Family time at Christmas...

We went to Oak Ridge for Christmas break this year. For the past several years, this has been our plan. David's brother and his family were only off at Thanksgiving because of Dan's job, so we spent that holiday with his side. And, Christmas has also been the time when Vance and Terri were most likely to be able to come, so we'd see them them. It worked out. Dan's job has changed, and we're in transition, so most likely, we'll be spending some Christmas' with David's family from now on, but this Christmas was another with my kin. It was full of family down time, and I treasure that. The picture above is my favorite picture from this trip. Isaac found Mom's pot cabinet. I vividly remember loving to play in this cabinet as a child. It was right on baby level, and the pots made the most satisfying crashing noise. I loved it. It gave me warm fuzzies when he opened it up and started banging away. We come full circle... Oh, he's also wearing his cousin's ducky bib. We had to decorate him for my shower, too!

This is where we spend a lot of time whenever my family gets together. My parent's house is not that big, but my mom planned it out so that the kitchen would be one of the largest rooms in the house. She was smart, becuase that's where we spend most of our time. Now that I have a sister who loves to cook as much as Mom and I do, it's guaranteed that we'll always be hanging there when we get together. Here I am in my apron. It's a wonder I can still tie it. Dad looks dour, but he believes that his smile is less than appealing, so he doesn't smile for pictures. That doesn't mean he isn't happy on the inside, though. =)

Ok, Vance and Terri claim that they didn't plan this, but they did get dressed to go to the gym in the same room. I suspect they might've been trying to look cutesy in their matching college shirts, but who knows, they could be telling the truth. Isaac has a fun habit these days of reaching from one person to another. Whoever's holding him, he thinks it might be more fun to go to the person standing next to them. He'll stay, give them a hug, and move on. Hey, at least he's a cuddler. And I appreciate that he wanted his aunt to play with him a lot this Christmas. I like to think that he knows me and recognizes some of my mannerisms from his daddy. But he's only 11 months, so I could be kidding myself. But this kid is sharp. He did find the tv remote this year, and he figured out how to push the button and change the channels. He was fascinated, and he knew that the button would change the channel. Pretty good for a kid without a tv at home. I think he's a baby genius, but I know I'm biased.

We came back from Christmas holidays on the day after Christmas so that I could be around here a month before my due date. My son is due in less than a month, Jan. 25! I've washed and put away all my baby clothes, and that was so much fun. I loved looking at the little tiny wash cloths and socks and baby hats. It's hard to believe that he'll be wearing them soon. Now I have to get some projects finished in a hurry! Usually we spend New Year's with some college friends, but we won't be doing that in NC this year. But...Perry and Amanda from college days will be coming down from PA to spend New Years with us this year! So we will get to play spades anyway! That reminds me, I'd better go clean the bathroom and finish the dishes! So if I don't post again, Happy New Year! Oh, and David's mom and dad, if you're reading this, David's at work all day, so that's why we haven't called. He's been working a lot since we got back. We'll call soon; we promise.

I scream...

If you've been keeping up with this blog, you may have noticed that I posted about my early pregnancy craving for gummy bears. Well, this is my other main pregnancy craving. Unfortunately, it hasn't been easy for me to obtain. I don't just crave mint chocolate chip ice cream. Oh no, that would be tooo easy. I crave Mellobuttercup mint chocolate chip ice cream, and you can only get that in one place, I think. You can only get it from Doss' in Kernersville, NC. They have the best mint chocolate chip ice cream that I've ever tasted, and I've tasted a lot of brands. My memory never fools me; it's always just as good as I remembered it. There have been times when I've been tempted to beg my mother to go down there and get me some and send it up to me packed in dry ice. =) So when I was home at Christmas, Dad and I went and got me some. See how happy I look? And this is a single scoop cone, folks, for the low, low price of $1.75. Beat that, Ben and Jerrys!

