Rejoice Always - HOW?

^{1 Thessalonians 5:16-18}

¹⁶ Rejoice always, ¹⁷ pray without ceasing, ¹⁸ in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

See More of My Photos

What a way to live your life! But how do you do that? Rejoice means to celebrate, express joy, delight, be glad, and cheer. Always means at all times, constantly, continuously, or all the time. So how do you celebrate constantly? How do you delight all the time? Sometimes (if not most of the time) life just doesn’t seem to be that good at first glance.

See More of My Photos

How many times have you seen on TV where they go around the Thanksgiving dinner table and everybody is asked to say what they are thankful for? It seems like a difficult task. Maybe your family has this tradition too. Is it easy to think of something to be thankful for? Find a pen and paper. Quick, list 5 things you are thankful for… Did it take you awhile? Did you feel like you were reaching? Now quick, list 5 things you could complain about… was that a little easier?

See More of My Photos

Think harder about the good stuff. Do you have a job? Do you have a home? Do you get enough to eat each day? Are there flowers outside? Do you have someone who loves you? Do you have health insurance? Did Jesus die for your sins? Even when it seems like there is nothing to celebrate there is always something. In fact usually there are always several things!

See More of My Photos

Rejoice Always. So how do you delight in these good things? How do you look at the fact that the grass is green and you have a home, and cheer about it; without comparing it to the heartbreak of health problems, a fight with your husband, or your child misbehaving? Pray without ceasing. Rely on Jesus, “our refuge, our strength, and a very present help in time of trouble” (Psalm 46:1). Can the sun still shine even when it is raining? Yes, that’s what makes rainbows! He can help you see the rainbows through the storm. So even though you have problems, the bad stuff doesn’t cancel out the good stuff.

See More of My Photos

This isn’t to say that you never have complaints. It is unrealistic to expect us flawed human beings to live our lives always skipping don the road without a care. Instead take your cares to Jesus, and try to always remember to think of something good after you complain about something.

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing. Challenge yourself to try to live this way for a few weeks and see how you like it!

Photo a Day April - How You Feel Today

See more of my photos from my photo a day challenge!

Photo a Day April

Day 14

How You Feel Today

I saw this unique flower at Walmart today, and since I was keeping my eyes open for something to define how I felt, I had to jump on it. I feel wonderful!! I feel beautiful, flowery, colorful and weird. Lately this is how I feel every day, and I thank God that He has blessed me with such good spirits! Even when things were rocky at work this week I kept my mood up. Normally I wouldn’t have been able to weather the storm without crying, but with God’s help I handled it wonderfully. I also found out that I was not pregnant this week, but I’ve been asking for prayers that I could handle the letdown if I wasn’t pregnant, and it didn’t even bring me down. This has been a terrific week.

Somebody asked me a question a couple of weeks ago that really opened my eyes. He quoted Hebrews 11:6 “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” Then he asked me if I was diligently seeking Him. I could not answer that question honestly and be satisfied with my answer. That one question turned my life around in an instant. I realized that I was not diligently seeking God. I wasn’t even reading my bible regularly. How can you know somebody if you don’t try? How can somebody comfort you if you don’t let them talk to you? God has given us the bible so that we can know Him, so that we can read His words. I can’t believe I have had this comfort tool sitting around my house (even staring at me from my phone) and I have been ignoring it.

I realized I have been separating my infertility from my faith, because I don’t know how to reconcile a loving God with the unending pain of infertility. I still don’t know how to do that, but I realize that compartmentalizing like that was not healthy for my relationship with God. Instead of dealing with my infertility outside of my faith I should be always looking for encouragement in the scriptures. Jesus says: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” –Matthew 5:4. The bible is full of comforting passages like this one. It is also filled with uplifting, inspirational verses: Matthew 21:21 ‘So Jesus answered and said to them, "Assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but also if you say to this mountain, 'Be removed and be cast into the sea,' it will be done. And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive"’ Sometimes it feels like the bible was written just for me! 

