Just a thought...

This lovely little blurb was sent to me via. e-mail and I just thought, would I really want to do this?

"Record your weight and waistline each week
Be sure to record your weight and waistline measurements each week in your journal to track the amazing changes your body will go through in the next few months. Keep track of those roller coaster feelings, too. They will make you smile, years from now."

I like how they speak so positively about gaining weight. You just don't hear that very often :)

I mean maybe I would want to if my expanding belly were due to a baby growing too big for my mid-section. But as of right now, I think I would just get upset, haha!
All last night I kept rubbing my belly 'cause its already sticking out. Unfortunately I know its not because a baby is pushing up, but its more then likely; A) bloating, B) water weight, or C) whatever else my body is doing these days. Actually I have been thinking about this...I have an obviously short waist. So I know that whenever I put on a 'little' weight in my mid-section, it looks like a ton. I always figured this was because being a short waisted person, the fat only has so much area to spread out over. So if that is true, could it be that I would be showing sooner than maybe a long waisted person? I have no scientific proof to prove this, but honestly, my belly really is sticking out significantly further than it was before I was pregnant. You can even ask Josh, he pats and rubs my belly now :)
Anyways that is all I wanted to say for now. I know its short, but it was a thought I had that I felt like sharing with the world, (or at least the handful of you that read this ).
Blessings to all!

Amazed by God

This I have read from the LORD's word today. And this is what I've learned of His deep deep love for His children.

I picked up my bible to read Psalms. A while ago I decided to read through them, one by one, on a daily basis. Until yesterday, when I returned to reading them again, I had been very slack in keeping up with my decision. I reread yesterday's Psalm, (Ps. 39), and proceeded to Ps. 40 for today. A verse in there, that I had previously highlighted, caught my attention, as the verse was kind've confusing to me. It reads;

"Then I said, 'Behold, I come;
In the scroll of the book it is written of me.
I delight to do Your will, O my God;
Your Law is within my heart.'" Ps. 40:7&8

This is a Ps. by David, so what perplexed me was why David would be writing such a profound statement about himself. I know David to be a regular man, just like I am a regular woman, so I wondered what scroll he could possibly be talking about.
After finishing the Ps., and soon forgetting these verses, I noticed I had still enough time to read something from the N.T.
Last night Pastor Ken mentioned Hebrews 1, and though I couldn't recall why he did, I did remember that because of what he said, I wanted to read it. I worked my way through Heb. 1, (mind you it is not a book I usually or even recently have turned to), and because of some of the inner struggles of my heart, I read more of Heb. I decided what to read by looking over the sub-titles given throughout the chapters. I read a few verses and a couple paragraphs and was about to close up my bible when this sub-title stuck out to me, "One Sacrifice of Christ is Sufficient". I probably would have never taken a second look except that during worship we sang "It is Well With My Soul'', (again, not a usual worship song we sing). One line of that song spoke powerfully to my heart, and filled me with such overwhelming gratitude for my Savior. It's the line that says, "My sin, not in part but the whole, is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more". In all the hurt and confusion of my heart, I knew one thing to be undeniably true, my sin, not in part but in whole, has been nailed to the cross and I bear it no more! In this I found the freedom and joy to truly worship my Savior, despite whether I felt like it or not. Being reminded of this blessed time of worship, the sub-title for Heb. seemed of particular interest to me.
Reading down chapter 10, I came to verse 7;

"Then I said, 'Behold I have come
(In the scroll of the book it is written of Me)
To do Your will, O God'."

(These being capitalized words referring to Christ speaking of Himself.)
I had to do a double take. I said, "'Really God?" Flipping back to Ps. 40:7&8 I read the same words! Then I said, "You really want to be that personal with me?" And with that thought came a continuous chorus of, "Thank You! Thank You!", and many tears of relief.
I have been feeling really kind of lost of God. I have felt as though I know He is real and powerful, but I have not felt the intimacy of His nearness. Even late last night, as Josh and I were reading our Night Light devotional, it asked how we have seen the power of prayer. I honestly had no answer. Yes I pray, yes I believe God will answer those prayers, for I know He hears them. But to actually remember a time where God's hand personally came down and did a miracle before my eyes, I could not remember the last time. And than with one fail swoop, He reached down and touched my weary heart.
This is my response to His goodness to me:

Thank You my heavenly Father! Thank You for knowing and hearing my heart, and encouraing me this day!
I love you God I love you I love you!
Thank You Holy Spirit for guiding and directing my path. I know You were preparing me for something marvelous, and this is certainly marvelous!
I love You LORD! My God, My King!
You have refreshed and renewed my weary heart!

As with most of my posts, or at least parts of them, I hope that today this encourages you in some way. It might seem like a small thing to come across these scriptures, and to tell you the truth, I haven't even looked again to see what they are actually saying. It's just the fact that my God wanted to be near to me today, that He wanted to encourage my weary heart, that He lead me through a rough season to bring me to a place of utter gratitude and humility...for these reasons I am in 'Awe' of His compassion. He saw His child hurting, and in the last few minutes of her quiet time, came to her in a personal way and gave her hope. Isn't He amazing?