Here we have my favorite ice cream scooper. I realized that this man has been serving me great food for my entire life, and I've never taken his picture. He is a Doss, and he's an owner of this fine establishment. Just about every time I go, he's there, bent over the griddle. I can hear him calling out the order numbers in my mind- "188!" Doss' is a Southern, small town institution. It has something that no chain restaurant can ever have, in my humble opinion. It serves up greasy grilled cheese sandwiches (my favorite) and pink hotdogs and cherry coke made with real cherry syrup (mmmmm). But it also serves up something else. There is a small town atmosphere there that you just can't find at Hardee's. And the food is better. There are pictures of clowns all over the walls, and you see the occasional old Snoopy poster or Nascar picture. The booths are red and white plastic, and there's country music playing. If you've been in one of these kinds of places, you'll know what I'm talking about, and if you haven't, you just won't.

Doss' is special to me, too, because it's a special place for me to go with my Daddy. Mom is a health nut/wacko, and she refuses to touch anything they serve with a 10 ft. pole, so somehow it developed that Dad and I would go there by ourselves. Now we wouldn't let her come if she wanted to. Sorry, Mom, but this is father-daughter time. Dad and I go just about every time I come to visit, and we chew the fat and just have a little time to ourselves. I'm so glad that I have a father who looks forward to these kinds of little traditions with me. He has always made it a priority to find ways to spend time with me, even though I don't share his abiding love of fishing, golf, and hunting. My dad is a man of few words, and we don't always have "deep" conversations at Doss', but going there provides a way to make sure we get the face time we need. It's something stable and abiding in my crazy world, and I'm thankful for it. Thanks for clogging my arteries, Daddy. I love you.

Getting ready for baby...

On the Saturday before Christmas, David and I started getting ready for Baby. Not that we hadn't been doing little things here and there before then, but that was the day that we decided it was time to go out and get the travel system. Somehow, this was symbolic for us. We'd been avoiding getting this item as long as possible because we didn't want to rearrange the closet so we could figure out how to grunt and sweat and heave around this monstrous piece of baby gear, so we avoided. But we were getting ready to go to NC for Christmas, and people were starting to say things like, "Are you ready? You really should get ready. You never know...this baby could come any day." So we started some necessary panicking, and this is the result. We visited Babies R 'Us and got all the little things we figured we absolutely had to have before the baby arrives. David gets better and better all the time at putting things together. He got the stroller assembled and the infant carseat strapped in the car in only a little over an hour. I'm impressed. So I drove to NC and back with that baby seat in the back of the Camry, staring me the face, saying, "Here I am. There might be something riding in me before you know it." We played it better safe than sorry, I guess. No baby yet, and I'm glad. It's too early, yet.

At this point, I'm a month from my due date. (Long pause for emphasis). And I'm starting to do a little of the freaking out that the baby books say you'll do. David and I were driving back from NC, just enjoying our time together, and he wanted to stop at a rest stop to go to the bathroom. Now, I don't particularly care for rest stops. I think it's a waste of time to stop at them when you could go to a nice, climate controlled gas station with cleaner bathrooms and the possibility of snacks that don't come from an overpriced vending machine that you're standing in front of in the freezing cold. This is how I feel about rest stops, but I'm not prone to throwing a hissy fit about stopping at one. No big deal, right? Wrong. We stop at this rest stop, and by the time we are back in the car, I'm spitting mad because we stopped there. I know that it's stupid that I'm so angry, but I'm really, really angry. So I tell David that I'm angry, and that I know I shouldn't be, and that it certainly can't really be about the rest stop. Being the kind and gentle soul that he is, he understands that this isn't really directed at him, and he tries to help me figure out what I'm so upset about.

