I Can Do It!!!

There are times in life when we just want to accomplish something, we put all our effort and focus on just one task.  That task becomes our whole world, we just HAVE to do it.  

My daughter is like this.  When she is focused on something it is her whole world.  When she is hungry she is totally focused on the fact that there is no bottle in her mouth, and by gosh that better change or the whole county will hear her.  

On Sunday she was in the nursery and she was around older kids (one girl that is about 5 months older and 2 preschoolers) and I could tell that E wanted so much to do what they were doing.  Ever since, she was been trying so hard to roll over.

As I watch her a part of me just wants to help, but I know that this is one of those milestones that she has to be able to do on her own.  With the determination that she has, she will do it soon.  I can see her thinking "I can do it.  I can do it." She gets frustrated when she fails to roll over, but then she tries again and she hasn't given up.

I don't want her to grow up too quickly.  There is enough time to be an adult, kids need to enjoy being kids. On the other hand I know what it is like to yearn for something, to want to be able to do what you see others doing and I want my daughter to be able to accomplish her goals, not just this one, but all her future goals. I want her to continue to have the "I Can Do It" attitude.  So, here's to watching E as she rolls over for the first time as that roll leads to a lifetime of future accomplishments.

-JLP-

Praying for y'all and that you will have an attitude that says "With Christ as my focus and His will as my life map, I can do all that I set out to do."

Kids Make Us Smile

As we celebrate Leap Day and having an extra day to get things accomplished I thought I'd use the time to say some of my favorite quotes from kids.  I hope y'all enjoy!

1. A kindergarten boy wasn't reading at the level his parents and teachers wanted him to be, so his parents had a meeting with his teacher.  

     Mom- T seems to be reading at a higher level with his tutor.

     Teacher- I can't get him to read at that level for me.

     Mom- Son why are you not reading the harder books for Mrs. B?

     Son- "If I read those books I'd have homework and that is no fun."

2. A little boy was fascinated as he watched his mother smooth cold cream on her face. 

"Mommy," he asked, "why do you put that stuff on your face?"

"To make myself beautiful," his mother replied as she began removing the cream with a tissue.

"What's the matter?" asked Little Johnny. "Are you giving up?

3. A mother was preparing pancakes for her sons, Kevin, 5, and Ryan, 3. The boys began to argue over who would get the first pancake. Their mother saw the opportunity for a moral lesson. "If Jesus were sitting here, He would say, 'Let my brother have the first pancake. I can wait.'" Kevin turned to his younger brother and said, "Ryan, you be Jesus. 

4. A Kindergarten teacher was observing her classroom of children while they were drawing. She would occasionally walk around to see each child's work. As she got to one little girl who was working diligently, she asked what the drawing was. The girl replied, "I'm drawing God." The teacher paused and said, "But no one knows what God looks like." Without missing a beat, or looking up from her drawing, the girl replied, "They will in a minute."

5. A three-year-old put his shoes on by himself. His mother noticed that the left shoe was on the right foot. She said, "Son, your shoes are on the wrong feet." He looked up at her with a raised brow and said, "Don't kid me, Mom. They're the only feet I got!." 

-JLP-

Praying that y'all have a marvelous Leap Day and that we remember to keep on laughing.  Laughter is God's gift to us.

Things E is Teaching Me

Here is a list of things I have learned in the 2 months that I've been a mom.

1. A smile is contagious, a grin and a giggle are highly toxic!

2. A baby cries, a baby is going to cry in public.  I need to calm her down, but I shouldn't worry about what other people think-- they were babies once and they cried.

3. You really do only need 1 hand/arm to do most things!  If you didn't know how to multi-task before baby was born, you will get a crash course right away!

4. Life is about simplicity.  You don't have to have the fanciest toys, bottles, blankets or clothes.  As long as baby is fed, clothed and warm that is all that matters.  Most of the time the things in the kitchen cabinets are going to be the most interesting.

5. Everything is interesting! It is amazing how intrigued E is by lights and sounds.  As her brain is busy taking everything in she is staying amused by the simplest things- the lights, a quiet lullaby, the sounds of our neighborhood at night, and the antics of our pets.

