As I have endeavored once again to continue blogging on a regular basis (it's too daunting still to commit to the word "daily," but I'm trying), I have been met with nothing but encouragement on every side. My parents and my husband have always been the biggest cheerleaders...partly because this is sometimes the only way they get to hear the things I am pondering in my heart, the things that the Holy Spirit really is working on in me and teaching me and telling me.
I'm still struggling with figuring out how to make it part of my daily schedule. When should I try to fit it in? What is acceptable to sacrifice in order to make this a priority? Those are all questions that I'm working through as I figure out how to be obedient to the Holy Spirit as He directs me to continue to chronicle this journey He has me on.
So, in light of all these things, I started to flip back through my previous "unpublished" posts in an effort to wrap up any loose ends and also save a little time on the front end of creating an entry. Of course, these are all the reasons I had for returning to the unfinished pile...while God had a totally different one.
Most of you know that in August of last year, L and I found out we were expecting our second child. In October, during my 10-week ultrasound, I got tons of pictures, saw my baby kicking around, and heard a thrilling little heartbeat. In November, during my 15-week visit, we found out that our little one had stopped growing, and thus began one of the hardest journeys I have ever been on to date.
Somewhere between the 10-week visit and the 14-week visit, I wrote this post below, in light of all the trials I was witnessing in the lives of those around me. What I didn't know at the time, was that the Lord was massaging my heart and life to be able to have the strength to withstand the sword that was soon to come my way. Everything written below is nothing short of completely divine from my perspective, even down to the fact that I had begun this post with a passage from Jeremiah, the name that L and I eventually chose to give our son that was born to us on November 19, 2010. Even though the post stops a little abruptly at the end, I hope you can see where I was going with it (I don't want to mess with the integrity of it at all, so I am leaving it unfinished). My prayer is that you will be as encouraged as I am to see that our God goes before us in all things to prepare us for the trials He allows to come our way. And He meets us with grace in the wilderness, He comes to us and brings rest, and His love and His faithfulness will continue forever and forever. He is so worthy of our praise in all things.
_______________________________
October 6, 2010
"At that time, declares the LORD, I will be the God of all the clans of Israel, and they shall be my people." Thus says the LORD: "The people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness; when Israel sought for rest, the LORD appeared to him from far away. I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you." -Jeremiah 31:1-3
There's a lot of pain in this world, and recently I feel met with a lot of it. Not my own - but the pain of others that is tangible enough to taste. To be honest, some days I selfishly wrestle with fear for my own family experiencing something similar, and other days I selfishly wrestle with my own misunderstandings on comprehending a God that could not just allow, but even ordain, such fiery trials.
Not one of us can understand Him or His purposes - we see finitely, and He sees infinitely. We are trapped in a dimension of time, and He has always been, is the Great I AM, and will always be. Our selfish intentions lead us to serve to the master of sin, His self-glorying purposes are always Holy, because He is Holy.
I am encouraged to watch my friends in the trials, though. I truly believe that when God ordains for His people to go through trials, He grants them access to His grace in ways and through channels that they've never before known. I don't know how else to explain why my friend can praise God through the midst of his wife living on the fringe of death, in a medically-induced coma to suppress the effects of seizure after seizure, while their two children, 3 and 1, wait and wonder at their grandparents house.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
31 Years Later
Today my parents celebrated their 31st anniversary. This year, my mom's parents will celebrate their 58th anniversary on October 10th, and my dad's parents will celebrate their 64th anniversary on January 11th. I am so thankful for the blessing of marriage that God has allowed to pass down from generation to generation in our family.
Now, nothing about my parent's marriage has ever been reflective of Hollywood's portrayal of love and marriage (thankfully!), so I find it quite ironic that one of the defining stories of their relationship was picked up and aired by Weather Channel's Storm Stories last year. Part of the hour-long documentary can be found in the video links on this page, and though it's not the full story, it gives a good glimpse into the basic details of the flood - an event that could have certainly claimed the lives of the only two people in this world that had the potential to create me.
But quite obviously, God had a different plan in mind for my parents. One in which they would live long enough to not only marry and have their own children, but also to know their own grandchildren. One in which they would choose to stay committed to each other through the good, the bad, and everything in between. I am so thankful for the way they have modeled their love, their affection and their marriage covenant before L and me. And I am so grateful to be challenged with the task of carrying on this legacy to my own children and (Lord willing!) seeing them continue to pass it on to their own children one day.
