Where I am

God is prompting me to write a post when I am super vulnerable and nothing is wrapped up in a pretty bow.  I have decided that I am ok with this because I trust him and my circumstances have me on my knees face down before Jesus.

I am 10 days past the proposed due date for our son who currently resides in my tummy.

Let me just tell you the last 10 days have been HARD!!! 

Two days before my due date Chris came down with a nasty virus that turned sinus infection and lasted a good solid 7-8 days.   He missed three days of work and was flat on his back sick.  Which, truthfully, he does about once a year.  He just gets is all out.  According to our nutritionist is actually a pretty healthy thing to do because it resets your system and helps protect against disease.   

Normally this would not be an issue.  But, Chris got sick when our baby was due to make his appearance in the world.  Chris and our little / big man child already have this connection -- even in the womb.  So, Mr. baby H decided to hold out until his Daddy got better.  In reality this was probably a wonderful blessing because Chris was so sick and a) I did not want / do not want to go through labor with a sick husband, b) we want to bring home Mr. Baby H to a healthy house.   

Let's just say that between my due date passing and then getting further and further behind me WHILE I was caring for my wonderful husband totally and completely SUCKED.   All the sudden my plans were not working out and my usually wonderfully supportive husband was just out of commission.  It was like everything that I usually depended had been stripped of me and I was left with a selfish, disappointed, and wildly pregnant heart.   I was SO mad that Chris was sick.  I knew he could not help it and it was not his fault.  But I could not help just being upset and angry. 

Chris and I had to work this out.  I had to talk it through with him and surrender my emotions daily concerning the whole thing.  Chris started to get better but my days have just continued to get harder.  The enemy is totally taking advantage of how emotionally vulnerable I am right now and every day I must resist him.  Everyday I am faced with going into depression.  It takes me about an hour and half but thankfully God and Chris help me pull through back into joy, trust, and peace.  

Fear tries to over take me over the fact that our little one is still in my tummy.  I know that he is healthy because all of our vital signs are perfect, he moves a lot, and I just got an ultra sound indicating our little one is in absolutely zero distress and seems to be perfectly happy in his current residence.   But, here's the deal: We have been planning to have this little dude in a birth center with a fully capable and wonderful midwife. Sans drugs. Sans hospital. Sans doctors and nurses.  While many awesome moms have their babies in hospitals with all of those things that is just not the desire of our heart.  If our little one just refuses to come I will have to go to the hospital to get induced.  While I have been waiting on our little guy to come out the enemy has totally used this to make me afraid and pissed that my plans will not work out.  

I have truly struggled to enjoy this time because of this fear.  I am truly not even that physically miserable even though they think I am growing a super big man child baby.  I am miserable because I have not let God's perfect love for me cast out all my fear. 

Chris, being the super awesome husband that he is, sat me down Monday night and was like you HAVE to surrender to Jesus.  You have to look at your worsts fears and say even if that happens God will be there for you.  Even if the worst happens the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords will be there for you. The truth is no matter what we are going to get a healthy baby.  That is what is important.  God knows the desires of my heart and He loves me.  The truth is that He is good enough to take care of me - no matter what.  The truth is that his plans and thoughts are so MUCH BETTER than mine.  The truth is that when it comes down to it I really do want His plan over mine.   

I am in a moment of desperately trying to surrender to what I know is true and good.  I have come so much farther than I was even a few days ago.  It is a weird thing to surrender to God completely and yet still contend for the highest good for my family.  I believe when you have passions and desires in your heart and you submit them to Jesus and they are still there that He gave them to you.  We desire to have this baby naturally in the birth center.  But, above our desire we trust Jesus. 

This is where faith comes in.  This is where no matter what I feel I just need to have faith and trust Jesus.  

So this is me 41.5 weeks pregnant struggling to surrender and stand in faith.   It is hard but when I am hard pressed I know that I believe.  

His ways are so much higher than my ways.  I know from my past with Jesus that He is GOOD!!!!!! 

Waiting on a Baby

Hi :)

I am writing again and it just happens to be in the same week.  It is getting wild up in here :)

I made a point on facebook earlier today and thought I would expound on the blog.  

