A Few of my Favorite Things

I am going on 33 weeks into my pregnancy and with the exception of some issues here and there, it has been a relatively easy pregnancy though tiring.  But of course, I still sulk at times that I don’t feel like doing things.  Because I don’t.  In those moments, I have flashbacks to when I was about five years old and it would take me forever and a day to motivate if I were hungry or overtired.  I think hormones now have a lot to do with it (2nd trimester I was so energetic, but now the opposite is occurring), but sometimes life is just making yourself do things when your body and mind want to revolt.

Yet, true confession: sometimes bribing myself helps (back to my five year old self…)

When I know it’s going to be a long, hard day, I look forward to going through the drive thru afterwards for a snack sized one of these:

I justify it by telling myself the baby wants it.  I know he already loves M&Ms…. Or, surprisingly, every afternoon around 3:00pm I look forward to a cold glass of milk.  We’re not talking skim, either.

Aside from having to bribe myself at times (“As soon as you finish grading papers, you can get that glass of milk…”) there have been some little joys in life-  some that were definitely worth the investment, like a Boppy Body Pillow:

That’s not me pictured, but I’m snuggled into my pillow just the same.  I’m typically a cheap-skate when it comes to, well, anything, but my husband convinced me to buy the pillow after tossing around the first four months.  We both needed some sleep.  I also found that taking a shower before bed and scrubbing down with a loofah sponge is pretty much as wonderful as a back rub.  I don’t know why the rough surface feels good, but it’s one of those little joys that I look forward to.  I have also had pretty bad heartburn, and a glass of milk before bed seems to help with that and ensuring I don’t wake up at 3am with a sugar drop.  With all this heartburn, this child better have some hair at birth, or he has some explaining to do!!

A few of my least favorite things?  High heels (oops…didn’t think that one through before I wore a pair to a wedding a month ago and felt nerve pain for a couple of weeks after!) and maternity jeans.  Jeans are usually a staple for me, but a pair that actually fits and does not suction are few and far between.  I haven’t been able to find that with maternity jeans.  The waistbands often fall down creating a very unattractive, droopy back side.  Around 25 weeks I began to lament to my husband that I was getting bigger and didn’t know what I was going to wear (it was very dramatic).  I set out on a hunt to find the perfect pair of maternity jeans…and walked away empty handed.  However, I did find these:

One of the most helpful articles of clothing I have bought while pregnant has been maternity yoga pants from Old Navy.  At $20 on sale, they have been well beyond worth it.  I don’t actually do yoga– I bought the pants for their capacity to masquerade as other things, like dress pants.  I wear them with long sweaters or shirts that cover the backside and have them loose enough to not cling on the thigh– and no one knows they are yoga pants!!  They can be worn with a dress boot or a tennis shoe depending on the occasion.

One of the most difficult things I have experienced with pregnancy hasn’t necessarily been the dramatic body morphing or physical symptoms, though those have been interesting.  I have struggled the most with focus limitations.  The first trimester I found it very hard to pray because my ability to really focus on something began to decline.  It came back around 2nd trimester and I was excited because I could read, pray, and be productive.  But these past few weeks I know it has been declining again.  Sometimes it’s because I’m hungry but I’m tired of eating.  Other times it’s because I wake up so often through the night that my brain is mush during the day.  I know the hormone levels are getting wacky again (example: why do I currently hate everything?)

I grow frustrated with myself and assume God must be, too.  But then I am reminded that first, because of Jesus I am already accepted before God.  From this flows a sigh of relief from my own expectations.  And second, I am reminded that God created me and He knows what is going on with my body.  He’s not surprised my brain isn’t functioning as it does with a full 8 hours of sleep.  This doesn’t excuse my sin, of course, but it does remind me that while Jesus was without sin, He was also tired while on earth and He can understand.  Meditating on these truths brings relief from the slave driving I often produce in myself from expectations God doesn’t even have of me!

Season of Expectation

The blog has been quiet lately, but I promise it has been for a good reason….

Expecting our son March 14th, 2012!  We’re pretty excited, to say the least.  When women mention “pregnancy brain,” they aren’t kidding…I forget many things many times a day, including updating Eve.

Last night the hubby and I started Advent.  My parents gave us a very unique advent “wreath” and we downloaded The Village Church’s Advent Guide to go alongside it.  It has been awhile since I have participated in Advent.  Every Christmas I frantically try to focus on Jesus but the craziness of the season always seems to override the celebration of Jesus’ coming.  This year with our new wreath and an advent guide, it’s our hope to start a new tradition that points our hearts toward the Savior this season.