See more of my photos from April's Photo a Day Challenge

April Photo a Day - 5 Tiny

Day 5 - Tiny

So yesterday I drove three hours to go to my mom's so I can see my niece this weekend, which meant I was too tired to do yesterday's photo. I'm glad I waited because while I was taking a walk with my mom and my 3 year old niece I found these tiny little flowers on a tree. I tried to get my niece to hold a tiny flower in her tiny hand, but she didn't want to sit still long enough for me to get a good one. So in the picture I'm holding the flower in my fingers. You can see how small the flower is compared to my nails. I love taking pictures of flowers. Even the tiny ones are beautiful, and it shows how much care God put into every tiny detail of our world. How is it that we can feel like God doesn't even care or notice us with all this proof looking us in the face.

Faith Issues

click here to see more of my photos

Let me begin this post by saying that this is not my best written blog, and I don't think it flows just right, but I am trying to be brutally honest about my relationship with God and it is ridiculously hard because I don't know if I entirely understand it myself. 

I am a Christian. I believe in God, and I know that God is good, wants good for us, and I try to live my life the way He wants me to. But I have a faith problem. I have such a hard time reconciling my faith with my infertility. It’s like a paradox. I believe in God, that He is good and that He wants the best for us, but then I want a baby so bad and I have suffered so much heart ache due to infertility. I have never been able to find lasting peace because I can’t even get a good, sure answer that I cannot have a baby, so that little hope keeps flaring up and bringing the pain back to the surface, and I can never fully get over it.

When I was on my way to the hospital to see my niece’s birth I had another crisis of faith. I was driving along and her contractions advanced so quickly that while I was praying so hard that she would wait until I got there they called to tell me that she was going to the hospital. At that point I started going back and forth between praying that I would make it and fighting with God, certain that I was going to miss it. I was so angry with God, asking him how it is that I can want something so bad, and pray for it so hard, like being able to see my niece be born, and then still miss it. I have an easier time accepting my infertility, because there have been a few times when getting pregnant would not have been best, like when we found the tumor on my spine in my neck and I needed all sorts of tests (x-rays and MRI’s and others) to see whether or not is was cancerous.

click here to see more of my photos

Therefore, sometimes I can accept that God knows best (though intellectually I know He does, emotionally sometimes I don’t understand). Sometimes I think that He knows some good reason why now is not a good time, and why it might never be right for us, but I could not come up with one possible explanation of why I should not be at the birth of my niece, when I wanted it so much. Again, intellectually I know that God wants the best for me and that if God decided I shouldn’t be there than there apparently is a good reason I should miss it, but emotionally I have a harder time with that. It’s like I’m a child. A child knows mommy loves her, but doesn’t always understand when mommy says that she can’t go play at her friend’s house right now.

So I’m fluctuating back and forth between continuing to pray to make it in time, and arguing with God because I was sure I was going to be too late. When I was about 20 minutes away I called and my mom told me that they thought that she was still going to be a long time. The hospital thought that her contractions were being brought on by dehydration, and were having her drink water. Of course at this point I changed my tune again. I was contrite; I started praying about how I knew I was wrong to have doubts like I was having. I felt like I had a good heart to heart with God on that trip over, and it made me start thinking about these issues.

click here to see more of my photos

When I was in high school I was so close to God. I read my bible all the time, I loved reading it! I prayed constantly, I felt God’s presence in my life on a regular basis, and felt loved by Him. I was comforted by praying when I was fighting with my dad, and I broke up with my boyfriend because I realized (eventually) that God didn’t want me to be with him.