My baby hill is due to come sometime in February.  He has some days left on his lease on my tummy space.  I am not really willing to shout out the due date because I do not want to be hounded in case he is late.  But, as every new mom or pregnant woman wishes - I just kind thought my little Hill bear might come early.    I naturally planned to be done with my to-do list by February 1st.  

What I totally neglected to consider was that when February 1st rolled around, and little man hill was still enjoying his time inside my tummy, that I would go absolutely stir crazy and would want to completely forgo being a productive member of society.   A restlessness has settled over our house hold as I have started to realize that I still must cook, clean, wear makeup, sleep, breath, do taxes, pay bills, and walk the dog.  

On top of this realization that I am not in control of my body or time or anything is the fact that my hormones are like raging wildebeest (those large hairy african animals things).

Let's do some math.

Wildebeest hormones + Restlessness + large pregnant woman + skewed expectations =  Mass pandemonium inside this here Hill House.

So - two days into this I have decided that I cannot live like this for the next while.  I cannot become an irrational moron.   I have decided that I am allowed to cry and then move on, thanks to some advice from my midwife.   In some way typing this out on the blog makes it more final.   So there hormones and skewed expectations I am moving on and refuse to be abused by you.

My Current Reality

I am sitting here 38 weeks and 2 days pregnant with a huge moving belly due to an active Hill child.  Giada the puppy is laying on the couch with her head rested on the top of my bump.  My active Hill Boy is currently kicking her in the jaw which apparently bothers her very little.  I have my laptop perched upon a huge pillow so that I can reach around by huge belly and puppy to type.

After going 9 months of forgoing my morning coffee for the benefit of my growing child the lure of being 2 weeks away from being allowed to pour myself a huge cup in the morning has caused me to start dreaming of going to Starbucks.   Last night I kept dreaming about trying to get to Starbucks to get coffee but I could never quite make it there.  Even I consider this to be a little weird :).  My staunch resolve to not have caffeine is has started to fade as the end of my abstinence is waning.

I will now merge my lack of coffee and seemingly lack of good quite times while pregnant - together.

Giving up my morning coffee totally rocked my morning routine of talking to Jesus before my day got started.   While this sounds superficial and it probably is, it happened.   You would think that making myself some decaf earl gray with a huge squeeze of lemon would have been able to bridge the gap of steaming hot liquid and spending time with Jesus in the early morn'.   Unfortunately it did not.   I totally blame my husband for this who spent a considerable amount of time and effort to get me to like his super bold Starbucks coffee by relating it to spending time with him and Jesus.  

Anyways,  on the deeper side of the issue is God has called me to write.  I hate admitting this on the blog as I have done several times, but it is actually more of an accountability attempt than really wanting all of you to know.   God has called me to write.  To use writing as a vessel to pour out what He pours into me.  I have finally accepted that writing can be in any form and for whatever purpose God has for it.  The only condition is that I must simply write and obey.  The spiritual battle, the hormones, the kidney stones, and the lack of coffee during my pregnancy has caused me to be stagnant with this whole writing thing.   If I were to be really honest I could just say my flesh prevailed and my spirit did not.   

Thankfully I have a God who knows me well and loves me well.   He desperately wants me to live out what He has called me to do and pursues me into it.   Since I have not been writing God has not been talking to me very much.  You might not think that sounds like "pursuing" but it is because God knows that when it comes down to it I really do desire him above everything else.   Even though I am in this spiritual drought, which is really of my own disobedient choosing, I really do desire to intimate and know Jesus more.   Jesus, who totally knows this, has been holding out on me because He longs for me to walk in obedience to what He has called me to to. He is using himself as a lure.  Which come to think of it - my husband does this too.  :)

As I am approaching child birth and the opportunity to meet this little one God has given me and Chris - I am DESPERATE for God to talk to me.   I am DESPERATE to walk in obedience in every single area of my life so that I can be close to Him.   After my coffee dreams of last night I woke up thinking I am just going to write words on the page just so I can talk to Jesus.  Like my resolve to not have caffeine has started to fade so has my resolve to give in to my lazy flesh and not write.  

So I am writing to you about not writing and trying to choose to write.  It is all very complicated and somewhat silly but it is what is going on.  That, and my baby is still kicking my puppy in the face.  Which makes me think about my puppy and baby meeting for the first time.  I hope Giada transitions well into being #2 instead of #1.