6. 4:30am is a normal time for breakfast and a couple hours of play time.  It is quiet and the attention is all on her. It also lets us enjoy the sunrise and talk about Jesus.

7. A diaper bag can never be over-packed, and if you do happen to forget something that is when you will need it and not be able to make it to the store to get a replacement.

8. There is nothing quite like the love a mom has for her child(ren). It expands your heart and brightens your world.  Even when you've had no sleep, have a cold and you are soothing a baby that is fussy for the sake of being fussy, you will be overwhelmed with love.

9. Everything is monumental, at least to me! E has a new facial expression, makes a new sound and mommy has tears in her eyes.  Babies really do grow, change and learn new things at an amazing rate. You want to slow down time, but time just speeds up.

10. Right after you change the blow-out diaper that required a bath, it will be time to eat and baby will throw up on the new outfit, even if you use a bib and a rag.  This is part of how 1 baby triples the amount of laundry you do.  Warm weather and the ability to feed baby in just her diaper will be appreciated and her wardrobe will seem to last a LOT longer in between visits to the laundry room!

I'm looking forward all the other life lessons E has to teach us.

-JLP-

Praying that y'all have a blessed day and that you find the little nuggets of wisdom in everyday life.

Is it Coming???

Nyquil: check! Tylenol: check! Vicks: check! Blankets: check! Kleenex: check! Vitamin C: check!  And down the list I go, making sure that I have everything I may need for the next few days.  I am all prepared for this cold that I feel getting ready to hit me full blast.  Yet... so far it hasn't shown up.  The cold keeps acting like it is coming, I'll feel run down, get a runny nose or a cough, or maybe a fever, but not all at once and nothing that lasts.

Don't get me wrong, I'd rather not be sick, so this is a good thing.  On the other hand, I know my body and my history and I know that I get sick easily because I have a pretty non functioning immune system, so part of me just wants to get this cold and get it over with.

Thinking about this cold that I'm worried about reminds me of other things in life.  We humans are worry-worts.  We worry about this, and we worry about that.  We are so busy worrying, that we never have time to live our lives, and many of the things we worry about never materialize.  My cold will probably turn out the same way.

This is way Christ told us "Do not worry about tomorrow." We don't know what is going to happen tomorrow, so why worry about it.  What is going to happen is going to happen and when it does we will deal with it.  Worry just takes away time from living today (and yes I'm preaching to myself right now).  We need to be prepared and be wise, but we shouldn't worry.  Our God is in control and the surprises that come our way are not surprises to Him, and He will guide us or even carry us (if need be) through!

-JLP-

Praying that y'all have a blessed evening, and that we can learn to get worry out of our daily routines.

Why Lent?

For the past week I've been stuck. I've been trying to figure out what to do for Lent.  I didn't grow up celebrating Lent, but I started to investigate and partake in the practice in college and it has stuck with me. Lent is a time of reflection and preparation.

I love the idea behind Lent, the idea that I sacrifice something to remind me of the sacrifice Christ made for me. I like the intentionality of Lent. For me, Lent is a special 40 days where I really focus on my walk with the Lord.  Yes, each day of the year I should be intentional about my relationship with Christ, about my witness and my Christian life.

This year I am giving up watching HGTV (my favorite channel) and I'm only going to log on FaceBook once a day.  Am I a couch potato? No. But in lieu of having HGTV on in the background I can have on worship music.  Facebook isn't an addiction, but it is fun for me.  I like to try to come up with pithy status updates, and I love to keep up with friends, see pictures, etc. So FB is a sacrifice for me.

Lent isn't about being holier than thou, saying look at me, look what I gave up! Lent is about saying "Lord, even as I try daily to live in Your word, to walk in Your will, I want to take these 40 days to give my life a check up, to be extra intentional and to remind myself of all that you did, so that when Easter comes I am prepared spiritually to really celebrate the gift of salvation that comes via Your sacrificial work."

-JLP-

Praying that whether or not you celebrate Lent, that you will remember all that Christ did and does for us, that these next 40 days leading up to Easter will be a time of special growth for you in your relationship with our dear, holy, awesome, righteous Father.

