christmas eve

i've been feeling like time has passed around me very quickly lately. you know how when you're young you think about hitting a certain age and you think you'll feel like a completely different person? I'm realizing, I used to think that way about the age 21. I am 21 years old. I used to think i'd probably be in college, doing what normal 21 year olds do. I thought I may have a serious boyfriend and would be still following the Lord but actually what I really meant is living a complacent life of irresponsibility with little revelation of Jesus on my heart and living a visionless life.
Well, I'm 21. I have an amazing husband (thank you Lord) who is full of integrity and loves the Lord with all His heart. Ben has brought amazing balance to my own characteristics and tendencies. My husband has brought me significantly closer to the Lord.
I have a 7 month old baby girl who is absolutely the cutest and most beautiful little girl ever. She is just like me in a lot of ways and looks exactly like my husband. She is totally full of life and aggression even at a young age. We named her Kennedi Rachel. Kennedi means "armored chief or helmet head (also means iron will)" Rachel means "little lamb or innocense". I always thought these 2 meanings are opposites so I really thought Kennedi would be a little like the Lord in the ways He's a Lion but also a Lamb. I thought she'd really have the boldness of a leader or lion but have the tenderness of a lamb and willingly following the One(s) she loves. This is so true. I am so thankful for this special little gift, although she has put me through quite the ringer with the Lord, she has brought delight and joy in my heart and in my husband's heart and pretty much anyone she meets she brings a smile to.
I am 21, and I don't feel any different. I don't feel like I'm a completely different person than that 14 year old wondering what it would feel like to be 21. It's almost the year 2009 and I feel like I should still be waking up to mom and dad wrapped presents covering around our christmas tree, but no. Not this year. We are the parents, we have wrapped gifts under our tree for our daughter and each other. We're the BIG kids this year. We still get the gifts from mom and dad and friends to put under our tree, but all-in-all I don't feel any different. It's really weird.

Side note is that it's Christmas Eve and every year about this time I can and do these 2 things.
1. i wish i would've done this..... this year
2. i hope to do this..... next year

I decided to not do either. I am completely content with where I'm going in the Lord and content in the season I'm in. I am beginning to realize if I hurry the seasons along and try to get out of them and not actually gain from the current season, that eventually i'll end up right back here in the spot i so eagerly wanted to get out of. so here i am, planting my flag down in the dirt of the wilderness, because HEY! i'm getting comfortable here. Jesus likes me, i still don't understand that. it's going to be Christmas tomorrow (that is a phenomenon in and of itself) and i'd rather just sit in the confusion and awe of the fact that GOD became MAN, Creator became His creation, only to die and be the eternal sacrifice for my sins so that I would no longer be required as the sacrifice. He was the perfect sacrifice and He came in the innocense of a babe.

It is true that "through the mouth of babes, He has ordained perfect praise"

instead of figuring out what next year will be like, what this year has been like, i'm going to enjoy and love the place i'm at. I am going to love my family, love the Lord and love those around me as best I can.

have a good Christmas eve.

we are truly connected

kennedi has been sick for a couple days. she had a pretty high fever, coughing up flem, sneezing, stuffy nose, it was really sad.
i feel like she was manifesting what I was feeling on the inside. i was angry, stuffed up, puffed up, needing air, couldn't breathe. i felt like i could deal with kennedi and my family by myself without the Lord, completely offended with His leadership.
We had a couple rough evenings with kennedi specifically getting her to fall asleep at bedtime. a good friend of mine told me that if you repent of anger out loud and speak acceptance over kennedi and tell her she's loved in front of her so her ears can hear it, she may calm and go to sleep. i did it the next morning and she's been speedily getting better physically and my soul is definitely less tense. i submitted myself and kennedi to the Lord again and confessed my anger and repented and asked forgiveness from kennedi too for not displaying Jesus well to her and taking my emotions out on her even if she never knew.
i felt better, she seemed happier and she's doing much better.
so all that to say, my baby is very sensitive to the Spirit already. I love that. it also makes me line up with the Spirit way easier if I know it affects her. praise the Lord wisdom and might is His.

tired, very very tired.

well, not a very positive post right now.
my daughter has never really napped well. well meaning for long periods of time without awaking and enduring through making her cry it out to get back to sleep or else getting her up from short naps is a disaster. Every once in awhile i'll have an amazing day where she'll sleep an hour and a half in the morning, an hour and a half in the early afternoon, then another 30 minute nap in the early evening then getting her to bed at 7pm. those are RARE, especially lately. for awhile she did wonderfully just me laying her down, she not making a peep, but getting up 45 minutes later, well, not anymore. just recently i've been trying to work on getting her naps to be longer and all of a sudden she doesn't fall asleep quietly, lots of talking, some crying, then following with a 30-45 minute nap. then not knowing when she'll be tired next then she follows it with a short very high tempered afternoon nap then another 3rd nap that normally takes her an hour to get to sleep.
needless to say, i'm tired. i'm tired of guessing all the time, every day doing it differently, trying new things every day to try to figure out her normal sleep patterns and it's not getting better, it's getting worse. i'm frustrated every day all day and have just been asking ben "it's going to get better right?" for the last 3 months. it seems kennedi's short-lived life so far (almost 7 months) has been one of trial and tribulation, troubles and frustrations, if it's not one thing, it's another. i feel left alone right now. i've tried everyone's suggestions, everyone's opinions, etc. nothing has worked. yeah, i know i gotta pray and ask the Lord, but it seems He also is just letting me loose to try to figure it out. i'm worn down. i can really see my sinful nature in myself all the more and mostly, i hate the feeling of loneliness. being alone in trying to figure it out. husband doesn't have a clue cuz he's not home to know anymore than i do.
needless to say,
pray for me. kennedi and i need break through

George Washington's 1789 Thanksgiving Day Proclamation:

this so powerful. this man and many others were truly founding fathers in our nation and we must pray for more like him.

Washington's 1789 Thanksgiving Day Proclamation:

WHEREAS it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favour; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me "to recommend to the people of the United States a DAY OF PUBLICK THANSGIVING and PRAYER, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:"

NOW THEREFORE, I do recommend and assign THURSDAY, the TWENTY-SIXTH DAY of NOVEMBER next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed;-- for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish Constitutions of government for our sasety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted;-- for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge;-- and, in general, for all the great and various favours which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also, that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions;-- to enable us all, whether in publick or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us); and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

GIVEN under my hand, at the city of New-York, the third day of October, in the year of our Lord, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine.