The first week of advent in this guide speaks a lot about expectations.  The Israelites waited in great hope for the coming King.  Often, however, our expectations in life are geared toward what our own hearts think we need or even deserve; our hopes linger on earthly things.  Soon we grow frustrated with God because He doesn’t deliver as we demand. Ugh, isn’t that the ugly truth?

But if our expectations are in Jesus, He never disappoints.  He is faithful.  This great divide of flesh and spirit is painful, but the result– our expectations being met in Christ– is abundant life.

My prayer for my family this season is that our expectations will be upon Christ– rejoicing in His first coming and, by His Spirit, growing in deeper communion with Jesus as we expect and await His second coming.  And whoever is out there reading this blog, that is my hope for you, too!

The Beauty of Purity

I have been doing research and reading lately to get ready to teach bible to teen girls again this school year.  I have stumbled upon a lot of good resources including Girls Gone Wise by Mary A. Kassian.  Below is a video in promotion of the True Woman conference last year.  Dannah Gresh is a fantastic source for discipling and inspiring teen girls in Christlikeness and godly womanhood.

Does Abstinence Make Sense?

I heard (or read) recently that someone said abstinence doesn’t make sense outside of community.  I wish I could remember who said that.  When I first heard it, I wasn’t sure what I thought of it.  But the more I thought about it, the more I agreed.  Let me explain…

I counsel at a pregnancy center in my area.  One of the most difficult issues I face is teaching abstinence.  It seems like it wouldn’t be that tough.  I believe God created sex for marriage alone.  C.S. Lewis made an excellent point when he said,

“The monstrosity of sexual intercourse outside marriage is that those who indulge in it are trying to isolate one kind of union (the sexual) from all the other kinds of union which were intended to go along with it and make up the total union,” (Mere Christianity).

I have started to use this as an explanation when I counsel.  So far it has provoked the most “light bulb” moments in young womens’ minds.  But I do know one thing.  When they leave the counseling room and go back to their everyday lives, waiting for that part of the union no longer makes sense in the culture of their community.  They are taught by the world that sex can be isolated (yet they will still date and live looking for the union only marriage is supposed to give: emotional union, spiritual union, physical union, etc).  What a confusing world we humans have created for young women, telling them one thing when they are created to live something different.

So how do we fix this?  First, I really believe that only the Gospel can truly transform a heart.  Purity only really makes sense in light of biblical truth of how God originally created us to live: one man, one woman, total union in marriage.  To give them stats about STI’s will only take them so far in their community.

Many Christian girls may feel they know this, but living it out still doesn’t make sense.  They are in two cultures.  One culture (church, for example) says God created sex for the joy of marriage.  The other culture, which dominates about 99% of their time (media, for example) tells them that sex is freeing and they should get to use their bodies however they want (as if doing whatever we want, whenever we want always has good outcomes….???)

I have been rolling around the idea (partially from Tullian Tchividjian’s book, Unfashionable) that the answer is not to run away from culture and put young women in convents, nor is it to let culture barrage them with sexual immorality, assuming they can stand strong.  Perhaps the answer is that we have to create culture and community.

Many of the Christian young women I come in contact with do not come from families in which their parents will build this culture and community in their lives for them.  The challenge we now face is how to inspire young women to create culture.  This can really only happen in community.  Fourteen-year-old girls aren’t good at being lone rangers (no one is).  A young woman has to understand that if abstinence makes sense in one of her cultures and not the other, then the culture that is eating away at her beliefs must be sacrificed.  She now has the task, through God’s grace, to begin to create culture.  Women were made to be life-givers (Eve) in many spheres of life, not just through birth.

The best culture-instillers are parents.  But when the parents no longer create culture and community, how do the children boldly forge ahead in their teen years?  Many of the greats in Christian history were just such people and I do know that the gospel was their starting point.  The question lingers in my mind…

Magnificent

If God’s creation is this beautiful (and much of it unseen by the naked eye), what must it be like to be in the presence of God?

“Lost are saved; find their way; at the sound of your great name

All condemned; feel no shame, at the sound of your great name

Every fear; has no place; at the sound of your great name

The enemy; he has to leave; at the sound of your great name

Jesus, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain for us, Son of God and Man

You are high and lifted up; that all the world will praise your great name

All the weak; find their strength; at the sound of your great name

Hungry souls; receive grace; at the sound of your great name

The fatherless; they find their rest; at the sound of your great name

Sick are healed; and the dead are raised; at the sound of your great name

Jesus, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain for us, Son of God and Man

You are high and lifted up; that all the world will praise your great name

Redeemer, My Healer, Almighty

My savior, Defender, You are My King

Jesus, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain for us, Son of God and Man

