The Next Best Thing. . .

I spent so many days & years wondering, "What's the next best thing!?" Constantly worried about what I had and hadn't done. The regrets. The failures. The 'what-if's.'
I soon realized why I was always fretting over these things...because I wasn't using my life for 'the next best thing!'

I was wrapped up in myself, to say the least. I was bent on all the things I couldn't do, or was afraid I would do wrong that it crippled any capability for me to see just exactly how God has designed me to be a vessel for him. To see my God given talents and use them for his purpose and plan.

On the eve of Christmas I think of a very amazing young lady. I bet you know who. What if when the angel came to her, she dug her heels in and said, " Baby?!? You have GOT to be crazy, Angel! I am too young, unmarried, Joseph will lose his mind up in here, if he knows I'm gonna have a baby! Besides, I would be a horrible mother! I can't do the whole 'pregnancy' thing for 9 months! What if I get sick? I am a puker...I don't want to be pukin'...what if I fall off a camel? I am not a good camel rider...that could hurt a baby!"

I am sure she had some thoughts of 'Why?' But , she knew the fathers will was more important and he would refine her rough edges. Thank God she said Yes. Do you think if she didn't, Gd wold have found some one else? Who else is doing something that you should be doing?

Someone recently said about me ( and I was over the top humbled by this, and know I am far, far from there! But, it blessed my heart.) " You don't sit around waiting for things to happen, you are not content to just be lazy at home, you go out and get things done for the Lord."

I say that not to brag at all, but because I know even just over a year ago I still struggled with being in my 'comfort zone' and letting the 'next best thing' slip by and not be used by God because I was to afraid of failure.

I am here to say, I still fail...daily....man! when will that stop!? Haha! But, I LOVE IT! Every failure is God teaching me and growing me and I cannot get enough!!! I know he loves me even when I fail and fall, but I refuse to sit back, complacent, letting all the best things that come with being in love with my savior, skip me by!

" Don't be afraid of what you will miss out on if you surrender your life to Jesus, be afraid of what you will miss out on if you don't!"

Merry Christmas!

p.s. I know why God would not have picked a gal like me to carry baby Jesus...I would have cut a hole in my cloak around my pregnant belly and charged $5.00 to rub the unborn baby Jesus!

Expect the Unexpected when you are expecting...

So, you peed on the stick and it said, "YAY! You're going to be a responsible adult!" Ok, maybe it just read " Pregnant". Brace yourself, you're in for a wild ride!

I remember finding out that I was pregnant with our first ( 1 of 5 ) girls. I was so excited, nervous, scared, happy, giddy, in amazement...emotional? yes. Much like a pregnant woman would be!

I went into it thinking, ' My bellies gonna get really big, and in 9 months a babys gonna come out and we'll live happily ever after!'

Well, at around week 9, I started puking...and puking...dry heaving...and puking...What was this?!? A precious, warm little baby sent from God above was wreaking havoc on my body! She was probably the size of an M&M and was controlling what I ate and how I digested it! I imagined a small, naked baby sitting at a control booth, laughing evilly as she would press a button that punched me in the stomach!

It got better...Charlie horses during the night while I slept, Restless leg syndrome, ankles? Who needs ankles when you can get these new ones called, 'cankles!' My teeth hurt, my butt hurt, my skin hurt from being stretched to its maxium limit! At 8 months I thought proudly as I looked at the top part of my belly, " Yay for me! No stretchmarks!" Who invented long mirrors? They should be tracked down by a pack of wild pregnant woman, full of unsightly stretchmarks and beaten with burp rags! I couldn't see the stretch marks because I wasn' looking at my calves, butt, hips, boobs and under belly!!!! Forget the tube of 'Mederma Stretchmark cream', I need a GALLON!!!

Then there is labor and delivery. I knew it was going to hurt...but YEE-OUCH! I am not a cursin' woman, but Sweet Jesus...I wanted ( didn't...but, wanted too!) swear like a trucker!

Why didn't someone tell me it hurt so bad? So, so, so BAD!!!!

AND why didn't someone tell me that Para cervical blocks can wear off? And it may be too late to take anything else for pain? And the pure joy of an epidural!?! WHY?WHY?WHY?

And no ever prepares you for this one......holding your whimpering, warm, wet, snugly baby in your arms for the first time. Nothing, nothing in this world can compare to that precious grip there tiny life takes on your heart and squeezes until you feel like you would die if they even got the teeniest of boo-boo's...

I wonder what Mary thought the night she had Baby Jesus. We have heard all the songs that describe beautifully her love and experience with her son, but what was she really feeling?

Was she thinking some of the same things we thought about?

Can you imagine giving birth, surrounded by animals? Their smells and sounds? The hay and the uncomfortableness of the stable? The embarresment of a private act taking place in a stable? The horror she must have felt when turned away by the Inn. Can you imagine? I couldn't. If someone came to my house about to deliver, I could never turn them out to our shed, no matter how many people where in my house.

That's just all apart of the beauty of our humble savior. From cradle to grave. Humble beginnings and even more humble end, as he hung beaten and harassed on the cross, naked and wounded for what? For us.

That's the most precious gift you could get this Christmas. Or maybe you need to show someone of the gift of Christ and what it has meant in your life.

There is no love or gift better than Him...

 Brooklyn

Baby Halle

Baby Layla

Baby Breelia