J-O-Y

I dare say, I am learning to enjoy this desert/wilderness season with the Lord. I feel like I need to document this incredible revelation. I've been reflecting a lot lately on my wanderings and I can see how God is changing me...transforming my mind, deepening my heart, growing my roots.

There is a season for everything....a time to speak and a time for silence.

God has been very silent to me for awhile now. He has felt very far away. At first it felt like He had left all together. In contrast to the season before where I always could sense His presence. every. moment. of. the. day. I was so lovesick.

Then He withdrew the experience of His Presence.

I went through various stages of grief....

Despair, Incredulousness, Anger, trying to "fix" it, feeling like I had done something wrong, being offended at God, disbelief, etc, etc.

Through all of that I realized how hard my heart was getting towards the Lord, how very offended I was. I mean if I draw near to God, isn't He supposed to draw near to me? That is the promise right? I was fearful of the hardness of my very own heart.

I had to confess that. I had to forgive God. I had to choose to believe. Through that God has moved me from a faith largely based on experience and an intimacy based on "feeling" closeness to a faith grounded in what I do not see, and an intimacy grounded in just God alone. Not experiencing Him, feeling His love, or all the many blessings of relationship but just Him alone. That He exists. That the cross IS. That He IS.

I've been in this place of choosing to believe for awhile. Choosing to believe He is near because He says so not because I can feel it. Choosing to believe that all His promises are true no matter how much my experience is telling me the opposite.

And out of this place of gritty faith I have found myself apprehended....by joy. I looked at my heart today and realized it was full of joy.

The funny thing is I still don't really feel/hear/experience God in any kind of tangible way. I am still in the desert. It is still very dry. and I miss Him. His nearness is to me my good. I miss Him dearly and I can not wait for the desert to be over.

But I have joy. I thought I had lost it for so long. Out of faith has sprung joy and I am so very thankful.

As hard as this desert is, it is becoming very sweet to me. Look! This is the spot God planted Faith in my heart!

Look! Here is where joy grew!

One day I know I will step out of this desert and I will see every way He spoke tenderly to me.

I am realizing He has brought me here for the streams. The desert is empty, dry, and lonely, but out of my very heart He is making streams.

We were not made for desert or the wilderness, beloved. God never intended for us to stay there forever. We were created for the high places, the leaping on mountain tops. He brings us into the desert so that no matter where we go after that, no matter how barren, dry, and dark....the streams will be flowing from us. Streams of living water. THIS is what we were made for.

Jesus. YOU are my joy. I praise you for the desert.

14 weeks

Hello 2nd trimester! My belly is just now really starting to poke out. Here are some pics for all the fans.

Ode to the most photogenic person I know.

One of my best friends in the whole wide world and practically the sole reason I have a blog is turning the big 27 today. That's right Mrs. Erika Bates.

Side note: Erika is the most photogenic person I know. She NEVER takes a bad picture. Seriously, I was looking through all the thousands of pictures I have of her for this dedication and she looked good in EVERY SINGLE ONE.

Okay, lets continue...

I would say our friendship officially started in Mr. Johnson's Trig class. We learned absolutely no trig, but we did cover a binder completely in silver gum wrappers, became the library ladies' arch enemies, discovered that skipping class is a great way to get a tan, and kept a tally of Mr. Johnson's ridiculous sayings (someone give me a QED.) We bonded over a similar sense of humor and being the "smart" ones in class. I quickly discovered that Erika was both funnier and smarter than me, but I liked her so much I let that pass.

We both walked away from that class with a 100 average. Despite the grade, I became significantly dumber in math because of that class. I still have not seemed to recover the brain cells lost.

Gaining what would become a life-long friend, however, was a pretty fair trade.

From there our friendship moved to college, where it was officially sealed into foreverness at a sleepover that involved no sleeping, Wesley, Gilmore Girls, MaryKate & Ashley, Rosh Hoshanna, Ga football gamedays, and chocolate stuff.

Our years as roomates for life was a natural progression. We learned to cook having roomie family dinners, used up all our designated slothing days for life, had scandalous photo shoots, ballet danced in the kitchen, musicals in the living room, and Alpha competition wrestling matches on the floor, single-handedly started the LOST obsession in Athens, became cat ladies, lived through THE roomate and her mom, both managed to graduate from UGA, skipped real life by interning at Wesley, and started relationships with our future husbands. Oh and Erika saw me cry LOTS over the whole epic journey that was me & James (my now husband). When you see someone cry that much and still choose to want to be around them, you just can't go back.

We planned to be roomates for life, but the whole falling in love and getting married thing kinda got in the way of that. And that is a quick summary my friendship with Erika thus far. Now we live in different cities and in different states, but my heart still dreams of houses next door and kids that grow up and fall in love with each other.