Rest stops are no big deal, I decide, but the thought of being a mother is beginning to scare me. I'm looking at myself and realizing that I'm an amazingly selfish human being. I greatly enjoy 8 hours of sleep a night, and I'm whiny when I don't get it. I like to read books, take long bubble baths, and do what I want when I want to do it. I spent a few days at Christmas with my 11-month-old nephew who is a poster child for adorable baby boys, but let's face it, he's a baby. He has lots of needs that have to be met all the time, and his parents are not guaranteed 8 hours of sleep at night, and sometimes they just can't fix it when he's grumpy. It's a lot of work being a parent. It requires tons of self sacrifice, 24-7-365 days a year. I took a few good looks at him with new eyes, and I felt like I was standing in line at boot camp with a big, mean drill sargeant standing in front of me, poking my chest with a menacing finger and saying, "You think you got what it takes? Huh? Drop and give me 20, soldier! And then spend the night in the sleep deprivation tank."

I want to meet my son. I am so thankful that God has given me the chance to become a parent. But I know that this is going to be the biggest, toughest thing that I have ever done. I am going to have to learn to die to myself in ways that I can't yet imagine. And that's a scary thought. I know me, and I know that I don't have it in me, in my own power, to be the parent I would like to be. I'm going to need some divine intervention to do even a halfway decent job at this lifetime of selfless giving thing. So when I post that this little guy is here, please start praying for me that I would be the God-honoring mom that I want to be that constantly puts someone else's needs before my own without feeling resentful about it. I need a brain and heart transplant. =)

Christmas at the Court...

Here we are at the Supreme Court Christmas Party! It's an annual event for all Court employees and their families, and it's a fancy bash, lemme tell ya. There was plenty of food and drink, the Marine Corps string quartet was playing, and as you can see, there's a tree reaching toward the stratospheres. I think I'm about 34 weeks in this picture, and my Great-Aunt Mary says I look like I've swallowed a sugar baby watermelon. =) I took the Metro to the Court for the party, and after it was over, we walked a couple of blocks to Union Station to metro to Bethesda to babysit for some friends. Not too shabby for a very, very pregnant woman. I'm still feeling pretty good; no swelling so far, but it's getting harder to sleep at night. Sigh.

This was just a small part of the tasty goodies at the party. That table was the dessert table, where you could get eggnog, apple cider, and hot chocolate, as well as all the sugar and carbs one could ever want. David is on the left, leaning over and trying to decide what he wants. Notice the gigantic Christmas tree in the background. It's a live tree, and it's probably about 30 ft. tall, tall enough to touch the ceiling of the grand hall in the Court. Some hill top is missing you, big guy.

"Three French hens, two turtledoves, the U.S. Attorney General, and a couple of Supreme Court justices..." =) Apparently, it's an annual tradition to gather around the grand piano in one of the conference rooms at the Court to sing Christmas carols every year. Chief Justice Roberts led the singing for awhile, and then he handed the baton off to Justice Scalia (standing next to the woman in green). Justice Scalia is an enthusiastic singer. You might also notice a distinguished looking man wearing a red tie and looking up. That's Mr. Alberto Gonzalez. I think we were singing "Silver bells...it's Christmas time in the city," at this point. Merry Christmas from Washington, DC.

My handsome hubby...

I love this picture of David, but I hadn't gotten around to posting it. It was taken outside the Court on the day of the partial birth abortion arguments. He got me a ticket to them, and afterward, I asked him to turn around when we were walking back to the Metro. Sometimes its hard to get a natural smile from him, but this time I did. Isn't he handsome? This is what he wears to work every day these days. I love you, honey.

No sacrifice...

