Brain Dump #1

Sometimes I just need to dump out the various things swirling around in my mind and heart, so I now give you my first “Brain Dump” and perhaps it will become the first of many – we’ll see.

His mercies are new every morning
Rayah’s had a lot of gas issues lately and cries A LOT.  This can really wear a person down.  I had my first meltdown of tears yesterday since I became a mommy of two.  I was frustrated by my circumstances, but also feeling like a failure as a mom for all the anger and terrible thoughts I had inside.  Thank God that His mercies are new every morning and that He sees the sincere desires of my heart to be a lover of God and a better mom to my children.  I’m also glad that all the expectations I put on myself to be a “supermom” are not ones that God places on me – His yoke is easy and His burden is light!

Hosting the Holy Spirit
In light of the spiritual awakening happening at the International House of Prayer (check it out here), I have begun to read the book “Hosting the Holy Spirit”, written by twelve different authors including Ché Ahn, Lou Engle, John Arnott, Cindy Jacobs and several other ministers who have been blessed with visitations of the Spirit in their churches.  I really enjoyed the first chapter by John Arnott about valuing the anointing.  I must confess that since I had participated in a spiritual renewal when I was a teenager, that I somehow reached a place where I was taking the anointing and touches of the Spirit for granted and I would sometimes hold back from really entering in because I thought I had moved beyond that stuff.  I thought I would just sit back and observe and let others experience His anointing who perhaps hadn’t experienced it before.  Perhaps I thought I was too mature or didn’t really need it or made other excuses for not entering in.  But I want to value and honor the moving of the Spirit in our midst and have a hunger and desperation and realization of my need for more of Him.  I want to be open to receiving His touch any time, all the time, every time!

More of His Love
Along similar lines, I was watching the webstream of the IHOPU Student Awakening when one of their leaders David Sliker shared his testimony of what the Lord had done in him.  He shared about how he had made peace with his barrenness and become content with not having God’s touch on his heart.  He also shared about how in his attempt to put aside childishness, he had also put aside childlikeness and lost that innocent joy, but how God had restored to him the joy of his salvation.  As I was identifying with his testimony and praying about this, the worship team began to sing a prophetic song about receiving the love of God.  The Lord then began to speak to me about this, since I seem to struggle with asking Him for more of His love.  I’ve had really amazing experiences in the past where I’ve felt the love of my Bridegroom Jesus and my Father God, but I think I was believing a lie that I needed to live off of those experiences and that I should just be grateful for them and not ask for more.  But then I thought about my relationship with my earthly husband and how I need to know and feel his love for me on a daily basis, whether it’s through a word or action or touch, and he does not begrudge me those things and gladly shows me his love every day.  So why would Jesus be any different?  Does He not long to show me His love and want me to ask Him for more?  It’s simply doesn’t seem right for me to not feel the love of my eternal Bridegroom every day.  Not once a week, not once a month, not once a year – I cannot live on yesterday’s experience!  It would seem ridiculous for Joe to say to me that him telling me he loved me once a year was good enough, yet that’s the lie I was believing about God!  The same goes for the love of the Father – it would be terrible if Joe said to our kids that they should be content with feeling his love only every once and a while!  It’s the exact opposite – Joe really loves to show our kids how much he loves them and I believe it to be the same with our Heavenly Father.  So, while I may have known this to some extent already, it was still a new revelation for me and touched my heart in a way that I needed, which was awesome!

The Father’s Love
Along the lines of the Father’s love – lately our son Justice has become very affectionate, always asking for hugs, which is terribly sweet and cute!  But he has also started asking for hugs during mealtime when he is inevitably covered with food.  Of course, our instinct is to say to him that he needs to be cleaned up first before he can have a hug, but doesn’t that sound horrible?  What if God said to us that we needed to get cleaned up before He would show us His love?  What if the prodigal son’s father had made his son have a bath first before he was willing to embrace him?  I’m so glad the Father is not like that!!  Joe was a great father and let Justice give him a hug, getting food all over his own clothing as Justice patted his back.   I was a little more reluctant and cleaned him up first – lol.

