tidings of comfort and joy

Giggle away, kids. We all know I love Christmas music. Moving right along.

I've been working a few days here and there as a nanny. I don't know if you've noticed this or not, but I REALLY like kids. I spent 2 days last week with these 2 precious cuties:



I learned what it's like to have twins! A (the brunette cutie) is 18 months old and K (the blond sweetie) is 21 months old. It's twice the adorable and twice the crazy. Either it was just fun or God is foreshadowing things to come... let's pray over that, shall we?



In addition to finding so much happiness (joy, you could say) in spending time with little ones, I've also been getting SO MUCH out of the current sermon series. We're spending the majority of 2009 doing an intensive study on Genesis. Friends, the lives of people 4000 years ago have so much in common with ours! Oh sure, we have indoor plumbing and diet coke, but the emotions and dreams are the same. While walking through my current valley, I have been uplifted, encouraged, and generally comforted in ways I never could have imagined by the lives of Abraham and Sarah.

Abraham is the father of the big 3 religions: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. He was not perfect. He did not always follow God's instructions. But he always loved the Lord. It is so comforting to see that he was blessed and rewarded exponentially by a good and faithful God. It is a reminder to all of us that God will never expect us to be perfect, and that He will still bless us and never leave us.

A few weeks ago, the topic was the birth of Isaac. Now, this event has been touched upon in several other sermons, because it was a HUGE part of God's promise to Abraham and Sarah. When my marriage fell apart, one of the things I had to mourn was the very real possibility that I will never have children of my own. My doctors have been telling me since I was 19 that I'm so high risk and when I turn 30, that risk triples so its best to have them in my 20's. Well, I'm halfway to 28 and going through a divorce. That does not bode well for having babies. I completely understand the pain Sarah must have felt. Literally, a DECADE went by with no child. She became desperate, made some bad choices, and paid the price. But then God was FAITHFUL and blessed her with a baby, when she was in her 90's. Sarah lived to be 127 years old, by the way. The point is, she was well past the age when she could have children. Menopause had come and gone. But God can do anything. And so I believe it's the same for me. I no longer feel that I'm lacking in some way, that I'm "less of a woman" the way I've felt for the past 2 years when we had tried to get pregnant and didn't, then when I miscarried. Those situations were my Hagar. I'll get my Isaac eventually.

I've been extremely blessed by a handful of the friends in my life these past 3 weeks. Y'all have lifted me up and meant more to me than you realize. I have not collapsed, and I am, in fact, ready for what's next. Let's go to Canaan, okay?