As I ramble on rather un-logically - I have to let you know that I the fact that I am about to have a baby and that our life will be changed forever has started to sink in.  I have also started to accept that I have give birth to this little one in order to meet him.  It is SO totally crazy and in order to not become totally crazy I have decided to just trust Jesus with it all because if I really think about it to long it scares me!!!!!


I will leave you with that thought :) hopefully I will talk to you soon!

Fight

In these last few weeks before I become a Mother and as one year had ended and another begun, I naturally have gotten a little reflective.  While it is the going trend come January 1st I feel that God really does love new beginnings - he did create them!  It seems that I am getting a new beginning with the start of 2012 and will soon enter into another with newness of Motherhood.

Motherhood - can you believe that I just typed that and that there is a baby kicking in my stomach? I almost cannot except for the jab in the side I just got from my son.

Let me tell start with this: 2011 was one heck of a year.  While Chris and I had some great times and God has blessed us with our growing son, it was also a really hard year with some trying circumstances.  I feel like it was a year of transition.  A year where vision was scarce and the day to day tried to cloud out the big picture God always has in front of us.   Yet, as James says trials build character so rejoice.  One thing I am very grateful for is that God had built us up previously so that we could continue to have joy even in the midst of our trials.  For that I am eternally grateful because there is just something super powerful about having JOY during the midst of a seemingly never-ending storm.  The power of joy comes from being rooted in the belief that God is always there for you even when you cannot feel Him or see Him.   It is the power of believing that God is GOOD while He is leading you through the darkness.   That is character I can appreciate.  My Mom always taught me that you can never depend on circumstances for joy, you can only depend on God to get your fill of contentment in life.   Circumstances always change but God never changes.

2011 had some pretty hard stuff - not the least of which was me passing three kidney stones and having one bad A kidney infection all while pregnant.   Which led to unexpected medical bills and several months of getting my energy back all while Chris had gotten promoted (which was awesome), but led to him working 70 + hours a week for several months before they hired him an assistant person from Jersey.  Once we got over that we had to replace our furnace in our house and the transmission in Chris's not very old and fairly nice pick up truck -- at the beginning of December right after we had just bought all of our Christmas presents.   Can you say AWESOME?  At first we felt very slapped in the face but only for a moment.  While our flesh was trying to freak out over our drained savings account we were overwhelmed with the amazing peace we had that God was our provider. I just want to stop right here and say the fact that God had provided us with the confidence and maturity in Him to take a rational side step from our emotions and allow Him to give us some of His perspective was MONEY.   As I look back on that moment I am so grateful for His goodness, mercy, and ability to give hope.   When the poop hits the fan those are the things that really count.  It feels good to say that we have experienced the poop hitting the fan and found God to not be wanting, but ready, willing, and able to be everything and do everything we need of Him.

 After we took an account of our life to make sure we were not out of balance or living in disobedience we realized that we were just having some trails and we just needed to REJOICE.  So we did and God provided for us through a Father's heart :) all in the same month.

I tell you this A) because it is good to be real and B) to say while all of that was hard and trying and not fun, my LEAST favorite part of 2011 was my heart  towards God and life.  It kind of just seemed like I was existing and not living with passion for God or for who he created me to be.   I think the best way to describe this would be to say that I lived out 2011, a lot of the time, just simply luke-warm.   Even just saying that makes me want to throw my computer across the room, but it is true.   I hate that I was that way.   After thinking about this for a while I believe that I lived in that luke-warm continuam because I have been afraid for live out what I feel God has called me to do - and that is to write.  At the root I was / am afraid to fail, so it is easier to just not try.

At some of my weakest moments of 2011- one of which was after my kidney infection - God has had one thing to say to me, to fight..  My body was weak from fighting, my soul was weak from fighting, and all the fight left in me was growing a baby.  I was standing at the kitchen sink washing dishes and existing.  God spoke to my heart and said fight.  I felt in that moment Him impress upon my heart to fight for my baby, for myself, and for my family. In the same moment He renewed my strength to fight.  It was a good swift kick in the butt.  I desperately needed it.

Several times throughout this last year God has brought me to Luke 18.  I am going to post it below.  If you are anything like me I usually hate reading large portions of scripture on people's blogs because I find it annoying.  How Christian of me :)  --- BUT don't skip over this, it is good.  Well all scripture is good - there are just times when God is speaking to you more out of a certain part it.