Freedom From Self-Hatred
And one more testimony from what God has been doing in me as I’ve been watching the IHOPU Student Awakening webstream.  Last night, a girl was giving her testimony about how God set her free from self-hatred and rage that had come as a result of being molested as a little girl.  Now, they’ve had several ministry times regarding self-hatred in the last couple weeks, but I’ve been reluctant to engage my heart and have had walls up.  But finally, something broke and what she was sharing caused my defenses to fall as I recalled wounds from my own past.  Then Wes Hall, the person who was facilitating the meeting, had a word of knowledge about a wife who had never told her husband about what she was going through and I knew I needed to tell Joe some things and have him pray for me.  So, I shared with Joe about some things that happened when I was a pre-teen and early teen, where I felt violated by a man and objectified by my male peers.  These were things I had never told him and I don’t even know why I had kept them hidden, but it felt really good to get them out in the open.  We then prayed together and I felt the Lord touch my heart with revelation about how He feels about me and I broke off the the bondage of self-hatred and my agreement with the lies of the enemy regarding my appearance and my body.  One of the things the girl sharing her testimony had said that really touched me was when she said that she realized that her body had not been made for man, but for God.  This was totally freeing for me and I felt life in the revelation that my body had been made by God to be a bearer of His image and a vessel for His Spirit and that it doesn’t matter what people might think!  So, I feel like there was a breakthrough and that I received freedom and healing in this area – praise Jesus!

Justice – 20 months, Rayah – 2 weeks

**I wrote this post over 2 weeks ago, but haven’t gotten around to publishing it, so read this post as though I published it on time.  Much more has happened since I wrote this, but it’ll have to wait until my next month’s update. :) **

On November 4th, Justice turned 20 months old and Rayah was 2 weeks old outside of the womb. The first week, I had the joy of having Joe at home with me, which was so great to have his help!  We also took a trip to Grand Forks, North Dakota for a gathering of my mom’s side of the family for a weekend, which was fun, but also exhausting with a toddler and a newborn in a hotel.  The second week, I had almost 4 full days on my own with both kids and it went pretty good.  I definitely don’t get a whole lot done besides making sure we all get fed, dressed, and rested, but we are beginning to get into a good routine that works for us.  So, here is a look at the last month with our two awesome kids!

Justice

Cute and funny things:

• With his newfound ability to jump, he has started jumping in his crib and on the couches.
• While eating fruit sauce, he brought he spoon too close to his nose and ended up snorting it up his nostrils – lol!
• He loves to help put his dirty diapers in the garbage can and “help” me vaccuum.
• He likes to give Rayah kisses on the head and hugs – very sweet and adorable!
• He will hold his doll or a stuffed animal over his shoulder and pat it’s back, like I do when I’m burping Rayah.  He’ll also come help burp Rayah and pat her back.  He’ll also pat our backs when he hugs us – so sweet.
• He picked Rayah up and carried her – scary!! 
• He climbed into the baby swing and enjoyed a ride in it.
• He was playing outside and was sitting on the ground, playing with rocks, when I all of a sudden noticed that he had fallen asleep – lol!

New things he discovered:

• I didn’t know which category to put this under, but a new experience that Justice had was the pain of having his mommy slam his arm in the van door.   I felt SOOO terrible after and his poor arm was bruised and scratched up – thankfully he recovered fairly quickly and it wasn’t as bad as it could have been!
• With the unexpected early snow we had in October, Justice got his first experience of playing in the snow in his winter boots.
• That his finger fits quite nicely up his nostrils and inside his ears!
• How to take off his pants – I’m hoping this doesn’t become a regular habit!

Eating and drinking:

• He feeds himself most of the time and often makes a pretty good mess, but is becoming less willing to have us help him.  Not too much new in this category.

Talking and comprehension:

• New words: “munch” (lunch), “wee” for the baby swing (and he pushes the swing when Rayah is in it), “ba” for the sheep’s sound, “nack” (snack), “drath” (giraffe), “biddie” (birdie), “bzzzz” for the bee’s sound, “jack” (jacket), “egg”, “sock”, “hug”, “poop”, ”burp”, “hands” (says this when he grabs Rayah’s hands), “knee” (and points to his knee), “Rayah” (he picked this up right away & he has still yet to say his own name!), “rain”, “empty”, “hello”, “fo” (4), “fi” (5), “eight”, “ni” (9), “eat”, “Joe”, “Jacquie”, “wake”, “fun”, “grampa”, “aunty”, “Nick”, ”fish”, “jeans”, “pants”, “boots”, “sauce”, “truck”, “bus”, “water”, “bath”, “stinky”, “dinky” (lol), “ball”, “shhhh”
• As you can see, he is saying new words all the time and he has become quite the chatterbox!  He is constantly babbling and talking very expressively!  He loves to be loud and to scream, but he has also learned to whisper, which is terribly cute.
• His favorite words to yell multiple times daily are “Joe”, “Jacquie”, “daddy”, “mommy”, “baby”, ”grampa” and “Nick”.   He can also point out these people on the pictures on our fridge.