You are high and lifted up; that all the world will praise your great name”

Natalie Grant

To see more beautiful images such as the Rosette molecular cloud shown above, visit Fox News

Beautiful Feet

Last night my mom gave me a copy of Hannah Farver’s new book Uncompromising: A Heart Claimed by a Radical Love.  It was Providential because I am going to be using this book for my students this fall.  I hadn’t even read it yet, but it got such great reviews I decided to go for it.  It’s a difficult task to find a gospel-centered book for teen girls.  Most books, in an attempt to steer girls toward Christianity, end up steering them down a steep slope of rules with no heart behind obedience.  After two years of teaching from a book that does not radiate and center itself in the gospel, I’ve come to realize that well-meaning books written by well-meaning Christian women aren’t always transforming.  If anything, they can be thought provoking but short lived.  This is probably because as Christians we view ‘Christianity’ as the goal instead of Christ.  So Uncompromising…here we go.

I haven’t made it very far in the book, but I loved the way Hannah Farver is guiding her readers to see that we long after inferior things.  She starts with beauty.  I blog a lot about beauty on here because it’s so much a part of the culture, including church culture.  We need to redeem beauty, but the task seems confusing because our own soul mirrors are fogged by the cultural steam.  Most of us wrestle back and forth with how much or how little to emphasize beauty.

I’m continually amazed (which is a good thing but also a shame because I keep starting back at square one) that when we focus on Jesus and knowing Him and growing to love Him, many of our struggles fade.  When we do this, it’s not that we suddenly have to be okay wearing burlap sacks and never combing our hair.  Instead, our beauty focus is directed upon the gospel, which saturates the rest of our lives (including combing our hair).  This morning as I thought about this, I thought of a question that I have heard in various forms from students–and in my own mind:

Does the Bible ever talk about beauty?  We know Sarah and Rachel were beauties and that the Proverbs 31 woman dressed in a becoming way.  We know we aren’t supposed to be focused too much on our outward appearance, and rather our inward appearance.  But does it actually mention the word beauty?  Then the verse came to mind:

How beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of him who brings good news,
who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness,
who publishes salvation,
who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”

Isaiah 52:7

Paul references this passage in Romans 10:15, about the gospel.  This passage isn’t only for foreign missionaries.  It’s for everyone who spreads the good news of Jesus.  The more I do this, the more my preoccupation with worldly beauty fades away.  Christ is working more and more in my heart to desire beautiful feet.

A Little Bit of Elegance

I find it fascinating how good posture can completely alter a person’s appearance.  We always assume shopping is the answer, but like the etiquette teacher shown below implies, sometimes an older outfit just needs good posture to hang on!  I have the bad habit of raising my shoulders, creating tension.  I look so much more at ease and comfortable when I remember to drop my shoulders! My clothes look more classy, even though they may be a few seasons behind!

In our consumerist and beauty crazed culture, we’re always looking for the next product to make us look good.  Sadly, the age old advice of get some sleep and eat healthy are forgotten too quickly!  It’s pretty text book: I eat junk food and my skin is terrible, I eat healthier and my skin looks clearer.  While I’m not with Kate Moss who loves skinny more than food (as she has been quoted to have said), I would say that moderation is key.  I love sweet food.  I think I might be the only one in my family who loves it, but there it is.  But I can’t always give in to sugary food or it controls me!  I have to keep in mind the whole picture.

If you’re looking for a good laugh to inspire you toward looking more classy, enjoy this funny little video from the 1940s on posture and glamor.  Oh yes, they do go together…!

The Stress-Free Closet

My dresser cabinet has been exploding with disorganized clothes for the past few weeks now.  I mentally tell myself I’m going to deal with it soon, but there is always something else to do (especially when I don’t feel like cleaning).  After starting to read City Chic: The Modern Girl’s Guide to Living Large on Less, I could feel my cleaning juices growing in inspiration.  I’ve just started reading bits and peices of this book, so I don’t know if I can whole-heatedly recommend it (I already know the author and I have different worldviews, but her tips on saving money can be happily applied).

If you’re like me, you’re always wondering what that item of clothing it is that you are missing.  You can’t quite put your finger on it, but your outfit combinations drive you crazy.  Something feels frustratingly lacking.  I determined to figure this out.  I took Nina Willdorf’s list from the book and got at it.  My husband came home to find me tackling the ever disorganized shelves.  I explained to him my new evaluation method.  Below are her tips of what is helpful to have in your closet.  Anything lacking is the area you should start to tackle first while shopping- instead of shopping on a whim and wasting your money (oh, don’t we all know that feeling!)

