Mommy Goal #2

This present and future goal has to do with traveling.

It will be my goal to be patient with Malaki and my future kids as they learn how to travel.
My Reasons:

• Malaki did great on the flight over here (to India). But when we tried to sleep last night it wasn't happening - I was probably not being patient during my short - very short - night. It was a challenge.
• It will make us both (or all) miserable if I'm frustrated. (If Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.)

Bon Voyage!

I'm leaving for India tomorrow. I won't be posting for at least two weeks.

I'll return with pictures and stories galore.

Seasons

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;

Ecc. 3:1-2a

It has been a very eventful week. Just speaking about Malaki he has made huge strides in his development. I kind of wish he could spread these milestones out a little - It's overwhelming to see him grow up so fast! This week he has:

• Learned to get to a sitting position from laying down all by himself
• Learned to pull up to standing (the logical next step) laying - sitting - standing
  
• Learned to CRAWL! (Nothing is safe anymore) July 17, 2008
• Learned to cruise around his crib! July 20, 2008
  
• Got a tooth! July 21, 2008
• Crawled up a step! (about five inches high) Today- July 23, 2008.
  
  

This week has also brought up many memories of the past year and a half. A good friend of ours, Miss Donna, died last Thursday after being sick for quite a while. Miss Donna was a dear, spunky lady. She was ready to go home; so, when she did pass away I felt sadness for myself and her family... but I was glad in a way. I'm thankful that she is home. I'm thankful that she isn't sick anymore. I'm thankful to have known her.

Brian has also been outside quite a bit - building a fence and being manly. He's working by a tree that is special to us both - the tree is nice, but that isn't why it's special. We planted it last year on August 1st - the due date of the baby we lost.

We found out we were pregnant the week before Thanksgiving 2006. I was so excited as I watched that second pink line appear on the test. Brian was happy also when I woke him up with the news. (I think he was actually awake but he pretended to be asleep for effect.) We made plans to tell our families at the Christmas - it would be a great present! We shopped for a new car, even test drove a couple minivans.
Our first appointment was the week before Christmas, "I'm not picking up a heartbeat, hon. Come back in a couple of days and we'll do another ultrasound and some bloodwork."
I didn't understand why in the world this would happen to us. I beat myself up for drinking too much coffee before I knew I was pregnant, and for walking too fast on the treadmill at the Y, for being too excited, and for letting Brian down. I felt really lonely with in my grief. When we stood in front of our church family to break the news I was numb. I couldn't say a thing. Thankfully Brian was strong for me. He comforted me with this verse:

You are good and you do good; teach me your statutes.
Psalm 119:68

He is good, and He does good. Really, He does. I still think about that baby every day. I know eventually I will probably think less about it... For now I'm still wondering if the baby was a boy or a girl, fussy or happy, dark hair or light... I'm thankful for that small link to the baby I never held. I'm comforted in knowing that God does good for his people even when it feels bad.

Bungled Communication

Whoever guards his mouth preserves his life; he who opens wide his lips comes to ruin.
Proverbs 13:3

By the mouth of a fool comes a rod for his back, but the lips of the wise will preserve them.
Proverbs 14:3

Recently, I attempted to give some correction to a younger friend of mine. I was overconfident in my bright and shining "rightness" and gave this correction in a way that was not appropriate. I should have waited to have a real one-on-one conversation with him. Instead, I brought up the subject and made my opinion known in front of several other people. My victim was embarrassed, and hurt that I would do something like that. It was careless; I know that now.

As soon as he walked away, I knew I had to apologize to him for the way I confronted him. "Bah!" I thought, "Now I've blown it. I shouldn't have even opened my big mouth." Well, I'd like to say I was wrong, but I wasn't. I apologized and said "I'm sorry for the way I said that to you." He heard, "I'm sorry * * * I said that to you." And the next day he was doing the same thing again. I know that the correction I gave was right, but my timing and attitude were waaay off. So, in my blundering the entire point was lost.

So what is the reason for this post? Good question. It was a good reminder to me that even good words need to be said in the right setting, to the right audience, and with the right attitude - or they will be ineffective.

It's days like that that make me glad that the Holy Spirit translates my prayers for me.

Mommy Goals

I have decided to write begin a series of posts. They will just be some of the goals I'm setting for myself and maybe a short story of how it worked out (or didn't work out) that week.

Goal Numero Uno: Laugh with Malaki every day.

Four reasons for this goal:

1. 1. Malaki will learn to receive discipline better from me if he also receives laughter.
2. 2. We learn what is funny to each other.
3. 3. It makes our house brighter.
4. 4. I just like to hear him laugh.

Ugly

I've been reading through Matthew and something stood out to me that I never thought about before: Jesus heals the physically sick by erasing their sicknesses - He heals the spiritually dead by taking on the ugliness of their sins on the cross.

I was just imagining what Jesus would have looked like if he chose to take on all of the sicknesses that he healed - leprosy, paralysis, death, blindness... It isn't a beautiful thought. That is only because I can see that, I can imagine the ugliness of that.

Instead, he took on the sins of his people - jealousy, anger, lust, murder, selfishness, sloth... I had never thought deeply about how that looked to God the Father as he saw His son on the cross - much uglier than leprosy, or even death.

The sins Jesus died for should be more ugly to me even than the sickest of sickness. But, I don't usually see them that way. I'm much more likely to say of someone with cancer, "Oh, did you go see "so and so"? She really looks bad!" than to look in the mirror of the Word and be repulsed by the ugliness of my own sin.

Just a little gleaning from Matthew

Hmm...

I just realized yesterday that I am closer to being 30 than to being 16.
Thirty isn't old, but 16 is young. I knew everything when I was 16, I don't now. So, obviously mind is already digressing in my advanced age. Life is a vapor.