Ephesians 3:14-21 (The Message)

I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.  God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.

As I reflected on these verses I was encouraged.  Even though I’ve read them many times before, they held new life, as only the living, active word of God can.  They contain a secret – a guide to see your BIG DREAMS start to come true.

First of all its important to know these words were written by Paul while he was in prison.  Though he was going through the worst time in his life, he was able to see the good, the truth, the life and encouraged other believers to do the same. Here are some of the steps he outlined to the church that may help you as you dream into the new year.

1. Hit the Gym

No, no, no.  This is not another physical fitness challeng to eat healthier, work out harder and attain your target weight.  This is about an inner strength.  It’s a strength which doesn’t come from your efforts but from the Holy Spirit.  It’s strength where it really matters, deep down in your soul and spirit.  It’s a strength that is founded on who God says he is and who he has shown himself to be through the person of Christ.  It’s a strength that comes from a daily denying of the flesh and surrendering to the Spirit.  This is the kind of strength that can get you through all of the challenges you will face in 2011.  Take a moment and ask God for this glorious inner strength which only he can give.  No ordinary workout can prepare you for what’s to come.

2. Find a New Romance

Let me clarify.  This step isn’t about finding a new boyfriend or girlfriend.  It’s not about turning up the heat in your marriage (though there’s nothing wrong with that!)  It’s about a new level of intimacy with Jesus. Paul prays that we as believers would be firmly planted on love. He challenges us to experience God’s love in deeper, higher, longer, wider ways – to not settle for where we’re at now, but to reach out for more.  Jesus longs to show his love to you if you’ll only give him the chance.  But it won’t happen without an effort on your part.  Paul says we should reach out, test it, plumb the depths, rise to the heights. None of these words make it sound like we get to sit there and all of a sudden be overwhelmed with emotion and know Jesus in a new way.  It’s an active pursuing of His presence which brings new romance into our relationship with God.

3. Dream Big

Today I hear God saying to you “why have you stopped dreaming?” When is the last time you really let your heart imagine all that is possible for your life?  What happened to stop you from believing he could to so much more than all you’ve ever asked or imagined?  When did you start doubting his goodness? My heart is heavy knowing so many have given up their dreams and for good reason.  And even more can barely dare to dream because their hearts are heavy, broken and scarred in 2010.   My hope is God will renew your dreams.  He will give you the courage to believe for more.  It won’t happen overnight. In fact it won’t even be visible at first.  But as Paul writes, it will happen through the work of his Spirit, deeply and gently within you.

As you near the midway point in 2013, ask God to strengthen your inner person for all of the challenges yet to come this year.  I pray you’ll pursue God’s heart for you and experience his love in a new and intimate way.  And as you know him more, I believe you will trust him anew, and allow those buried dreams to blossom again.

And my first born isn’t slowing down either. Cohen is talking so much these days, and doing so many things on his own.  He can climb down the stairs without help and is so happy to play in the backyard on his own (with me watching carefully from the deck or kitchen window, of course). He’s still climbing on and getting into everything, but becoming so independent as well.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how the sweet is always sweeter with the sour…and though there isn’t too much to complain about with my darling babies, it isn’t all roses and rainbows over here.

The Best and Worst of Two:

- sweet baby snuggles and toddler cuddles are the best.

- screaming infants and toddler tantrums are the worst.

- big toothless and toothy grins are the best.

- uncoordinated naps are the worst (why does one always wake up just as the other falls asleep?)

- watching my children learn new things (like Claire rolling over at 5 weeks, and Cohen eating with a fork) is the best.

- having to change TWO sets of diapers all. day. long. is the worst.

Let’s just pause here for a moment…the diaper thing. When I open that diaper garbage in Claire’s room and catch a whiff of Cohen’s diapers in there – I know its almost time to start potty training! Gosh that stinks. And instead of using an actual diaper pail, I’ve just been using a regular cheap-o garbage and it’s just not cutting it anymore.

But I found out about this awesome giveaway on facebook the other day, and I’m totally gonna enter to win a real diaper pail.  You can check it out here. They are giving away 5 Arm and Hammer by Munchkin Diaper Pails every day until the end of May! Sign up everyday and if you share the contest after signing up, you are entered to win a Munchkin gift basket full of Munchkin goodies.

Just one little way to make the sour a little more sweet.

However, I have been writing about the changes in our family on my personal blog, birch & bay.  You can check ‘em out here.

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Heather | Brittany | Lauren | Ginna | Kerrie

Hayley | Amanda | Elizabeth | Alle | Ashton

Kerry | Courtney | Carrie | Moriah | Erin

I’m so thrilled to be co-hosting this amazing giveaway (worth $400!), for not just ONE, but TWO Influence Network LIFETIME Memberships! 

What does a Lifetime Membership include? Well I’m glad you asked.

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This giveaway is open to ANYONE, but ONE Membership will be specifically reserved for someone who is not an Influence Network Member. Our hope is that this giveaway will enable someone who wouldn’t otherwise have money in their budget, to be apart of The Influence Network.

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7lbs 14 oz and 21 inches

here are a few photos to tide you over until i have the time/energy to write her full birth story.  i can’t wait to share it with you – it was something else!

just a few days old! little squishy face.

starting to look a little less squishy.

source

It’d be better if it was thought because often our brain, our logic is more on point than our heart and our emotions. We know in our head God is trustworthy and we shouldn’t worry, but our heart is overcome with anxiety and so we speak and act from anxiety rather than trust.

“The heart is deceitful above all things”. – Jeremiah 17:9

I don’t think this verse is saying the heart is bad or wrong, it’s just not always on track with the truth. And that’s where the danger lies. When our heart believes a lie, like the ones our enemy is constantly telling us, our heart can become deceived.  And a deceived heart is a dangerous one.