Development:

• He got a mallet & peg board toy from Grandma & Grandpa Engbrecht and he has amazed us with his hand-eye coordination and his ability to hammer those pegs down!
• Had his first temper tantrum in public at the doctor’s office – yay!
• He got his second haircut ever & it was a drastic change from his cute shaggy hair to a very short cut.  I had been wanting him to get it cut for a long time, but when it was actually done, I got all weepy and cried because he looked so different and so grown up!  He is still just as cute as ever, but my little baby is definitely growing up, which was hard for me to realize.
• He can now open our doors at home – shoot!!  I really don’t want to get those babyproof doorknob thingies – I think they’re such an eye-sore, but we’ll see how crazy he drives me with this newfound ability.
• We are definitely having to discipline him more often and are having battles of the will with him to get him to obey us – this is certainly a learning experience!
• He is doing really great at playing on his own while I’m nursing Rayah or preparing meals, etc.  One day I found him sitting amongst his stuffed animals and talking to the kitty.
• I think he’s doing very well at adjusting to Rayah’s arrival and being a big brother!  He doesn’t always fully comprehend how to be gentle with her, but most of the time he does great at just stroking her hair or touching her nose.  He tends to want to steal her soother from her or pull off her socks (which he thinks is hilarious), but mostly he seems happy to just come look at her or give her a hug or kiss every so often.

Health:

• He’s been a healthy boy!

Rayah

• She nurses about every 3 hours, following the general routine of 7-10-1-4, with the occasional longer gap during the night.
• Her bowels operate practically like clockwork and she seems to poop almost every single time while I’m nursing her.
• She PUSHES out her farts and poops and they come out very loudly and explosively!  On one occasion, her poop exploded all over my stomach – lovely!
• She has a little swirl of hair front and center on her forehead that I think is incredibly adorable, but which will probably be a source of angst and frustration when she gets older – lol.  Her hair also sort of spikes on top and then she has her thick mullet at the back, so she sort of reminds me of an 80′s rocker – ha!
• She makes the cutest and funniest faces when she’s just been fed and is content and asleep – she will smile lots and her smiles are so sweet!
• Nursing her is a challenge sometimes, because apparently she cannot multitask – if she needs to burp, spit-up, fart or poop, she absolutely must finish those tasks before she will even consider eating!  I cannot convince her to nurse if there is some other business to take care of!  She is also a very sleepy baby, so getting her awake and alert enough to eat can also be a challenge, but I’m finding she’s getting better and better at nursing as we go along.
• Similar to her brother, she appears to have gas issues – as she’s working it out, she makes lots of squawks, grunts, groans, and other noises, so I call her my “little piglet”.
• One of her ears looks slightly elven to me – we’ll see if it stays that way.
• Unlike her brother, who has several birthmarks, she is completely free of any markings.
• She will sleep pretty good in her crib, but she also really enjoys the bouncy chair and the swing.
• She’s pretty much the cutest, most beautiful little girl ever!

Rayah’s Birth Story

So, I’m a little late in writing this post, but I want to tell you the wonderful story about our daughter Rayah’s birth.  If you read my last post, I was expecting our daughter Rayah to arrive early, since I was already dilated and effaced and she was sitting very low, but the days kept passing by with very little activity to report and I was beginning to get rather impatient!  I had been having Braxton Hicks contractions for a few weeks, but they failed to ever become regular or grow in strength.  On my due date, October 19th, I was able to go out to girl’s night and as they were praying for me that Rayah would come, I felt like it wasn’t going to happen that day or the next, but that she would be born on the 21st.

The morning of the 21st, my mom came over to help take care of Justice, since I had an appointment with my obstetrician.  When she checked me at about 9:30 am, I was 3 cm dilated and she asked me if I wanted her to sweep my membranes and even though I didn’t know exactly what that meant, I was game if it would help get things moving!    She then told me to do lots of walking and to expect labor to start within the next day or two.

So my mom and I decided to do a little shopping so I could get walking and we bought some material for receiving blankets and a cute going-home outfit for Rayah.  It was almost immediately after my appointment that I started to feeling some cramping in my back and then as the morning went on, I began to feel the occasional contraction as we were walking around the mall.  We got back to my house around noon, fed Justice lunch, put him down for his nap, had lunch ourselves and then I lay down to try and rest as well.  Since we had been running around doing stuff, it had been hard for me to focus on what was happening in my body, so when I got to lie down, I was able to start taking note of how often the contractions were coming and how strong they felt.  It was around 2 pm and they were about 15 minutes apart and I felt the need to breathe through them, so I knew things were progressing, but I felt like I still had some time, since they weren’t very close together yet.

Around 3:30 pm I called my friend Kristi to let her know where things were at and I also called Joe at work to give him the heads up.  But once I actually got up from my nap and started walking around the house and doing stuff, I noticed that my contractions were all of a sudden coming much closer together – more like every 4 or 5 minutes!  I decided that quick action was needed, since I had been warned by my obstetrician that my labor would likely be very quick again, as it had been with Justice.  I called Kristi again and told her to come get me & called Joe back and told him to meet us at the hospital.  It also worked out perfectly that my mom was already there and could stay at my house to take care of Justice!  By 3:55 pm, we were on the road and contractions were regular, close together, and I could no longer talk while having one.

