Hello Baby Girl

"Praise God through whom ALL blessings flow!"

These last couple of weeks have had the biggest highs & lows for me. I hit an extremely low point physically. It is amazing how much your physical body controls your mind and spirit. When my body is weak & sick, my spirit feels weak & sick. It is this constant battle to keep my thoughts on the Lord & His Word versus sulking in self-pity.

This Sunday was a hard day for me, but felt I still needed to go the church with my boys, and the Lord encouraged me there. I am very careful not to dwell on the words of the pastor himself but to always return to the verses he spoke on to confirm how the Lord wants me to apply it to my life. But, there is also so much encouragement in how the Lord teaches & speaks to others. We had a guest pastor speaking on the book of Philemon. I encourage you to read that book & let the Lord speak to to you. One thing I am not good at is knowing the history behind a lot of the books of the Bible, it has always been my focus just to spend time with the Lord, & to know Him through His Words. But when someone does have that background, I love hearing it! 

The book of Philemon is a letter from Paul to Philemon. Philemon's slave, Onesimus had run away. But, through God's own works, Onesimus stumbled across Paul & became a believer. This letter is Paul sending Philemon his slave back, with specific instruction. You can read it yourself, but here is what the pastor shared(or how I received it) that the Lord really had stick to my heart,
"God doesn't react: He is sovereign. He has a plan from the beginning. Onesimus had to run away to find his salvation (& find Paul). God doesn't just take a bad/hard situation & turn it around for good, the 'hard' was His purpose from the beginning."

The Lord made this so clear to me, it is so true! God is SOVEREIGN! He knows our entire life before we are even conceived. How small we make Him sometimes to think He is up there just reacting or not reacting to things we are going through. Now, yes sometimes we make things harder than they needed to be, but He already knew we would :) 

I love these versus in Philemon & they are such an amazing reminder of how important it is to acknowledge what the Lord is doing in our lives.

"...hearing of your love and faith which you have toward the Lord Jesus 

and toward all the saints, that the sharing of your faith may 

become effective by the acknowledgment of 

EVERY good thing which is in you IN Christ Jesus. 

For we have great joy and consolation in your love, 

because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed by you, brother."

Philemon 1:5-7

Now that I've shared my "lows" I MUST share my "high"! We found out yesterday we are having a girl! And it was so exciting and encouraging and just felt refreshed by the Lord. I think finding out was a precious reminder to me of what the Lord is creating in my body. Most of my days may be awful, but there is a beautiful blessing at the end. And of course the flood gates of all the fun things you get with having a girl flew open! My Pinterest is about to explode! I just had to start planning already :) Todd is really excited to have a girl, but quickly realized that means buying lots of new things!!! ;) Here is a peek of what I'm inspired by right now:

Heart Swaddle & Hat | Purple Nursery | Colorful Dresser | Blue Cart

All the "stuff" is so much fun, but also treasuring the thought of how different a little girl will be. I love having a boy so much and seeing Ford's relationships with Todd & I, it will be so different with a daughter. I can't wait for all that will bring. 

"My fellow laborers, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen."

In Him, T

(Here are some fun photos we had yesterday on our "gender reveal" day)

"It's a WHAT?!?"

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