(signed) G. Washington

adoption

This weekend we had our Spirit of Adoption conference. Derek Loux and Marcus Meier were here talking about that very subject. It was an amazing time for those of us who were there.
I'll tell a quick un-detailed story. Derek has 3 adopted daughters from the Martial Islands. Him and his wife Renee adopted them about 7 years ago when they were all 3 10 years old. Two of them (twins) were sexually and physically abused by their father and the other one was beaten with a frying pan when she was a baby so her spine is completely crooked. In the time when they adopted, it took them totally off guard. they were at the time intercessory missionaries, had a broken car, not much money, a 2 bedroom home and 2 girls of the Lord side-swiped them and ended up adopting these amazing girls. They are now saved, love Jesus, are living a lifestyle of prayer and are probably the most joyful girls i have ever met. This year alone they are in the process of adopting 3 handicapped young boys and 1 girl that has also been abused who is 12 years old. All 4 of these children weren't expected in their minds. Derek gave his story and was encouraging us from James 1:27 "Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit (help, tend to, etc.) the orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world." If you look at the greek form of this verse the "and" is not present and there is no punctuation. So the verse actually reads this: "to help the orphans and widows in their trouble to keep oneself unspotted from the world."
I don't know about you but i want to be unspotted from the world. I want to be holy and blameless before the Lord and not given over to the world's ways.
From all that he was giving statistics that there are 237 MILLION orphans in the world and if we are coming close to the end times (which everyone is getting closer as each generation passes) then there will be a TON more orphans. In end times, it's for sure that the anti-Christ kingdom will not be quick to take care of the widow and orphan. (and by the way, back in the bible days a widow was defined as any woman who has been 1. divorced 2. their husband died 3. they were married at one point and no longer are) If there are going to be that many orphans and widows in the earth more than there are now, we should be prepared and start caring for them. He wasn't saying everyone is supposed to adopt a child (although I don't think that's a bad idea) He thinks if you're not specifically in a place where you're directly helping widows and orphans, then you're not going to be unspotted from the world.

After this weekend, Ben and I have and are doing a lot of praying. After hearing the stories of Derek's we set a goal. There is in our hearts the desire to adopt. It has always been there but we never have discussed it. We don't know how many or when. So we decided to set a goal that within 3 years from now we'd like to have adopted at least 1 orphan. We felt good about this because we would want our adopted children to grow up in the midst of having our biological children so we feel like a family. So we figured that'd give us enough time to have 1 more biological child then adopt 1 child and then have more of our own too.

then we got side swiped last night. I was challenged with the fact that I think my needs and my little perspective of how i need to wait til the right time to adopt (which i don't think you ever get to the "right time" to have a child) is actually very shallow and selfish. My needs are not higher than an orphan who is being abused, hurt, possesed etc.

we're not sure where this lands us. but pray for us.

ESFJ

So, our good friends Jeremy and Racquel Jacobs (jacobsonthewall.com/blog) were telling us about finding out our personality traits, so we decided to give it a shot. I knew that a lot had changed since we got married and so i was interested. Mine came out to be ESFJ. This means E - Extravert, S - Sensory, F - Feeler, J - judger. They catagorized me in the group known as Guardian/Providor. I realized I am an extravert for the most part and i'm definitely sensory rather than intuitive, i am definitely someone who feels things and reacts to my feelings rather than being a thinker who bases decisions and things I do off of thinking them out thoroughly. Judging meaning seeing things as black and white and not even considering the gray area.
Ben on the other hand was just barely an extravert, intuitive, a thinker, and also a judger.
This definitely wraps us up for sure.

vote for righteousness

today we have a right as americans to vote in our next leader. i believe this time is very important in that we can partner with the Lords heart as He "raises up kings and tears them down" (out of Daniel 2) it is important to not think of ourselves in the hour we're living in but think about the next generation and the lives of our children and our children's children. i pray that hearts of men and women will be pierced today not by their own current circumstances but by the current circumstance of the future of our children and that they would have an open door to righteousness that we can say we helped open. 

no more excuses for righteousness

i think it's slowly coming down to, there's just no reason to give excuses for wanting to be holy as He is holy. there's no toning down or watering down the gospel anymore. i'm so sick of trying to clean up messes, let's just preach the gospel, love God, and love others, and let the mess be cleaned by the holy spirit because He's way better at it anyways.

Shall Not God Avenge His Own Elect Who Cry Out Day and Night

Christians... For Obama?

