Rainy Day

It was a hot, gorgeous morning and Joe was working hard outside, mowing the lawn and attacking the weeds.  He came in for a little break and to try and decide what he would tackle next when he casually said, “Sometimes I wish for a rainy Saturday so I would have an excuse to just sit inside and relax.”  Maybe 15 minutes after that comment, thunder boomed overhead and a sudden downpour followed!  For the next couple hours, Justice was blissfully asleep while Joe and I relaxed in our living room, all cozy inside as the rain pounded the roof.  Joe was reading a book, while I read my Bible and we listened to the live prayer room webstream, while also enjoying the soundtrack of nature provided by God.  I prepared us some hot drinks and snuggled up under a warm blanket, watching the rain outside while God ministered to my heart through His Word and through the worship from the prayer room.  When Justice woke up from his nap, I fed him and then we introduced him to the exersaucer!  It was great fun watching him discover this new activity and we cheered him on as he worked his little legs to make himself spin around inside its center.  When he tired of that, we laid him on a blanket on the floor and he babbled and gurgled to us while he kicked his legs and sucked on his fingers.  We delighted in him and I felt the delight of the Lord over us.  What a perfect, lovely rainy day!

Ahhhh…summer!

It is officially summer, I think!  We’ve had some scorching hot weather where you start sweating almost as soon as you get outside.  I decided to take Justice for a walk in his stroller – it was great!  He fell asleep, I got myself a Gatorade, I got some beautiful warm sunshine, some fresh air, some exercise, and got to enjoy the scent of lilacs in the air!  It couldn’t be more lovely!

Facing Fear

Fear has always seemed to play a role in my life at varying degrees. Fear of man, fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of losing someone I love, fear of sickness, fear of lack – the list goes on. When I got married, the fear of losing my husband prematurely became a common companion. Likewise, this fear escalated when I became pregnant and was faced with the possibility of losing my baby. Even though he lived and is now a healthy and happy baby boy, this fear has by no means lessened – if anything, it has increased. Combine that with fears of making mistakes as a new mother and you’ve got one very fearful person! Fear is incredibly debilitating and suffocating and I have been praying and crying out to God to deliver me from my fears for the last several months. The one scripture that I have been clinging to is Psalm 34:4-5…

I sought the LORD, and he answered me;
he delivered me from all my fears.
Those who look to him are radiant;
their faces are never covered with shame.

Wow – what would it feel like to be freed from ALL my fears??? What freedom! What peace! What release! And finding this freedom has a deep connection with intimacy, for it says that this person sought the Lord and was looking to Him when he was freed from fear and shame. I have been reading the fiction book “The Shack” by William P. Young (for the second time) and I was struck by several things that God speaks to the main character of this story, Mackenzie, on the subject of trust and fear.

Trust is the fruit of a relationship in which you know you are loved. Because you do not know that I love you, you cannot trust me. (page 126)

This is definitely true for me. A huge reason why I struggle so much with fear is because I don’t actually trust that God loves me and truly has my best interests at heart. If I want to be free from fear and be able to trust Him completely, I need greater intimacy with Him and a greater revelation of His love for me. Trust will naturally result if I have a deep relationship with God in which I feel secure and safe in His love, regardless of my circumstances. Paul put it this way in Romans 8…

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose…He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?…Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?…No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:28, 32, 35, 37-39)

The reason he had confidence in the face of trouble, hardship, persecution, famine and danger was because he knew he was loved! He knew he didn’t have to be afraid of whatever life may throw his way because God was working for his good and none of those things could separate him from the love of God. I need this revelation!! In “The Shack”, God is again speaking to Mackenzie and says…

Mack, do you realize that your imagination of the future, which is almost always dictated by fear of some kind, rarely, if ever, pictures me there with you?…The person who lives by their fears will not find freedom in my love. I am not talking about rational fears regarding legitimate dangers, but imagined fears, and especially the projection of those into the future. To the degree that those fears have a place in your life, you neither believe I am good nor know deep in your heart that I love you. (page 142)

Again, very true of me! My imagination runs away on me, conjuring images of death and poverty and persecution and dreaming up endless “what if” scenarios of all the terrible things that could possibly happen to me, but I forget to also imagine that God would be with me in all of those scenarios! Obviously, it is completely fruitless to imagine those things in the first place, as they do me absolutely no good, but if I find myself doing it, I should really remind myself that even if any of those would happen to me, that He would be there, right by my side and that He would help me through it. No matter what pain or sorrow or trouble I may encounter, I need to believe that He absolutely loves me and that He is absolutely good.

