Grey Hairs and Wheel Chairs...

So, for awhile now I've been wanting to start branching out in my personal ministries. Which can be rather hard considering the mommy demand in my home is at an all time high. But, I don't believe children are meant to be an excuse so I have finally gone forward with something God has put on my heart for many years...And this is done with many thanks to my husband, who, in addition to starting 3 new jobs at one time, is taking Tuesday mornings off to watch our girls so I can live out the Gospel in a new way that God has put on my heart. (I love my Jeremiah.)

Today was my first day as a volunteer at a local nursing home, Ross Memorial Heath Care Center! My basic duties are to help wheel the residents from their rooms to the activity room, sit with them while the take part, or visit other residents in their rooms, and then help wheel them out. Originally I was supposed to do Friday mornings until I realized I had double booked myself. Praise God that He loves to show up in the details...Guess what the activity is every Tuesday when I'm there?? It's called "Sounds of Praise". A pianist comes in and plays and sings old hymns and an elderly man brings some God centered stories and devotions. As you all should know, singing old hymns to a piano is right up my southern Baptist-raised alley :) I got to sing, and loudly at that (hehe). The sweet woman, Annie, next to me was my own personal fan club and whenever a break presented itself she exclaimed "my, aren't you good...can you come home with me and sing to my Mommy and Daddy?". Though, she is obviously suffering from dementia, she was sincere all the same.

So, this is what I get to do every Tuesday morning. I get to serve these sweet people, and smile at them. Hold their hands and listen to them. Sing for them. It really is amazing how cool our God is! I knew I'd enjoy, but now I'm going to love it. And eventually I'll probably get to lead a devotion and do a musical "special" :) And as a side note, usually I am nervous about starting something new just because it is foreign...But I wasn't this morning. It was real nice. And as an additional side note, this is something I can bring Irie (my 3.5 year old) along with me to. She will love showing off her dance skills for them.

What has God been putting on your heart that you've been putting off for a million different reasons??? Perhaps, its just not time yet. But...maybe it is! Hey, if I can fit it in, maybe you can too :)

Dreams are a wish our hearts make...

I've been thinking about dreams. Not the kind you have when you sleep (though I've plenty enough strange ones to devote a whole blog to). I've been thinking about dreams, as in the things we desire most in life, the things we aspire to do and become, the things we dare to think of though we know it may never happen. The reason that this is noteworthy is because by nature, I am not much of a dreamer. I tend to err on the side of being a realist, and a realist isn't one for dreaming much. However. since I've been married to a magnificent dreamer for four years now, I think he's having an effect on me. I know this to be true because I've been dreaming some magnificent dreams myself. When I'm lying in bed at night, my mind wanders far from me...And when I wake up in the morning to nurse Clara I have trouble falling back asleep thinking on such dreams. I don't know why I've never been a dreamer, because despite the lack of sleep its causing me, it's quite the thrill! I suppose it has seemed so easy to see dreams may never come to be, than to take the time to imagine if they did. I was on the way to church this morning and heard this line in a song "I've heard of dreams that move the mountains"...And then I was thinking on our beloved Martin Luther King, Jr., who, as we all know, had a dream. I've been pondering that if more people were dreamers, then maybe we'd have a greater impact on the world. Because, as for me, the more I think about my dreams the more I start to realize they aren't so far fetched...Especially since I serve such a mighty God!

So, this may not come as much of a surprise, but there is really only one thing I spend most of my time dreaming of (though I do dream of other things as well).... I dream of moving to Jamaica and planting a church. Oh my, every time I think I'm going to get it out of my system, I don't. Lately, I can close my eyes and picture Jeremiah and I ministering together. I can picture myself walking with the girls down the road to visit people. I can see the sunrises and sunsets and I can smell the freedom and excitement in the air as people start walking with God. It makes my heart beat faster and my eyes tear up. I dream of it so intensely. Usually I dream and then the realist within starts talking to me...It reminds me that my husband is not quite on board with all that, and that you need money, and that though life is simpler there, you are not afforded many of the conveniences you are here. And of the dangers to my children and that I'd leave my family behind. But lately, I've listened to the realist with wisdom and acknowledge these obstacles. I realize that my dream may never happen. God may call someone else's family to go there and they may plant a church. God may only use my prayers instead of my body. If that's the case then I'll just have to wonder why I was given this passion from afar, but I'll be okay. But, what if it is me and my family that gets to go!? What if my whole destiny depends on my ability to keep dreaming? To dream and keep my passion burning deep so that when the time comes I'm ready?

I think on Martin Luther King, Jr. and wonder where our nation would be if he had stopped dreaming? He changed a NATION for crying out loud! His dream was impossibly big and huge and hard, but it was the heart of God inspiring it with in him! I dream of changing a nation and pray that I could be devoted to my dream as he was his.