Obama’s Abortion Extremism
by Robert George
Oct 14, 2008
Sen. Barack Obama’s views on life issues ranging from abortion to embryonic stem cell research mark him as not merely a pro-choice politician, but rather as the most extreme pro-abortion candidate to have ever run on a major party ticket.
Barack Obama is the most extreme pro-abortion candidate ever to seek the office of President of the United States. He is the most extreme pro-abortion member of the United States Senate. Indeed, he is the most extreme pro-abortion legislator ever to serve in either house of the United States Congress. Yet there are Catholics and Evangelicals-even self-identified pro-life Catholics and Evangelicals - who aggressively promote Obama’s candidacy and even declare him the preferred candidate from the pro-life point of view.
What is going on here?
I have examined the arguments advanced by Obama’s self-identified pro-life supporters, and they are spectacularly weak. It is nearly unfathomable to me that those advancing them can honestly believe what they are saying. But before proving my claims about Obama’s abortion extremism, let me explain why I have described Obama as ”pro-abortion” rather than ”pro-choice.”
According to the standard argument for the distinction between these labels,nobody is pro-abortion. Everybody would prefer a world without abortions. After all, what woman would deliberately get pregnant just to have an abortion? But given the world as it is, sometimes women find themselves with unplanned pregnancies at times in their lives when having a baby would present significant problems for them. So even if abortion is not medically required, it should be permitted, made as widely available as possible and, when necessary, paid for with taxpayers’ money.
The defect in this argument can easily be brought into focus if we shift to the moral question that vexed an earlier generation of Americans: slavery. Many people at the time of the American founding would have preferred a world without slavery but nonetheless opposed abolition. Such people - Thomas Jefferson was one - reasoned that, given the world as it was, with slavery woven into the fabric of society just as it had often been throughout history, the economic consequences of abolition for society as a whole and for owners of plantations and other businesses that relied on slave labor would be dire. Many people who argued in this way were not monsters but honest and sincere, albeit profoundly mistaken. Some (though not Jefferson) showed their personal opposition to slavery by declining to own slaves themselves or freeing slaves whom they had purchased or inherited. They certainly didn’t think anyone should be forced to own slaves. Still, they maintained that slavery should remain a legally permitted option and be given constitutional protection.
Would we describe such people, not as pro-slavery, but as ”pro-choice”? Of course we would not. It wouldn’t matter to us that they were ”personally opposed” to slavery, or that they wished that slavery were ”unnecessary,” or that they wouldn’t dream of forcing anyone to own slaves. We would hoot at the faux sophistication of a placard that said ”Against slavery? Don’t own one.” We would observe that the fundamental divide is between people who believe that law and public power should permit slavery, and those who think that owning slaves is an unjust choice that should be prohibited.
Just for the sake of argument, though, let us assume that there could be a morally meaningful distinction between being ”pro-abortion” and being ”pro-choice.” Who would qualify for the latter description? Barack Obama certainly would not. For, unlike his running mate Joe Biden, Obama does not think that abortion is a purely private choice that public authority should refrain from getting involved in. Now, Senator Biden is hardly pro-life. He believes that the killing of the unborn should be legally permitted and relatively unencumbered. But unlike Obama, at least Biden has sometimes opposed using taxpayer dollars to fund abortion, thereby leaving Americans free to choose not to implicate themselves in it. If we stretch things to create a meaningful category called ”pro-choice,” then Biden might be a plausible candidate for the label; at least on occasions when he respects your choice or mine not to facilitate deliberate feticide.
The same cannot be said for Barack Obama. For starters, he supports legislation that would repeal the Hyde Amendment, which protects pro-life citizens from having to pay for abortions that are not necessary to save the life of the mother and are not the result of rape or incest. The abortion industry laments that this longstanding federal law, according to the pro-abortion group NARAL, ”forces about half the women who would otherwise have abortions to carry unintended pregnancies to term and bear children against their wishes instead.” In other words, a whole lot of people who are alive today would have been exterminatedin utero were it not for the Hyde Amendment. Obama has promised to reverse the situation so that abortions that the industry complains are not happening (because the federal government is not subsidizing them) would happen. That is why people who profit from abortion love Obama even more than they do his running mate.
But this barely scratches the surface of Obama’s extremism. He has promised that ”the first thing I’d do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act” (known as FOCA). This proposed legislation would create a federally guaranteed ”fundamental right” to abortion through all nine months of pregnancy, including, as Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia has noted in a statement condemning the proposed Act, ”a right to abort a fully developed child in the final weeks for undefined ‘health’ reasons.” In essence, FOCA would abolish virtually every existing state and federal limitation on abortion, including parental consent and notification laws for minors, state and federal funding restrictions on abortion, and conscience protections for pro-life citizens working in the health-care industry-protections against being forced to participate in the practice of abortion or else lose their jobs. The pro-abortion National Organization for Women has proclaimed with approval that FOCA would ‘’sweep away hundreds of anti-abortion laws [and] policies.”
It gets worse. Obama, unlike even many ”pro-choice” legislators, opposed the ban on partial-birth abortions when he served in the Illinois legislature and condemned the Supreme Court decision that upheld legislation banning this heinous practice. He has referred to a baby conceived inadvertently by a young woman as a ”punishment” that she should not endure. He has stated that women’s equality requires access to abortion on demand. Appallingly, he wishes to strip federal funding from pro-life crisis pregnancy centers that provide alternatives to abortion for pregnant women in need. There is certainly nothing ”pro-choice” about that.
But it gets even worse. Senator Obama, despite the urging of pro-life members of his own party, has not endorsed or offered support for the Pregnant Women Support Act, the signature bill of Democrats for Life, meant to reduce abortions by providing assistance for women facing crisis pregnancies. In fact, Obama hasopposed key provisions of the Act, including providing coverage of unborn children in the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP), and informed consent for women about the effects of abortion and the gestational age of their child. This legislation would not make a single abortion illegal. It simply seeks to make it easier for pregnant women to make the choice not to abort their babies. Here is a concrete test of whether Obama is ”pro-choice” rather than pro-abortion. He flunked. Even Senator Edward Kennedy voted to include coverage of unborn children in S-CHIP. But Barack Obama stood resolutely with the most stalwart abortion advocates in opposing it.
It gets worse yet. In an act of breathtaking injustice which the Obama campaign lied about until critics produced documentary proof of what he had done, as an Illinois state senator Obama opposed legislation to protect children who are born alive, either as a result of an abortionist’s unsuccessful effort to kill them in the womb, or by the deliberate delivery of the baby prior to viability. This legislation would not have banned any abortions. Indeed, it included a specific provision ensuring that it did not affect abortion laws. (This is one of the points Obama and his campaign lied about until they were caught.) The federal version of the bill passed unanimously in the United States Senate, winning the support of such ardent advocates of legal abortion as John Kerry and Barbara Boxer. But Barack Obama opposed it and worked to defeat it. For him, a child marked for abortion gets no protection-even ordinary medical or comfort care-even if she is born alive and entirely separated from her mother. So Obama has favored protecting what is literally a form of infanticide.
You may be thinking, it can’t get worse than that. But it does.