This Monday, I went to a funeral. I said goodbye to the mother of my sister-in-law, Cheryl Stolldorf. This picture shows Terri, Cheryl, Isaac, and Allie, taken not long before Thanksgiving. It's a little hard to look at for me because it shows the vibrant, young person that she was. Death is not natural. We were not created for it, but because of the Fall, it is here with us. Someone leaving us in the prime of life is hard for us to take, at least it is for me. I can rejoice, knowing that Cheryl is with her Maker, but I grieve because my sister will not have her mother's gentle, godly counsel in the years to come. I am sad because her family is at a loss without her as a pillar of strength and love. And I mourn the loss to all of us that knew her because we will miss out on learning from her wondeful example of Biblical womanhood. I'm writing about her funeral this morning because it affected me the way that no other funeral has. It got me thinking some new thoughts that I hope will change my heart and my way of living, and I hope that it's honoring to Cheryl for me to post about them. There were a lot of eulogies given at Cheryl's funeral. Some of her sister's spoke, and some of her friends spoke, and Terri gave the best eulogy of all. Through each thing that was said, a different aspect of this woman's life came out for me to see. I saw the godly example that she has been to her younger sisters over her life, seeking diligently to encourage them in their faith. She was someone that they looked to for guidance as to what God would have them to do. To her friends, she was a mentor unaware. They looked to her example for how to raise their children and love their husbands. They told stories of prayers she prayed for them and times that she dropped everything in her schedule to help them through a tough time. She made them countless meals, and she was there when a crisis hit. One friend said that she never heard Cheryl gossip in all the years that she knew her. What a testimony that is! To Terri, she was a model of godly womanhood that has shaped Terri. I realized as Terri spoke that many of the things that I admire about her are things that she learned from her mother. That shouldn't be startling, but I saw it with new eyes. Terri spoke of her mother's boundless hospitality and love for the family of God. This woman took her responsibility to love the church very seriously. Terri had counted up the number of guests that her mom had had in her home the first year that she and Dan planted a church by looking at her mom's guestbook. There were over 150 days out of that year that they had guests in their home. Her mom wore out several sets of sheets, and Terri said she didn't complain about all the hostessing that she did. Terri stood there, by her mother's side, and got to participate in this joyful hospitality. What a wonderful example for her! Cheryl loved Dan and her children, and she showed it by learning about their interests, even football and rock music. I saw her selfless hospitality in the way that she opened her home to her son-in-law's family during the holidays. Her precious time with her daughter was very limited, since they live in Minnesota now, but she didn't hoard it for herself. She invited all of us over during her time with them, and that willingness to share them when she didn't have to spoke volumes to me. My parents were invited to Thanksgiving dinner this year when Vance and Terri were there. She didn't have to do this, but she did it any way. She lived her life in such a way that you knew that she was deliberately choosing to put others before herself. She did this because she'd given her life to Christ, and she wanted everyone to know that if she did anything good, it was because of Him in her life. After her first brain surgery a month ago, she prayed that she'd be willing to die if it meant that one person would be saved as a result of her death. I don't know if I could pray that way, but I truly believe that she meant it. She knew her Lord, and she wasn't afraid to leave to go be with Him. At her funeral, a small dance troupe from her church danced to a song by Josh Upton called "No Sacrifice." There were three girls, one wearing all white, and two wearing all black. The one wearing white brought out a basket filled with white petals, and as she danced, she threw them out in joyful abandon to God. Here are the words:

To you I give my life, not just the parts I want to,

To you I sacrifice these dreams that I hold on to

Your thoughts are higher than mine

Your words are deeper than mine

Your love is stronger than mine

This is no sacrifice

Here's my life

To you I give the gifts Your love has given me

How can I hoard the treasures that you've designed for free?

Because Your thoughts are higher than mine...