So I challenge you with this...let yourself dream! Dream of freedoms won, and nations released. Dream of your children following God to the ends of our earth and your children's children after them. Dream of your marriage causing envy in all those around you because the love that you share is so tangible. Dream of your families being reconciled and those that are unreachable being reached. Dream big dreams and small dreams...Outrageous dreams and down right silly dreams. Dream with faith that God CAN do it, even if He never chooses to. As Beth Moore so boldy puts it: "If I err, let it be on the side of faith!"

I see now, in our own way, we are all called to dream. We dream God's dreams and in pursuing them bring the Kingdom on earth.

Magic Mirror on the Wall...

Let me start this with a boring random fact...I use to think the mirror in Snow White was addressed as "mirror mirror on the wall", when in fact, it is "magic mirror on the wall". Hhhhmmmm. Pointless, I know :)

But on to my real thoughts. Last week I reposted a blog from last year titled "Beauty is Fleeting". Never in my life have I struggled so much with my physical image as I have the past few months. So, I had to go back and reread what God spoke to me last year...and reread and reread. Well, you get the point, I read it about 5 or 6 times. And guess what? It ministered to me! And guess what else?! I'm still struggling.

I'm struggling with my image and wasting my precious thoughts on how my body looks. And I'm frustrated that I'm struggling. And I'm frustrated that I'm frustrated. Eh.

I've been contemplating why I'm struggling and I've come to a few conclusions:

1. I've never been a looker, but I've always been completely at home with the way my body looks. Even after the first two children. Even back when I was flat as a board and skinny as a pole. Even when I gained a little weight my senior year. And especially when I was an in-shape hot momma before our wedding :) That is, I've always been until now. I've never even remotely disliked the way I look until now.

2. I've never had to work out to look good. Since I've always been comfortable in my own skin, I've always just worked out for the sake of it and because I enjoy it. I don't know if I have the diligence to work out with a goal. And for what? Because for all I know six months from now I might be pregnant again! (Not that that is my goal, but we all know my track record is bit shady in the not being pregnant area.)

3. My body has changed a lot in the past 4 years. And especially since my much desired VBAC. I'm like a freaking bear that keeps going in and out of hibernation. I don't know if that makes sense to you but it does to me. Not only have I much "milk fat" (that is what I have termed the additional weight women put on to later on give back to their baby via nursing)...I have these hips that won't even unwiden and a body that has endured 3 pregnancies. Stretch marks, saggy parts, a "plump" tush, and thighs that chafe in this wonderful Georgia heat. A head of hair that is bound to start molting any day now. A knee that wouldn't allow me to run it all off, and an Achilles tendon is acting up.

4. I have changed A LOT in the past four years. I can barely remember I life post kids. Getting married changed me. And every time I get pregnant I change. And every time I give birth I change. The church next to our house had a meeting advertised on its sign for "borderline personality disorders". I thought maybe I should go because its seems I'm always on the borderline or becoming someone else!

So to sum it all up. I don't look in the mirror and recognize myself. I don't look inside myself and recognize myself. I know that what I see hasn't a thing to do with my insides, and vice verse.

I'd like to tell you and myself that the mirror doesn't matter to me, but it does. Frankly, I don't give a rip what other people look at me and see (well, might give a small rip), but I care what I see. I want to be happy with the person I see. And I wish it weren't so hard to get from the place I'm at now to where I want to be.

Here I am, learning to relove the body I'm in. To love it because it is the way it is because I have been blessed with 3 amazing little booger heads. To love it because I am able to bear life. To love it because I bear the marks of motherhood. To love it because if I don't I'm vain and shallow and without perspective and those are three things I never want to be.

Changing this world...

Jeremiah and I are watching this documentary called "The Human Experience". It's really cool. It got me thinking about my first visit to Jamaica when I was 15. We went to a handicapped orphanage up in the mountains called Westhaven. When I say handicapped you might think of someone in a wheel chair or someone with Down's Syndrome. There are children there with those conditions, but there are also children who are 18 years old but the size of a 1 year old... Children who are shriveled and stunted, molded into contortions from bones that are fused together. Children who are bedridden for life. They are there because their parents saw them at birth and rejected them. I think if many of them were born in America they could have been a lot better off due to available physical therapies and such. But then I also think that in America we have so many tests and technologies available to predict such conditions before children are born that if that child had been conceived here most parents would have aborted them before they were born. It makes me sigh. It makes me sigh a big, long, and deep sigh.

And then I remember their smiles. :) The first time I went I just cried uncontrollably. I cried and to this day I still don't quite understand why. Well for the obvious reasons that these children are so sweet and beautiful and their parents gave them up. But it was more than that. It was the horrible state of humanity and the sheltered lives we lead. It was holding a sweet girl names Janelle who was bed ridden and stuck in one shape and seeing her smile at me. It was the joy they gave me, a joy that rattled my world. And I was the one who was there to minister to them!

