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Motherhood: Live a life worthy of it

Moms…

Was yesterday a bad day? It was for me. Really, bad isn’t the word. Terrible? Nope, still doesn’t fit. Anyway, you get the picture.

Don’t dwell on it. Pray. Repent.

Repent at my rebuke!  Then I will pour out my thoughts to you,  I will make known to you my teachings. (Proverbs 1:23)

Hug the sleepy little one that just shuffled down the hall to sit with you on the couch. Write a scripture or two on your hand, and pour a cup of coffee.

Look at your children and remember your calling. Motherhood.

As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. (Ephesians 4:1)

Live your life today worthy of that calling.
Live a life worthy of the children God blessed you with.
Live a life worthy of the hugs and laughter.
Live a life worthy of the tears.
Live a life worthy of the hot baths (however rare they may be).
Live a life worthy of the messes.
Live a life worthy of the late nights.
Live a life worthy of seeing the sun rise.
Live a life worthy of the crying baby and ornery toddler than gave you both of those.
.
Live a life worthy of your calling.

Live a life worthy of being chef.
Live a life worthy of being housekeeper.
Live a life worthy of being laundress.
Live a life worthy of being taxi driver.
Live a life worthy of being personal assistant.
Live a life worthy of being teacher.
Live a life worthy of being wife.
Live a life worthy of being friend.
Live a life worthy of being missionary.
Live a life worthy of being mom.

Live a life worthy of your calling.


Don’t expect to do and be all those things perfectly. We are not perfect. Live a life worthy of those opportunities and blessings though.
God gave us all of these because He wanted us to have them. We didn’t earn them. We were blessed with them.

my boys sitting together

my baby girl at almost 9 months

 

 

(This is just as much, if not more,a post for myself as it is for you.)

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…all things work together for good… {Part six}

Part Six

Note: This is Part Six. To start from the beginning CLICK HERE. I have pondered and prayed over how much of our story to share. God has done so many wonderful things for us in just a few short months, but part of me wanted to hide some of those things away in my heart — to treasure them a little longer before letting anyone else see or hear them. But another part of me knows God has instructed me to tell of the good things He has done and not be silent, so I’ll carefully share a little more of our story. God showed up in some amazing ways in our lives. He is our Protector, our Deliverer, our Great Physician. He is also a loving Father that knows just what we need, when we need it. You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, that my heart may sing your praises and not be silent. Lord my God, I will praise you forever. (Psalm 30: 11-12)   November 5, 2012 I was holding Sylvia-Kate as the midwife was getting ready for Steven to cut the umbilical cord. She was wrapped in a plush blue towel. Then the assistant pulled back the bottom of the towel, and we realized everything wasn’t perfect. Her cord was already severed. It had broken during the pushes apparently. My midwife quickly did an assessment. She was breathing ok; her heart rate was up but coming back down. She was pale though, and had lost quite a bit of blood.  There was no way of knowing exactly how much; she needed to be transferred to the hospital. As the EMT’s arrived, everyone in my living room was eerily quiet. I could see the worry written all over Steven’s face. I wanted to run to him and comfort him. I wanted to tell them all that my baby girl was going to be just fine. I didn’t say anything though. I just sat and watched as everything moved in slow motion. Steven went with her in the ambulance, and then I got up to get ready (with the help of my midwife and photographer) to meet them at the hospital. As I put on my shoes, I held the hands of my midwife and we prayed over my little girl. I could tell everyone else was very worried. I had Peace though, that only the Holy Spirit can give. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28 ESV) For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the  Lord , “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. (Jeremiah 29:11 NIV) The above two verses played over and over in my head that evening. God was reminding me of His promise to me. You see, that night I knew something everyone else didn’t. I had known something was going to happen. God had shared that with me through a dream when I was pregnant. I was scared for weeks, but God kept whispering, “Keep going. Trust me. She will be ok.” (Yes, I’d also been told in the dream I was having a baby girl. J I kept it to myself though, afraid that there was a small chance I was just plain crazy.) As I sat in the birthing tub, holding Sylvie while the midwife checked her breathing and heart rate, that dream had come rushing back to me, accompanied by that calming peace God wrapped me in. It stayed with me that night, and over the next week as I stayed by her side in the hospital.63355_943918937424_1527726824_n   After a week of antibiotics for Sylvia, not nearly enough sleep for me, too much time spent away from my little boys, and way more cable tv than I ever care to watch again, I finally got to carry Sylvie-Kate back into our home. 526292_943918578144_1996383283_n Over the next few days I kept thinking about the verses in Psalm that I had read over and over during my pregnancy… Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4 You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, that my heart may sing your praises and not be silent. Lord my God, I will praise you forever. (Psalm 30: 11-12) Sometimes not-good things happen to good people. Everyone has trials. I’ve learned though, that our trials aren’t always about us. Yes, it was a very hard week for me. I definitely learned some things. That was not the birth experience I had hoped for, and I still sometimes wish things could have happened differently. However, I know God had a bigger plan and used our experience to show at least one person how great his love for us is.  That changes everything. Oh how He loves us…   532066_943785574684_1689020052_n 532152_943785489854_443804811_n This last picture is so precious to me. It was taken the day Sylvia-Kate came home from the hospital. That is my great-grandmother Sylvia, holding her great-great-granddaughter and namesake for the first time. 🙂