Thankfully, the Lord is working on my heart and He is doing wonderful things to help me become free of fear, but I can also have a tendency to beat myself up with shame and condemnation for not trusting Him as I should (another reason why Psalm 34:4-5 is so good – it also deals with the shame issue) and for being so afraid when I often have no reason to be. Well, I was then really encouraged by a blog post written at 5minutesformom by a guest writter, Kristin Shockley, on the subject of fear. You can read the full post here, but basically she tells of her youngest son, Owen, who is incredibly fearful of many things, and many of which we, as adults, would find irrational. Instead of pushing him to overcome his fears, she has been his safe place, and has patiently waited for him to outgrow them in his own time. She then ties it all together with how God is similarly patient with us…

Thankfully, God is patient with us, too. Psalm 91:4-5 says, “He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day.” He doesn’t leave us to fend for ourselves or even push us to overcome our fears, but he protects us and shields us. Knowing He is with us, we can confidently say, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me!” (Psalm 23: 4) Like Owen, we often need time to put our fears aside and stand confident knowing our Guardian won’t place us in harm’s way. God is long-suffering!

Thinking of it this way really helped lift some of the shame I’ve felt at not “getting over” my fears more quickly. God is not condemning me and shaking a finger, asking why I can’t just be less fearful already! He is patient, loving, tender, compassionate and kind. He covers me, shelters me, allows me to hide in Him and protects me from the things I fear. He truly is trustworthy. He truly is good. And He truly does love me. I need not be afraid.

My Big Beautiful Baby Boy!

Today I went for a visit to my local lactation consultant (breastfeeding expert – hereafter referred to as LC) and got some answers to the many questions I had been wondering about for some time.  I had been concerned that I possibly had another yeast infection, but I was confused about the different opinions I had been getting from various health care providers.  The LC was able to confirm that I did not have a yeast infection, which was reassuring and then enabled us to discuss other possibilities for some of the pain and discomfort I’ve been experiencing.  It turns out that part of the cause is due to the fact that I have “overactive letdown” or in other terms, really fast milk flow!  This also explains the reason for some of Justice’s gassiness, since this can cause him to swallow more air and apparently when women have this problem, it also often means the baby is getting more foremilk, which has a higher lactose content and can be more difficult for him to digest.  (Or something like that – I could be misquoting the LC, but that’s the general idea)  Another result of having such an abundance of milk is that Justice is getting fed really well – lol!  We weighed and measured his length today and he is in about the 90th percentile for both weight and length, meaning he’s a BIG BOY!  He weighed in at 16 pounds and was 26 inches long at about 3.5 months old.  I asked if this was okay – was I feeding him too much??  But yes, he’s perfectly fine and totally healthy and apparently you can’t overfeed when breastfeeding.  Then came the big question – if my overactive letdown was probably the cause of his gassiness, did this mean that his problem wasn’t an issue with dairy??  The LC said it was very unlikely and told me that she thought it was totally fine for me to drink milk and eat cheese again!!!  PRAISE THE LORD!!!  In addition to this, the LC said she suspected Justice was beginning to teethe, as he has begun drooling and chewing on things more.  Soooo many changes seem to be happening all the time in his body, in his behaviors, in his habits, etc.  As soon as you think you have something figured out, he just changes again!  Anyways, as soon as I got home from the LC, the first thing I did was have a big glass of milk – lol!  But now I’m all anxious again, because he had a rather fussy evening and then I begin to wonder if it was the milk – GRRRRR!  But, I’m going to trust what the LC said and keep having dairy and try not to feel too guilty about it and just keep paying attention to how Justice seems to be doing, while trying the various things I can do to help with the overactive letdown issue.  We’ll see – I suppose I could be dealing with teething crankiness soon??  At the end of the day though, I am just thankful that my big beautiful baby boy is healthy and happy pretty much 90% of the time!    He is a wonderful baby and I love him soooooooooooooo much!!!

I love my fist!!

In the last month, Justice has become quite taken with his fist!  Whenever possible, he is jamming his entire hand into his mouth – he hasn’t quite figured out the thumb-sucking thing yet.  But if he can’t get his whole fist in, his favorite fingers to suck on are his pointer and middle finger together.  He will stick them in as far as they can go and today I couldn’t help but laugh as he repeatedly made himself gag by doing this!  (Click on the picture below to see it full-size.)