Canceling Christmas

Lights and decorations are starting to go up, invitations for thanksgiving dinners have been sent out or received, my 5 year old's Christmas wish list is almost complete. Menu planning is officially underway, and the schedule of events is getting denser as the days go by--and MAYBE there are a few family birthdays in the mix??

These are all happy wonderful things, right?

But did you know there's an actual name for a disorder caused by all these things. GAD is generalized anxiety disorder. It can be triggered by all the things I just mentioned in the first paragraph.

Maybe you've felt it, I know I've felt twinges of it.

What if there was a way to pass thought these last few weeks of the year and pop out into 2020 feeling refreshed and renewed?

So what's coming our way?

Thanksgiving: the act of giving thanks.

Christmas- remembering how God became man and began his human journey to become the ultimate sacrifice to pay for our sin and reconcile us to a right relationship with God once and for all. HOWEVER: it's turned mainly into a gift giving frenzy with an over hyped build up leading to "the day" that we open them.

I find it fascinating that Thanksgiving precedes Christmas. Partly because it makes so much sense, but partly because of how quickly we can easily forget all that stuff a few hours after the turkey is carved. So what are we missing in that transition that's making us so crazy?

Is it all the commercialism and hype? Well, men in our nation's history have tried to ban any joyful celebrations and cheerful decorations to keep things serious and focused on the "reason for the season," (no Christmas parties or pretty trees in the name of religion) and I can't see that any of those things made people better off-- it didn't last very long either.

Studies have shown that putting our minds in the right place can be life changing. Practicing a daily way of giving thanks can transform the way we view EVERYTHING. I call it keeping ourselves out of the "want swamp". You know what I'm talking about? Self-pity, constant comparison, complaining, and general discontent with life. Hey, I've even been there in the summer--Christmas isn't the only time tourists frequent the "want swamp."

Here's what I'm going to attempt this year: 

1. Choosing activities that only facilitate refreshment and joy (could be through service with and for others, could be about seeing things through my kids eyes)
2. Maintaining an intentional attitude of gratitude

I'm convinced that by keeping our eyes on what we want AFTER Christmas, we'll actually get what we need and want most throughout this special season.

There are SOO many opportunities for joy in any day. What we focus on grows, so I hope you find more and more things to be thankful for and fewer things to be weary of as each day ticks by until we reach a brand new DECADE together!

A String

"Those kids did not share with me!"

I squinted at my eldest son in the rear view mirror.
We had enjoyed celebrating a friends birthday at the park that Saturday, and now he was giving me the report of his playtime as we drove home for the day.

"So how can you help the other kids know what to do?" I asked.

"I will teach them to share with authority...and sternness! And then they will HAVE to share their toys with me."

***************************************************

BOOM. How often do I lean on "authority and sternness" to make my point or teach the lesson? I was immediately convicted.What is it exactly that wins people to appreciate the truth? Is it a loud voice? Is it just repeating your views over and over?

Sunday morning came and I flipped over to Philippians 4 in his "Easy to Read" version of the Bible and my question was answered.

Philippians 4:5  Let everyone see that you are gentle and kind. The Lord is coming soon.

It's so simple. Gentleness and kindness. Those are the tell tale signs of someone that is listening to the Holy Spirit and guided by his instruction.

What makes me so quick to justify my impatience and hot words in the name of righteousness? What does the voice of THE Father sound like when I am off on a tangent He never intended for me? 

Gentle and kind.

That same father made sure we heard this on our drive home that day. Take a listen to "The String that Ties Us" by Beautiful Eulogy.





We are and can do NOTHING without love.

God, please forgive me for speaking without love. Give me patience, gentleness, and kindness. Give me faith to believe that you are at work behind the scenes, and that it's not up to me to make the right things happen when I think they should. Thank you for your unconditional love. Amen.

I Did the Wrong Thing

 I found myself in an accidental experiment. Conventional wisdom says wait until later on when you know it’s “for sure the baby is going to be OK”. What happens if you buck conventional wisdom?

I woke up the morning after my hospital stay and I knew I needed to share the news of what had transpired with my church home group. I sent a short text message explaining that unexpectedly our sweet little life was safe in the arms of Jesus.

What I found was a hammock of love and prayers that immediately surrounded me and our family. They continue to carry us, (and SOOOO MANY OTHERS) as my body is still healing from complications that came from the miscarriage.

Who’s talking about this stuff? I never had anyone talk to me about it until just this year, and honestly, just knowing that I had a friend that experienced this loss too took the loneliness factor way down for me. Can I be that person for you?

My hope through all of this is that my story can help someone else tell their story. As so many women in my life have reached out to care for me, I have heard so many stories of their own tragedies. Tears have come to their eyes even decades after their loss, because the life they hoped for was gone too soon.

1 in 4 pregnancies end this way. It has affected way more people than I ever imagined. There’s nothing any mother can do about it, but it doesn’t lessen the sting.