To you I give my future

As long as it may last

To you I give my present

To you I give my past

Because Your thoughts are higher than mine...This is no sacrifice

Here's my life

When they rolled out Cheryl's casket, this song was playing in the background. I think I will see that image whenever I hear this song for a very long time. It's been in my head for the past several days. And I'm thinking about it. I'm thinking about her life as a model for mine. I'm realizing that I have wonderful opportunities for my life that I haven't been using to the utmost. I have been blessed with the gift of a godly Christian husband who wants to serve the Lord with me, just like Cheryl. What am I doing with that gift? Am I using it to it's full potential? Cheryl took the Christian upbringing that her parents gave her and utilized it to get closer to the Lord. She took it to the next level. Am I doing the same with what my mom gave me? I have advantages that my mom didn't have because I married David, and he has the same vision for serving the Lord that I do. I don't need to forget that, and I have been. What am I doing with the blessings that God has given me? Am I hoarding them for myself, or I am pouring myself out to my family and my friends and my church? On Monday, I got a unique picture of the life of someone who was years ahead of me in Christian service and maturity. She had 20+ years of a life lived for Christ on me. But she started out in many ways where I am today. When 20+ years have gone by for me, will my life look a lot like hers? Will I have used what was given to me in the ways she has? I haven't been intentional enough in thinking about that, but I am now, and I hope the answer is "yes." Thank you, Cheryl, for giving me the gift of your example. Your life is one that I would be proud to emulate because you emulated the only One truly worthy of emulation. Your funeral service was a gift to me, and I think that you'd be pleased to know that.

Caregroup baby shower...

Christine, Ruth, and Bethany at Taye's house for my shower.

Last night, I had my very first baby shower. Our church has small groups, or caregroups, and our new caregroup threw a shower for me. I walked in, and it was overwhelming to see all the work they'd put into this evening. There were streamers and balloons and a table of treats and a diaper cake! Mary, our caregroup leader's wife, had asked David what kinds of foods I liked, so there were a couple of cheesy dishes, as well as a bowl of gummy bears in honor of the main pregnancy craving I've had. =) Ruth was in charge of games, and I had to pick the best drawing of a baby drawn on top of your head with a crayon. We laughed and talked and ate, and I saw their generosity in so many things, from the shower details to the thoughtful gifts. David sent a letter to be read to me, and they all spent time praying for us before the shower ended. What a great group of godly women! In our church, you must join a caregroup to become a member. I didn't understand this at first, but I'm understanding it more and more all the time. We go to a large church, so real relationships don't happen much just on Sunday morning. Our elders know this, so that's why caregroup is so important to them. Caregroup is where you serve the body of Christ and are served by it. It's where we come with our problems and joys, and it's where we help each other seek God for both of them. I have experienced that each member of our caregroup really takes it seriously to care for the other members. If they didn't, they wouldn't go to so much trouble to reach out to me, a really new member, with such selfless love. We've only been in this church for about six months, and they gave me a shower fit for a queen. I am really humbled by their selfless generosity. We are not alien and fatherless here. We have found a church home with the body of Christ, and I am in awe of it. What a gift for me, a girl in transition who thought there just might not be any baby showers. Our God is good to provide even that non-essential thing to bless me. Thanks, girls, for serving the Lord through reaching out to me in this way.

An amazing diaper cake, courtesy of Christine. I can't imagine how much time she put into this. Thanks, Christine!

Me joyfully opening my goodies. =) That's Kristin sitting beside me on the couch.

Julie and Taye. They have such nice smiles.

Mary and Christine hamming it up.

Anne and Diana, the continuing story...

