Hard weekend, Good lesson

Just wanted to do our weekly update. We are 30 weeks along and I look like I am about 37. :) It has been painful because all of Shai is belly. Amelia sorta expanded everywhere. Shai looks like a gigantic basketball in my tummy. He does not move as much but neither did Amelia when she got to the 30th week. I am doing kick counts and he has his times of day that he moves. As always it is such a joy to feel those kicks. God has given us one extra little blessing with this pregnancy. I felt Amelia move but I never really saw her move.  She was always in the back. With Shai, we are always seeing him move. It is the coolest thing ever. I am grateful to have the opportunity to see it. Our next appointment is a week from today. We will schedule our last sonogram at that time. We are excited to see him again. It has been a while.

This past weekend has been particularly hard for me. I am grateful that I have a loving and patient husband because I spent most of it an emotional basket case. Everything made me cry and I do mean everything. From a coffee commercial to a piece of ice that melted faster than I wanted it to, seriously. On a serious note, I believe the tragedy of the recent Japan quake and tsunami struck a lot of nerves with me. Looking at the devastated faces of those people reminded me of our upcoming loss. I can't believe we are down to the last six weeks. Our time with our precious Shai is drawing to a near on this earth. The reality of it all is hitting hard again. Then we went to church on Sunday and the pastor gave a sermon that struck a lot of things in my heart but something in particular to our situation. His talk was over pride vs. humility and he was looking at John the Baptist. The particular scripture he looked at was John 3:22-36. One of the things he mentioned was how John had this awesome ministry proclaiming Christ until He came. When Jesus came, everyone wanted to be with Jesus. That was a good thing. However, John could have kicked and screamed at loosing his ministry and fame. Instead he said that he must decrease so that Christ would increase. He had great humility. Okay at this point you might be saying, Kristin where are you going with this. Hang on for a minute. Our pastor then mentioned a quote from C.J. Mahoney when he was describing what pride was. I am only mentioning the last part because that is what struck me. He said that pride was refusing to admit to our need of God.

Here is a little background. I am a control freak. It is something I struggle with daily. I can fix anything in my life. I can make everything better. I have the strength to make it through anything. The problem is I am being prideful and I can't do those things. There is a scripture that says God opposed the proud but gives grace to the humble. I believe that is one of the reasons this past weekend was so hard on me. I was not trusting God and trying to take it all onto myself. I wanted to fix Shai, stop my family from hurting, help the people in Japan, and stop Pete from deploying or put him in a plastic bubble where nothing can happen to him. After all, how can I loose Pete in Iraq after just loosing a child. Instead of taking my fear and worry to God, I relied on my own strength. You know where it got me. I ended up not sleeping more than an hour each night, crying about 4 hours each day, constant anxiety and nothing changing in our situation. I don't have the strength and when I try to muster it, I just end up tired and emotionally exhausted.

The bible tells me to cast all my worries on Him and He will carry my burdens. It also tells me to not lean own my own understanding but in all my ways acknowledge Him and He will make my paths straight. I also desperately want the grace that He bestows when I humbly say that I am weak and need Him for every moment, every step and every breath. He longs to be the strength that I am thirsting for but I have to be willing to ask. So I did. Is the pain and worry still there. Yeah, but it is not as intense because I keep taking it back to Him. Pain and hurt is real. It is part of being human. However, it is what I choose to do with it that is my decision. I can try to bottle it up and deal with it myself and cause a lot of unneeded stress or I can cast my cares upon Him and let Him deal with all the details. It truly has brought more peace these last few days. As far as Pete goes, He is in God's hands. He is a precious creation of His and I need to trust that God has Him in His big hands as well.

Sorry so long. I just wanted to share what I learned. Thanks for being such a support.