When we arrived at the hospital, we were pumped when we were greeted by pro-life activists who were participating in the 40 Days for Life campaign, walking outside with signs that said “Pray to end abortion” – so awesome!  Joe was only minutes behind us & he actually stopped to pray withthem before coming inside and even went out and marched withthem later on during our stay.    He met us right there in the entrance and we went up to triage together, where they checked me and found that I was now 6 cm, which was the same thing that happened with Justice – this was around 4:20 pm.  Also, like with Justice, we discovered that they did not have enough staff to admit me to the LDRP (Labor/Delivery/Recovery/PostPartum), which has the bigger, nicer rooms, but it just so happened that my obstetrician stopped by and saw me there and then went to pull some strings on my behalf – lol.  So that was a total blessing and it helped too having Kristi with us, since they knew they could get her help if absolutely necessary, seeing as she is a nurse who works in labor and delivery at another hospital.

I think I threw up a little while still in triage, which also happened with Justice, so I lost the Chai Tea Latte that my mom had went to get me, since I had thought I still had lots of time to have a nice drink – lol.  Soon I was admitted to my room and now I just got to spend some time laboring and breathing through my contractions.  This is where it felt different from my first experience, since there had been a lot of activity and switching rooms and I barely had any time to think about what was happening when all of a sudden it was time to push and Justice was born.  This time, I actually had time to think and be aware of what was taking place and had to consider how I wanted to cope with the contractions, which for me was difficult, because I’m super indecisive!  Kristi and Joe would ask me if I wanted to try different positions and the nurse would ask if I wanted anything for the pain and I just didn’t know!  I didn’t feel like I had the brain power to make decisions and probably would just prefer to be told what to do – lol.  

When they checked me again, I was fully dilated on one side of my cervix, but only 7 cm dilated on the other side.  I didn’t know this could happen, but then they got me to lie on my side so that the baby would put pressure on the one side and hopefully cause it to dilate more.  At that time, I felt a little discouraged that I was still at 7 cm and I was wondering about how long I was going to have to labor, hoping it wouldn’t be too long!  We tried a couple more positions and there were definitely some difficult contractions, but Kristi and Joe both did a fabulous job at coaching and supporting me through them and I felt like I was a little bit more in control this time than I did with Justice.  I threw up a couple more times, so I’m pretty sure I also lost my entire lunch.

I started feeling a lot of pressure and the urge to push, so they checked me again and I was now 9 cm, so almost ready!  At this point, the resident doctor – a young female – decided to break my water for me and she told me that I would be able to push soon.  I was so relieved to hear those words and was very encouraged when she said that I’d be having this baby very soon!  At about 6:30 pm, I pushed a couple times during one contraction and then the resident said that it would only take a couple more pushes!  On the next contraction, I think I pushed 2 more times and just like that, within seconds Rayahwas born at 6:35 pm!  She weighed 8 pounds and 10 ounces and had dark hair and dark blue eyes.  They immediately put her on my chest and I would say that was definitely the highlight for me – it felt so incredible to have her warm body skin to skin with me and to hold her and feel her breathing.  She was beautiful and perfect in every way and it was so amazing to finally see her and have her in my arms!

It’s funny, because during labor, the nurse, Kristi and Joe were joking about how I was made to make babies, since I have had very good pregnancies and amazing labors, and at the time, since I was still in a significant amount of pain, I said, “I don’t want to have any more babies!”  While in labor, it felt so hard and painful, but when it was all over and Rayah was all snuggled up against me, all those months of waiting, all the discomfort of pregnancy, and all the pain was forgotten and all so incredibly worth it!  She is such a treasure and we absolutely adore her!

Her full name is Rayah Hope and I’ve written about the meaning of her first name, which is “intimate companion” or “friend of God” and which obviously speaks about having an intimate relationship with our eternal bridegroom Jesus.  But her middle name Hope is also significant and we chose it from the scripture Titus 2:13 which says, “…while we wait for the blessed hope – the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ…“  This world is currently filled with much sorrow and pain and there are so many who do not have hope for their future.  Yet for us who believe in Jesus, we have this incredible hope that comes from believing that He is coming again in all His glory and power and majesty as our Bridegroom, King and Judge!  He will judge sin, make all the wrong things right, remove all pain and sorrow from the earth, restoring it to the way He intended it to be, and bring us into His glorious presence forever and ever!  It is our prayer that both intimacy with Him and the hope of His return will strengthen her with courage to face trials, fill her heart with joy, and also strike her spirit with the urgency of the hour that we live in, moving her to intercede and live a life of holiness, passion and obedience to Jesus.