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Hold on Sweet Baby

Note: This is Part 3 of the story. If you want to start at the beginning CLICK HERE.


 

Thursday arrived. I was officially 40 weeks pregnant, and my husband was somewhere on the coast of Maryland.  I went about my day as usual. I had a checkup with my midwife. The look on her face when I told her where Steven was is  something I’ll never forget. I’m certain she thought I’d lost my mind as I calmly explained I didn’t know if he’d be home anytime soon. I remember laughing as I showed her a picture one of his co-workers had posted on Facebook that morning.  Only we could have this kind of crazy stuff happen…

Friday arrived. Our baby was officially late. I kept hearing over and over, “Wow, I bet you’re ready to have that baby!” or “You’re OVERdue? I can’t imagine!” At 40+ weeks, it’s not really a big deal though. The baby had dropped, so I wasn’t terribly uncomfortable other than being tired. It was just a waiting game to me, and each minute that passed was a minute closer to Steven coming home, whether that was before or after baby arrived, I didn’t know. I really wasn’t sure if I wanted our little one to wait it out or just hurry up and be born so we didn’t have to worry about it anymore.

 

Saturday arrived.
With a jolt.
At 4 a.m.
And a trip to the OB floor of the hospital.
Much to my relief, the on call doctor assured me everything was fine, but my body was definitely showing early signs of labor. God was giving us an unexpected notice…and hopefully time to get daddy home. Oh praise Him! As soon as we left the hospital, I started calling Steven. Another bump in the road. He was now somewhere in the mountains of West Virgina, wading through snow, waist deep in some areas, with zero phone signal. The same was true for all his co-workers too. It would be 6 or 7 before they got back to a phone signal. A little after noon (after 1 pm there), he just happened to be walking out a line (in search of the two guys that had been sent to do it earlier that morning) and found a random spot higher up with a small signal and took the opportunity to call me. If those two guys hadn’t had trouble, he wouldn’t have been looking for them, and he probably wouldn’t have called until that evening. Once again, there was God. Always there with a bigger plan than what we could immediately see. I told him what was going on, still not sure if he would have any way of getting home. His company was short on trucks in the area, so I knew he couldn’t just drive one home. He didn’t hesitate, “I’m coming home. Let me work on it and call you back.” That was the longest afternoon and evening ever. He was in rural West Virgina. Everything there was closed on Saturday. No one was answering the phones at the small airport an hour away from him. The one car rental business in the nearest town closed at noon, an hour before I had talked to him. I was praying fervently and very anxious. Finally, at almost 10 pm, he was able to reserve a rental car online. It was 2 hours away from him. It was 12 hours from home, and he couldn’t pick up the car until 10 am the next morning. I could hardly sleep that night. I laid awake for hours praying.

 

Hold on sweet baby. Daddy’s on his way.

 

39 weeks

This was the last belly picture taken. I believe it was taken the Friday before he left. 

PART FOUR…

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storm calls at 40 weeks pregnant: hazard of being a linewife

Edit: This is part 2. To start at the beginning, CLICK HERE.