Here are some pics from Erika's b-day in 2005. This is when we were babies in our EARLY 20's.

This birthday was particularly amazing because it was a SURPRISE PIRATE PARTY. with costumes and everything. You are jealous

A couple more pics just for fun.

At my wedding.

At Erika's wedding. Please take notice of how much more TAN we are at Erika's wedding. That is motivation to have a summer wedding. If you can wait that long. James and I could not.

Awww...wasn't that nice.

Happy Birthday Erika! Mk&A forever! Love you lots!

I am not Beth Moore.

Wesley's women's ministry asked me to be THE speaker of Restored this year. I was super honored that they even thought of me, then I was kinda terrified because speaking in front of lots of people is not usually my cup of tea. My heart beats really fast and I have a tendency to stutter and lose my train of thought all at the same time.

I told them I would think and pray about it and then get back to them. Being nervous about something isn't usually enough to keep me from actually doing it. I'm almost always nervous about doing something out of my comfort zone. However, my experience has proven that God always shows up and does something good when we step out of our comfort zones.

I have however been in a lovely place some people like to call the "desert" or the "wilderness." I know He has led me to this place out of His kindness (it took about a year for me to really believe this.) But it is still not all daisies and roses and flowing streams. I honestly didn't know if I would have anything to offer out of this place. I almost decided to not speak at Restored because of this.

God made it pretty clear to me that He wanted me to suck it up and speak at Restored. I mean, I just can't say "no" to GOD when I know for sure He is telling me do something. I would just feel way worse afterwards and I would wonder forever what I missed out on because of my disobedience. Again my experience has shown me that God always likes to show up when we are obedient. and being in the desert I was not about to miss God "showing up."

So Restored was this weekend. I spoke on Friday night and Saturday morning. God pretty much gave me what He wanted me to speak about Friday night in a dream. But even after I planned the talk out it almost seemed TOO simple, slightly unorganized, and didn't seem to flow very well at all. I felt like I didn't have enough scripture, I didn't know if people would get what I was trying to say, etc. etc. It was all I had though, this messy talk. Messy, but I did believe every word of it. I really believe God restores us. I really believe He gives us a new name. and I really believe if we ask He will show us.

So I had this talk and also felt like God really wanted me to be really transparent about where I am right now. I even shared that I almost didn't speak at Restored because of it. There are always people who are in a place where they aren't really "feeling" God and I felt like I was supposed to encourage and speak a little truth to those people.

In praying about the weekend and specifically the role I had to play, I told God that I just really needed the Holy Spirit to show up in power. You know when Paul says, "I come to you not with eloquent words but I come with the power of the Holy Spirit." Well I KNEW I wasn't coming with eloquent words so I pretty much needed the Holy Spirit.

and you know what? I'm pretty sure He showed up. Even while I was giving the talk I didn't feel so confident and as inevitably happens... I lost my train of thought a little, and I stuttered a little too. My mouth kept drying out. But I think the Holy Spirit spoke to the hearts of a lot of these women. Which is all I really wanted anyways. I just wanted to somehow be a vessel for that. A lot of girls came up for prayer after and I got to personally pray for lots of girls too. I had lots of people all weekend tell me that it was just what they needed to hear. I didn't need the accolades but I was encouraged to know that God really did work in people's hearts.

Traditionally attendance at Restored is really heavy Friday night then peters off the rest of the weekend. This weekend it seemed that most people stayed the entire weekend!

The whole weekend ended up being really awesome. All of the testimonies and break out sessions were really powerful. To me, the testimonies always speak the loudest.

My favorite part of the whole weekend was the prayer tunnel we had at the very end. Restored can be kinda HEAVY at times, but we really wanted people to walk away filled with HOPE and JOY. Well during the prayer tunnel, the joy of the Lord fell, and people were being filled with spontaneous laughter. It was awesome! I love that is how Restored ended.....with people laughing. God literally exchanged mourning for laughing. loved it.

I'm really glad I was obedient, God blessed it as He always does....and I felt like I received so much more than I gave out. Isn't that always how it works in the upside down Kingdom? I got filled with a little joy of my own, a stream in my desert. I left the weekend just being in awe of the always goodness of God.

amelie & katie holmes, you were my inspiration

Okay, I've had some requests for pictures of my new hair cut. Here ya go.

I've had long hair forever. The last time I've had it above my shoulders was freshmen year of college. That was SEVEN years ago.

I decided to go for the plunge, instead of just toying with the idea. Aiding the decision was a bad haircut I had a couple of months ago that really messed up my layers. I never truly recovered. So I just had it cut off. Here is the result. I love it!

It's kinda hard to tell, but its one of those angled bobs, shorter in the back.

