Pictures, finally!!!

Here are some pictures from our weekend vacation. We had the opportunity to take the lift up the mountain, and ride our bikes down. It was awesome! Of course I only fell once, (thank You God!), and never on my tummy, or on any big pointy rocks :)

Can't you see that I'm a hungry pregnant lady?! haha actually I didn't eat this all to myself. In fact it took Josh and I two meals to finish this monster. This is only half the sandwich here.

See, I told you its not fun to fall down a mountain. Ow that really looks like it hurts huh? I actually took this pic this morning. I figured I'd wait 'till it looked its worse. All the swelling has finally gone down and look what was hiding underneath! Pretty gross!

We had an AWESOME time! Josh is now in love with mountain biking and is counting down the days 'till he can go again. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be going anymore. Its not that I don't want to, but well, here let me show you.

8 weeks 14 weeks
Yeah I don't think that belly is planning on staying small for much longer :D

Thought to ponder

" ¹⁶Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need."
Hebrews 4:16

So if this is true, than why do I shy away from being bold before others?
I mean honestly, if God has made it so that I can approach Him with boldness, my Eternal Master, my Creator, my King, the Holy of Holies... then why I am not bold to share my faith, or reach out to someone hurting? If I believe the writer when they say, "let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace," then shouldn't it be that much more simple to go near to someone in their time of need?

Our girl's group discussed this last night and I must admit, I have been acting like a wimp. The chapter basically looked over these few things:

1. In order to help others you must first Be There, i.e., you must be at church, youth group, different ministry outings, work, the street, wherever it is that the people are! You must be present, wherever the people are, in order to help.
2. You must be Prepared to give of yourself. If I go to a church service just expecting to get something out of it, than I will be going unprepared to be a vessel that God could use to touch someone else's life. I must prepare myself before going. I must be in prayer, in the Word, looking through His eyes at the world and asking, "who Lord, needs to feel your arms of love in this moment? Who needs an encouraging word? Who needs prayer, and what do I pray?"
3. I must be Bold and willing to step outside of my comfort zone. Hurting people are sometimes hard to approach, especially if you do not know them. Instead of being afraid of rejection, a problem 'too big' for me to handle, or sitting with someone while they are vulnerable with me, I need to be bold to go to them and let Christ love them through me. I feel it is the same with seeing new people. At our church it is not very easy to pick out the newbies, (since a good number of people come to each service), but maybe if I greeted at the front door, I'd have a better chance of catching them and making them feel welcomed. Actually I think that our greeters do a great job! So maybe I don't need to go there, but after service there are always lots and lots of families just hanging out in the fellowship hall. Maybe I could strike up a conversation? This would definetly take some boldness to accomplish

So there is where I am left. Am I going to continue to hold my tongue? Am I going to continue to shy away when opportunity to share my faith arises? Am I going to wait until its a good time for me to let God have His way in my life, or am I going to let Him be my master today, right now?

I just plain don't want to be this wimpy christian anymore. I dont want to be afraid of offending someone or making a pleasant situation into an akward one. I want compassion to take the place of my standing still. I want love to take the place of fear. I want to watch Christ use me while I am alive on this earth. I want to see Him transform lives and reveal Himself to those who have yet to see Him. I want to live my life zealously for God so that when people look at me, they see the Father and want to know Him.

O Lord help me please, I don't want to be silent anymore. I don't want to hide my light under a basket. Please Father embolden me, let my heart feel the compassion you have for the hurting and lost. Please take me where you want me to go, I am Your servant and your beloved daughter. I know You will be with me wherever I am, please lead me to where You are. In your Son's Holy and precious name, Amen

Accomplishments

Just thought I'd throw out a list of accomplishments my hubby and I have succeeded in lately:

• married 1 year, 7 months, and 25 days
• packed up the entire apartment (and I have yet to have any part in the actual moving *woo-hoo*)
• scheduled a weekend get away
• entered my 2nd trimester on Tuesday
• never threw up due to morning sickness, (I think this is HUGE, so its going on the list)
• kicked some butt at ultimate Frisbee, (Josh's to be exact -haha j/k Josh...actually maybe I'm not)
• made it to work on time everyday, this week, but once, (2 minutes shouldn't be considered late)
• finished recording all but two sections of my heart for ministry notes, to the computer, (it takes hours, probably only like one person will understand this accomplishment - Josh)
• dealt with angry customers without sobbing
• played the role of collections lady without freaking out, (of course it is easy to be stern with an answering machine...)
• went to bed on time every night
• progressed into the part of pregnancy when you have ridiculously realistic dreams, (o my stupid, lively imagination!)
• choose a healthy alternative over sugar enriched junk
• amazingly I haven't cleaned anything, (except my self), in over 3 weeks. Dishes don't count because they go in the dishwasher. And before you begin to think I'm a complete slob, we're moving and we don't have to clean, nana-nana-boo-boo!
• stayed away from the Chinese Gender Predictor chart, though I find it fascinating and not knowing what we are having is almost worse than waiting for 9 months to end!
• I didn't do this one, but my brother Garret proposed to his girl Meghan. (she said yes, btw)
  