Everyone processes things differently, and everyone experiences grief differently, and I hope anyone that reads this and needs hope and healing can find it.

Here are some resources that I hope can help guide anyone that needs to heal.

Healing from Miscarriage

If you have experienced an abortion and have experienced regret or pain about your choice, I say there is healing for you too. 1 in 3 women (church going folks included) have made that choice, and you can find grace and mercy and unconditional forgiveness and love.

Healing from Abortion

Get Away!

Here comes #4! We broke the news to the kids as soon as we got the positive result on the home test. They were absolutely stoked, Micah boldly proclaiming “I’ll change the baby’s diaper! It’s super easy!”

That Sunday at church, I shared with a large handful of people. I figured I may as well beat the kids to the punch since I knew we couldn’t rely on any discretion in that area. We were truly overjoyed.

My nausea and 1^st trimester exhaustion hit me pretty quickly; I was taking up to 3 cat naps a day, surrounded by the kids playing just so I could muster the energy to do the next task. I joked that was on a mission to gain as much weight as possible from my constant napping and eating to avoid nausea.

But all this set into depression. I started to hide. Binging shows on Netflix, taking way too much time scrolling social media; I knew it wasn’t healthy, but I was SO overwhelmed I reasoned. Will I ever figure this out?

Mom had gotten me signed up for a women’s retreat on a different island. I didn’t even have time to think about it until I was packing an hour before I went to bed for the night.

I showed up at the campground with my list of things I needed God to change. I was aware I needed to be spiritually alert. I didn’t want to lose ground that meant so much to me. So I just put it out there as an SOS asking God to please spare me from whatever depression I was dealing with.

12 weeks pregnant with our 4th little blessing

Not 2 hours into the official retreat schedule, I was a puddle of tears. The speaker I had chosen in a break out session, Chrissy, had nailed my issue square on. The basics are always the first things to go, and here I was embellishing and complaining to God about everything on my plate. I repented that afternoon, “God, forgive me for leaving you out. Jesus, please remind me to reach to you when I feel weak.” My table was clear, and I knew he was going to reset it with the things I really needed.

1. I HAVE to start my day with his word. It’s as important as a night of sleep. A day started without this “bread” is straight up trouble. I’ve seen how grumpy and impatient I can be on my own.
2. He prodded me to share my story. My brokenness. The incomplete parts of myself that I personally witness him fill in. “We can let him use the story we have for his glory, or we can keep it to ourselves,” is what another speaker shared that weekend. This is honestly why I'm blogging again...

Those 2 themes kept surfacing in the 9 or 10 sessions I attended listening to various speakers.

Ok, I know what I need to do now, God…

I had my reset, and I felt absolutely refreshed, ready for the rest of this pregnancy.

Please read the continuation of this story at this link --"Not What I Planned"

Not What I Planned

The weekend after the retreat was my husband’s birthday. We had a day trip planned as a family so our eldest could have a dolphin encounter at a nature center, and that gave us the perfect excuse to get out of the house and enjoy some time together. It was a BEAUTIFUL day, and I was feeling pretty “normal” again. My energy was good, and I hadn’t been nauseated in a few weeks.

We were leaving the dolphin encounter when I stopped for a quick bathroom break. “Oh!” I said when I noticed something not normal for my pregnancies. I was also slightly cramping I realized. I called my doctor before we went into a restaurant for lunch to let them know I had some super light spotting, and I was cramping. The nurse on call assured me it was normal, and to take it easy for a while.

Ultrasound taken at 8 weeks. We got to see
Valorie's  heart beat.

The next day was Sunday, so I shared what was going on with my pastor’s wife and asked her to pray for me as I was just going to take a day of bedrest as I waited for whatever was happening to stop.

I read a whole book that day. Jonathan took care of the kids, and my mom brought over a meal and prayed for the baby. When I went to bed that night, everything looked like it was clearing up and I should be able to move around more the next day. I was thankful we had weathered this little scare.

I woke up and ran to the bathroom. It was 2:30 am and something was totally off. I weighed my options. Should I call the staff on call or just go to the emergency room? I decided to check myself in. Thankfully we live about 8 minutes from the hospital, so it was a quick drive over.

It was quiet when I arrived, except for a toddler in some distress in the triage room. I silently thanked God that my kids were quietly asleep in their beds. I was immediately brought to the ob-gyn room in the ER and set up with an ultrasound.

The doctor came in soon, and confirmed that there had been a complete miscarriage. At this point, I was losing a large amount of blood, but the sweet nurse on staff comforted me providing warm blankets from my head to toe and let me know this is just part of the process and encouraged me to give myself plenty of space to heal emotionally and physically. She had experienced this same thing not too long ago.

I felt like I had a friend that night nearby.

As I waited in my quiet room for the staff to discharge me from the ER, God gave me a name for this little person. 

Valorie Grace

She had been mightily used to remind me where TRUE strength lies. I cried silent tears, letting go of my plans and expectations. My life would never be the same.