Luke 18

1  ALSO [Jesus] told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not to turn coward (faint, lose heart, and give up).2  He said, In a certain city there was a judge who neither reverenced and feared God nor respected or considered man.3  And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, Protect and defend and give me justice against my adversary.4  And for a time he would not; but later he said to himself, Though I have neither reverence or fear for God nor respect or consideration for man,5  Yet because this widow continues to bother me, I will defend and protect and avenge her, lest she give me intolerable annoyance and wear me out by her continual coming or at the last she come and rail on me or assault me or strangle me.6  Then the Lord said, Listen to what the unjust judge says!7  And will not [our just] God defend and protect and avenge His elect (His chosen ones), who cry to Him day and night? Will He defer them and delay help on their behalf?8  I tell you, He will defend and protect and avenge them speedily. However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find [persistence in] faith on the earth?

God is still speaking to me out of this portion of Luke, but I find it to be totally exhilarating.  I do not have to give into my flesh and be afraid of failing at what God has called me to do.  I do not have to accept the onslaught of trials that have come upon my family.  I do not have to accept existing in life.  I do not have to accept the luke-warmness of my flesh.  I can cry out to God.  A God who is ready to avenge and protect me -- even if it is from myself.

In the moments when I do not even know how to pray I can cry out to God to put words in my mouth and a passion in my heart.   In moments when I am struggling to sit down to obey and live out what I feel He has called me to do I can cry out to Him and I know that He will answer me in some way.

There are some of you reading this who feel moved to pray for me -- I totally appreciate that --- bring it on!  There are some of you who need the reminder to have faith in God and that sometimes He is waiting for you to cry out to Him.   You need to fight and stop taking the punches.

On the blog front for 2012 I hope to do two things:  write about the day to day living and post 1000 pictures of my son, and write about God is speaking to me about.



love, a very loved daughter of the most High King.

Love: It works

Last week I re-read 1 Corinthians 13.  Ya know, that love chapter that we never really understood as kids because it talked about clanging gongs and mirrors that reflected imperfectly!

While this is said often and it is definitely true: sometimes you can read something that you have read 20 times before and the 21'st time you finally get it.  I finally got 1 Corinthians 13 last week.  It finally resonated in me.  Not only the fact that God is love and love resonates from Him, but the fact that all love is seriously legit.  It is like the navy seal of characteristics.

4 Love endures long and is patient and kind; love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy, is not boastful or vainglorious, does not display itself haughtily.5  It is not conceited (arrogant and inflated with pride); it is not rude (unmannerly) and does not act unbecomingly. Love (God’s love in us) does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking; it is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it takes no account of the evil done to it [it pays no attention to a suffered wrong].6  It does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail.7  Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything [without weakening].8  Love never fails [never fades out or becomes obsolete or comes to an end]. 

I am at the same time in awe of the fact that God loves me and therefore feels all those things for me, and in awe that I fall so terribly short of that example.   I started to play out what love looks like in life and it was so different than what I thought.  

For example while trying to go to sleep one night last week I was thinking of something someone said that offended me slightly.  Awesome, right?  While I was thinking about this person and how I felt about them at that moment suddenly 1 Corinthians 13:7 came up in my mind and shouted "love is ever ready to believe the best of every person".  Like the snap of fingers my offense and bad feelings totally changed as I applied love to them.  I am terrible at believing the best of certain people.  No matter the reason that completely sucks and is not love.  But once I applied that definition of love in that certain situation and I allowed God to give me his love to love with - everything changed.  The premise that love conquers all started to really come alive as I realized how powerful love really is.

Recently I have been really intrigued by getting to know God for no other reason than just to have more intimacy with Him.   While this should be the goal of all our walks with God, for me it is just God getting me to the next level of maturity.  I have realized that God really is everything that we are searching for.   He creatively explains who He is all throughout scripture and somehow I have missed certain parts of Him while growing up.   

Isn't it cool to think that God is always ready to believe the best of us even when He knows our hearts?  

Today the part of love that I need to apply to life is: loves hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything [without weakening].  God is enduring.  His love for us is enduring.  His dreams for us are enduring.  His hope in us is enduring.  His love should translate into our life allowing us to have hopes that endure all circumstances.  Sometimes life can hand us some pretty crazy circumstances to endure through and enduring can be hard.  But we are loved by love himself who can hope for us and give us hope.  

