I Am Ready to Peek Out My Window...

It has been so long since I have connected with all of you! I hope each of you are doing really well and that the Lord is real and near to each of you as you are going through your days.

I am doing much better! I am now 17 weeks, feeling this little one move, and much stronger and healthier! I have been able to enjoy my family, participate again in life, and begin to help out in the normal day's activities. Food is no longer my enemy;)- I still have rough days and wrestle with nausea and an absence of an appetite, but all is so much more manageable!! Gaining my strength back from 2 months in bed and a lack of good nutrition has taken a bit longer than I had hoped for, and honestly, my patience wore thin at certain times. I have begun to roam outside my four walls with the help of Matt. A Quiet dinner date, short trips to the store for birthdays, and even 2 times journeying into a thrift store with Matt as backup when it became to much. Driving... not really there yet, although I need to drop off one of the kiddos tonight, which makes me nervous-weird isn't it-"do I still know how"?! In some ways, this slowwwww pace has forced me to learn some new things about priorities and gratitude for the strength granted by the Lord. I am free of feeling the "HAVE TOS" when I wake up and more thankful for the "CAN DOS" that have been accomplished by day's end. There is time to really enjoy cuddling with the little kiddos and talking with the older ones. Funny how the focus is now on how much joy I find in just giving the little ones a bath, or being able to do a load of laundry-grading the kids homework feels awesome and cleaning my frig out is monumental considering I could not even enter the kitchen just four weeks ago. My folks still come every other week or so, not so much to completely dig us out anymore, but more to simply help me maintain some tasks that are still difficult for me. The last 2 weeks I would have considered going to church, but my little ones have been sick(which really was a first this winter!!-very unusual but appreciated), and I am not sure I could handle the length of Matt's mornings there yet. It has seemed like such a long time since I have seen the faces of my church family except for those blessed souls who have dropped off meals and groceries for us!!

I have been able to experience the joy that comes after a very difficult trial, knowing that the Lord has once again walked with us through it. As we have felt a peace about this being our last child( something I had not yet experienced until now) - I have also experienced something else that is difficult to explain correctly. It is a humbling yet thrilling thing, knowing that our decision to have another babe despite the gravity of my pregnancies, is something that we can bring honor to Him for!! I did not think I could ever do this again-but I also did not feel a peace about finalizing having children-now I am so grateful we listened to the Holy Spirit-if I had turned my ear for practicality, common sense, fear of suffering and illness or the like-I would have never known this little one intended for us !! Life is a miraculous gift and there is no doubt that children are His blessing to us!! I feel like I have run a very long and difficult race (one at times I was very ready to quit), but the victory-the day this last little baby of ours is born-will be ever so sweet!! How grateful I am for each of our children-who are worth more than anything I can humanly give. I cannot even imagine what it will be like to hold this little one at the end of a 15 year journey I have been on with my best friend!! A little more than a year ago, a strange feeling swept over me when we all sat down to the dinner table-one that made me almost count my children, feeling as though someone was missing-imagine that;) Guess it was in the works by my Heavenly Father before we even had plans. Pretty fun story Matt and I have been a part of! Thank you Jesus!

We were quite surprised a few weeks ago during an ultrasound, to find out the sex of the baby!! I didn't even plan on asking since I was still so early in the pregnancy. But the tech was quite confident and asked if we wanted to know! So.... I will be sharing that news with you very soon! I attempted to pick up a little something for the baby that day on our way home to help us announce to the kiddos that we were having a "girl or boy", but I made it to the first isle and had to give that idea up-it was just too early for me to be doing much of anything, so with Matt's help we made our way back out to the car-crazy!!

I am slowly getting back to working more on the shop-not just keeping up with shipping(which I was unfortunately very sluggish at for a time) I have added a few things here and there, done a tiny bit of sewing but been very flooded with ideas and the desire to create-That is a real sign of mental healing for me! Creativity eludes me completely during my darkest times of the illness and with that, my mind just seems to function in a haze. So this has been a blessing, helping to motivate the stretching needed to heal in every way. The desire to create has been one of my most precious gifts from the Lord, I have felt.

Instead of major overhauls and projects that I accomplish in a day-"the old me"-I have become satisfied and content to slowly work on things needing attention, even if it takes me weeks! I have been slowly cleaning and working towards making our room ready for this new little one, and this morning, I was finally able to bring in the best part!! Matt brought down our antique cradle up in the attic for me. I cannot believe how peaceful it makes my room feel. The kiddos just seem to congregate around it gabbing about how they can't wait until the baby arrives. One of the hardest parts about being sick for so long and in bed, is that those 4 walls seem to close in on you. I could not even make my bed let alone clean or work on preparing the room for the baby. So when I began to start feeling better, the last place I wanted to be was in my bedroom again!! But time has helped and this past week I set my mind to working on small areas a little at a time. We switched out some dressers to make room for the cradle, I cleaned and dusted as Matt moved furniture, and sure enough, it came together. Last night, I actually wanted to curl up in my bed as though it was a breath of fresh air.