Now, nothing about my parent's marriage has ever been reflective of Hollywood's portrayal of love and marriage (thankfully!), so I find it quite ironic that one of the defining stories of their relationship was picked up and aired by Weather Channel's Storm Stories last year. Part of the hour-long documentary can be found in the video links on this page, and though it's not the full story, it gives a good glimpse into the basic details of the flood - an event that could have certainly claimed the lives of the only two people in this world that had the potential to create me.
But quite obviously, God had a different plan in mind for my parents. One in which they would live long enough to not only marry and have their own children, but also to know their own grandchildren. One in which they would choose to stay committed to each other through the good, the bad, and everything in between. I am so thankful for the way they have modeled their love, their affection and their marriage covenant before L and me. And I am so grateful to be challenged with the task of carrying on this legacy to my own children and (Lord willing!) seeing them continue to pass it on to their own children one day.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Spring Break
This year was our first experience with a "Spring Break," and it just happened to coincide with a week-long work trip for my husband. Now, though I'm getting better accustomed to taking on single parenthood while daddy is gone on his trips, I could not legitimately look at a week where E would be out of school, I would be at work, and daddy would be in another part of the state, and still imagine a world where I was able to keep my sanity...so E and I made plans to head north to my parents' mountain house for the week.
I have to admit that although I was looking forward to some much-needed one-on-one time with E, I was also somewhat dreading the sun-up to sun-down responsibility of cooking, cleaning, pottying, cleaning, cooking, cleaning, pottying, cleaning....that was sure to take up most of the days ahead. However, it turns out my little girl has been doing some growing up herself over the past few months at preschool. Looking back on the week, I realized that about ninety percent of the times she called my name, she was genuinely requesting that I come engage in some kind of play with her, and only about ten percent of the time did she truly need help with daily activities.
It was a week of precious bonding between this mama and her little girl. Though I didn't get a ton of pictures, I did force myself to carry my camera with me on a few occasions, and it was of course worth it. I caught some priceless faces on camera, ones that will surely capture the memories of that week for years to come. We even got to spend a few of our days with JJ - one of my very best friends. Because E loves her almost as much as I do, we had a little turf war the first day over whose friend JJ was, as E was completely convinced JJ had come simply for her personal enjoyment. :)
With every stage of childhood so far, I keep catching myself thinking/saying, "Surely this is the best stage. There's no way it gets better than this." And even though the "3's" are peppered with attitudes, sassiness, and disrespectfulness at times, as I look at these pictures I'm still catching myself in the midst of the thought that this is most certainly the best stage so far.
I have to admit that although I was looking forward to some much-needed one-on-one time with E, I was also somewhat dreading the sun-up to sun-down responsibility of cooking, cleaning, pottying, cleaning, cooking, cleaning, pottying, cleaning....that was sure to take up most of the days ahead. However, it turns out my little girl has been doing some growing up herself over the past few months at preschool. Looking back on the week, I realized that about ninety percent of the times she called my name, she was genuinely requesting that I come engage in some kind of play with her, and only about ten percent of the time did she truly need help with daily activities.
It was a week of precious bonding between this mama and her little girl. Though I didn't get a ton of pictures, I did force myself to carry my camera with me on a few occasions, and it was of course worth it. I caught some priceless faces on camera, ones that will surely capture the memories of that week for years to come. We even got to spend a few of our days with JJ - one of my very best friends. Because E loves her almost as much as I do, we had a little turf war the first day over whose friend JJ was, as E was completely convinced JJ had come simply for her personal enjoyment. :)
With every stage of childhood so far, I keep catching myself thinking/saying, "Surely this is the best stage. There's no way it gets better than this." And even though the "3's" are peppered with attitudes, sassiness, and disrespectfulness at times, as I look at these pictures I'm still catching myself in the midst of the thought that this is most certainly the best stage so far.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
We've gotta find a daddy, don't we?
Some days I feel like I spend the whole day laughing at everything that comes out of my child's mouth. The things that she thinks, evidenced by the things that she says, are just plain entertaining most of the time. I even find myself having to duck behind corners to straighten my face so that I can re-enter the room and assume the disciplinarian role, when the sass begins to tilt over into disrespectfulness and an "opportunity to parent" arises.
Conversations with E these days are a true joy, though. Tonight was one I want to file away for sure. We were sitting at the dinner table, enjoying chocolate chip pancakes and cheesy eggs - a dinner she had requested and was enjoying. :) She was on her third pancake, and I was commenting on how well she was eating...