The past six months have handed Chris and I a pretty awesome set of circumstances that have done their best to knock the wind out us.  Yet, God gently reminds us that he is love and love's hopes are fadeless and enduring all circumstances.  He is our provider and protector and our Daddy.  He is plain cool :)

Catching up On Life

Hi :)

Are you preparing for Christmas?  Are you getting excited to spend time with family and friends?  I know I am.  We are getting ready to celebrate our last Christmas without a child of our very own.  Can you believe that?

I am so excited.   I have moments where I begin to realize that our life is about to change big time.  I have other moments where I still cannot believe that I am almost 8 months pregnant.   Pregnancy has definitely forced me to focus on the present, so the moments when I am able to think about the future are always mind blowing!

I will be 8 months pregnant on Friday.  I am growing at alarming rates in every direction :) and I have something very alive inside of me moving all around.   The nursery is almost complete and I feel that we are almost prepared to have this little one.  At least we can get him home and provide him a place to sleep.  

To catch all of you up I have had a little drama in my pregnancy.  Which thankfully has not harmed or bothered our baby boy at all.  Our little one of growing and happy and being completed by God in my tummy.

My last post caught you up with my first trimester -- which was hormonally difficult but that is just sometimes the nature of pregnancy :)

[ Disclaimer: Talking about pregnancy drama that was supervised by doctors.  Please do not share with me any of your pregnancy related horror stories or any kidney infection horror stories.  Thank you ] 

A week into my second trimester I got a pregnancy induced kidney stone.  Under the care of doctors and nutritionists I was able to pass it at home.  Not without an excruciating amount of pain but also with some heart peace that I was going to be ok.

It took my pregnant body awhile to recover from that but the baby was fine and that was all that mattered.

A month after the first kidney stone my body threw me for a loop.  On the first Saturday of September, while Chris and I were watching Pioneer Woman on TV, I started getting symptoms of another kidney stone.  This time it was different and I knew that I needed to go to the hospital immediately.   Within an hour of the pain starting we were checked into the emergency room.  It was determined that I had a kidney infection and I was passing a kidney stone at the same time.   The pain was indescribable.   They eventually checked me into postpartum where I stayed for 5 days.   Thankfully the baby was completely un-bothered by the whole situation which I am so grateful to God for.  Thankfully I had some amazing doctors who encouraged me and spoke hope over me and the baby.  Thankfully I got better and was able to walk out of there.

Literally a week after I left the hospital I got another kidney stone.  Thankfully there was no infection or fever and the pain was not quite as severe.   I spent most of my time passing it at home but my doctor advised me to go see a urologist to see if he could help me out.   Unfortunately traveling while passing a kidney stone was not the best idea and the pain peaked right as I got to the doctor's office.  They immediately transferred me to postpartum care in the Labor and Delivery section under the care of my OB.   A beautiful lady came to transfer me.  She was dressed up in her business finest and did not look like someone who should be transferring a patient from one part of the hospital to another.   In the midst of the transfer while we were waiting on a room she prayed for me.  Instantly my pain stopped and I passed that kidney stone like it was no big deal and I got to leave the hospital the next morning.  Again, the baby was completely fine and had a great heartbeat and started to move.

The month after my kidney infection / second and third stone was emotionally very difficult for me.  I simply had no energy and had trouble accomplishing the most minuscule tasks.  For the first time in my entire life I experienced a little bout of depression.   In truth my body was recovering from a severe infection and was busy growing and protecting a little baby.   My body was tired and my emotions were allowed to run free and I was pretty angry that I had gotten sick.  After all I thought I was pretty healthy!

God did not let me stay there long, but I had to make the decision to stop feeling sorry for myself and gett off the couch even though I did not feel like it.   I was standing at the kitchen sink one day when the Lord whispered to my heart to fight.  To fight for my baby, for myself, and for my family.  I turned off the TV and started listening to sermons and my heart got stronger and stronger.   I was able to break out of the depression I was in and start to live again.

My doctor, who I LOVE, was finally able to get me on the right natural supplement.  My kidneys love it and everything is WAY better.   The baby has continued to grow and move and have awesome heartbeats.  