Jeans: 2 to 4 pairs

Pants: 5 pairs summer, 5 pairs winter

Skirts: 5 in a variety of lengths…

Dresses: 4 to 6

Blouses: 6 to 10

Nice T-shirts: 10

Tanks: 10

Long sleeved shirts: 6 to 8

Sweaters: 10

Shoes: as many as you can afford [I hate shoe shopping so this one I changed to: as few as I need to have to coordinate with all outfits.  And I hate to say it, but we can't count flip-flops!]

It became very apparent that my irritation with my closet, especially when getting ready for teaching in the mornings, has to do with my lack of skirts and dress pants.  I’m a jeans or a dress girl.  I really hate shopping for the bottom half anyhow because it’s a challenge with my body shape and may require….dramatic music please…alterations.  But I told myself that the deed must be done.  If my top and bottom half are going to match, then I have to make sure my closet is balanced.

So I gathered up the clothes I never wear (I applied the old rule that if I hadn’t worn it in a year, then I probably never will) and now they are bound for the consignment store.  We have a store nearby that buys gently used clothes.  That’s helpful when you’re young and on a small budget…and need to fill in the gaps in your closet!

Of course this list doesn’t work for everyone’s lifestyle, but I found it a helpful place to start.  The shelves in my dresser are much happier looking now.

Bringing Classy Back

(Royal Ascot)

After my friend Jessica mentioned the Kentucky Derby on her facebook status, I was very curious to check out the hats– you know, the infamous, wide brimmed, crazy hats.  (This blog is merely a reflection on the fashion, not of the race– for or against).  I hate to say it, but I was disappointed–and it wasn’t with the hats!  While there were some classy dressers, they really were few and far between.  Most of the images were glaring examples of how we as a culture are obsessed with agelessness, eternal tanning, and breast implants, instead of graciousness and classiness.   Ladies, we have some work to do…

Instead of this (Kentucky Derby today):

We need to trade it in for this (Royal Ascot):

If we’re ever going to bring classy back in this culture, it has to start with you and me making a conscious choice to bring classy back with our demeanor and dress- crazy hats and all!

(To see more classy images, check out Royal Ascot (top photo).  Middle photo from kentuckyderby.com, and bottom photo from nytimes.com)

Curious about how they keep it classy at the Royal Ascot?  Check out this BBC link- very fascinating!

Living Technicolor

Structure and order are two crucial components of my daily life.  I’m the type of person who does something the same way…again and again.  My husband says I even brush my teeth, floss, wash my face, etc. in the same order every night.  (Yes I floss after I brush!  The idea of doing it before I brush grosses me out.)

So life can get a little dry sometimes.  It’s not because life is dry.  It’s because I make it dry with my I-don’t-branch-out, order-is-holier attitude.  For those of you who are like me, you know exactly what I mean.  Don’t deny it.

I think for many of us who are routine-driven, we can easily fall into being ‘religious.’  We think God is only pleased with us when we do something the same way (as in, make sure we time our Bible study.  If it’s under 15 minutes, it’s just not spiritual…)  We don’t want to do anything too different.  It may distract us from the holy order we have created in our life.  We’d be the perfect monks.

My husband, however, is more spontaneous than I am.  And I’m learning from him.  I’m learning that I can either bore myself and create my own structures of the way I think life should go, or I can enjoy what God has created and what He has created us to create.  So I did something.  Drum roll, please.  I highlighted my hair.

I know, I know.  Not exactly risky, but you have to understand that for me, it was a big deal.  Why is branching out so unsettling to us routine people?  When trying something new, there is always the possibility for disappointment or discomfort.  But hair grows back.  Wearing something a little different than you normally would won’t mar your self-identity forever.  And being a bit spontaneous helps us to soak in all God has created.  It’s easy to make His world very small.

I see that these little “safe” areas in my life (afraid to try a new dish) extend into bigger areas.  When we cling to safety, we are, sometimes without realizing it, telling God no.  “No, I won’t share the gospel- it doesn’t fit my safe existence.  No, God, I won’t ever raise support for ministry- it will be uncomfortable and risky.  And God, you know, your job is to make me comfortable and happy.”

Playing it safe in life really boils down to one thing.  Play it safe and submit to our own feelings, or risk it all and submit to God’s plans.  When we play it safe, instead of being like Sarah who wasn’t afraid (even while wandering in the desert-1 Peter 3:6), we miss out on being part of God’s extravagant plan of redemption in the world.  We’re like the kid who gets left behind from the amusement park.  It is too scary looking on the outside, so we never even make it to the parking lot.

(Technicolor bunnies going about daily life in Paris, France, 2009.)