For several years, Americans have been debating the use for biomedical research of embryos produced by in vitro fertilization (originally for reproductive purposes) but now left in a frozen condition in cryopreservation units. President Bush has restricted the use of federal funds for stem-cell research of the type that makes use of these embryos and destroys them in the process. I support the President’s restriction, but some legislators with excellent pro-life records, including John McCain, argue that the use of federal money should be permitted where the embryos are going to be discarded or die anyway as the result of the parents’ decision. Senator Obama, too, wants to lift the restriction.
But Obama would not stop there. He has co-sponsored a bill-strongly opposed by McCain-that would authorize the large-scale industrial production of human embryos for use in biomedical research in which they would be killed. In fact, the bill Obama co-sponsored would effectively require the killing of human beings in the embryonic stage that were produced by cloning. It would make it a federal crime for a woman to save an embryo by agreeing to have the tiny developing human being implanted in her womb so that he or she could be brought to term. This ”clone and kill” bill would, if enacted, bring something to America that has heretofore existed only in China-the equivalent of legally mandated abortion. In an audacious act of deceit, Obama and his co-sponsors misleadingly call this ananti-cloning bill. But it is nothing of the kind. What it bans is not cloning, but allowing the embryonic children produced by cloning to survive.
Can it get still worse? Yes.
Decent people of every persuasion hold out the increasingly realistic hope of resolving the moral issue surrounding embryonic stem-cell research by developing methods to produce the exact equivalent of embryonic stem cells without using (or producing) embryos. But when a bill was introduced in the United States Senate to put a modest amount of federal money into research to develop these methods, Barack Obama was one of the few senators who opposed it. From any rational vantage point, this is unconscionable. Why would someone not wish to find a method of producing the pluripotent cells scientists want that all Americans could enthusiastically endorse? Why create and kill human embryos when there are alternatives that do not require the taking of nascent human lives? It is as if Obama is opposed to stem-cell research unless it involves killing human embryos.
This ultimate manifestation of Obama’s extremism brings us back to the puzzle of his pro-life Catholic and Evangelical apologists.
They typically do not deny the facts I have reported. They could not; each one is a matter of public record. But despite Obama’s injustices against the most vulnerable human beings, and despite the extraordinary support he receives from the industry that profits from killing the unborn (which should be a good indicator of where he stands), some Obama supporters insist that he is the better candidate from the pro-life point of view.
They say that his economic and social policies would so diminish the demand for abortion that the overall number would actually go down-despite the federal subsidizing of abortion and the elimination of hundreds of pro-life laws. The way to save lots of unborn babies, they say, is to vote for the pro-abortion-oops! ”pro-choice”-candidate. They tell us not to worry that Obama opposes the Hyde Amendment, the Mexico City Policy (against funding abortion abroad), parental consent and notification laws, conscience protections, and the funding of alternatives to embryo-destructive research. They ask us to look past his support for Roe v. Wade, the Freedom of Choice Act, partial-birth abortion, and human cloning and embryo-killing. An Obama presidency, they insist, means less killing of the unborn.
This is delusional.
We know that the federal and state pro-life laws and policies that Obama has promised to sweep away (and that John McCain would protect) save thousands of lives every year. Studies conducted by Professor Michael New and other social scientists have removed any doubt. Often enough, the abortion lobby itself confirms the truth of what these scholars have determined. Tom McClusky has observed that Planned Parenthood’s own statistics show that in each of the seven states that have FOCA-type legislation on the books, ”abortion rates have increased while the national rate has decreased.” In Maryland, where a bill similar to the one favored by Obama was enacted in 1991, he notes that ”abortion rates have increased by 8 percent while the overall national abortion rate decreased by 9 percent.” No one is really surprised. After all, the message clearly conveyed by policies such as those Obama favors is that abortion is a legitimate solution to the problem of unwanted pregnancies - so clearly legitimate that taxpayers should be forced to pay for it.
But for a moment let’s suppose, against all the evidence, that Obama’s proposalswould reduce the number of abortions, even while subsidizing the killing with taxpayer dollars. Even so, many more unborn human beings would likely be killed under Obama than under McCain. A Congress controlled by strong Democratic majorities under Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi would enact the bill authorizing the mass industrial production of human embryos by cloning for research in which they are killed. As president, Obama would sign it. The number of tiny humans created and killed under this legislation (assuming that an efficient human cloning technique is soon perfected) could dwarf the number of lives saved as a result of the reduced demand for abortion-even if we take a delusionally optimistic view of what that number would be.
Barack Obama and John McCain differ on many important issues about which reasonable people of goodwill, including pro-life Americans of every faith, disagree: how best to fight international terrorism, how to restore economic growth and prosperity, how to distribute the tax burden and reduce poverty, etc.
But on abortion and the industrial creation of embryos for destructive research, there is a profound difference of moral principle, not just prudence. These questions reveal the character and judgment of each man. Barack Obama is deeply committed to the belief that members of an entire class of human beings have no rights that others must respect. Across the spectrum of pro-life concerns for the unborn, he would deny these small and vulnerable members of the human family the basic protection of the laws. Over the next four to eight years, as many as five or even six U.S. Supreme Court justices could retire. Obama enthusiastically supports Roe v. Wade and would appoint judges who would protect that morally and constitutionally disastrous decision and even expand its scope. Indeed, in an interview in Glamour magazine, he made it clear that he would apply a litmus test for Supreme Court nominations: jurists who do not support Roe will not be considered for appointment by Obama. John McCain, by contrast, opposes Roe and would appoint judges likely to overturn it. This would not make abortion illegal, but it would return the issue to the forums of democratic deliberation, where pro-life Americans could engage in a fair debate to persuade fellow citizens that killing the unborn is no way to address the problems of pregnant women in need.
What kind of America do we want our beloved nation to be? Barack Obama’s America is one in which being human just isn’t enough to warrant care and protection. It is an America where the unborn may legitimately be killed without legal restriction, even by the grisly practice of partial-birth abortion. It is an America where a baby who survives abortion is not even entitled to comfort care as she dies on a stainless steel table or in a soiled linen bin. It is a nation in which some members of the human family are regarded as inferior and others superior in fundamental dignity and rights. In Obama’s America, public policy would make a mockery of the great constitutional principle of the equal protection of the law. In perhaps the most telling comment made by any candidate in either party in this election year, Senator Obama, when asked by Rick Warren when a baby gets human rights, replied: ”that question is above my pay grade.” It was a profoundly disingenuous answer: For even at a state senator’s pay grade, Obama presumed to answer that question with blind certainty. His unspoken answer then, as now, is chilling: human beings have no rights until infancy - and if they are unwanted survivors of attempted abortions, not even then.
In the end, the efforts of Obama’s apologists to depict their man as the true pro-life candidate that Catholics and Evangelicals may and even should vote for, doesn’t even amount to a nice try. Voting for the most extreme pro-abortion political candidate in American history is not the way to save unborn babies.
Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. He is a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics and previously served on the United States Commission on Civil Rights. He sits on the editorial board of Public Discourse.
The original article is here: http://thepublicdiscourse.com/viewarticle.php?selectedarticle=2008.10.14_George_Robert_Obama%27s%20Abortion%20Extremism_.xml
Copyright 2008 The Witherspoon Institute. All rights reserved.

