbooks, and attending the scrapbooking parties (mostly for the food and socializing) I have never been too impressed with the pages I make and usually end up not finishing them. Haha in fact I am almost quite certain they end up in the same bin with my started but never finished journals :) I have made a promise to myself  that I will allow me to just be me on this blog. Unlike the world of facebook and myspace I refuse to try to write perfectly and post only the best pictures of myself. I have promised to treat it like a real journal one with typos and run on sentences and pictures that may not be pleasing to the eye :) I will probably inundate this page and all my posts with a semi colon and half parenthesis to show that I am smiling, or laughing at what I just wrote. And I will use this blog as an outlet for me to share my joys, my pains and everything in between. But most of all I have decided to use this blog to share who I really am and my love for my life, my family and friends and my love and devotion to the Lord. Most of my journals were filled with entries where I would talk or pray to God. He fills my soul and brings a joy and peace that passes all understanding. He is my rock and my refuge and leaving him out of my blog, my journal, or my conversations would be posing as something I am not. Some days my blog will be short and sweet full of random thoughts while other days may be a prayer full of honesty and worship. I intend to look at this blog in 50 years and see who I was and who I have grown to be. I am very clueless as to what I am doing and how to make my blog look as cool as I want it to but I do know how to share my thoughts and I know how to type so I figure it's time to get started, so here goes nothing!

Testing....

I dont think I have ever been more excited to do something that I know absolutley nothing about... There was a time in College I was able to navigate my way around the computer like no other. Facebook had just come out and it took me no time at all to set up the most complex and aesthetically pleasing page one had ever seen. I didn't really know what I was doing but somehow I just got it. Now fast forward a few years,  here I sit at Rocket Bakery setting up my blog, a blog 2 years in the making, only to find out I know absolutley NOTHING about setting up a blog. I mean sure I can change the font color and insert a picture ( one I can't seem to center to my page) but other than that I am clueless. I can't quite tell what this will turn out like, but I can tell you that my type A personality is wanting my freshmen in college self to come back and pimp my blog page... okay I am going to go to the preview and see what this looks like....hmmmmm.....