This weekend, Sarah came to visit me. Well, at least, that's the name that the rest of the world knows her by. To me, she has another name. She's Diana, and I'm Anne. See, Sarah and I share a fascination with all things Anne of Green Gables, so somehow, many years ago, we started calling ourselves by those names. It's just one of a lifetime of inside jokes we share. And I'm not kidding about the lifetime part. Sarah and I met when we were 8 years old. My first memory of her is being at her house and playing with her bunny, Cottontail. We grew up together, and that statement is filled with multifaceted layers. I never had a sister, but she's the closest thing that I had to one. I have lots of sisters in Christ, but nobody else that I shared all the good and bad of the growing up years with. There is something special about somebody who has known you- all the many faces of you as you grow and change, and the core of you that remains from the minute they met you as a little girl. Sarah knows me, and I know Sarah. I know the good, the bad, and the ugly about her, and she knows the same about me. We've fought like sisters, and we've made up like sisters. There have been times when we've had to put up with each other, but in those times, neither of us gave up. Because you don't give up on your sister. And eventually, she'll grow out of it. =) I know we both believed this about the other, and it's proven to be true. She gets me. It's nice to be gotten. I've moved a lot, and I've changed a lot. So has she. But there are some things that we just don't need to explain. A look is sufficient, or one word can trigger a host of memories. It's friendship comfort food. You put a lot of years into stirring that pot of soup, and after years of homeschooling together, going to college together, and figuring out married life together, each time you taste it, it gets more satisfying. When I was younger, I was a pretty pushy broad. I thought I had it all figured out, and I told Sarah my philsophies on life quite regularly. I pushed too hard, and I was a big ol' know-it-all sometimes. She put up with it. =) I'm getting older, and I've experienced more, and now I have more compassion. And I give Sarah credit for this: she knows the pushy person I used to be, and she doesn't assume that I'm that exact same person anymore. Despite knowing years of that me, she has graciously given me the gift of believing that I can change for the better. Yeah, I'll still always be a pushy broad in some ways, and I'm sure we both know it. But she believes in my capacity to become better, more godly, even though she's seen years of my bad behavior. That's a priceless gift. Thanks, Diana. So it's with great sadness that I mourn the loss of her mind. Yep, she's gone crazy, as evidenced by the picture below.

She went shopping in Manhattan during the Christmas season for little Seth. Yep, folks, she's certifiable. =) And she bought him way too much. I promise, I won't post all my baby gifts on this blog. But she has her own blog, and I thought she'd get a kick out of this picture, so here it is. I love them all, but my favorite item is the cool diaper bag. I'd been looking all over for the perfect one. All I had to do was give her my diaper bag specifics, and voila, she found the perfect thing. I'm not surprised. She knows what I like. Aren't we glad it's not Amy Grant, side ponytails, and balloon barrettes anymore? =) I love you, Diana. Thanks for sharing this new adventure with me.

A great loss...

I posted a couple of months ago about Cheryl Stolldorf, my sister-in-law, Terri's mother. She went into the hospital with bad headaches, and they discovered a mass of swollen capillaries in her brain. They drained them, and she went home. We were all so thrilled, and it looked like everything would be just fine. This Tuesday, she went back into the hospital with the same kind of headaches. This time, the doctors found that the capillaries had grown and had burst. Throughout the day, she became more unresponsive, and by Tuesday night, she was gone. I know there are a lot of Christians that read this blog, and I know that you are prayer warriors. Please pray for the Stolldorf family. Cheryl hadn't even reached the age of 50. She was an active, selfless, Christian woman with tons of energy and heart. I didn't know her as well as I would've liked, but I know enough to know that she was a stellar example of godly womanhood to many, me included. There was no indication that she would leave her family so suddenly at such a young age. Her husband, Dan, and her children, AJ, Allie, and Terri have a lot of shock and grief to bear. Please lift them up to the Father in the next few days. Her funeral will be Monday, and we will be going to NC for it. Please pray that we would say and do only what would be helpful to all of them during this time.

Many, many moves ago...

This is my first time writing for Blogs of Beauty, and I have no idea who God will send this direction. But this Blogs of Beauty post on the Beauty of Reaching Out tugged at me, so I thought I'd give it a try.

See, I know a lot about reaching out. In the 5 1/2 years that my husband and I have been married, we have moved 4 times. We're not in the military, but my husband's graduation from law school and his clerkship options necessitated all this. These moves were not just moves down the street and around the corner. Each time, we had to pick up our life and move it states away, and we had to start over again with a new church, new jobs, and a new set of friends.