days gone by

again i return to the blog.
its about 7:30pm on a monday night. staff meetings for zhop are from 6pm-8pm, so normally I put the baby to bed around 7pm and await my husband's return. today though, kennedi took a whopping 30 minute morning nap (boo), so we had a cranky baby most of the day. so, in other words, early bedtime for her. she was asleep by 6:30pm. poor baby.
there's always excuses to not spend time with the Lord, first its, "i'm a teenage, let me have some fun before I get disciplined" then it's "i'm dating, we absolutely need to be with each other every moment, there's just no time to" then it's "We're engaged, my life is and must be consumed with wedding planning" and on to "we're newly married, we're trying to get our life in order and readjust" then "i'm pregnant, i just don't feel like doing anything" now (and where I am) "i have a baby, anytime i'm not laboring for her, i want to do something for myself or just plain sit on the couch" so all that to say, i HATE excuses. as much as i'd like to say i spend my time well before the Lord and spending hours in the Word, I just don't do it. I get some sweet time here and there but mostly lately it's been when I come to that point of "I am being really mean to my husband, I'm being mostly unfair to my 5 month old baby and expecting too much from her, and I'm in an all around terrible mood most of the time" then i spend time with the Lord. It ends up being actually very sweet. the good part about that is the Lord doesn't say "boy, where have you been? shame on you." he just picks up where we left off and just enjoys me. praise jesus.

teething

so i'm starting to partake in the suffering of a baby getting a tooth. that's right, kennedi has 1 tooth below the surface. she's been doing great at night, not waking up until the morning to eat, and if she does wake in the night, she says a couple baby words and then falls back to sleep. well, not last night. ben and i had just fallen asleep and then 30 minutes later (i thought it was like 1 in the morning) she woke up crying. i went in to check on her, and she was fine, although almost rolled over to her back, so i left her and went back to bed. that same thing happened every hour until 2am. then she slept for about 2 1/2 hours and then did it again until she woke up for good at 7:30am. let's just say it was a flashback to days gone by when she was a newborn. when she woke up i felt her bottom gums in the front and one little nub of a tooth is below the surface. so, i dosed her up with tylenol, and she was fine.
the thing i love about our community is i know that if i'm up at any random time in the night, i have about 3 other moms who i know, if i had a question, i could text them and they'd respond within minutes to answer my question because they're up with their kid too. it's pretty sweet.

well, off to nap while my babe is napping.
hooray for baby teeth.

jesus sung a hymn!

I have been intrigued, like i said before, with Matthew chapter 26.
One of my favorite parts that I have never noticed before is after the disciples break bread and drink wine with Jesus it says in verse 30, "And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives." That means Jesus sung with them a hymn! What was that like? I would've just acted like I was going to sing, or acted like I was singing, closed my eyes and tuned in to what He sounded like singing to the Father. Mmm.. I would just tell everyone else to shut their mouths so I could hear the Son of God sing. Then again, Jesus enjoyed singing with His friends to the Father.

Aside from that, today and the past week or so I have come to realize that because I've been around the house of prayer culture for about 5 years now and been around the bridal paradigm message, I sometimes just think, "yeah, of course, I know that." but I DON't. That's reality. I need basic Jesus 101 or basic bride 101 class taught by the Father Himself.

the joy of my salvation

lately i've been trying to figure out what makes me happy. you know, the stuff that makes me smile. i started with the obvious, my husband when he comes home to see me, my baby girl when she's all snuggly waking up from a nap, laughing with my friends, but the list just got harder to carry on. I'm not sure what makes me happy anymore. i would like to say "of course, Jesus", but honestly, if i think about Him right now, i don't smile. i'm not offended at anything specific, i really do enjoy spending time with Him, but it doesn't excite me. revelation doesn't excite me very much. i mean yes, i'll read my bible because i know it brings life and feeds my spirit, but there's no uprising of the strings of my heart or a new song right now. i miss the joy of my salvation. i miss not feeling tension all the time in my soul.
jesus, the Joy set before me, Love that fires the sun, make me burn again.

new revelation part 1

i spent a lot of time in the prayer room (2 hours, which is a lot for me)
lots of new revelation including this quote from dave sliker
Jesus knows that the best way for us to experience the deepest love and rise to the highest level of obedience is for us to experience shaking discomfort, and struggles and learn how to successfully overcome obstacles. He knows the one who love the most intensely will fight the hardest to win.

i will post more later

obviously it's been forever

i kind of gave up on blogging for a bit. it seems that all blogs out there have something profound to say. i used to have a lot of profound words and mostly they were just words (definitely not implying on those who have blogs specifically) i'm going to start blogging again and eventually it'll be right on our website benandbekah.com rather than here. so here's an update

i'm doing MUCH better. i had been feeling bored, lazy, had no vision anymore, distant from the Lord, etc. BUT I kept reading the bible just reading it for the sake of some bit of Life put into me. every service or prayer meeting i went to at zhop the person was talking specifically or singing specifically the verses i had been reading that day. i've been going through Matthew and every time i showed up at zhop whatever i just read was being talked about. i knew this was the kindness of the Lord for the sake of my heart knowing He was close. I've just been pushing through and Ben has helped me a bunch in this. I was having a hard time because I don't really have a "thing" I like to do. or a "hobby". i mostly just like my friends and talking about normal day-to-day stuff. but this also seemed very undesirable for me. i think one of the good things about this is i've been being very honest with myself and open (barren) with others. My heart has been being exposed even if it's terrible. AND i'm not ashamed of it. I think I'm realizing I'm completely human and completely reliant on grace. I think as I become more honest with what is really going on in me, I will start being more ok with myself and being myself in front of others. it's funny, the way i act around my baby when no one else is around is actually my real self i'm realizing. i think our children bring out the silliest parts of us and exposes it to the world.