Capturing Moments

"In moments like these I sing out a song, I sing out a love song to Jesus. In moments like these I lift up my hands, I lift up my hands to the Lord. Singing I love you Lord, singing I love you. In moments like these I sing out a song, I sing out a love song to Jesus." (author unknown to me)

When E is fed, changed, burped, warm and feeling like her needs have been met she is all smiles and giggles.  Being as she is 7 weeks old, this phenomena is rare! Our quiet days of newbornhood, where E was content to quietly let us hold her, are gone.  My little newborn is now an infant.  She is an infant that wants to let you know that she is here and that she demands attention.

While her default response these days is to scream and fuss, there are moments where she is content or playing and she is all smiles and giggles.  It is in these moments that I wish I could stop time and draw them out. I want to speed through the stressful "why is she screaming, nothing I do or try is working to fix it" times and stay in the fun, sweet times.

I bet God sometimes feels like that, like all we do is whine and moan and beg for things.  We don't spend enough time telling Him we love Him, singing our love songs to Him.  We don't give Him enough smiles and giggles.  He is holy God and deserves worship, and He is our Heavenly Father and yearns for us to come to him to play, to rest, to capture those moments when life is good, when peace reigns and we just are happy.

So, just as I have to remember that E won't always be fussy, that there are those moments that I have captured in my memory and treasure, and that she is growing up quickly.  I also need to remember to give moments like that to God.  To let Him share in my joy, to not always be asking Him for things (though He does encourage us to make our requests).  I need to capture happy moments with my God and with my family.  It is in these moments that life really is what it was meant to be.  Joy is in the moments.

-JLP-

Praying for you to have captured moments today, tomorrow and all week, that you will rest in peace knowing that your Heavenly Father is there for you, He is up all the time and just a mother rocks her baby and makes it "all better" Jesus had made it all better too, we just have to get through "this present darkness"

Wasted Prayer?

James 1: 6 "But when you pray you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like is a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind."

We need this, and we ask for that. We give thanks and we praise His name.  We adore and worship the King of Kings.  We do all this during our prayer time, but is it enough, or are we wasting our prayers? Are we praying for the things that we should be praying for?

This is something that I've been wondering for a long time.  I'm really being as effective as I can be in my prayer life. When I ask God for things am I asking for the right things.  God knew I had these questions, so yesterday's church service was a divine appointment for me.  Our pastor spoke on prayer.

I've always loved to pray.  Our Savior is a holy God and He deserves to be treated as the holy God that He is. He deserves our worship, fear and respect.  Yet, God is always our Heavenly Father, and He wants to be treated as our Father.  When we pray we are approaching the holy throne, but we are also climbing in the lap of our daddy and saying "Daddy I love, thank you for loving me.  You know I need some things, could you help me out please?"

I've always prayed for friends and family, for personal needs, but I haven't wanted to seem greedy, like I was asking too much.  Well, yesterday I saw through Scripture that God wants me to ask for the big things (spiritually).  Asking God to open doors for me is a good thing.  I still have to do my work, but I can ask Him for help.

By not asking for what I really want Him to help me with I'm wasting my prayers.  I have this book I wrote based on what I went through in college, and my journey back to Christ and to learning what this Christian marathon is really all about.  My dream is to get it published and use that to open doors to travel to churches, seminars, schools, etc to talk with women and children about overcoming the pain in our lives and seeing that God wants to live joyfully, He wants to walk with us through the darkness and to be our light, our comfort.

By not asking for God to help as I contact publishing companies and agents, I'm wasting time.  Yeah, God knows what I want without my asking, but He still wants me to ask for help.  God was waiting to be invited into the process.

How are you wasting your prayer time? Are you praying for the big things as well as the small things? Remember God is big, there is nothing He can't handle.  He wants to be invited into ALL parts of our lives.  As Jabez prayed in the Old Testament, God wants to help us grow and enlarge our spiritual territory.

-JLP-

Praying for you, and for myself that we can remember that our holy Father wants to be with us in everything we do and need.