Many, many moves ago, I was a girl who'd grown up on the same patch of land that her daddy grew up on. I didn't have to reach out much because I had a network of friends and family that I'd built over my young lifetime. That time is over, and I have learned a lot about the hard, complicated, but rewarding work of reaching out. When I have gotten a little bit comfortable in a new place, and I meet someone who's just moved into the area, I look at them completely differently than I did before my odyssey began. Before, I simply wasn't aware of all the relational needs that they had as they timidly stepped out into a brave, new world. I am much more compassionate now.

This has been a great thing for my spiritual growth, even though it's been a somewhat difficult lesson to learn. Reaching out can be beautiful, but it isn't always easy. Reaching out requires vast reserves of patience and stubborness and the ability to handle subtle rejection and failure. Reaching out requires that the one reaching out to others be able to develop a thick skin, despite the fact that loneliness and uncertainty have made her skin thinner than it normally would be.

Reaching out is not for the faint of heart, but it's worth it. The alternative, at least for those of us who've moved and have no choice, is to become a sad, little island, un-nourished by others and useless to the local body of Christ. In order to serve, we need to invest in other lives, and the first step to doing that is to put yourself out there. Putting yourself out there may involve many things, but the first thing it could involve might be introducing yourself to someone and making the effort to converse after church when you feel like you'd rather just walk out to the door and go to lunch. It might mean inviting a couple over for dinner, knowing that they might not reciprocate your invitation.

I enjoy cooking, and David and I enjoy having people over, so one of the things that we have learned to do is invite others over for dinner regularly. It doesn't have to be anything fancy that we're serving, and it often isn't. The house doesn't have to be spotless. It's not. The point is just to make the effort to get to know others better by having them in our home. We have done this for several years now, and we're getting better and better at inviting and making people comfortable. At one point, we were feeling like it was difficult to get to know people in our church, so we decided to have two nights a week, if we could, when we invited over different people. They were all ages, though most were older than us in this particular church. Even for a chef wannabe like me, this was ambitious. We gave it up after a couple of months out of exhaustion, but we did do it, and it was good.

I learned many things from this and from all our years of inviting over, and I pass this on to you, the person who may have just moved or may be moving.

You may invite over 3 times as many people as reciprocate your invitations in some way.

If you are reaching out, expecting that others will put in as much work as you have to reach back to you, you may be disappointed. There are a variety of reasons for this. Maybe they just didn't click with you (you could be hopeless dorks like me and David =), or, more likely, their lives are already so full of family and friends that they simply don't have a friendship opening there for you at the time. Maybe they don't like to cook, and they don't want to serve you pizza at their house, even though you'd be happy to eat it.

Don't be discouraged, and don't give up. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and keep going, friend. It may take time, and you may feel like you'll never gain the comfortable relationships that you had in your old neighborhood or church, but eventually, it will get better.

The mountain of invitations that you've put out there will eventually lead you to a gem of a friend, the diamond in the rough that is worth all the effort to find that person who is looking for a friend just like you.

And even if years go by, and that illusive friend hasn't yet been found, remember that reaching out isn't all about you anyway. It's about Christ and his instructions that we do not forsake assembling together. The Christian life was meant to be lived in community, and if we're not doing that, we're missing out on being a blessing to others.

I've seen how God has put me in the right place at the right time over and over again to help someone else, and I can look back and see all the steps that I had to take to get there, steps that sometimes didn't seem worth it. I would've rather gone home and watched tv that night, but now I'm glad I didn't. =) If my life is ultimately not supposed to be about me and my needs and wants, (and it's not, if I'm reading my Bible correctly), then reaching out is just another thing that I do because I want to glorify my Savior. And when I do it with that in mind, then my reaching out is always a beautiful thing. ***P.S., if you want to read more on this topic from my perspective, check out my Sept. 22, 2006 blog called "The meet and greet." Happy blog hopping!

Childbirth express...