So, with all that said, I'm doing a lot better. Circumstances haven't necessarily changed, but my attitude towards the Lord and towards others has changed.
We had a baby shower for a friend of ours yesterday and I got to reconnect with some ladies I haven't talked to in awhile. I also realized that when I get in these little funk seasons I tend to go introvert and avoid people, even if they're friends I love. Well, showers lately have forced me to connect with them and I love it. Moms really need each other I just found out. :o)

Kennedi is doing great, becoming quite the little ham. she's got all new sounds and fun noises. funny faces and goofy smiles. love her to death.
Ben is doing wonderful and working a LOT. we've definitely learned how to work rightly though with zhop. you have to schedule your time and NOT say yes to things outside of that to survive in a day and night community. we're loving our friends and each other more and more as we grow together. ben has really gone out of his way to make a way for me to get to the prayer room. it has been amazing. this actually might be the reason for the change of heart i've had, because i've gotten focused time to pray and just be enjoyed by the Lord. i've also been singing with katie reed on her devo sets and they've been really good. i didn't realize how much singing rips open my heart to feel and understand myself and the Lord. try it! singing really opens a door.

off to ny, the beautiful oswego

well, tonight at 10pm we're taking our little baby (hoping she sleeps peacefully through the night rather than go through the day and resists her naps) up to NY... I love up-state NY. Ben's parents house is like a little safe haven. I love it. First of all I have the BEST in-laws I could've ever asked for. Second, their house is so homey and has a big backyard and a pool. Third, they live about 5 minutes from Lake Ontario. It is just beautiful there. We will be gone a week and boy are we excited. We've been trying to get up there for almost a year now since we went last year, but the Lord has just "waited" (referencing peopleonahill.org) until the most appropriate and needed time to be gracious to us to let us go. after a looooong 3 months with the baby and a loooooong last week before Todd Bentley was here, we are now really ready to get out of here.
So, be praying for us and for Kennedi that she would sleep a lot tonight and we would not fall asleep driving. :)

come oh north wind, blow oh south wind, blow upon this garden

I think I have never been more challenged in my heart as I have now that I have a child. I have been challenged in my self-control, in my anger, in my pride, in my selfishness, etc.
The Lord is truly teaching me humility. There is so many times where Jesus has placed situations in my path to break my own will and seek out His. the hardest part is most of it is told and taught to me by my husband. There has been time after time since the stress of having a baby that I know that I know that he is right and all I want is for him to be wrong. I have been thinking a lot about Eph 5:25 "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish."
My husband has been amazing at this. although it challenges me and my flesh MOST of the time. but so does Jesus when he confronts me in these things. so praise Jesus, the winds are blowing on this garden

sleep, no i never get enough

wow,
evenings are hard.
kennedi hates them, and i have come to not enjoy them myself because of it.
poor thing can't eat when she's tired, can't function when she's tired.

God have mercy and help our family in the evenings.

(who can name the guy who wrote the song that i titled this blog off of?)

21st Birthday

Well, today, another year of my life has gone by. I am now 21 years old. I used to be consumed all June and all of July telling everyone that my birthday is soon, I think I almost forgot this year. Having a baby and a whole new life, married, and all the busyness, I had to be reminded that it was my birthday. It seems like sometimes people don't look forward to their birthdays. I think this is because everyone really wants their birthday to be ALL about them. They want it to be special, as it should be. I wasn't looking forward to today, but now that it's here I'm realizing, the Lord rejoices over this day. 21 years ago today, I was brought into this world and the Lord displayed the beauty of creation to everyone who met me. He was showing off me, but ultimately showing off Himself. I could look at this past year and point out billions of things I wish were different, but then again, I won't do that. The Lord sees this past year as another year we accomplished together. I SURVIVED! only by the grace of God.
This past year included a miscarriage of our first child, who we believed was a boy and named him Aaron Jacob Greutman, this was sad, and then I think, Kennedi would never have been born had that not happened. Not that I'm glad, but there's always redemption through Christ.
In that same year we moved 3 times, had Kennedi, was the matron of honor in my sister's wedding and now the year is over. WOW.
Lots of people look forward to 21 because you're now legally able to drink alcohol and buy it... it's funny, they do it anyways before they're 21, not sure why it's such a big deal anymore. and guess what, I won't be drinking today, and even if I did like the taste of alcohol (which I don't) or I didn't live in a community of people where we're not able to drink, I wouldn't anyways.
I will claim this year as a year for breakthrough. A year to extinguish fears and actually learn friendship with Jesus. I want this next year to see my little girl grow up with tangible glory around her. I want her to grow up this year where signs and wonders are normal. The only way to see that is for her mother to take steps of faith and show her that the foolish things will confound the wise. Yes, this year I want to see glory. Lord, make this a year of glory. Amen.

he who receives children, receives the Father

"Whoever receives one child like this in My name receives Me; and whoever receives Me does not receive Me, but Him who sent Me."Mark 9:37

I was reminded today of this verse. I now can look at it in a completely different light. If I receive (and the definition of receive is: to hold, bear, or contain, to be burdened with; sustain, to take into one's possession) my own child (Kennedi) and hold her, bear with her, carry the burden of her, sustain her, and take her into my possession, then at the same time I am holding Jesus, bearing with Jesus, carrying the burdens of Jesus, and sustaining Jesus, and taking Him into my possession.
This brings my heart into a whole new paradigm. This is key in "raising up my child in the way she should go." If I teach her and treat her rightly in my heart and in the natural, then I will in essence be teaching her how to treat Jesus and how to love Him with her whole heart.