• Another one I didn't do, but while I'm introducing people who weren't really supposed to be on this list...my littlest brother Adam has his first g/f, (how does that happen? I mean he is so cool and this is his FIRST g/f??? anyways, whoever the chick is, she is a very lucky girl :)
• if I pull back the "flub" on my tummy, you can see the baby bump beginning to POP!!!!

Um yea so I guess that is my list :) Nothing too crazy exciting, but It was an easy way for me to update. Next time I post, I hope to actually have some pictures. I always write while I'm at work sooooo yeah. Maybe I'll try from home next time.

Love to all!

Update!

Ok so I am lame and should've updated this as soon as I found out but....

If any of you read my last post, (which was really a waste of time, sorry if it got any of you down), you would know that I was feeling poopy because I wanted to get away with Josh and didn't see how that would ever happen. As I was typing that message out, I was also texting Josh, letting him know how super sad I was, (and honestly I wasn't trying to manipulate!) Just after I posted that blog, he text me back and said, 'lets go somewhere'. I was like, ' what seriously? Just like that we will go somewhere?' So we called up my mom to see if we could use her time share. She said yes, we were all excited, but then we couldn't find anything near us that was available. So we were bummed again, and started to throw the idea out when Josh said, 'well why don't we just pay to go somewhere else and just not use your Mom's time share?' Again I was like, 'what seriously? Just like that we'll pay to go somewhere and get away?!' We thought about camping, but both of us sort'a cringed at the idea of having to be dirty for 2 1/2 days, ( I know kind'a wierd, but honestly we just wanted to go somewhere already layed out, nice and clean, and bugless). So we searched, I was praying all along, just asking the LORD to give us somewhere to get away to. We wanted to go to Leavenworth, but hotels were running like $169 a night, -um yea ridiculous- or at least, too much for us to spend. We looked around Montana and a little in Oregon, (I love this part of being in Wa. You can actually GO somewhere when you 'get away' :), and finally decided on Sweitzer (Sp?). Actually I don't even know where Sweitzer is. I think Josh said Montana. Anyways its a resort on a mountain with an outdoor pool and shopping and bike trails and free lift tickets so that you can go to wherever the lift takes you...*sigh* I feel so blessed! I just love that God would bless us and actually give us a place to get away too! We both figured that other than going to AK in July, (which really isn't a 'vacation', per say, but more of a 'visit'), we aren't going to get to go anywhere, just the two of us, before the baby is born. Josh begins his internship, with the church, in August and than 4'ish months later we pop out a baby, (or I should say I pop out a baby), and between now and than, this weekend is the ONLY one we could take off to do something.

The fun part will be moving this week before leaving Friday morn. :) But like we keep on telling each other, 'if Nehemiah can build the wall of Jerusalem in 52 days...we can move in a week!' Thank You God for the encouraging stories you have put in the Bible!

I'm so stoked about this weekend coming up! Thank You Lord for giving us this precious gift!

Feeling Sad

I was recently looking at pictures from someone else's honeymoon, and just realized how desperately I want to get away with Josh.

Josh and I went down to San Diego for a week, than hopped on a cruise boat for another 7 days, for our honeymoon. We actually were "hoping" to sneak off to somewhere tropical in January, but that won't happen now. To tell you the truth, I'm really feeling pretty down right now. I'm so tired of Josh and I not seeing each other. I know other women can relate, so I don't want to spend too much time on this subject, (and have my bad attitude to rub off on you).

Honestly I love what we are spending our time on, yet can't there be a little more time in the day so that we can see each other? Ok I'm really feeling like I need to stop talking about this. A friend of mine doesn't seem to ever see her husband, and I never hear her complaining, so I think I should just stop. I just wanted to let out some of my saddness. I know the LORD hears my heart, and He will do whatever is right. Maybe we will get to get away for a weekend. Or maybe my heart will change. In any case, He knows how I am feeling and I'm just gonna' let this go for now.

I know, not really an uplifting post. I figured I should write about something, and since this is heavy on my brain, well its what gets written.

Love you all!

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?