This morning, I sat on our screened-in back porch with my coffee, Bible, and hymnal for about an hour, reading, thinking, and praying. I have been reading slowly through the Psalms this year, and today I came to Psalm 62. In verses 5-8, David writes this:
My soul, wait silently for God alone;
For my expectation is from Him.
He only is my rock and my salvation;
He is my defense;
I shall not be moved.
In God is my salvation and my glory;
The rock of my strength,
And my refuge is in God.
Trust in Him at all times, you people;
Pour out your heart before Him;
God is a refuge for us.
My heart needed to read this. Life has been a struggle lately. I have never experienced homesickness until now, and it is hard. I had never lived away from my family until I got married and moved here to Kentucky. I honestly didn't think I would get this way. I was completely unprepared for it. I feel very discontent with Kentucky and long to be back in Nashville with my family and my church. My spiritual health has been failing for a while now, and I have wanted to blame that on the fact that we have not really found a church here yet to be a part of. But after reading this Psalm, the Lord has shown me that I am no longer looking to Him for strength. I have turned my eyes from Him to myself and my circumstances. My soul is not waiting in silent submission to His perfect will. I have forgotten that He is a rock and refuge for my weary soul in these times of difficulty. I have failed to trust His faithfulness and sovereignty at all times. And I have stopped pouring out my heart to Him in prayer. So, this morning, I prayed through these verses of Scripture. I confessed my sin of unbelief and distrust in the Lord and begged Him to give me grace to trust Him. I know in my heart that Matthew and I are here in Louisville for a specific time and purpose. But I have stopped believing that. I have become discontent with Christ and have forgotten that He is sufficient. I must daily preach to my soul, as David did, and say to it, "Soul, wait silently for God. He is working all things for the good of His people who love Him. Do not turn your eyes from Him. Do not stop clinging to Him, because He is your strength and your refuge. And He is ever faithful. He gave you His only Son to be the sacrifice for your many sins...will He withhold any good ting from you, soul?"
I know that my struggle with discontentment is not over because Christ has not returned yet to remove sin from the earth. Only when that happens will I be completely free from this. But, as Job once said, "I know that my Redeemer lives..." (Job 19:25) He does live, indeed, and He will never leave me nor forsake me. So I can be content. I can wait patiently. I can rest assured that God is going to use this time in my life for my good and, most importantly, for His glory and the glory of His Son, Jesus Christ. And this, I also know:
What'er my God ordains is right;
Holy His will abideth.
I will be still what'er He doth,
And follow where He guideth:
He is my God;
Though dark my road,
He hold me that I shall not fall:
Wherefore to Him I leave it all.
--Samuel Rodigast, 1649-1708
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Thursday, March 18, 2010
A Doctor, A Heartbeat, A Lunatic, and an Irish Pub
Yesterday, Matthew and I went to our first prenatal visit at Tri-County OB/GYN in La Grange, KY. It was pretty exciting, and I was a bit nervous, as I have never gone to the doctor for this sort of thing before! Dr. S came in and talked a bit with us, and then he did some standard procedures that are usually done on the first visit. He said that I am 9 1/2 weeks pregnant, and that usually he waits until 10-12 weeks to listen for a heartbeat, but he wanted to go ahead and try based on the size of my body (which he called "thin"...brownie points for the doc!). So, the nurse brought in the little machine and put that really cold jelly on my stomach. Dr. S continued to reassure me that it's perfectly normal to not hear a heartbeat this early in the pregnancy, and that there was no reason to panic if we didn't hear it. After they both searched for about 10 min, they brought in a tiny bedside ultrasound machine so that we could "see" the heartbeat. It worked! There on the screen was my tiny little baby, and there was his/her tiny little heart, beating wildly. It was amazing. I'm so thankful that the both of us are healthy and that things are progressing as they should.
We left the doctor's office to go and get the oil changed in my car before heading down to the Irish Rover to celebrate the baby and St. Patrick's Day with some Irish grub. As we were nearing the pub, we stopped at a red light. All of a sudden, our car lunged forward slightly. We didn't know what happened until we looked behind us and saw that the truck behind us was literally on our bumper. He had nudged us a little, and he was pointing at us. At that point the light turned green and we went through it and made a right onto Frankfurt Ave. where the pub is. The guy in the truck was still behind us, and it was clear to us that he was following us. He kept staying right on our tail, and suddenly he just rammed into the back of our car. That's when we knew that something was not right and that we had to get away from this lunatic. Thankfully, Matt was driving. We quickly turned left down a side street, the truck continuing to follow us. We turned down one ally and then another, and finally found one that our car could get through, but the truck couldn't. At that point, I had called the police, because we thought we might get stuck with this guy in an ally somewhere, and we really had no way of protecting ourselves. He was the only one in the truck, so if there would have been a fight, at least the odds would have been even. We finally lost him and found a parking place. We then checked the back of the car, and thankfully there was no damage at all. We walked over to the pub parking lot and waited for the police. When he arrived, all we were able to do was give him a description of the truck. We never saw the back of it, so we didn't get a license plate number. We thanked the police officer, got a seat at the pub, and tried to enjoy ourselves. Obviously, we were both pretty shaken up. We have NO IDEA why this happened. We are confident that we did nothing that would intentionally anger this guy. We are just very thankful to the Lord for His protection.
So this was our St. Patrick's Day! Our car is fine. We are fine. Thank you, God.