On a different note. and the reason why this new paradigm is so refreshing at this time,

Last night I got so frustrated with Kennedi. She wouldn't go to sleep, she wouldn't eat, she wouldn't calm down and the whole thing was that she was exhausted and wanted help, but she just wouldn't sleep. So, finally she fell asleep for about a half hour, and I just broke down. If you know me, my personality is not to be at home at all times. I would rather be working or in the prayer room, or running errands, just being around people. It gets rather trying and frustrating when all of a sudden it changes and the only person i'm spending like 70% of my time with is a little baby who can't talk (well not like I'm talking about) and needs to be held a lot and needs a lot of sleep, etc.) and the rest of the time my life is just revolved around her even when I do get a chance to get out without her. Needless to say, this is the reason for the breakdown. I simply came to the fact that "it's just not fair".
After all that, Ben, my wonderful husband, sent me to the class at ZHOP and said get out of the house and don't worry about the baby. She'll be fine.
So, I did, and came back feeling refreshed and encouraged.
Being a mom is NOT an easy job and every day I wake up to start another day with my baby girl. with the new revelation of the fact that if i receive my baby in the morning with a good heart and choose joy in this small season (it really is such a small and short time) then i can receive Jesus that morning in the same way. Praise God for the Holy Spirit and the way He helps us along.

breakthrough and sleep

i know it's been awhile since i wrote on here and frankly it's just been because life with a baby takes up a lot of time!
here are a couple of new things that have happened in our family lately, especially with Kennedi.

In June, Ben and I were watching the 700 Club while I was nursing Kennedi on the couch. We weren't intentionally turning on the tv to watch it, it just happened to be on and we stopped to listen to what they were saying. they were ending the show and i guess the 700 club does healing prayer at the end of their show and words of knowledge for their viewers. Now normally on these types of shows I have to confess I normally roll my eyes and always thought this is just goofy that they are doing this for their viewers, but this time Ben and I joined in and prayed for Kennedi as they did a general prayer for healing at the beginning. They told their viewers to lay their hand on the part of body that needs healing. I laid my LEFT hand on her stomach and we prayed that whatever was going on with her and not being able to eat well and thinking it was gas or something just prayed the Lord would help the problem and heal her. While we were praying the man on the screen stopped and said, "I just got a picture of a lady who has her LEFT hand on the abdomen and is holding a baby; I want to tell you healing is coming!" Ben and I just stunned, looked at each other and realized the picture he was seeing was ME!! This was such an amazing testimony that the Lord was promising us that healing IS COMING!
Over the past weeks we've just been contending and believing for that healing. Kennedi still wasn't eating or nursing well and would just scream when she tried to and screamed after that because she was still hungry.
Finally, after hearing EVERYONE's opinions, which I asked for most of the time, and some of the time didn't, i decided i was finished with just hearing every one else's guesses based on their own kids. So, when Kennedi's eating habits started getting into daytime eating habits with screaming too, i made an apointment to go to the doctor... most would say "OH NO" at that. but my mom said, "doctors are trained to know babies, take her to the doctor". i agreed
we went to see the doctor and found out this whole time kennedi has had acid reflux (which is common in about 1 out of 10 babies). this makes it very hard for her to swallow food without it burning her throat when she ate when the acid would come up. she couldn't be on her back (and still can't eat laying down very well) which was the reason for her not being able to nurse well.
we got medication and now a week later Kennedi is a different baby. She is eating about 4-6oz of food every feeding and hasn't screamed while eating in the past 4-5 days. it's been amazing. she is so happy and generally only cries when she's hungry or getting tired. PRAISE GOD!
The Lord has definitely brought healing in so many ways.
Ben and I have had a couple rough nights during this whole sha-bang and in the end it has just brought us closer as we accept our weaknesses (which seem to be revealed all the more now that we have a baby) and be quick to forgive each other.
Thank you so much for your prayers.

And now we're starting Kennedi on a schedule. We've been reading a book called "Good Night Sleep Tight" or otherwise known as "the sleep lady book". We're now in the process of teaching her how to go to sleep on her own. This will help her in the long run to be able to sleep throughout the whole night and be able to put herself back to sleep when she randomly wakes up through the night and throughout the day during her naps. So, for the next little while little Bean and I are staying at home most of the day just trying to figure out a good schedule for her. I admit, i'm getting a little stir crazy, but I know it's just a passing moment and everything will be set in stone and I will have a scheduled life again even if it takes a few weeks.

the steadfast love

the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, His mercies, they never come to an end; they are new every morning, new every morning, great is Thy Faithfulness O Lord, great is thy faithfulness

new mercies every morning

I have had so many new revelations about the Lord since I had a baby. It's amazing the things you hear you'll learn and stories that others have learned and inside I always thought, "Yeah, that's cool." or "Yeah, that's true." but, now it's really real, really cool, and for real true. These things I'm talking about to name a few are:
1. When Kennedi cries or fusses, my first instinct is to just try to find out what she needs and give it to her. I want her to be content, fed, have a clean diaper, get sleep, not be gassy, etc. She is COMPLETELY reliant on me for all of her needs and wants. It is a whole new world to try to get inside this baby's head and find out what she is trying to tell me by crying. BUT I will do anything and everything to find it out and act on it because the intense love I have for her and compassion on her. It feels kind of weird to have someone completely relying on me for everything.
I always heard this is what the Lord is like to us. We are COMPLETELY reliant on Him for all our desires and needs. No matter how much we actually think we can make it on our own, we actually according to David have "no goodness apart from Him". It's really true! We live by asking. This is amazing and gives me confidence in the Father's provision over my family's lives. If I get worried, I just look at Kennedi and think, "if I care so much to make her happy, the Lord must feel that and SO much more toward me." He wants me to succeed and be content in His Spirit and have my needs met because He likes me and loves to give me good gifts. I love it when I can make my baby girl smile or just fall asleep in my arms because I know I've given her everything I can give her as her natural mother to bring her to peace and the Lord is showering her with gifts at the same time. This is such an awesome feeling and brings a new level of faith to ask for BIG things to our BIG Father.
2. Kennedi wakes up early. Obviously.. babies do that. She normally is awake to eat around 5am-5:30am and doesn't want to go back to sleep until anywhere from 7am-9am. This has been making me a bit frustrated as I am still tired and want to sleep even if she doesn't want to. Some of these mornings, the reason she won't sleep is because of gas. I then just have to forget I'm tired and just do anything I can to help her. This is when I realized the statement I always have said and read in the Scripture, "His mercies are new every morning." This makes my heart remember the Lord's kindness. He makes new mercies available every morning. There is strength in mercy and peace in mercy. My new prayer in the mornings when I feel that pull in my flesh to grumble, complain, come against my daughter in my heart, etc. I just remember to ask for His new mercies. That's what I prayed this morning for our family as my husband is sleeping upstairs and Kennedi was wide awake and I was tired. I just decided, I need to pull on the new mercies this morning. So, I took my baby girl downstairs, turned the webstream on (it makes Kennedi think we're in the prayer room) and she went right to sleep and my husband gets to sleep in a bit (he was up walking with her for an hour last night so I could sleep some) and here I am blogging about it :o) The Lord is always willing to give to His children, we just have to ask and make our case and desires known.
another thing i've really been brought into reality about is the "oh God, You are my God, early will I seek you." Being up at all hours of the night and early in the morning, I have to choose to let God be my God in the morning and not let the god of my flesh or the god of sleep overtake the leadership that Jesus needs to have in my life in the morning. I then have to choose to seek Him early. If I start the day seeking Him and choosing righteous thoughts and leaning on Him, the rest of the day it's easier to talk, be in friendship with, an lean on Him in all the other circumstances. David was choosing to have God be His God and choosing to seek Him early so that His heart would be steadfast in love and quick to trust God first before trying to put his trust in other things.
Having a baby is teaching me all kinds of new things besides how to live off of as little sleep as possible :o)