The Piggy Bank is Empty

Jeremiah 17:7 (NIV)  "But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him."

               

Have you clicked online on your bank account and in dismay said, "My oh my, that's low!" well, more often then not these days I have that reaction.  My family has gone from 1.5 incomes to 1 income, so that I can stay home and raise our daughter.   It has always been my dream to be able to stay home with my children, and we knew that it would be a sacrifice.

Yet, as we struggle to pay our monthly bills and now the hospital bills that come with having a baby and having complications it is a lesson in trust.  God tells us that He is there for us, that He will provide for us our daily bread.  That daily bread doesn't just refer to food.  It refers to everything that we need on a daily basis, including the funds to pay for the necessities.

God doesn't promise to provide us a lavish lifestyle.  Unlike some famous preachers would want you to believe, God promises to give us what we need, not all of what we want.  We need to trust Him to take care of us, and if He chooses to provide us with blessings above and beyond our means, those are just gifts that we should be thankful for.

Trust is hard, because it means giving up control.  I'm not good at that.  I like to itemize, to budget, to know that next week ________ amount will be in our bank account.  Not having that is hard, and having bills is hard.  It is hard for me to see how God will work it all out.  It seems He is taking His time and all the doors we try to go through, He shuts, so where is the open window to crawl through? 

Yet, time and again the Bible tells me that I am blessed if I trust God and that He will take care of my family.  So, as hard as it is from my side, I will trust that God has a plan, and that God will continue to provide for the needs of my family.  He has never let me down yet, why would He fail me now?

-JLP-

Praying for you as you continue your marathon of life.  Have a blessed Friday and a marvelous weekend, may it be spent growing in our Lord.

Boyfriends

I have a feeling this could be the motto for my husband when the time comes (and it will come WAY too soon for D and myself) for miss E to start dating.

                                   

Rule One:If you pull into my driveway and honk you'd better be delivering a package, because you're sure not picking anything up.

Rule Two:You do not touch my daughter in front of me. You may glance at her, so long as you do not peer at anything below her neck. If you cannot keep your eyes or hands off of my daughter's body, I will remove them.
...
Rule Three:I am aware that it is considered fashionable for boys of your age to wear their trousers so loosely that they appear to be falling off their hips. Please don't take this as an insult, but you and all of your friends are complete idiots. Still, I want to be fair and open minded about this issue, so I propose this compromise: You may come to the door with your underwear showing and your pants ten sizes too big, and I will not object. However, in order to ensure that your clothes do not, in fact, come off during the course of your date with my daughter, I will take my electric nail gun and fasten your trousers securely in place to your waist.

Rule Four:I'm sure you've been told that in today's world, sex without utilizing a "barrier method" of some kind can kill you. Let me elaborate, when it comes to sex, I am the barrier, and I will kill you.

Rule Five:It is usually understood that in order for us to get to know each other, we should talk about sports, politics, and other issues of the day. Please do not do this. The only information I require from you is an indication of when you expect to have my daughter safely back at my house, and the only word I need from you on this subject is "early."

Rule Six:I have no doubt you are a popular fellow, with many opportunities to date other girls. This is fine with me as long as it is okay with my daughter. Otherwise, once you have gone out with my little girl, you will continue to date no one but her until she is finished with you. If you make her cry, I will make you cry.

Rule Seven:As you stand in my front hallway, waiting for my daughter to appear, and more than an hour goes by, do not sigh and fidget. If you want to be on time for the movie, you should not be dating. My daughter is putting on her makeup, a process that can take longer than painting the Golden Gate Bridge. Instead of just standing there, why don't you do something useful, like changing the oil in my car?

Rule Eight:The following places are not appropriate for a date with my daughter: Places where there are beds, sofas, or anything softer than a wooden stool. Places where there are no parents, policemen, or nuns within eyesight. Places where there is darkness. Places where there is dancing, holding hands, or happiness. Places where the ambient temperature is warm enough to induce my daughter to wear shorts, tank tops, midriff T-shirts, or anything other than overalls, a sweater, and a goose down parka - zipped up to her throat. Movies with a strong romantic or sexual theme are to be avoided; movies which features chain saws are okay. Hockey games are okay. Old folks homes are better.