Adventures in pregnancy, the saga continues

Okay. One day soon I promise I'll write something on here that has to do with something other than my pregnancy. I mean there is other stuff going on. Holiday's are coming up...which I am very excited about. I am thankful for many things, including the healthy, growing baby in my belly. I learned to crochet and am making lots of cute things that I will eventually post pictures of on here. I have some interesting events coming up, including speaking at Wesley's Restored women's conference this year. God is really good and He has been teaching me a lot lately. There are many a humorous antedote I could relate. I have lots and lots or things I could write about.

However, none of these things seem to be quite as adventuresome as the rollercoaster my first trimester has been thus far. On one end, I've been really super lucky on the whole nausea issue. On the other end I've had quite the little run with sickness. But I'm better now and was completely prepared to write about any of things I have mentioned above. And then.....this morning I passed out in the bathroom. Yep, you read that right. I passed out in the bathroom. On my face. My chin is really swollen now and my teeth hurt.

Now this is about to go into TMI and embarrasing information territory, but I've crossed that line before, and might as well be candid.

So I had just woken up from a nap and nature was calling. I stood up from laying down and proceeded to heed the call of nature in the bathroom. Now one of the many side effects of pregnancy is constipation. So I wasn't actually going to the bathroom. I was just trying.
The next thing I knew I was lying face first on the bathroom floor with no pants on, a throbbing chin, and sweat all over my body. Lovely picture, I know. TMI, I know.

Luckily, James was home so as soon as I realized what had happened I called to him. There was music playing so he didn't hear the thud that was my body hitting the ground, but was able to hear me calling for him. He said he didn't know he should be listening out for any thuds. I forgive him.

He sat me down with some water, orange slices. and an icepack for my chin and called the doctor/midwife office for me. I was totally freakin' out cause it really scared me that it had just passed out, but James was super calm, and assured me it would be okay.

A nurse called us back and made me feel a lot better. We really do have excellent care at the practice we've chosen. After asking me a billion questions about what my food/liquid intake for the day, the actual passing out incident, and checking my blood pressure on my chart, she said it probably happened from a combo of things.

First of all, my blood pressure is a little on the low side, still in normal range, but a little on the low. Cause I'm pregnant and I have lots more blood passing through me, low, but still in the normal range, isn't so normal after all. With low blood pressure, getting up or sitting down( which I did) very quickly can lead to lots of dizziness. She said this was probably the main reason I passsed out. She also said I need to drink more, eat more (I always need to have food in my stomach), and take a stool softener (oh joy.) She said the combination of me probably being a little dehydrated and not eating enough with the pain of trying to pass, were all contributers. She said this was all pretty normal, but that she was not happy that I actually passed out.

They are monitoring me all day today. I have to call them if I start feeling worse instead of better, pass out again, etc. But I am feeling a lot better.

I am also under instruction to eat more (keep something in my stomach at all times and specifically protein), drink more (specifically gatorade for the electrolytes), to take it easy and move slowly, and to not drive today. Geez, being pregnant apparently really is a "fragile" state.

I'm just happy baby is A-OK.

And I'm really happy I wasn't at work today. If I hadn't quit, I would be at work today. The thought of this happening in the bathroom at my work, or in the classroom with the babies (I mean I move super fast from sitting to standing positions in there all the time,) is horrifying. I am so thankful that if it had to happen at all that it was at home, when James was home too. The thought of this happening while I was by myself is almost as horrifying as it happening at work.

So today my plans are to eat, drink gatorade, take naps, watch a movie, and cuddle with my husband. I think I can handle all that.

Biggest lesson learned: Eat and drink more. The nurse repeated this to me about 500 times. I never thought I would have to have doctor's tell me to eat more. It has def. never been a problem before! I will get right on that.

Sick Again. :(

I bet you are all very tired of reading about my many ailments. Next time I post something, I'll try to make it more positive. But for now, I am sick again. :(

I was hoping that in my last two weeks of work at germ fest "09" that I would manage to stay healthy. That didn't so much happen. I noticed all the babies had thick ,yellow mucuous dripping from their noses that I ended up having to wipe for them, and suction out of their noses. Gross.

Fast forward a couple of days. Friday, my last day of work. I feel like crap. I know I have caught the cold. My work's last little present to me for my 1st trimester of pregnancy. I ended up having to cancel a photo shoot, which makes me so incredibly sad. And then...this morning I threw up mucous. yum. I just pray I'm better by Thanksgiving.

I'm just thankful Friday was my last day at work. Getting sick yet again just confirmed my decision to leave. Since finding out I was pregnant (found out at 5 weeks,) I've been sick with some kind of virus for approx 31/2 weeks. I have about a 1 week and 1/2 of not being sick. I am sooo ready for health.