After high school it was like a switch was thrown. I stopped being able to feel God. I read once I think in the bible about a man who God withdrew from in a way that He could not be felt, and that it was a test of that man’s faith to continue to have faith even when one could not feel God. It was much easier to have faith in God when I could feel Him there all the time. It is a whole different story now that I don’t feel like He is there.

click here to see more of my photos

Anger

Click to see my other photos

Today is one of those very rare days where I wake up so fantastically cranky that I sit around all day stewing and feeling like I want to punch someone. On days like this it feels like my only options are to either be angry or cry. In fact I think the reason I am angry is because I am more depressed than usual and just want to lie down and curl up in a ball –but I have to go to work and pretend everything is fine and do my job without interruption.

I am angry because I had to get up this morning when I was still ridiculously tired from hardly being able to sleep due to coughing so much because of this upper respiratory infection that I supposedly should be over by now. I am angry because I woke up a few minutes late and had to rush when packing my lunch and letting the dog out and then drive to work in the rain. I am irritated because I have to walk down more than 90 outside steps to get to my office, and the knowledge of having to take those same steps back up in the inclement weather with an umbrella that keeps turning inside out in the slightest win just ticks me off even more. I am bothered because my boss is so busy all the time and has so many meetings that we usually don't have enough time to go over her mail and the other things we need to discuss. I am cranky because I am hungry, but there is no food being served here today that I will eat, and the tomato soup I brought as my lunch does not appeal to me at all.

But I am thankful that I woke up at all this morning and that I was not late to work. I am thankful that I was able to afford to see the doctor and start the antibiotics I need to kick this cough, even though it seems to be taking too long. I am thankful that I am physically able to walk up and down 90 steps each day, and that I don't need to be on crutches even temporarily. I am thankful that I have a job, a state job that I cannot get laid off from or fired from for no good reason, one that I get 40 hours a week, Monday through Friday. I am thankful that I have food in the house that I can bring to work with me, and that at my job I can eat for free, even though it's prison food and not great, it's still food and it's still free.

I am also cranky because my arms are aching for the baby I wish to hold in them. My heart sighs when I think about the Christmas games we could play, and the traditions we could form. And my eyes glisten with tears when I think about the good times our family may never have. But I am thankful that God gave me the heart to want to love a baby so much, and the ability to feel emotions even when they are sad emotions. Most of all I am thankful for my terrific husband, my beautiful dog, and my cool stepson who is coming tonight for the week, because I would be so much more miserable without these forces of love in my life.

Christmas

My Christmas decorating is done! I love Christmas so much; it is my favorite time of the year. I love everything about Christmas, the Christmas music, the lights, the general merriment and the gift giving. I love receiving gifts, but I am the kind that just loves to give gifts, and I would do so much more than I should if I had any money. When I was a teenager I used to wrap the gifts I was giving my friends over and over again so that when they got through with one layer (after fighting with the massive amounts of tape I put on it) there would be another layer to go through. And another, and another. I still do that sometimes. And with my darling husband being such a snoop and liking to shake presents and feel them and try to guess what they are by their shape I have taken to disguising them by putting them all in boxes or other containers. One year I wrapped a few things separately and then put them into a popcorn container and wrapped that. So when he unwrapped it he thinks its popcorn, then he opened it up and has more unwrapping to do.

I put up a tree, garland around the doors, mistletoe, a wreath, and best of all, my Christmas Village. This village has been passed down from my grandma to my mom, and then I received it from my mom. When I was a kid I loved the village and I always helped put it up, and later on my mom would let me put it up on my own. There are so many buildings in this village it would cost quite a bit to replicate. It also has a skating pond that plugs in and has moving magnets moving skaters around the lake. Unfortunately I don’t quit have the room to set it all up. Last year I had to spread it around the living room, putting most in the main spot next to the tree and then putting down snow blankets on the end tables next to the couch and putting some there. This year I am short some snow blankets (must have tossed them last year) so I put them all in the main spot and just skipped the skating pond.Of course the instant I put up the village the cats invaded, and when I booted my Romeo off the sewing table so that I could set up the village he decided he was a Christmas gift and placed himself under the tree.

