Eyes of My Heart

It's a Girl!!

The verdict is in from Intelligender! We are having another baby girl!
That's all for now!

Flash of the future...

So, I was in the church nursery today visiting with my girl after my meeting and as usual, many of the other babies were having meltdowns. I asked if mine was good while I was away and the lead worker shoots me   a look like "of COURSE". Apparently, she never cries while I am away. She cries a bit when I leave  just to get me nice and guilty and then she plays contentedly until I return. Little booger.

Well, this other baby, started WAILING when I came back. She (I thought it was a he - her name is Hayden) looked me square in the eye and yelled MAMA!!! She crawls over to me as I was nursing my own and grabs at my leg, pleading with me, Ma...Ma..Ma...Ma... Another nursery worker diverted her attention for awhile but then when I'd finished nursing, she came back with, Ma..Ma, imploring me to pick her up. I did. Just then Pumpkin spins around and catches me with another baby. She uncharacteristically shrieks at me to put. that. intruder. baby. down. this-instant! So I went to her, Hayden in tow and scooped her up and then she was just fine. I walked around the room with a baby in each arm, pointing out goldfish and flowers and bears. What a relief to have pacified my daughter's rival feelings before her real competition comes. I'm so proud of her temperament.

And holding two babies at once...Heaven.

Update...

Well, look who's back on her blog! Er, me. I just haven't been in the mood to blog for weeks. Even now, I'm still not. But I thought I should at least update with my excuse reason. I'm pregnant again! Yep, we're expecting number two in late April. We are very excited and I am very tired - make that exhausted. So far, this pregnancy is very similar to the last one: fatigue, frequent trips to the bathroom and an aversion to certain smells. The other day, I was at a church creative arts meeting and there was a jug of red vines on  the table about three feet from me making me sick. That's just weird.

Let's see...there's been so many things that I've thought of blogging about but I've just been too pooped. So I'll list a few missed topics:

1. Our baby is crawling now. It's an adorable and time consuming new hobby.
2. I made homemade tortillas for the first time. Delicious!
3. Our band has started making our first demo. We still need a name!
4. I've become a worship leader at our church in addition to being on the creative arts team.
5. I was cast as Annie Sullivan in The Miracle Worker. Dream role!
6. I was cast as the nurse in Romeo and Juliet. Fabulous part. I LOVE performing Shakespeare.
7. I had to say no to number 6 as I will be very pregnant at that time. Not a huge sacrifice for a baby!
8. Our film company is forging ahead- our first short will be filmed in November (starring a rounder me).
9. I can't remember much else. I'm too tired.
10. Oh yeah - Our 9 1/2 month old daughter is getting four teeth in at once, poor dear.
11. And...our dear sister-friend, Mish, went away to college again. We miss her!

Little ones

I hurt my baby today. It wasn't serious. I closed a drawer on her toes. But it gave me just a small insight into the horrendous feeling of watching your baby suffer and my heart just aches for mothers everywhere with sick little ones. Knowing what that felt like to see my baby cry for something I did to hurt her, how, oh how can anyone deliberately hurt a child? They're so innocent, vulnerable, trusting...

There's a little boy who we are praying for and I'd love for you to join me. He's mentally retarded and emotionally fragile. He was in my friend's special ed. class. I used to go sing for them and he would drink in my songs as if I were an angel.  He was one of five adopted children in his family. His original family sexually abused him and kept him in a closet. Two months ago, his (adopted) father died and his (adopted) mother put him in a home because she couldn't handle all her kids anymore. I can't imagine what he might be feeling right now. I sob for him. My husband has cautiously agreed to look into adopting him. Please pray that we can be or find a family for him. All children need love. And this one...he is long overdue to be showered with it.

Avoidance

I've been avoiding my blog lately. I'm overdue to respond to some comments and the thought of it just makes me sad. We've had a discussion on some controversial topics and while it has been civil, I find it exasperating to counter every little point. I think to engage in this conversation any further would be petty and fruitless. So, to those of you awaiting my response, I'm sorry, I'm throwing in the towel on this. I can't force you to believe in God and I just don't enjoy arguing.

Balancing Act

I am really struggling with something today. Our band is making their debut at the county fair this Friday. We have worked really hard and are very excited to share our music. The trouble is, the fair folk have omitted us from just about every press publication. They printed a newsletter tucked into the local papers and we are listed in the entertainment section but it ends there. An article about all the local bands performing this year didn't even mention us and we are not listed anywhere on their website, even under the entertainment schedule. I have to admit that my ego is bruised. It feels terrible to work this hard and be swept under the carpet. I have been cheerily, gracefully prodding the woman who "hired" us (we are playing for free) and she is afraid to ask them because they are so busy. I have drafted several responses to this latest admission of tentativeness on her part and erased them all because they reveal too much exasperation. I want to be an example of Christ's love and not bombard them with my ego-driven anger. I want to be fair. I also want to be rightfully counted and I want our music to be heard.

I have decided to follow Esther's example and bake them cookies before presenting my request. But I'd like to know, what do you folks do when faced with injustice or disappointment? How do you strike a balance between passivity and aggression?

What is a Christian?

What is a Christian? Are we an elite club or do we follow Christ?