I know because mine has been deceived often. Even now my heart struggles to trust God’s timing, to believe He’s made me beautiful, to know anything is possible with Him.

So how do we get our hearts to feel what they’re “supposed” to feel? To feel what a heart feels when it truly believes the truth?

We start with our thoughts. I have a pretty print from Naptime Diaries sitting right beside my computer screen with the words from Philippians 4:8. It reads:

“Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”

The key to getting our heart right is in this verse, yet this verse doesn’t talk about our heart. It talks about our mind.

The place to start is in our thoughts.

“You can’t stop a bird from flying over our heads, but you can stop it from making a nest in our hair.”

Those darn nasty-thought birds, they’re gonna keep flying by, trying to mess with your heart, but we don’t have to let them take up residence, poop all over the place, and weave a mess of lies.

You and I have the power to choose what we think about. I know, it’s hard for some of us wild-thinkers to believe, but it’s true. And it’s important.

Because what we behold we become.  If we think on truth, our hearts will begin to feel truth and our lives will be lived/decisions will be made, based on truth.

So if you’re heart has been unruly lately, don’t condemn it. Don’t try and force it into line. Instead, begin to fill your mind with the truth of God’s word and allow that truth to seep into your heart, changing it gently.

Pretty soon you’ll be feeling what you want to feel and living the way you hope to live.

I’m sharing my heart on the Influence Network blog today. Check it out HERE.

Outside the ground remains frozen, covered by more than a foot of snow, no longer fresh and fluffy, but hard and crusted. I eagerly wait for spring, for the sun to melt through the layers gathered all winter long. To reveal the green of newness, the tip of a a tulip pushing through dark earth, the bud of a leaf about to unfurl into life.

And a birth of another kind as well. Of a new life, a new soul, one that bears a little of her father and I, and carries the image of God.

But in the waiting I fear I’ve become crusted over like the old snow, my heart slightly hardened, my joy dampened by this long season.

It’s not that things have been bad. Life has been carrying on, each day right on the heels of the last, full of beautiful moments with my dear son, my amazing husband, my incredible family and friends. Life has been good, and if you asked me now how I was I’d say “good, but tired”, and it would be the truth.

But as I sat in worship this past Sunday morning, and lay my heart bare before the Lord, I saw the ice which had begun to form along the edges of the river – the one that flows between my heavenly Father and I. And I saw how that ice had become thicker and wider, slowing the flow of that powerful river – stopping up the joy and hope and peace and WORSHIP.

I’ve struggled with idols in the past – with pride and success, with ambition and self-righteousness.  But what I didn’t realize before was that fear, insecurity, hopelessness and despair are idols too – as real as any others.

Anything that takes the place of God’s truth on the throne of our lives is an idol.

So when I worry about when this winter will end and this new life will finally spring forth, and I allow that worry to stop up the joy in my life – it’s an idol. I worship the worry, rather than my Father.

And when I fear that I don’t have what it takes to push through these final cold days before embracing the warmth of the sun once again – it’s an idol. I worship the fear, rather than my God.

So today I cast down my idols. Idols of fear and worry, idols of insecurity and doubt. I choose to look past the winterandthe spring and instead set my sights on the God who changes one to the other. I choose to see past the discomfort and impatience as I wait for this precious gift to arrive, and instead fix my eyes on the God who wove her together in the depths of me.

Our present circumstances are inconsequential in the light of the goodness and power of our God. May He remain on the throne, may He be lifted High.

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As this small world would have it, both my midwife and my husbands good friend submitted Mt. Kilamanjaro in Tazania, Africa this past month. Both made it to the top after seven grueling days of climbing. The climb itself can be be done in as little as five hours, but because of the altitude and extreme reduction of oxygen at the top (50% less than the bottom!) only the porters who climb these paths daily can make it up that fast.

As I met with my midwife yesterday to discuss my upcoming birth, she shared about how the experience of submitting the mountain is much like giving birth. You get up in the middle of the night, surrounded by the darkness, the cold, the wind howling in your ears. Each person climbs only by the light of their headlamp, casting a light no more than a foot in front of you. And with you head down, you take one deliberate step at a time, not looking to the left or the right, focused only on the guide leading your way.

“Going through labor is like this”, she said. “You must ignore the wind blowing around you, the cold seeping into your clothes, the people being carried down on stretchers around you, and just keep putting one foot in front of the other.”

“It will be difficult, but at the end it will be worth it. Trust your body and trust the process.”

The reason the final ascent is made in the middle of the night is so that the climbers catch the rising of the sun from the summit of the mountain. She described the view, saying it was one of the most beautiful things she’d ever seen. And I left my appointment totally inspired.

No, I’ve never gone through labor and delivery because Cohen was breech and overdue, resulting in a planned c-section. But this time baby is head down, in the perfect position, and my chances of having a successful natural birth are high. As I prepare to meet my daughter, I can’t help but think it will be a bit like this mountain climbing experience – difficult, painful, but oh so worth the view at the summit.

And how grateful I am to have a guide whom I trust implicitly, one who goes both before and behind me, whispering gently in my ear “this is the way, walk in it” (Isaiah 30:21).

In each case, though the news doesn’t directly affect my life or my family, I feel the ripple of it. I ache with the pain of the mother who lost her son, the wife who fears for the health of her husband. My heart breaks for them as I imagine what it must feel like, how hard it must be to live first hand.

And as I pray for them through tears of compassion, I cling to the hope that this earth is not our home. That an earthly death is not our enemy because everything that makes us who we are as believers, is eternal. I cling to the hope of heaven.