Yesterday, David and I spent the day in class. Childbirth class, that is. Our hospital system has a program where you can get all the childbirth info you could possibly need (ha!) in one day. So we spent 9:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. sitting in uncomfortable chairs with 11 other couples, listening and gaping and squirming at the info we were getting from a very nice nurse. I had already gotten some of this info from various sources, but I still had a lot to learn. David, however, was fully initiated into the complicated process of childbirth by this class. He still looks startled. (Just kidding.) We covered how to know when you've gone into labor (hmmm, still not completely sure it's as easy as she made it sound), various forms of pain relief, breathing techniques to help with early labor (wondering if those do any good), complications in delivery, c-sections, and newborn and mommy care. She passed around a wide variety of scary little instruments, including big, gleaming, steel forceps and the evil looking crochet hook they use to break water. I found out that I will be oozing a wide variety of liquids from various parts of my body for weeks after birth. It was edifying, to say the least. The thing that seems most useful to me at the moment is her advice to bring your own pillows because hospital pillows stink. =) The rest of it is stuff I really can't do much about. Overall, it feels good to be informed, but I feel like the process is still largely out of my control, especially if I have a complication. Which leads me to this morning's sermon. Our head pastor spoke about Hezekiah this morning. He talked about the ups and downs of Hezekiah's faith and trust in God. Hezekiah was a good, godly king who made some mistakes in trusting, like all of us. When he needed a miracle, He trusted God for one. He asked God to heal him, and God added 15 more years to his life. But then he stopped trusting God after He'd had his miracle until he needed another one when the Assyrians were banging on Jerusalem's gates. In the in between time, he entertained envoys from Babylon, and he showed them all the treasures and fortifications of His kingdom. He was showing off, showing them how he'd prepared for the safety of his own city. He was reveling in his self reliance, and this would eventually lead to the destruction of Judah and the Babylonian exile. Isaiah told him that the Babylonians would come back for all the loot they had seen, but he wasn't repentant because he knew it wouldn't happen during his lifetime. Not a shining moment for this king. But once again, when Hezekiah couldn't do anything to help himself, he did turn to God again when Jerusalem was under Assyrian seige, and he asked for and received another miracle. The point that our pastor was trying to draw from all this was to ask how we respond after God has granted us a miracle. Are we only good at relying on God when we need one of those? Do we only grasp for God when we know we're in a crunch time and there isn't anything we can do? Do we fall back on our own resources when things don't seem so dire? What are the consequences of that? This got me thinking about the miracle I have recieved. I have a miracle growing in my body. I didn't put him there, and I can't do much to make sure that my little boy gets out alive and healthy. I have been sitting back and enjoying the time since he was conceived, doing what I can to have a healthy pregnancy. I've been given a healthy pregnancy, and things have been calm. But this period of calmness after a miracle may be making me too self reliant. I've begun to think that I can control the outcome of this pregnancy. I've begun to think that I can manipulate medical technology to make sure he comes out happy and healthy. The combination of the childbirth class and this morning's sermon have made me realize that there isn't anything about this process that I can really control. Ultimately, I will probably have very little say over how this all goes. And I should stop worrying and weighing options and ask God to provide the perfect delivery for me. I need to leave it in his hands and stop trying to think about micromanaging the process. I could; doctors will let you have what you want quite often if you beg enough. But is that a good idea? I'm tempted to do it, but I know that that is because of my fears and not because of a healthy desire to be an informed patient. And I can't let my fearful desire for self reliance take over. I have to trust, put myself in His hands, and ask the Lord for the next miracle.

Making a gingerbread house...

Here we are, hard at work!

The finished product! The girl gingerbread person looks a little scary, but the boy came out alright. =)

This Friday night, I planned a little surprise for David. I bought our first gingerbread house kit! I got this idea from Carrie from small group, and it worked out great! I'd never tried one before, and I thought you had to bake the gingerbread yourself. Au contraire! There was no baking involved. You just used the premade gingerbread and premade icing and stuck all the candy they provided all over it. It turned out really well considering that we'd never tried this before. It was a nice December date night activity, and I highly recommend it to all.