 
October 28, 2012
The call. That dreaded storm call. Every lineman’s wife cringes when the phone rings and there is a major storm brewing somewhere. We all know what it means – days, nights, weeks, or more, will be spent alone, worrying about our husbands and trying to carry on the day-to-day stuff by ourselves, as if nothing is wrong at all. We juggle jobs, kids, grocery shopping, family events, and whatever else life throws at us, all while continuously praying for our husband’s safe return. (And trying to avoid reading the stupid comments on the Facebook pages of electric providers while checking for updates.) This call was different though. I was almost 40 weeks pregnant with our third child, and the storm brewing was a combination of a two different storm systems colliding on the East Coast – Hurricane Sandy. She would later be nicknamed Frankenstorm.  We both knew the ramifications of a storm like Sandy could take him away for weeks. Weeks that we could not afford to go without a paycheck with a third baby joining our family. We had been discussing it since Friday and had decided he had to go. Friday had been our warning. It had given us a chance to prepare ourselves a little and realign our weekend so that we could spend as much time together with our boys as possible.

Rewind to the previous Friday morning, October 26, we were told he would be leaving Saturday morning more than likely. At first, I accepted the news well. I was probably in denial more than anything. I knew though, that he had to go, and whining wouldn’t change that. We decided to head into town to pay some bills and go by the courthouse for early voting. We stopped at the end of our driveway to check the mail, just as we do nearly every Friday. Inside was an envelope with no return address. I assumed it was a card for our little one’s impending arrival. However, inside I found a prayer written by an anonymous friend. To this day, I don’t know who wrote it. I have a few suspicions, but it doesn’t really matter. I just hope that sweet friend reads this and knows that we had to stop the car and hold one another and cry over it. It could not have been better timing. It assured me that someone wasn’t just giving a comforting answer of “I’m praying,” but was genuinely invested in our family and cared enough to let us know this, but at the same time this person was so humble as to want to take no credit for it. When they put that prayer into the mail, they had no way of knowing exactly what God had planned or how it would be used to comfort us that day. Hopefully that sweet friend is reading this though, and knows how much I appreciate their kind words. I keep that envelope tucked away and still read it from time to time.

Well, Saturday came and went with no call. We started to relax a bit, but were also trying to prepare ourselves. Then Sunday rolled around. We skipped church to be together at home, knowing he could be gone for a while. The call finally came that afternoon. He would be leaving from their usual hotel the next morning. That was absolutely the hardest goodbye ever.  God must have carried him out that door because I know he wouldn’t have been able to leave any other way.

The next few days passed in a fog. The boys were wilder than usual, I was more exhausted than usual, and I was mostly numb. People would ask what we were going to do, and I would shrug, and say, “We’ll just wing it.” I found myself saying over and over,”It’s just part of the package.” “It comes with the territory.” I knew when I married him this situation was a possibility, but every linewife prays it never happens to her!

But I felt loved. Loved by friends. Loved by family. Loved by church family. Loved by strangers. Texts, Facebook messages, hot meals, frozen meals, and offers to babysit poured in. (I know people thought I was crazy, wanting to keep my two wild toddlers at home all time, being so exhausted, but I couldn’t hardly let them out of my sight. They kept me from falling apart.) I was so amazed though, at all the prayers and kindness from everyone.  I am so thankful for every person that took the time to check on the boys and me, ask how Steven was, or pray for us. I’m pretty sure all the prayers are what kept me from going crazy. I assured Steven that even if he didn’t make it home in time, we would be well cared for, and he didn’t need to worry. I felt God’s arms around my family like never before. In those moments where I wasn’t numb, I was at peace. Being at peace with a situation I had no control over was definitely God’s doing! I can be a bit dramatic when things get hectic, so for me to be at peace with it was strange.
Throughout that week, Isaiah 43:19 played in my head, over and over.
“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and springs in the wasteland.”

On Wednesday night I took the boys trick or treating with my parents, yet another holiday (Ok, maybe it’s not really a holiday, but it’s a fun tradition for us.) without Daddy. It was fun, but bittersweet.

Ok, maybe it wasn’t ALL fun. 🙂

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I still had no idea how it would all turn out, but I saw God’s hands at work.

Part THREE…

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