Thank you all for your prayers and encouraging words-they have helped more than you know! Hopefully we can connect more often now! Blessings to each of you!!

Will the Darkness Ever Lift?

Long my imprisoned spirit lay, Fast bound in sin and nature's night.
Thine eyes diffused a quickening ray.
I woke; the dungeon flamed with light.
My chains fell off; my heart was free.
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.
~Charles Wesley


This quote captures the essence of depression. It is a dungeon. Something that seems to be growing around us. Many of us have experienced some sort of depression at some point in our lives. Maybe it has come from a deep loss, or maybe from a hardship, or maybe it just seems to have showed up with no reason at all. Maybe it stayed for a short season, or maybe it has been your enemy for a very long time. Or maybe you have not experienced it personally, but it has affected a loved one and you have had to endure watching them feel trapped by this. It is a devastating thing to watch swallow up a loved one and rob them of who they are, robbing them of joy. It makes you feel very helpless. I have only experienced it very briefly during my pregnancies after being bed ridden and sick for months unable to care for my family, but even then,I knew it would eventually lift and there was a hope that lessened the sorrow. But I have been witness to the effects of depression in family members, the closest being my own dad. My dad has struggled with depression off and on for most of my life. And almost three years ago, only 3 weeks after my little Noah was born, I received that phone call that I never wanted to get and in many ways never expected to get. My Dad had attempted to take his own life.

Now, I have to pause after saying that. There are so many sentences that could follow that one, so many. It would probably take a couple weeks of long talks over coffee to express all that this season in my life has brought following that day. Life changed forever, but much of life continued on the same. I have never kept that circumstance quiet, but just saying it doesn't uncover all of the struggle attached to it. But this is very important for me to say. Never should there be a time that my thoughts and feelings are not weighed against what the Lord says. He is always at the end of any sentence, emotion, any weeping, any fit of anger, any feeling of deep loss or question of what to do. We aren't meant to live seperately from Him. How good it is to fall into His soothing arms and be able to trust He is working. And all those feeling of how can I help , what can I do, come down to, I just need to get on my knees and ask.

He says...

Peace I leave with you...
I do not give to you as the world gives.
Do not let your heart be troubled
and do not be afraid. John 14:27

Weeping may tarry for the night,
but joy comes in the morning. Psalm 30:5

But the Lord is my defence; and my God is the rock of my refuge. Psalm 94:22

And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full. And He was...asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish? And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was great calm. Mark 4:37-39

The salvation of the righteous is of the Lord:
he is their strength in the time of trouble. Psalm 37:39

Wait on the Lord: be of courage,
and He shall strengthen thy heart:
wait, I say, on the Lord. Psalm 27:14

Many are the afflictions of the righteous:
but the Lord delivereth him out of them all. Psalm 34:19

The Lord also will be a refuge for the oppressed,
a refuge in times of trouble. Psalm 9:9

We went through fire and water,
but you brought us to a place of abundance.
Praise be to God, who has not rejected my prayer
or withheld his love from me! Psalm 66:12. 20

For he has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted,
neither has He hid his face from him,
but when he cried unto him, he heard. Psalm 22:24

There are two things that I especially see from these verses.
One is that it is very obvious that we are all going to struggle, let's face it, we live in a fallen world-God intended it to be eden, but all of us fall short. None of us can escape from hardship completely. From the beginning of mankind, people have been faced with depression, with sorrow, and the like.

And the second thing I see in these verses is that the Lord promises to be there with us. He is merciful and says He will be there with us through hardship, pain, even consequences we must face. He says he will hear our cry.

So, this is what I am praying for. I am praying for healing for my dad, and I am praying that my dad will wait on the Lord and wait for the morning. And this is what I remember of the Lord's faithfulness. When my Dad was missing, in those few short hours, family and friends were called to pray. The Lord heard those prayers and spoke very clearly to my dad, and said, this is not what I have for you. My Dad called in time for paramedics to get to him. The Lord saved his life and answered all of our prayers. There was a battle waging for my dad's life that day, one we cannot see with human eyes and that battle is ongoing. Today I am choosing to join that battle and to put on God's armor and fight for my dad when He is weak. Remember to pray for those in your life that are weary from the battle of depression. Remember to ask the Lord for His healing. It is the best way to show your love for them.