We left the doctor's office to go and get the oil changed in my car before heading down to the Irish Rover to celebrate the baby and St. Patrick's Day with some Irish grub. As we were nearing the pub, we stopped at a red light. All of a sudden, our car lunged forward slightly. We didn't know what happened until we looked behind us and saw that the truck behind us was literally on our bumper. He had nudged us a little, and he was pointing at us. At that point the light turned green and we went through it and made a right onto Frankfurt Ave. where the pub is. The guy in the truck was still behind us, and it was clear to us that he was following us. He kept staying right on our tail, and suddenly he just rammed into the back of our car. That's when we knew that something was not right and that we had to get away from this lunatic. Thankfully, Matt was driving. We quickly turned left down a side street, the truck continuing to follow us. We turned down one ally and then another, and finally found one that our car could get through, but the truck couldn't. At that point, I had called the police, because we thought we might get stuck with this guy in an ally somewhere, and we really had no way of protecting ourselves. He was the only one in the truck, so if there would have been a fight, at least the odds would have been even. We finally lost him and found a parking place. We then checked the back of the car, and thankfully there was no damage at all. We walked over to the pub parking lot and waited for the police. When he arrived, all we were able to do was give him a description of the truck. We never saw the back of it, so we didn't get a license plate number. We thanked the police officer, got a seat at the pub, and tried to enjoy ourselves. Obviously, we were both pretty shaken up. We have NO IDEA why this happened. We are confident that we did nothing that would intentionally anger this guy. We are just very thankful to the Lord for His protection.
So this was our St. Patrick's Day! Our car is fine. We are fine. Thank you, God.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Fearfully and Wonderfully Made
For the past several weeks, I have been reading through What To Expect When You're Expecting by Heidi Murkoff and Sharon Mazel. This book has been extremely helpful for both me and Matthew, since neither of us have gone through pregnancy before! It has been exciting to read exactly how the baby is growing and developing each week. For instance, right now I am in the 9th week of my pregnancy, which means I have entered the final month of the first trimester. The baby is approximately 1 inch in length, about the size of a medium olive (I love how the authors usually compare the size of the baby to different foods!). My baby's head continues to develop and is starting to look more baby-like. Tiny little muscles are beginning to form, allowing the baby to move arms and legs. I will be going to have my first doctor visit on Wednesday of next week, and am hopeful that we will be able to hear our baby's heartbeat....so exciting!!
While What To Expect has been helpful and interesting, I have a few qualms about the authors' choice words when referring to the baby very early on. When speaking of conception, the authors write,
"Congratulations--you've conceived! Which means your soon-to-be baby has started its miraculous transformation from single cell to fully formed baby boy or girl...Within hours after sperm meets egg, the fertilized cell (aka zygote) divides, and then continues to divide (and divide). Within days, your baby-to-be has turned into a microscopic ball of cells, around one fifth the size of the period at the end of this sentence." (Emphasis added)
You may be wondering what my problem is with the terminology here. It's not that I have a problem with scientific terms. I know that sometimes they are necessary. My problem with the above paragraph is the way the authors describe the baby as "soon-to-be", even though the baby has already been conceived. Life begins at conception, and therefore, when I conceived this baby that is growing inside of me, it immediately became just that--a baby.
Psalm 139 is a beautiful song of praise to God as Creator of man, particularly focusing on God's perfect knowledge of man. In verses 13-16, David writes,
"For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother's womb. I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them."
This is truly amazing! Each one of us, including the little one in my womb now, was skillfully knit together by our powerful and loving Creator. God knows us, inside and out, perfectly, and He knew us that way even before we were conceived! It is the Lord who is forming this tiny little baby inside of me, every step of the way. I am so thankful for this. I am thankful that this baby was not an accident, and this baby is not just a "ball of cells" or "blob of tissue" or even just a "fetus". My heavenly Father knows this child perfectly because He is the One who gave life to this child. So you will never hear me (or my husband) refer to our baby as something that is "soon-to-be". We have a baby, though unborn. And we praise our glorious God, for this baby is fearfully and wonderfully made!
While What To Expect has been helpful and interesting, I have a few qualms about the authors' choice words when referring to the baby very early on. When speaking of conception, the authors write,
"Congratulations--you've conceived! Which means your soon-to-be baby has started its miraculous transformation from single cell to fully formed baby boy or girl...Within hours after sperm meets egg, the fertilized cell (aka zygote) divides, and then continues to divide (and divide). Within days, your baby-to-be has turned into a microscopic ball of cells, around one fifth the size of the period at the end of this sentence." (Emphasis added)
You may be wondering what my problem is with the terminology here. It's not that I have a problem with scientific terms. I know that sometimes they are necessary. My problem with the above paragraph is the way the authors describe the baby as "soon-to-be", even though the baby has already been conceived. Life begins at conception, and therefore, when I conceived this baby that is growing inside of me, it immediately became just that--a baby.
Psalm 139 is a beautiful song of praise to God as Creator of man, particularly focusing on God's perfect knowledge of man. In verses 13-16, David writes,
"For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother's womb. I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them."
This is truly amazing! Each one of us, including the little one in my womb now, was skillfully knit together by our powerful and loving Creator. God knows us, inside and out, perfectly, and He knew us that way even before we were conceived! It is the Lord who is forming this tiny little baby inside of me, every step of the way. I am so thankful for this. I am thankful that this baby was not an accident, and this baby is not just a "ball of cells" or "blob of tissue" or even just a "fetus". My heavenly Father knows this child perfectly because He is the One who gave life to this child. So you will never hear me (or my husband) refer to our baby as something that is "soon-to-be". We have a baby, though unborn. And we praise our glorious God, for this baby is fearfully and wonderfully made!
Friday, March 5, 2010
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