I can trace a shift in my world view back to that first trip, back to that orphanage. God changed my life on that trip. He opened my eyes and stirred my soul for someone other than me. And this was done through children that were the scum of the earth, children that couldn't walk or talk or feed themselves.

So, I'm watching this documentary yesterday thinking about how those sweet kids changed me. And I'm left with the dreadful truth: that most of us (including myself) aren't living up to our potential. If those kids could be used to alter my life, how much more should I be altering lives? Not because I'm better than them because I'm not handicapped. But because I'm NOT handicapped. Because I can talk and walk and speak and say deep things and go places. Not to mention all the other gifts I've been given in abundance. I've nothing limiting me.

That's all.

Life Is a Treadmill

Life is a Treadmill.

And it is on a high speed.

I.E. If you are not moving your feet forward, then you are flying backwards!

Have you ever watched a video where someone was distracted on a treadmill and FLEW backwards off into a wall? I have. And this image is precisely what God reminded me of when I was thinking about how I have been slacking off in a few areas. What a wake up call! Sometimes I fool myself into thinking that if I slack a little, it is equivalent to me just standing still, taking a break, catching my breath. In reality, my choices are making me backtrack (the Baptist in me is tempted to say "backslide" but that sounds too dramatic!).


Let's be honest, I have a lot of good excuses for dropping the ball. But excuses is all they are. What I need are actual reasons for dropping the ball in order to justify my behavior and I've found, upon self examination, that all my reasons are selfish.

So, here's to picking myself and my pride up off the floor, hoping no one saw me fly off the treadmill, and praying I am not injured so I can jump back on and keep going! ...Metaphorically speaking of course! :)

Clara's Birth

I have been pondering in my heart how to convey in words all that I feel towards the birth of our 3rd child. I feel that no matter what I write here it will fall short of doing it justice - but oh well! That's just how awesome some things are.

I went into this pregnancy kicking and screaming. I wasn't ready to deal with all the things it made me face and my past discouragements concerning birth. Two c-sections under my belt and more than physical scars to accompany those surgeries. I wanted a vaginal birth more than I could explain and for reasons I didn't even understand myself (though in retrospect, I do understand better my innate need for something so wonderful).

Clara was born on February 14th, the best Valentine's present I've ever been gifted. (Nothing like having the Lover of my soul satisfying a deep desire of my heart on the day of love.) She was 6 days "past due" and those six days were hard. When I was pregnant with Scarlet I didn't go into labor by the appointed time my former OB gave me. So I was just waiting. Fortunately this time around I have an awesome OB, Dr. Joseph Tate, who wouldn't have done a c-section unless absolutely necessary...Still I was facing my fears. But my body was working and I knew that labor was coming - just the waiting for it that was killer. I was having contractions that were getting more intense over the course of 5 days before I actually went into labor...And this is where the real story begins!

On Sunday night Jeremiah went on a date and I was uncomfortable from the child inside! So, we decided to come home and DTD (do the deed) one last time for good measure since that is the best way to keep your body ready for labor. Well, this time it worked. With in half an hour I was having contractions 4-6 minutes apart (this was 10pm). With in 2 hours they were 2-3 minutes apart and more intense. But, I could still talk through them and they weren't that long. So, I tried to sleep, took a warm bath, drank a little wine - no rest though. And even though I was tired, my heart was EXCITED! I was in labor! This went on all night, I let Jeremiah rest because if you know J, you know he is much more helpful rested. I did wake up to tell him I was indeed in labor and that we'd be leaving for the hospital in time to beat rush hour traffic. He accepted this info and went back to sleep - I love my husband! :) (Testimony of how at peace we both were with the situation.) So, at 6am we left for downtown (Emory Hosp in Midtown). My whole family met us there which was a blessing because I didn't know they'd all be able to make it. We had to wait awhile for a triage room. Thankfully my awesome OB was there and he checked me. 8am: 5cm 80% eff, -1 station. Then we had to wait for a labor and delivery room -- which was great because in the meantime I didn't have to be hooked up to fetal monitoring so I paced around through contractions and J and I joked around and went over some Bible verses I'd been confessing...9:30ish Dr. Tate checked me again and I was 6 cm. Moved into the L&D room and things really picked up! My doula arrived just in time because she was invaluable in keeping me going. She told me transition was coming soon. Holy moly! Transition was like a time warp where breathing was my only focus. Jeremiah said it passed quickly for him, but not for me. I guess it was only an hour but man it seemed longer! Contractions straight with no breaks in between. J and Talitha (my doula) were trying to get me to change positions, but that was hard at that point. Anyhow, this is around the time I started feeling the uncontrollable need to push with each contraction, and also when I started to get some breaks between them. Since my OB is so awesome he didn't tell me "not to push" as most do. He said push as I felt the need. He also checked me and I was 8cm, fully effaced, baby was at a +1 (which is really close to crowning). So, I kept on pushing with my contractions. Really, I couldn't not push. This is around the time Jeremiah forced me to get out of bed and go to the bathroom. Yes, I pushed on the toilet and I could literally feel Clara moving down. Once I got back on the bed my OB told me she was crowning and within 15 minutes I pushed her out. And it wasn't an orthodox pushing position, but more of a crouching on hands and knees fetal position. So, after she came out I flipped over on my back and they put her on my chest. I'm getting teary as I write.

