selfish

Lately this is how I have been feeling...selfish. My heart breaks for things like the orphan, the poverty-stricken third worlds, the millions of children in foster care. But my heart does not break for many of those around me. It's hard for me to empathize with people who have food and roof over their head and someone who loves them...but Jesus cares. And he commands me to as well. This is my prayer today, Lord. Break my heart for what breaks yours.

Prayer of a Selfish Soul

Lord, I have been everything except what I should.
I have fought for my own way over yours,
And I have done nothing but fall short.
I am here for the sole purpose
Of requesting Your mercy once again.
I have chased my own dreams
And burned my own way
Through this busted world to no avail.
I have been a stubborn fool
Who only cares about what he can accomplish
And who he can impress.
I feel as though I am nothing—
A jester of chance that is completely unworthy
Of everything You are.
I have come to the broken realization
That without You, I am nothing, my God.
I need you in every part of my life.
Without you directing my steps,
I do nothing but wander the days and nights
Of a desperate world
That is rife with disappointment and failure.
But with You, there is joy and there is love.
With You, I am everything I should be,
Everything I am capable of being.
I have been a selfish soul.
I am here, on my battered knees,
Whispering my hallelujahs
And begging for forgiveness from You—
A forgiveness that I am forever in need of.
Forgive me, sweet Lord.
Make me what I need to be.
Let my tattered heart burn for You as it should.
I relent everything I am to You.
I hand over every part of my withered life
So that You may do with me as You see fit.
Use me, so that I may be proof to a dying world
That there is a God of mercy and unconquered love.
Clean my selfish soul.
Take everything that is not of You
And make me whole once again.
I am here, God.
I have made the final choice
To quit my dashing about
And be still in your ever pure ways.
In your perfect will, let it be so.
Amen.

-Cory Copeland

boat song

love.

If you were a boat, my darling

A boat, my darling

I'd be the wind at your back

If you were afraid, my darling

Afraid, my darling

I'd be the courage you lack

If you were a bird, then I'd be a tree

And you would come home, my darling, to me

If you were asleep, then I'd be a dream

Wherever you are, that's where my heart will be

Oh, do you know we belong together?

Oh, do you know my heart is yours?

If you were the ocean, I'd be the sand

If you were a song, I'd be the band

If you were the stars, then I'd be the moon

A light in the dark, my darling, for you

Oh, do you know we belong together?

Oh, do you know my heart is yours?

Oh, do you know we belong together?

Oh, do you know my heart is yours?

Oh, do you know we belong together?

Oh, do you know my heart is yours?

- JJ Heller

showered

The precious women of my church threw a baby shower for me. I was so nervous the night before I literally slept for 3 hours and spent the rest of the time praying. You see, for a long time baby showers were nothing more than a source of pain for me. There isn't much worse for an infertile woman than being surrounded by other women, who most likely have had children, talking all about the miracle of pregnancy.

I am not now, nor have I ever been, bitter or jealous towards my friends' blessings. I mean that sincerely. I think baby showers are absolutely wonderful and essential not only for material things but also for support and encouragement. But it is very hard to be there. I make myself do a lot of things that many other infertile women would not or could not do. I love to babysit my friends children. I love serving on the children's ministry team at church. I love to meet new babies in the hospital. In fact, there are only two instances I can think of in my whole journey that I chose to protect my heart instead of subject myself to hours of tears later: Mother's Day and baby showers.

To say that attending a baby shower for myself was surreal is an understatement. However, I was so so so blessed. Blessed by the amount of women who love me and our baby enough to come. Blessed by the sheer amount of things our baby girl got! But mostly blessed that I was able to share a small part of our testimony. For those that weren't there, I'd like to share it now here.

For those of you who don't know me or Eric well, pregnancy was not something we ever thought we would experience. We spent a very long time praying that God would bless us the way he had Hannah, Sarah, and so many other barren women in the Bible. 

After a while God really began to change the desire of our hearts - instead of praying for a pregnancy, we began instead to pray for parenthood. God softened our hearts toward adoption and we began the journey to become licensed foster parents. After a year and a half we were literally no closer to the end of that road than when we had started. It was a painful and heart-wrenching decision to end that time without bringing home a single child.

A month after we ended that pursuit, we discovered I was pregnant. In three years we had never seen a positive pregnancy test (in fact I was sure they didn't exist and joked with Eric that it was the one test I couldn't pass!) We were deliriously excited and naively hopeful. We didn't realize how badly we wanted to experience pregnancy until it actually happened. 

Our first baby was only with us a few short weeks, but I'll never forget the impact she made on our lives. One day when I hug Jesus, I will get to hug her too. 

As if waiting for years wasn't enough, losing our first baby felt like too much to bear. We didn't understand what God was doing, nor could we see the light on our path. However, we trusted the Lord. It wasn't easy and we were confused, but God had been right there with us on our whole journey, why would he turn his back on us now? I clung to the verse in Psalm stating "the LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit."

Exactly seven months to the day later, God once again blessed us with a pregnancy. We felt the same unimaginable joy, followed quickly by much anxiety - pregnancy after loss is filled with mixed emotions. 

I am now 30 weeks, a milestone I never let myself imagine I could get to. There are many couples out there with similar or even more heartbreaking stories. I am not sharing this with you for sympathy or to prove anything about "perseverance."  I am sharing our story because above all other things, we want God to get the glory! Our individual relationships with Christ have grown exponentially during the last four years. Our marriage is stronger and more rooted in Christ than it ever could have been without our experiences. We want nothing more than to be a living embodiment of God giving us "beauty from ashes, gladness instead of mourning, and a spirit of praise instead of despair."

God is faithful.

and she's back

Wow, I just realized I took a month long impromptu hiatus from blogging! Needless to say, life is busy. I like busy though, I tend to be more productive. If I have nothing to do for several days I tend to do just that - nothing.

When I'm busy I am more on top of housework and laundry and cooking, is anyone else like that? So weird. Anyway, I have had a few emails asking about pregnancy updates so here goes:

I am 30 weeks and 2 days. Baby girl is still very much a ninja! Although she has more periods of time where she is restful now. I failed my one hour glucose test miserably! That of course meant the lovely three hour test. I had done it before, when I was diagnosed with insulin resistance a few years ago. SO.NOT.FUN.

Plus there was the added stress of failing it too. I was absolutely positive that I would. Which meant I had gestational diabetes, which meant a big baby, which meant a possible early delivery...and so on and so on...

I asked for prayer from my small group and my HP girls, and I truly believe God heard and answered because I PASSED! Praise GOD!!!

The nursery is coming along (yes, I'll post about it soon, but probably when it's mostly complete) and we have one shower under our belts now. I'll post about it tomorrow most likely.

I start going every other week to my OB now. I told him he is going to get sick of me but he said this is the fun part! Have I told you how much I love him and his practice? It's a lot. Amy and Taylor have both used him and also loved him, so I know I'm in good hands.

Sometimes Eric and I have moments of reality. One of them came on the car ride home from the shower. We were discussing the gifts and I mentioned that we got a few packs of diapers. And then we both realized that we are going to have an actual baby, who needs to use diapers. I mean it isn't like this is news to us, but it kind of hit us like a ton of bricks!

The other moment came that evening when we were watching Parenthood (thank you Taylor for that new addiction!) and there was a scene where a couple gets engaged. I looked at Eric and said "She's going to get married one day." And then he got teary so I got teary and we just had to stop talking about it.

I guess all of this was just to say that we still feel very very blessed. And like this is all very surreal. And awesome. And terrifying. And incredible.

Holy 10 weeks left Batman.