Five Minute Fridays | Change

 Five Minute Friday is a really fun way to release the preoccupation with propriety and practice sharing our hearts with our words rather than our expertise. Five minutes of writing without overthinking it. That means you get the ooey gooey stuff that usually stays down deep. :) Try it out!! And the biggest rule Lisa-Jo has is that we encourage one another! So click the link, read some of the authors' posts and have a go yourself!

GO

 Because things can't stay the same forever. New opportunities would be foolish to pass up. Tastes shift and the rug I thought was rich and warm is now just the wrong shade of boring. Heating bills are far too high to reasonably stay in the same house. Moving trucks pull away bits of your heart and leave you with a bittersweet - heavy on the bitter when your everydays are emptier.

But it isn't always so bad.

She crashed into our lives like a tidal wave and we will never be the same. She has broken us and glued us into new shapes. Now I lament for the days I didn't know her. Now I am grateful for the ways in which this life is ripped apart. Without those bitter tears would I have ever known my girl? It hurts sometimes, but so did labor.

It isn't always so bad.

STOP

Five Minute Fridays | Stretch

 5 Minute Fridays are this thing I do with a bunch of other women over at www.lisajobaker.com where we write for 5 minutes straight with little to no editing and no overthinking. It's a chance to do some mental yoga and practice writing from the heart without caring too much about how it turns out. Please join in!!

GO

I want another baby. We both do, actually. So the negative pregnancy tests kind of suck. I enjoyed pregnancy and birth (well, birth in retrospect only) and I thoroughly enjoy having RJ here. I waited a long time to be able to conceive again and now that it's here I have to wait some more.

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I thought that we could never open our home up and be constantly surrounded by people. I'm somewhat of an introvert and it actually, legitimately scared me to think of an open door. But now we are here and God has used my uncomfortable compromise to enrich our lives more than I can express.

Sometimes I have to wait. I have to let my patience be tried and give up my idea of a perfect life. Because if I'm not content with where I am now, with what we have, with who we know, I won't be content if my ideal is achieved.

STOP

RJ's First Birthday

Photos of RJ's First Birthday are here on my photography blog. Oh she is such a joye!!! We have loved being her parents. She is kind of the most awesome child. :D 

Grr! ;)

Earlier today I saw this on facebook:

My apologies: I don't normally post photos without credit (or that aren't copyrighted to me, for that matter),
but I don't know where this came from. It was just on facebook. If you know the owner, let me know so I can
credit him. :) 

I have written here before on beauty and body image and this picture struck such a chord with me. As the mother of a daughter I feel a dense responsibility to combat the lies and distortions that war outside our little bubble of a home. I feel on the defense; armed and angry at the prospect of my sweet girl's innocence being shot with a million poisoned arrows of some stranger's vague preference. 

And these "preferences" are distortions. We can see this as shallowly as the ladies' poses above. The Victoria's Secret women are twisting their bodies in flattering poses, well aware of every inch of their position - make no mistake that their elbows are precisely where they want them to be and their pinky toes are doing just what they want. The women in the Dove photo are still posing, but are much less concerned with their position. I don't know the context of either of these photos (or if they are even actual photos), but I know that the one in which the women are bending to our culture's demands would be considered more beautiful by the vast majority of this society. 

And maybe that is the heart of our issue. We are worshipping the opinion of Them. This culture has become a god unto itself. The way it makes women feel about their bodies is only one very small byproduct of it's disturbing core. There is a latent fear of rejection from Them. A subtle, heavy chain clinking as we shuffle through life hoping to be patted on the head by our master. 

Not in this home. 

Not only will I do all I can to reinforce that true beauty comes from a gentle, loving heart, but in our home Christ is King. And His chains set us free from bondage. In this home we do not measure worth by pant sizes. We do not look to a mirror for our standing before our God. Nor do we take comfort in our bank account or our the things by which we are surrounded. In this home we serve a King worth serving. A proven warrior, a steadfast love, a humble ruler. In this home we fight behind our King the ever-beckoning Them. We push back against the offensive onslaught of the status quo.  

Folk Tales | Birth Control

*Folk Tale Disclaimer: These are simply the reasons we chose to do the things we do. We absolutely do not condemn any other parenting decisions as we fully respect that God put specific kids with specific parents and those parents are the only ones fully responsible for their children. These posts are merely meant to be a window into our lives for those who'd like to peer in and to offer some first hand knowledge for people researching these subjects themselves. :) *

I was a teenager when I married Gabe. About a month from my 19th birthday, I was more interested in getting to see my boyfriend every day than having a baby. My new husband was busy in the Army and was even more opposed to the idea. We were young, we had time, we wanted to focus on "us" for a while. And to boot, you know how everyone has an opinion about this stuff (and insists on giving it to you)? Well, almost all of them included some version of "For Heaven's sake don't get pregnant."There was a whole list of various reasons to pick from: education, immaturity, financial insecurity, getting to know each other first... It made sense to us and seemed like wise counsel.

Now we've repented for our foolishness. Let me explain.