As much as I love Christmas if I think about it too much I get a little sad. While seeing my beautiful tree lit up and my village all beautifully arranged brings a smile to my face, sometimes it’s a sad smile when I think of how there are no kids around to share my love of Christmas with. No kids around to enjoy the magic and mystery of the moving skating pond, or the twinkling tree, or the angel topper whose wings fluidly change color minute by minute. No Christmas stories to tell, stockings to fill, or waking early Christmas morning in anticipation of the gifts and the fun and love the day will hold. 

Maybe I Won't Give Up

See more of my photography

I’ve been wanting to give up for a long time. That doesn’t mean I don’t still want a baby. I still want to have a baby, and my hopes still build slightly as the end of the month nears. If my period was late the hope builds exponentially greater each day, and sometimes my mood plummets drastically after a negative test and my period finally showing up.

But today I read the most uplifting blog: Sweetness and Me: We're Baaaacccckkkk. It was about a couple who finally adopted after two years of trying. The joy emanating from the words I read was palpable, and it nearly brought tears to my eyes. She is so happy and it makes all the stress and pain and tears they experienced completely worth it. I want that.

I don’t think adoption is for me, because I can’t afford it, and I wouldn’t want to go through all the home visits and all that comes along with applying to adopt. But at this point I might consider surrogacy if I could afford it. I haven’t wanted to do that before either, (like when my sister half offered),  because it can still be a complicated process, and I always thought I would have a big problem with someone having a drink with caffeine while carrying my baby, or having drugs during labor.

But after seeing this woman’s joy through her words at having her baby none of that seems to matter. I’m sure the birth mom didn’t do everything exactly the way the adoptive mom would have, and she had to have a c-section which is also not ideal, but it doesn’t matter. She has a baby now, and she is happy. That’s what matters.

I still want a baby, I do not want to give up, but I just don’t see being able to afford the procedures, or to pay for surrogacy… I have such conflicting feelings right now. It feels good to finally have the drive to try again. But that brings along fears and sadness. If we start actively trying again then I am opening myself up to a lot more hope and a lot more letdowns. I’m afraid to make myself vulnerable again. Writing this and feeling that vulnerability is bringing real tears to my eyes now. I think I need some encouragement. 

Click here to see more of my photos

Foster Care - Have We Considered It?

Click here to visit my photography page

So my husband brought up the topic of foster care the other day. We were talking about the need for me to go back to the fertility clinic and our plans to get all the tests done to find out our chances of getting pregnant naturally, and the fact that it could come back that the chance of getting pregnant naturally is very, very low. I think I could handle that. I wouldn’t like it, but being able to know something definite would allow us to start accepting it and getting on with our lives. And I’m to a point now where I just want some answers, good or bad.

I don’t think I would like doing foster care. I wouldn’t be able to handle having to send the kids back to their parents that they were taken away from. Even if the kids weren’t going back to their parents a lot of times they go to grandparents or somebody, who we can’t really know are much better than the parents. Even being sure that kids were going back to an awesome home that is terrific for them would be so hard. I want a baby that I can love. Any child I bring into my house would be loved and cared for, and bringing a baby into my house and falling in love with her, and then giving her away to parents or grandparents or somebody else would hurt too much.

My husband is not ready to give up his dream of having a baby with me, and he feels that that dream can be realized to some degree with foster care. I don’t want to give up either, but I’m so tired of trying and caring and hoping and hurting. Counting days and reading so much into each sign and symptom at the end of my month is getting old. I don’t think it should be this much work to have a baby, and I don’t think that foster care would realize that dream.

I just feel like it’s time to start my life. It’s time just to have a baby and start my life as a mother, or not have one and start my life as a childfree woman. Foster children would feel like another holding pattern, constantly waiting for the day when they have to leave.

Click here to see more of my photos

I told him it’s something we can discuss again after we get some answers from the doctor. I may feel completely different about foster care if I find out I can’t have a baby naturally. But right now while fertility hope is still hanging around I don’t think it is something that’s right for me.