God's Love

Recently Jeff and I were having a conversation about the ways we are starting to grasp God's love for us since we have had Raegan.

A book I am reading puts it like this, "There is no substitute for the way children teach us about God. The way they depend on us, trust us, and imitate us is a beautiful picture of how we are to be as God's children. The Bible challenges us to have faith like these little ones: 'let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.' and he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them.' [Mark 10:14-16]" - Totally Desperate Mom by Wendy Hagen

Before I had Raegan I knew God loved me. I thought I understood how much and what his sacrifice meant. But I had no idea. I am just now starting to grasp how much he loves me. I am so in love with our sweet daughter. I would do anything for her. The choices I make and the things I do now are all in consideration of what is best for her. God is the same with me. He would do anything for me. In fact, he did do EVERYTHING for me. The plans he has for my life are what is best for me even though I might not know it at the time. Raegan can do nothing to earn my love and I can do nothing to earn Christ's love. It's reassuring to know on my best days and on my worst days that God loves me the same.

One of the other things that I have been thinking about is God's love for Raegan and his plans for her life. It is so comforting to know that I can multiply the amount I love her by infinity and that is how much God loves her. As I continue to pray for her and pray for God to help me be the best mom I can be, I can rest in the fact that our savior is here. He is walking alongside Jeff and me as we grow as parents, as we do things right and when we make mistakes, and as we celebrate this little life he has blessed us with.

I pray I can keep these things in view and remember the truth as I have days that aren't the easiest. Not that I ever have hard days or anything! :)

bam-boooooooooo

As we continue to get settled into our house Jeff and I continue to think of things we want to do. Things that are small and would take a day, like installing the surround sound speakers, and others that would take a lot more time, like tearing out all the bamboo in our front planter and planting other things in its place. We both have opinions about which of these things should be done first and which ones can wait. Well, let me just give a little context for the story I'm about to tell...Most of the week I spend inside the house. When the weekend comes along and Jeff is outside working on projects I would love to be out there with him but it's a little hard since I can't do everything he can. Let me correct myself, I can't do really anything he can. However, as we started talking about tearing out the bamboo in our front planter I thought to myself, "I think I could do that...yeah, for sure I could." So I kept asking Jeff if he would mind me doing it. He was resistant at first but then finally said, "If you want to you can, but just know that I have other things to do and won't be able to help you at all. In fact, I would prefer to wait to do it, but if you really want to, go ahead." So, I decided to take that as a challenge and prove to him that I could tear all the bamboo out without his help at all and I got to work. Here's what it looked like before


It took me a few hours and by the time it was all torn out I had filled up both of our big garbage bins and about 6 black garbage bags. I only asked him for help one time, and that was at the end while I was loading all the garbage bags up. :) hehehe...but let me tell you, I felt like a grandma for the next week because I could barely move my fingers and the joints hurt so bad! What I thought was going to be an easy project turned into a much more complicated one because little did I know bamboo roots grow like crazy and you can't just plant in the same dirt they were planted in. Jeff dug a foot down and moved the dirt to the side of the house, then sprayed the planter with weed killer for a couple weeks. Then, just this past weekend he had to dig dirt from another big hole on the side of the house and transplant it. Whew...that was a lot of work! Then we were ready to plant.

Here's how it turned out


Sorry for the long drawn out story. But the moral of the story is that sometimes things take a little longer than I think, especially if you are going to do them right. Also, my husband is a patient man :)

Grace

First, let me start with a couple disclaimers...
1. I have wanted to start blogging for a while because since I'm home all day every day now I have a lot of thoughts going through my mind. I haven't started because of the appearance of my blog. Who knows when I will get it figured out so I decided I may as well just start and get that figured out later.

2. I am not a great writer, so sorry in advance. I would love to share what is going on in our lives as well as things I have been thinking about. I hope you enjoy despite that fact!



But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. -2 Corinthians12:9

Grace. A word that constantly comes up for me. Wouldn't it be easy to just believe what He says is true? That HIS grace is sufficient for me and in my weakness HIS power is made perfect. I have always had a hard time giving myself grace. I expect perfection and nothing less. My expectations are high and often unattainable. This has gotten even worse now that I'm a mom. I want to do it right, I want Raegan to be a good baby who sleeps well, eats well and is happy. I don't want to do something that will impact her in a negative way so I am constantly thinking about what I am doing and how it is going to effect her. Things like if I rock her to sleep is she ever going to be able to get to sleep on her own, should I be feeding her solid foods yet and how much and if I feed her fruit first is she going to eat her vegetables. Let me just tell you, it gets tiring thinking like this all day. These are only a couple examples of what goes on in my mind.

I was talking with somebody the other day about how I am going to mess up and I have messed up in the past. I am going to make mistakes and that's okay. They brought up a good point about how my expectations and lack of grace for myself could actually effect Raegan in a negative way. If she grows up seeing the pressure I put on myself what is she going to think? Will she think that I expect the same things from her that I expect from myself? I never thought about it that way and I appreciated that perspective.

So here I am at the end of another day where I didn't give myself any grace. I am tired and cranky and emotional. I don't like it. I want God's grace to be sufficient for me. He freely give me grace, why can't I give it to myself? Starting tonight I am going to try harder. Try and focus on His word and the promise He makes. We'll see how that goes. :)