Rule Nine:Do not lie to me. On issues relating to my daughter, I am the all-knowing, merciless god of your universe. If I ask you where you are going and with whom, you have one chance to tell me the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I have a shotgun, a shovel, and five acres behind the house. Do not trifle with me.

Rule Ten:Be afraid. Be very afraid. It takes very little for me to mistake the sound of your car in the driveway for a Black Hawk chopper coming in over a san hill near Mogadishu. When my PTSD starts acting up, the voices in my head frequently tell me to clean the guns as I wait for you to bring my daughter home. As soon as you pull into the driveway you should exit your car with both hands in plain sight. Speak the perimeter password, announce in a clear voice that you have brought my daughter home safely and early, then return to your car - there is no need for you to come inside. The camouflaged face at the window is mine.

-JLP-

Happy Thursday and prayers go up for each person reading this, that you will know the joy of the Lord, the peace of Christ and the strength of the Holy Spirit as we continue on the Christian marathon.

The Embrace of Christ

This morning I was sitting in bed feeding E (my new daughter) and my mind traveled back 10 years to May of 2002 and saying good-bye to the child I conceived (during my rape) and then miscarried.  I wondered if my child was a boy or a girl and what his/her personality was like.  I wondered what physical traits my two children shared.

I then started to sing "Jesus Loves You" to little E and I realized that child 1 didn't need mom to sing that song, because child 1 was up in the arms of Christ right now.  My child was playing in Heaven, worshiping Christ and is waiting for mom to get up there and for our family to be together.  It was a sweet moment.  Not sad at all, but happy.  Happy because I know my oldest child got to escape the pain of this world and go straight to be in Christ's arms.  It was also happy because in my arms was a sweet little girl that Christ had gifted me with.

I pray that my husband and I will show E what it means to have Christ as our savior. I pray that she will grow up to love the Lord.  I pray that she will be: sweet, loving, kind, forgiving, patient, smart and strong.  I pray that as she faces the joys and trials of life that she will do so with a sweet spirit, much like that of her great-great grandma (for whom she was named).  Mainly I pray for the day when my whole family is reunited in Heaven where we will rest forever in the embrace of Christ.

I also prayed for those I know that are yearning for the blessing of a child in their home. One of the hardest things in this life is to want something, to see all your friends be given the blessing you've been yearning for, and to remain without. I prayed for those I know that have experienced the pain of miscarriage and/or stillbirth.  I prayed that no matter what happens, that we would all remember that we rest in the embrace of Christ and that when we look back on this life we will see why He gave us what He did and why He withheld what He did.

Hello!

This is my 2nd blog I have going, and that is for a reason.  The first blog (http://www.jessielee317.blogspot.com/) is geared toward rape and abuse survivors, it is connected with the book I have written and hope to get published [real] soon.

This blog I hope to have it be more personal, more of just my daily life with Christ.  I called it "Vicotry Over Rape" because that is probably the life event that has had the most impact on me.  My life was going in 1 consistent, expected direction and then I was raped and for awhile my life as stagnant.  Yeah, I still went to college, still got a degree, but I was wandering around directionless.  I was alive but I wasn't really living. 

My subtitle for the blog "The Christian Marathon" comes because life is not about a sprint, we shouldn't be rushing to the next big event.  We should be taking it slow and steady, pacing ourselves, enjoying the moments.  We are in it for the long haul, till death and we need to have the energy for each day, to give each day our best.

Having victory over being raped, abused, or dealing with any of the crazy awful things that happen in life requires taking a marathon view of life.  Run 1 day at time, giving each day (mile) your all, don't worry about how many seem to be before you, focus on today.  Remember & enjoy the sucess of the previous miles, but still focus on the one that you are currently running.  Learn and grow from the previous miles run and use that to get through today.

I hope that you enjoy this little blog and that it will be an encouragement to each of you as we run our marathons to find victory over___________ (fill in the struggles you face in your marathon).

In Christ,
    JP