It has been a while since our last medical drama and I have energy and feel like a real human being. We even got to go on a babymoon to La Canterra resort just north of San Antonio and return to having a more normal social life.

I guess I tell you these things so you can be praying for us as we enter into our last few weeks of pregnancies.   As with all babies I know God has a special plan for our little boy.  I appreciate every prayer that comes our way.

I can say today that I feel God's presence in our life.  All of this has brought Chris and I closer together and has taught us to pray and be proactive.  God has given us what we need in this life we just have to receive it and sometime get up and fight.   God has allowed us to be SO EXCITED and to truly ENJOY all the non kidney related parts of this pregnancy.   God has even allowed me to be excited for our next pregnancy --- which I was totally unsure about when I was getting admitted to the emergency room.

Merry Christmas :)  I hope to keep you updated on our life, our thoughts, and what is going on in our hearts.

I have and I haven't fallen off the face of the earth :)

Hi :)

Yes, I actually still have this blog.   No, I have not actually blogged since March of this year.  In truth I have two reasons why I have not blogged.   The first is the last 9 to 10 months have been the most spiritually dry of my life.  Second, which is a WAYYY better reason than the first, is that I am pregnant with our first born SON :).   Which I am assuming most of you know from facebook.

God has laid a bunch of things on my heart to share with you which I am sure will take several blog posts.  In this one hopefully I can catch you up on a few things in our life and from my heart.  

So .... remember when I posted about landscaping and being uncomfortable? In those posts I might have moaned about how after I had made all these declarations about wanting to grow that God was all quiet on the western front?  Well, needless to say God reads my blog and he responded.  Our life has been CRAZY for the last 5 or 6 months.   We have been challenged in about every way.   Good and bad.   We have grown.

In my post about landscaping I talked about doing, acting, and obeying and I referenced several verses from James describing what God was telling me to do.   In truth, because what means anything without truth,  I have not done a whole lot of doing, acting, and obeying in the specific areas God has asked me to.  Admitting that hurts but being real with myself is also awesome.   I am secure in the fact that God loves me beyond what I am capable of understanding, and I am also secure in the fact that the intimacy that I will have with God will only grow as I do, act, and obey.   Fortunately enough for me :)  God has made me uncomfortable enough that I am SO ready to do, act, and obey.   Coincidence?  I think probably not.

How pregnancy fits into all of this:

Last fall Chris and I started to pray about when to start a family.  I was starting to get the baby bug.   We just wanted to be on the same page with God.   In January of this year after Chris and God had a conference about what the Hill Family Vision was for this year, Chris announced that this was the year we were going to get pregnant.    Even though I had the baby bug and was ready to have a baby at any moment, Chris actually being ready totally freaked me out.   After MUCH praying and talking we really felt like God had said May was to be the month of conception.   Since we were successfully implementing natural family planning February, March, and April were extremely difficult because I just wanted to try and have a baby.  But, we waited because we trusted God.    Thankfully in this area of our life there was lots of obedience and listening and we very much counseled with God to make sure we were following his will.  

May came and we did all the things necessary to conceive a baby.   Naturally May was a super stressful and trying month in more ways than one, for me.   I had to seriously practice taking all my thoughts captive, forgiving people who hurt me, and seriously trusting Jesus.   Naturally during the time we were fertile we had a huge disagreement with a close family member that was nothing but an attack from the enemy to get me all stressed out in ways my body could not handle.  Thankfully I have a rock of a husband who stood in the gap for our family.   Thankfully God gave me the grace to just let Him fix everything.   He did and we absolutely love, respect, and adore that close family member.  

I have actually never done so much praying as I did in the time between conception and finding out if was pregnant.   I contended for the health of my body and the health of the baby that I trusted was growing inside of me.   A fight in me came out that I had never experienced before.  