the apple of His eye

I've been reading through 1 and 2 samuel. dee bennett challenged me to just start reading the stories and knowing the stories from the old testament because i told her i have a hard time getting into the old testament a lot.
so, i started with these 2 books. i got to 2 samuel 7:23, "And who is like Your people, like Israel, the one nation on the earth whom God went to redeem for Himself as a people, to make for Himself a name - and to do for Yourself great and awesome deeds for Your land - before Your people whom You redeemed for Yourself from Egypt, the nations, and their gods?"
I was remembering my old days in Kansas City (old days meaning 4 years ago or so) when Katie, Sarah and I would get to Tuesday fasting days, make it until 4pm when the Israel prayer meeting with Todd Ganovski would start and we would dread that prayer meeting. We would always skip out and go to Panera, or go to Kate's house and eat chips and cheese sauce.. mmm.
Then we started realizing the importance of that prayer meeting and praying for Israel, especially when we moved out here to Fort Mill. We had an intense fast in 2006 where we prayed for Israel and that the Lord would give to ZHOP a heart for His people. This verse I read made me realize now 4 years later from when i despised those prayer meetings in kansas city, that now i am fascinated with the Lord's desire for Israel. It makes me love Jesus more when I think about His affection toward that land. It's funny now that Katie and I would probably rather pray for Israel in any intercession meeting now over any other topic. The Lord is funny in that way!

new insight: kennedi loves the prayer room

So, you'd think that I would remember that for 9 months my baby girl was in the prayer room in my womb for 2-6 hours a day, depending on the day. this means, she knows the sounds and is comforted by the music. I LOVE THIS!
This morning was a little rough around the edges. Kennedi has been sleeping 3-4 hours at a time through the night which has been AMAZING for me (and Ben). But as soon as daylight hits, she's in a tizzy. So from about 6am-10am she has been screaming on and off. This is frustrating because I am man and can't bring peace to her on my own (which I would like it to be that easy) and then all that's left after diaper change, feeding her, trying to pat her back, is... prayer.
A wise couple (namely the Internicolas) told us in our marriage counseling that each baby brings out another ugly part of you that reminds you that you are man and HE is God. I am finding this is very true. The more I can't do things on my own, the more I get frustrated with myself and my daughter when she is trying to reveal to me what she wants by screaming. I then must realize the Holy Spirit is MUCH better at declaring the words of the Father that alone give true peace than I am at comforting her even in the natural. (this makes my job a lot easier, when God can be God, and I can be the best mom I know how)
That peace came at about 8am this morning when Ben came to rescue his 2 girls from our house. I needed to get out of the house and Kennedi needed her daddy to hold her (and I needed him to hold her too). Then, back to the intro of this blog, dad put her to sleep and she slept for the next 4 hours! She loved the singing and I got to pray and be before the Lord for a bit too!
Every day there is an opportunity for me to open my eyes and see His new mercies, and now another opportunity is to be able to reveal that same mercy to my daughter.
I did remember this verse though today from 1 Corinthians 13 when I didn't know what to do with my screaming little girl...
Love Suffers Long.

a blog? no way!

yes, it has come to my attention that because i now have a daughter, and many people like to know how our family is doing and how me and the babe are doing, that i should start one. i think i trashed blogs so much when they were becoming a distraction for our community, in my opinion, a couple years ago. now, it seems the "fad" is over and now people are truly using them for real life discussion and keeping connected rather than a "way to tune out" when our hearts are so needed to be "tuned in".

now, after that shpeal (sp?) today is the day i start my blog.

As for me: I'm doing well. Today held what seemed to be an eternal morning. not in that i was caught up into eternal things, but in that my daughter didn't sleep from 6:30am-noon and then when Ben came home for lunch he calmly put her right to sleep :o) I am definitely being test and refined during those times when it's just me and her duking it out. ben just encouraged me a couple days ago with some good insight. "Bekah, it's not that she's angry at you or at me, it's that the only way a baby knows how to communicate ANYTHING they want, is to cry." This helped me a lot. The only part i have to deal with is trying to figure out what is going on in this little precious baby's mind that is making her cry... and keep crying.
Despite the time spent and energy/emotion given to try to figure it out, it's such a relief for my heart when i do figure it out. it's like i get new energy for the next part of the day.
I've been sleeping pretty well actually. Kennedi has been sleeping for 3-4 hours at a time through the night, which is awesome for me and for Ben who has to get up at 5am.
I've been getting some sweet time with the Holy Spirit even when it's not focused time. I feel like His voice has become more alive and His presence all the more present tangibly in my heart now that i've become a mom. new mercies are available for me. Praise Jesus!

As for Kennedi: she is just the most beautiful little girl living in a crazy world, trying to get used to life outside the womb. I'm sure that's a trial in and of itself. she is a peaceful baby and loves to be sung to and hearing us pray in the spirit. i've been praying colossians 1:9 over her every day. she's already getting so big and she's only about 2 weeks old!

As for Ben: He's learning to live with 2 girls now.. and is amazing at being a dad and husband. he loves so well and serves without complaint. he loves his "little bean" as he calls Kennedi and she loves him too!

I know this is long, but i think a start of a blog has to have a good introduction.