Free

I found freedom from a mental and spiritual prison of doubt, fear, shame, and insecurity. You may have come to this blog post because of my "A Struggle with Grace" blog series--this will summarize how I was able to get free from all that junk.

I realized that I did not know where Jesus was when I was experiencing some of the hardest battles I had ever fought in my life. I realized that I had been trying to fight and heal from all kinds of issues in my own strength. Friend, we can not fight life's battles and be more than a conqueror on our own.

When I tried to do this solo, I was living with shame, doubt, anger, and hopelessness about the dreams I had wanted to see come true in my life. It was an impossible mountain to climb.

So what did I do when my eyes were opened to the truth? This is something called "conviction."--when I recognized that what I was doing was wrong.

1. Repent

Psalm 32 is such a beautiful picture of what happens when we repent. I acknowledged my sin, just like I shared in this blog. I told Jesus about my failures. 

Ps. 32:5  says, 
"I acknowledged my sin to you,
    and I did not cover my iniquity;
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,”
    and you forgave the iniquity of my sin."

Sure enough, I received forgiveness IMMEDIATELY 

2. Replace

Ps. 32:7 says, 
7 You are a hiding place for me;
    you preserve me from trouble;
    you surround me with shouts of deliverance.

and v10 says

Many are the sorrows of the wicked,

    but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord.

I asked God to replace the fear with his love
Replace the shame with his strength.
Replace the anxiety with his joy.

3. Receive

In order to receive it, I asked him for something special. I asked him to reveal to me where he was every time I was pregnant going though my version of trauma. He was so faithful to reveal exactly where HE was.

• With baby #1 He was sitting in the living room praying for me.
• With baby #2 He was with Jonathan, acting as our protector and provider.
• With baby #3 He was sitting on the front door step keeping anything out of our home that did not belong.

I was SOO humbled that he had shown me these beautiful pictures, and OH, THE PEACE that came! To know I had NOT been abandoned. I had been cared for beyond what I was even aware of.

With that gift, I prayed over each of my babies to impart to the the gifts I had just received.

I was free.

Jesus had done a BEAUTIFUL work in my heart, and the anxiety that used to come when I thought of a new baby was completely GONE. Jesus would be with me!

Friend, I believe you can be free of anything that has been holding you captive.There is nothing too big or complicated or even shameful that is bigger than the God I serve. He has come to set the captives free!

 Isaiah 61:1- He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted and to proclaim that captives will be released and prisoners will be freed.

A Struggle with Grace: Part 5

So now our little family equaled five.
Jonathan and I love each other fiercely.
We still would love to welcome more into our home, HOWEVER I was still scared to death about getting pregnant because of the rocky roads I've seen those journeys take.

Since we took our first married steps of faith, we both have felt challenged to put the timing and amount of children into our Heavenly Father's hands. It's too great a burden for me to bear thinking about all the eternal ramifications of denying life to (or not to) happen. I do believe children are one of the greatest blessings we can receive from heaven.

The thing is, now I am very well acquainted with some of the challenges associated with the whole process. The rose colored glasses are now officially off.

Debra’s beautiful faithfulness and grace
is such an encouragement to me

A friend of mine became miraculously pregnant after years of being told it couldn't happen. I was genuinely overjoyed for her, but pretty much all I could think and say was, "I'm so glad it's you and not me."

Did I still have faith to believe I could trust God with this whole part of our life?

One day, Mom asked me to pull out a book she needed to use for a class, called Joy Starts Here. She had raved about this book, but I just didn't get it. I had read it, but it just never really connected to my life. So when I pulled it off the shelf, I wanted to take one more look to see if I could find just one reason this was a helpful book.

Flipping through the first half that was liberally highlighted from my reading a few years ago, nothing stood out to me. I went to the last part of the book where the highlighting tapered off and started reading an anecdote about a couple that had experienced a very traumatic delivery of their first born. The father said that in that moment, fear and hopelessness crowded in on him, and the desire to NEVER see his wife go through that experience again. He did not feel the presence of the Holy Spirit in that moment.

Suddenly, I saw myself for who I was. Afraid, feeling alone, doubting, and relying on only my strength. I had NOT been looking for Jesus in any of this, I had been trying to figure out how to do it myself.

This Emmanuel (God with us) presence that PROMISES me "I will never fail you. I will never abandon you.” in Hebrews 13:5, was something that I had neglected to even look for. My eyes had been glued onto my worst fears and failures rather than taking comfort in THE COMFORTER. 

Jesus says in John 14:16, "I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may be with you for ever.'

(Please just go read the whole chapter of John 14... SO MUCH GOODNESS there!)

Suddenly, I knew what I needed to do to be free from this fear. I had been believing a lie, and had been living the consequences. It was time for change.


I want to share the process I went through and how I was able to completely embrace the future without any fear. Click here to read how I found freedom!