Only the Word

Over the last couple of months I have spent a lot of time awake at night.  It's during those times that I realize, I am a brilliant writer!!  I write the most lovely blog posts, thank you notes, and speeches for my children.  Somehow when the dawn breaks, all my brilliance fades like the shadows and I once again sound like someone that doesn't have a college degree.  That being said; I had an epiphany in the middle of the night.  Hopefully I come across sounding half-way intelligent.
Anyhow....recently I started reading another Christian self-help book.  If you know me well, you would know that I am a self-help book junky.  I love to read how to be a better wife, mother, Christ-follower, ect.  This one is supposed to help me overcome my bad reactions to raw emotion. You know; the kind that sneaks up on you and has you yelling at your kids before you even know what hit you.  Then later you're full of regret for how you acted!  The book is Lysa TerKeurst's Unglued.  I must say the book is wonderful.  Lysa is funny and full of true to life stories about how she has blown it and what she is doing to overcome exploding in the moment.  As I lay in bed last night thinking about this book and the many others I have read, it occurred to me:  There is one common theme in all of these Christian self-help books.....read the Word, know the Word, apply the Word.  So simple, yet seemingly so difficult.  Why do we find it so hard as believers to do what the Word says?  We say we believe, but then we don't listen to the verses that are there to help us overcome our issues.  Be sure that I am not pointing the finger here; I struggle with this too!
So the conclusion I came to in the night was that while the stories and steps to freedom written down in all these books are helpful by showing us we're not alone; the thing we really need is to listen and apply what our Creator has so lovingly written to us!!
Praying that I will dig deeper into His Word every day for strength and freedom to be more and more Christ-like. 

I am still here!!

I know it's been a long time since I have written in this blog!!  I am still here!!  For awhile I have wanted to give a baby update, but was a little scared to do so.  The closer my due date came, the more frightened I became that everything would go wrong in the end.  I did start to have a few health problems at the end of my pregnancy that renewed my fears.  My mind raced, and even though I knew if everything were to go terribly wrong I would make it with the help of the Lord; the fact remained that delivering and burying a full-term infant would be much different than delivering and burying a 16 week old baby!  Holding two babies that literally fit in the palm of your hand is not something you ever forget.  It has a way of getting into your soul and mind and never, ever leaving!  That being said; I never fully believed that I was really going to have a baby.  I stayed emotionally distant from my pregnancy, but that came with consequences.  I spent most of my pregnancy being irritable and snippy to my family.  If you had asked me if I was worried, I would have told you that I really wasn't too worried, but it showed in ways that were beyond my control. 

Fast forward to August 30, 2012....my fears were relieved when I delivered a healthy baby boy and heard his first cries!!  Again, the Lord shows me that He is trustworthy and I am confident I would be able to say that today even if my fears had come true!!!  Beautiful little Allen Christopher has joined our family and we know that we are blessed!!  Praise the Lord!!