E: "Yep, I'm going to grow big."
Me: "You sure are. You're going to be big and strong."
E: "Yep, I'm going to be big and strong like you, Mama."
Me: "E, do you want to be a mommy when you grow up?"
E: "Yep, I'm going to be a mommy....We've gotta find a daddy, don't we?"
Me: "We sure do."
E: "I'm gonna marry my daddy."
Me: "Nope, sorry baby girl. Daddy's already married to me. We've gotta find you another daddy."
E: "Yeah, cause Daddy sings to you and does ballet with you."
I just love peering at the world through her eyes. I love that she loves her daddy, and that - for all she knows of marriage at this point - she's looking forward to being a mama/wife one day. And I'm especially thankful that the Lord has already set within her heart a desire to find a man like her daddy.
L and I have a little joke that #1 on the list of "what it means to be a Bost" is: A Bost gets married by the age of 23. To make a long story short, this has nothing to do with making marriage trite and rushed into, but everything to do with the fact that we ourselves would never trade the experiences we've had as "young marrieds" for anything - the Lord has taught us so much and made himself known to us, challenging us to grow and mature in ways we could've never done without each other. And as a wife, I've been able to grow, mature, fail, succeed, try, try again, try some more...all with the security of knowing that I have someone right there beside me, in the flesh, who is FOR me, who is praying for the Lord's gift of loving me unconditionally, who is never gonna leave me. The security of our earthly relationship has afforded me an incredible opportunity to become a person I never imagined I could ever be. And when I fail in every other realm of life, I get to come home to a man who first shows me unconditional love and then helps me sort through the failures and figure out what I need to take responsibility for, what I need to let go of, and what I need to take to the cross of Christ.
So, should marriage be jumped into lightly? No. Do I want E to marry the first single man she meets, if she's not married by the age of 23? Not at all. But do I want to encourage a desire within her to be seeking out her husband from an early age? Absolutely. Do I want to continue to model for her that a marriage worth having is one that is continually being refined by the Lord (so the earlier you start, the longer you'll have to actually enjoy it)? Without a doubt. :)
Conversations with E these days are a true joy, though. Tonight was one I want to file away for sure. We were sitting at the dinner table, enjoying chocolate chip pancakes and cheesy eggs - a dinner she had requested and was enjoying. :) She was on her third pancake, and I was commenting on how well she was eating...
E: "Yep, I'm going to grow big."
Me: "You sure are. You're going to be big and strong."
E: "Yep, I'm going to be big and strong like you, Mama."
Me: "E, do you want to be a mommy when you grow up?"
E: "Yep, I'm going to be a mommy....We've gotta find a daddy, don't we?"
Me: "We sure do."
E: "I'm gonna marry my daddy."
Me: "Nope, sorry baby girl. Daddy's already married to me. We've gotta find you another daddy."
E: "Yeah, cause Daddy sings to you and does ballet with you."
I just love peering at the world through her eyes. I love that she loves her daddy, and that - for all she knows of marriage at this point - she's looking forward to being a mama/wife one day. And I'm especially thankful that the Lord has already set within her heart a desire to find a man like her daddy.
L and I have a little joke that #1 on the list of "what it means to be a Bost" is: A Bost gets married by the age of 23. To make a long story short, this has nothing to do with making marriage trite and rushed into, but everything to do with the fact that we ourselves would never trade the experiences we've had as "young marrieds" for anything - the Lord has taught us so much and made himself known to us, challenging us to grow and mature in ways we could've never done without each other. And as a wife, I've been able to grow, mature, fail, succeed, try, try again, try some more...all with the security of knowing that I have someone right there beside me, in the flesh, who is FOR me, who is praying for the Lord's gift of loving me unconditionally, who is never gonna leave me. The security of our earthly relationship has afforded me an incredible opportunity to become a person I never imagined I could ever be. And when I fail in every other realm of life, I get to come home to a man who first shows me unconditional love and then helps me sort through the failures and figure out what I need to take responsibility for, what I need to let go of, and what I need to take to the cross of Christ.
So, should marriage be jumped into lightly? No. Do I want E to marry the first single man she meets, if she's not married by the age of 23? Not at all. But do I want to encourage a desire within her to be seeking out her husband from an early age? Absolutely. Do I want to continue to model for her that a marriage worth having is one that is continually being refined by the Lord (so the earlier you start, the longer you'll have to actually enjoy it)? Without a doubt. :)
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