The first weekend of June rolled around and we celebrated our third wedding anniversary.   It was perfect.   I am so in love with my husband and I am so attracted to him :).    That Sunday night I decided it was time to take a pregnancy test and it was negative.   I did not cry.  I kind of just responded like I am pregnant, whatever.   Over the next two days I went into major spiritual warfare mode and prayed as I walked G around memorial park.   I had this fight in me that was not going to give up.  I was pregnant and I was not going to except anything less.   During these two days I also started experiencing some early pregnancy symptoms.   I obviously, having never been pregnant before, had no idea.   But, my friend Julie who I was divulging my heart out to totally realized that I was probably pregnant.   The Tuesday following the Sunday of the negative test was actually our anniversary day.   Julie called me at 9 in the morning to say I absolutely had to take another test.  Then Liz called who was about 4 months pregnant at the time and knew nothing about my negative test, but she went on to tell me that her first test was negative and her second one was positive.   So, I took another test and it was immediately positive.   I cannot tell you the joy of seeing that little pink line.   I had all these great intentions of waiting until Chris got home to tell him that I was pregnant.  I even went and ran all these errands in preparation of a grandiose anniversary dinner.   As the afternoon wore on I could not wait another moment so I called him at work and told him.   He was absolutely thrilled and his concentration was ruined for the rest of the day.  We found out we were expecting on the day of our third anniversary.   It was truly the best present ever.

I can also say that the few days I had in between the negative test and the positive test gave me some perspective for people who try a long time to get pregnant.   I respect them in a way I never could have before.   Even though I would like to say something to help make their pain better I know I cannot.  I can just say that  I have this little, tiny, incomparable bit of understanding.   Not really enough to justify but just enough to know more than I did.

I can say that getting pregnant was a miracle.  Never before in my life have I been so sure of God.   I felt so blessed and so aware of God's mercy and grace that he would allow Chris and I to become parents.  While people get pregnant all the time, each time is a complete and utter miracle.   The creation of a new baby is a complete testament that God loves us and is all powerful.

You would think that after all the prayer, fighting, and good news that my faith would have been more than a mustard seed.   That maybe I would have entered into this rich spiritual time with the Lord and have become a super woman --- because that is totally what I thought would have happened.   But it did not.   Instead I became closed up as if I were the one, and not God, who was protecting my pregnancy.  I  went into survivor mode shutting down any unnecessary emotion and thought.   I was not relying on God for my baby and for me.   I just shut down.  

 Chris also got a huge promotion in May, which was an answer to prayer, but also required him to start working 60-80 hr weeks for about 3 months.   Needless to say the Hill house started playing defense instead of offense.

Which would explain why my spiritual life became so dry.  Which would explain the lack of blog writing.

But you know what - God did not leave me or Chris in that place for long.   But you will have to wait until tomorrow for that story :)

It's really that simple? (Yes is the answer.)

This verse in red letters is legitimately changing the way that I view and live my life:


Matt 11:28-30

28 Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy-laden and overburdened, and I will cause you to rest. [I will ease and relieve and refresh your souls.]  


29 Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am gentle (meek) and humble (lowly) in heart, and you will find rest ( relief and ease and refreshment and recreation and blessed quiet) for your souls. [Jer 6:16.]  


30 For My yoke is wholesome (useful, good — not harsh, hard, sharp, or pressing, but comfortable, gracious, and pleasant), and My burden is light and easy to be borne.
AMP

I must first thank my dear friend Kevin Weaver for allowing the Lord to gently reveal this to him and for Kevin's superb and simple delivery of this truth.



I know, I know, I know.  #1) I haven't written a blog in months, #2) I jump right out after not having written a blog in months and make some ludicrous claim like "legitimately changing the way that I view and live my life.".  I know.  I'm sorry.  It's the truth.

Frankly, we should all start to think a little differently, and honestly, Kevin's book is going to be used to do a lot of reshaping and challenging of the modern "Christian" thinking.


The thought is this simple:
"If it ain't light, it ain't God."

His yoke is wholesome.  Think about the words that the amplified uses to describe it: useful, good, not harsh, hard, sharp, or pressing but comfortable, gracious, and pleasant.  His burden is light and easy to be borne.

That means that if you feel pressed, if you feel hard, if something is heavy, it's likely not from God.  Stop, turn around, and get that off.

"I feel so burdened, I feel so heavy for (this situation, this people group, this mission)."

Likely not from God.

I'm not saying that there aren't trials and struggles, but why do you think Paul wrote about peace that surpasses all undersanding and he and silas were able to sing in their chains?

An Easy yoke.  A light burden.  Jesus is easy and light.


More to come, but I felt like that was for someone this morning.  Run into Jesus.  He's so good.  His glory is his goodness (Moses in the cleft of the rock).

Mr. Hill