For some people this may just be the norm for their births, but since I'd longed for this day for so long, it was almost surreal. I had just birthed a child into the world with out any help from modern medicine. One of the verses God impressed on my heart for this birth was from Psalm 139, that I am fearfully and wonderfully made. In terms of the size of children J and I produce, I needed to believe this. Amazingly I never worried this whole pregnancy about the size of Clara. Anyhow, since she came out a whopping 9lbs 14 oz, I consider that another testimony of how wonderfully my body is made. I didn't tear when her head came out, but I did tear some when her shoulders came out. I don't really care though, because it was part of the "natural" process. Also, one thing I was slightly obsessed about this time was Clara being in the "right" position for birth (face down) b/c Irie was face up and it was hard back labor. So, this time Clara actually came down the birth canal facing to the side. Another thing that was cool is that my water never broke in an obvious way. Even my OB didn't know when it broke. And so many doctors just break your water in a rush...I know that it was there at 5cm and then at 8cm he didn't say anything. My fluid levels had been low though so I think there wasn't too much and it just came out gradually. Obviously God was just making a point to me. When He is granting the desires of the heart, He works out the details. I'm so glad I chose to believe God had something more for me than what so many people and doctors assumed for me.

That's the technical side of my story...Here are some other fun details about my natural labor.
I always (internally) made fun of the women in the movies who were screaming in labor. I thought it to be highly dramatic. I now call myself the "movie woman". I was screaming, moaning, grunting and other "primal" noises, as my sister so eloquently put it :) I was sweating, cramping, almost hyperventilating :) If I hadn't had Talitha and Jeremiah I couldn't have done it. I know I never asked specifically for an epidural, because that's not what I wanted. But there were points when I didn't think I could do it, or that my body could take anymore. Talitha said "you are doing it". I love that.

I always fall in love with my husband all over again after having a baby. But this time is on a whole new level. It was such a precious experience to go through together. Jeremiah said when she came out and then put her on my chest the wave of emotions he felt was overwhelming. He was amazing and I realize that to have a husband, let along a supportive one, is not to be taken lightly this day in age. He supports my dreams and desires and is my rock.

Talitha, my doula, was invaluable. She was so calm and collected. I feel that her presence and confidence in me made it possible for me to know I could do what I set out to do. When I look at pictures of her grace while I labored, I am reminded that this must be how God "looks" when we are travailing in life. We think we can't do it, but he is calm and says, "but you are".

Lastly, after laboring for around 15 hours, I was spent to say the least. But when Clara came in all her glory and I saw her, it was euphoria. I felt like I could conquer the world. I was on a high for hours. This is why I would do it all again in a heart beat. After having c-sections and being drugged up, unable to move, etc with Irie and Scarlet...Clara's birth made me feel alive in a way I never have. That is what I believe God intends for women to experience, but that modern medicine and our belief that we might need more than God to do something has stripped us of. I am in no way condemning epidurals or c-sections because I know they have their place. But I do think for a lot of us God would have more for us but our thinking has been tainted by this world and so we miss out...And that statement is not just about a birth experience but about so many things in life.

In the after math of this amazing experience Jeremiah and I feel like we are on top of the world. For us it is one of the hardest and best experiences of our lives! I see this desire in him resurface to dream and do things he's been meaning to do. I feel capable of rearing 3 kids at once. I've been keeping my kitchen clean and clothes washed. We both believe this change in our attitude is directly related to our birth experience with Clara. We felt empowered and encouraged by it - while in the past our birth experiences left us defeated/discouraged. I know that God had his reasons for allowing us to experience the hard times we did with Irie and Scarlet, and that what we learned from the trails was more important to His glory than what we would have learned if he'd given us what we wanted the first time, or even the second time. Since He's never failed me, I trust Him to give me what I need WHEN I need it. And I feel that what we experienced with Clara was what we needed for the now.

God is such a gracious God. I feel unworthy to have experienced His goodness in my life concerning this birth. He's already done the ultimate kindness to me by loving me and saving me, yet He still cares about the things I care about and still delights in my delight. I feel loved beyond measure and confident in my standing with God.