I have an old friend, a non-believer, who has written a blog post I think Christians need to read and ponder. It has to do with our response to homosexuality and how we live as Christians. I wept when I read it. Folks, this is an issue that makes my heart ache. Once upon a time, the hatefulness I witnessed in some Christians about homosexuality rocked my faith so hard that I turned my back on God for well over a decade. By His grace, I am back, still with questions. I have dear friends, some of whom have distanced themselves from me because I cannot say with certainty that I think how they live is morally right. I have never and would never take a moral high ground and attack their behavior because I truly don't believe that is my place. We all need Jesus and it is He who must direct our hearts. My place, I feel, is to love them, pray for them and be here for them if they need to talk about what God is directing them to do. I don't need to make anyone sorry for their actions or force someone to repent. Is it a sin?  I believe that it is, based on the scripture. There is no evidence, however, that it is a worse sin than premarital sex, or gossip or lying.  I certainly won't  rank somebody else's sin above or below my own arrogance or ignorance or fill in the blank here. It is God who will judge us all at the end of our days and I don't want His job, thank you very much.

I still have questions, as I said. Why would God make someone gay and not allow them to fulfill the desires of their hearts? Did He in fact, create people to be gay?  There are many things in life I don't understand. I don't know why God allows young babies to be taken from their mothers or young mothers to be taken from their children.  What I do believe is that faith IS the answer.  My own understanding is unimportant. This life is just a prelude of what is to come for those who believe in Jesus. Perhaps God just wants us to follow Him utterly, giving up our own selfish desires in exchange for His holy ones. Many things we think of as "natural" have been forbidden by God: infidelity, lust, gluttony. My heart goes out to all people who face such a tremendous sacrifice as homosexuals are called to make. They need our love and our support, not our condemnation.

             Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and                     take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever                     loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world,                     yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man is                     going to come in his Father's glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according             to what he has done. I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before             they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom."   Matthew 16:24-28

If you'd like to read more on this subject, check out this and this and, if you can handle some colorful language, especially, this.

Separation anxiety has begun

I have to admit it. I love that she needs me. I love knowing that I am that important to someone. I mean, I know how much my husband adores and needs me - he is brilliant at showing me how much he cares for and is devoted to me. But this little gal, she is starting to lose it when I leave her. It touches me to know that she is so attached to my care...that I matter so much. For someone who used to think that her life was of little consequence, that is profoundly moving.

And scary.

I pray that God keeps our family together. But I know He works in ways I don't understand sometimes. Some very sweet children in our church recently lost their dear mother to an illness that swept through her like wildfire. I pray that God will protect us from such a fate but more importantly, I pray that my husband and daughter will always be comforted by God and the knowledge that, by our faith in Jesus we may all be together in Heaven for eternity. And I pray for the rest of my family, that God opens the eyes of their hearts to see Him. Because I want so very much to be with them forever, too.

Take up your cross...

My husband gave me this cross on his birthday (yep, I wrote that right), less than a month after we started dating. I had only recently been going to church again, a born - again, born-again Christian. (I'll get to posting my testimony one of these days when I have a week).  I am never without it. I have taken it off to do plays but then it is right back on my person, my philosophy being that I am never without Jesus and that I want to affirm my faith and my commitment to that faith at all times. But the trouble with wearing something all the time is that you forget you are wearing it.

I don't remember now what inspired this thought - something that one of my friends said at lunch today. But I have decided that I need to remove this cross at night so that I can prayerfully and deliberately take it up again in the morning, a symbol of my devotion to the Lord.

Matthew 16:24: Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

And no, He wasn't talking about a pretty little diamond pendant. That the symbol my husband gave me has some worldy value is something that makes me a bit uncomfortable but that is my cross to bear, so to speak.

Luke 9:23 Then he said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

Daily. I have learned so much today. But I am going to digest the rest before I post about it.

Two glorious years

Our wedding anniversary was last Monday. Two years ago, the love of my life and I stood facing each other in the splendor of our friends' garden, surrounded by loved ones in body and spirit as we exchanged vows and rings and tears of joy. Each of us is to the other an answered prayer, a reminder of how much God loves us. We are imperfect and we both behave from time to time in a manner unbecoming. But His love always prevails over our foolishness and we are once again, laughing and loving and learning to be more like Him who saved us.  I love my man more than I can say. I am still astonished at my great fortune to be his wife. I look forward to all of eternity with him.

    Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.  Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.         For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is         the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in            everything.

    Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her  to make her      holy, cleansing  her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a         radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same         way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.          After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the               church— for we are members of his body. "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and      be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh."This is a profound mystery—but I am talking      about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself,         and the wife must respect her husband. Ephesians 5:21-33

I think many people can't get past those first two sentences without cringing. But mutual submission is the greatest blessing you can give your marriage. My husband and I were very clear in our vows to each other that we were not just making a commitment to each other but we were making a commitment to God for each other. Our pastor expressed this very effectively to us before we got married. He's done alot of marital counseling over the years and says every marital problem he has ever encountered comes down to the man not feeling respected and the woman not feeling loved. Think about someone you know who is having trouble in their marriage. Isn't it true? And when we women don't feel loved enough, how do we retaliate? By disrespecting our husbands! And their responses keep the vicious cycle in motion, creating an even deeper chasm. As our pastor says, it only takes one person to break the cycle. Wives, submit to and respect your husbands. Husbands, love your wives as your own bodies. I pray for all of you reading this that you find joy and healing where necessary in your marriages.

A wife of noble character is her husband's crown,  but a disgraceful wife is like decay in his bones. Proverbs 12:4

Better to live on a corner of the roof  than share a house with a quarrelsome wife.
Proverbs 21:9

The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband.
1 Corinthians 7:3