Since its been 2 months and 1 day...

...since my last blog, I figured I'd actually come back to this little place and write something, hopefully of interest to someone :)

How about we begin with the fact that I am, um pregnant! Yep and pretty much everyone who'll read this already knows that. But lets pretend for a minute that I just found out and am telling you for the first time. That way it will be like we are sharing in *the moment* once again. I don't know why we would do that, but I feel rather lame for not writing about finding out, when I did. I mean, don't most women do that? As in a way of concreting all the excitement and emotions that come with finding out great and big news? Maybe I'll be better about blogging when we find out the sex of the baby. Since we're sort of on the topic, and I've always been curious about this...lets take a poll; do you or do you not like it when you find out great and exciting news over something like an Internet blog? (I'll vote first, since I'm sitting here while the question is being asked), I LOVE finding out stuff over avenues like people's personal blogs, or web accounts like facebook/myspace! I mean seriously, do I even get on here to do anything other than to check up on the happenings of my friend's lives? Nope I really don't. Which is probably obvious since I don't ever blog. (Now here is the truth, if you blogged everyday, well shoot I'd be signing in just to check out what you had to say! But if I sign on and no one has written anything about their life, more than likely I'll sign off and that's the extent of my Internet use for the day. In other words, you ladies blogging about your lives *inspires* me to write about my own. With out your *inspiration*, I don't write anything. And apparently that's because I don't possess any *inspiration* of my own. Now did that *inspire* any of you to blog? :) Its almost like a nonchalant guilt trip, except I'm not that conniving, so it isn't.

I sure hope I haven't lost you so far.

Anyways that wasn't the direction I was planning on going when I got here. What I ACTUALLY wanted to write about was how I found out I was pregnant, (and how Josh found out too)....

It all started when I missed my 'you know what'. The thing is, Josh and I had wanted to start 'trying', but after 2 months we both decided that I should go back on birth control, (there is a good reason, but I don't wanna get into it now. Ask me later if you are interested). I took two days worth of the pill, and than expected to see my period. Well since taking BC at any random time during the month can throw your cycle off a few days I thought nothing of missing Mr. tom. I needed some blood flow regulators (i.e. tamps - sorry to any guy that is reading this, I'm trying to be as modest as possible) and since the pregnancy tests are on the same aisle...I picked one up. Those being the only two items I was purchasing, I commented to the cashier that the blood flow regulators were back up, in case the test came out negative (I don't know why, but I just felt like I had to give an explanation for buying only those two things). Anyways I went home, took the test and WHOA! Instantly my eyes began to fill with tears. I just kept staring at it going 'no way! no way!' I was crying like a little kid who just couldn't get enough air in to counteract his hyperventilating, and walking quickly through the house, back and forth saying 'no way! no way!' I was so glad Josh wasn't there, cause there is no way he would've understood my reaction. I didn't even understand my reaction! I don't know why I was crying, it wasn't like overwhelming tears of joy. I think it was more like my body going through shock or somethin. I mean what do you think when you find out your pregnant, and even though you were planning on it, it still totally takes you by surprise? Yea I pretty much just didn't know how to react. By the time Josh came home from youth group, I had cleaned up the whole apt, put a clean white table cloth on the table, wrapped up the test in a Christmas tin, and turned on the Christmas lights that were still up. I also set up the camcorder so that I could catch his reaction on film. I haven't watched it to see how well it caught everything, but man o man I hope it got his smile! On the top of the Christmas tin I put one of those 'To: From:' stickers and wrote 'To: my love for life From:your wife - Merry Christmas'. Needless to say he was pretty confused. He was like 'why am I opening a Christmas present in April?' I told him I had gotten it for him when I was at the store and was *so excited* about it that I couldn't wait for Christmas to give it to him. His reaction was nicer than mine. He didn't cry and pace around like a crazy person. He laughed and smiled with abundant joy, it was like our wedding day all over. He also kept saying 'wow! wow!', which I think was also much better than my disbelieving 'no way! no way!' Everyday he tells me how excited he is to be a daddy and I can't express enough how grateful I am for such a man :D

I know I wrote a lot, (again), but I just really really wanted to get down this incredible experience. I'm sure I want forget it, but there is something so fun about coming back, at some point in the future, and reading things like this. It's like how the Israelites set up rock monuments to 'never forget' what God had done for them in different circumstances of their lives. I guess that really is what this blog is for me. It is a a mound of rocks, a monument that I can return to and read, and remember the goodness of the LORD. I hope it brings some smiles to your faces too :)

And with that all said, I sign off to go on to do something probably not nearly as fun as blogging, but needs to be done nonetheless.

Toodles!