Misplaced Hope

A few weeks ago I had a friend express concern about the wickedness of the world we live in. He stated that the more he studied God's word, the more what is going on around him bothered him and made him discontent with

It got me thinking. I think over time Christians have become too calloused or apathetic to what is going on around us. We've kind of accepted things as they are and started getting comfortable here.

The truth of God's word is that we as Christians should be frustrated and discontent with the wickedness going on around us. We shouldn't turn a blind eye but should feel out of place, should be aware and be unsettled with it all. This world is not our home. We aren't like the unsaved (or shouldn't be). We don't fit in. Jesus told us we wouldn't.

But we also can't let the evil around us make us feel hopeless. Our hope isn't in people or things of this world but in the One who is returning to get us out of this mess. Praise God!

Psalm 42:11
Why am I discouraged?
Why is my heart so sad?
I will put my hope in God!
I will praise him again-
my Savior and my God!

God's Desires

Lord, show me your desires and let them become my desires too.

We've recently started a study on prayer in our Sunday School class and it has been so timely for me. I've learned so much or maybe just was reminded of things I hadn't thought about in a while.

As a parent, I would say my main ongoing prayers are for my kids. I have so many things I want for them. They are all good things and all according to God's word and general will. But I feel like sometimes, I get so caught up praying for what I want to happen or what I think should take place that I don't seek out and ask God what he wants for them so that I can pray according to his will and not my desires.

In reality, any desire that I have for my kids apart from God's is selfish of me. And convincing God to see things my way or take my suggestion isn't what prayer is about at all.

God wants his will to be accomplished in earth by his power. Prayer doesn't change God's will, but changes our will and desires to what God wants. Then we can pray according to his will and he can use our prayers to accomplish what he desires to do already.

The other thing that really stuck out to me this week is that God is a big picture God. Sometimes it seems like God's will is not accomplished in certain situations in our lives. When that happens, we need to keep our eyes open to see what happens next because God will is being accomplished on a bigger scale than we look at.

God, thank you for choosing to use the prayers of your people to accomplish your plans on earth! Help us get in line with you and pray your desires into reality in us!

Good

When life is unpredictable
God is good.
When I don't understand what's happening
God is good.
When I can't see the next step to take
God is good.
Well all doors seem closed
God is good.
When I know God must be speaking but I can't hear him
God is good.

Because my perception and feelings and thoughts don't for one minute change the goodness of God.

While my emotions change on a dime, God is constant and he is good. That is why He must become greater in me and I must become less.

Family Update

We have some fun new things going on that I should probably document just so I have it in the future.

First, Haley played a clarinet solo for a competition and scored a 1. We are so proud of her. The sad thing is that we have/she has decided to drop band for next year and try athletics. Since school isn't the easiest thing for my kids, I try to be realistic in my expectations and not let my kids over-commit themselves. So I made her choose for next year.

Speaking of middle school athletics, Thursday of this week Haley has an overall conditioning clinic at Coble and then I have a mandatory parents meetings immediately following. We went and bought her some nice running shoes and athletic clothes in preparation for next year. She has pretty small feet (size 5) which allowed me to get the largest size of kids shoes and save $20 or so.

Katelynn also started an 8 week dance class/lesson last Friday. She has been begging to try dance and I found a Christian dance studio in Mansfield about 15 minutes from my house. My hesitation has always been that a lot of dance studios tend to make little girls dance sexy or wear sexy costumes. I hope that with a Christian dance studio I won't have to deal with that as much. The first sentence on the front page of their website says:

The Dance Academy of Mansfield equips each student to be a positive witness for Christ, as well as reaching their full potential as dancers.

I think this will be a good place for her to try dance and decide if its something she enjoys and determine if it is something she is good at or not.

6 Months and 7 months

So obviously I am doing a horrible job of keeping up with my monthly posts about Julia, so once again, you are getting 2 months at once.

At 6 months (more like 6.5) she weighed 15 pounds 14 ounces, and was 26 inches long. This puts her in the 40-50th percentile for everything and a smaller head. That is such the opposite for Seth. I keep saying this, but I am so amazed how two babies can be so different. God is so creative. Think about it. I have no idea how many people have been born ever but no 2 of them are exactly the same (except if they are twins). It just amazes me how many different ways that DNA can be rearranged and make each of us unique.

She is wearing size 6-9 months and can fit some bigger depending on what it is. I have a hard time fitting her feet because she has fat/tall feet but they aren't long. The 1s fit if the shoe is tall enough and wide enough, but shoes that are sized by age never fit correctly. My biggest fit issues is socks and shoes, but since she isn't walking yet, I'm not too worried about it. I did manage to get cute church sandals for her the other day when I was buying dance shoes for Katelynn and Julia was with us. I've about decided I can't buy shoes for Julia unless she is with me.

At 6 months she had tried more food and really liked everything she's tried. I would guess she probably prefers fruit to veggies, but what baby doesn't. She had started babbling quite a bit and drooling more, so I expected teeth soon. She has also started moving around a lot. She isn't crawling, more like rolling and scooting where she wants to go. And she is usually happy on the ground moving about the house. I think she'll be crawling soon, but she hasn't been able to pull up onto her knees yet so we will see. Seth never crawled, so I am kinda enjoying this roll everywhere, roaming the house stage. Seth went straight to standing up soon after this time and was walking at 11 months.

At a little after 7 months, Julia got her first tooth and has since got her second tooth within of about 10 days of each other. They are the bottom center teeth. She has also recently decided to be more of a mama's girl. Until now, she would pretty much go to anyone but now, if I'm in the room, she has to be near me. I really want her to get over this. Once I'm out of sight she does better. I think if she was my first child I may worry more about it, but it doesn't bother me really. I just feel bad for whomever is watching her and am not really good about knowing when to rescue her/them and when to let her cry it out.

Our routine is such that I usually go with Seth to put him to bed while BJ stays down stairs with crying Julia. He gets her to sleep while I am in the shower. I come downstairs to her asleep, wake her up to feed her again about 10 and then go to bed.

She's also started waking up in the middle of the night to eat again. She went such a long stretch (from about 2 months to 6) sleeping all night, so it's really a bummer she's waking up again. I think it may be related to her teething. She seems to be eating less more often (which is sad for a nursing mama) but we will survive this too. I had almost forgotten that as soon you seem to have a routine, babies grow and change again.

She is super adaptable to whatever is going on now that she's eating food. I do still generally nurse her every 4 hours during the day, but she can usually go an additional 30 minutes to an hour (or eat a little earlier) if the schedule would make that easier (dropping off/picking up kids at events).

Time is going by fast and I'm just trying to enjoy every moment.