Sleeping Beauty

Nothing like a sleeping baby. Emersen cracks me up with her arm positions. She looks like she's doing the cha-cha in the one above and posing for a pin-up in the ones below.

The other day my mother-in-law treated me and my sister-in-law to pedicures. It was awesome of course. While I was talking to Holly, she asked if there was anything I was surprised about since Emersen had come along - as a parent or whatever. I told her it wasn't really surprising but it's unbelieveable how out of control you are with a baby. You're simply at their mercy and service. They cry and you have no idea what they want or need. And sometimes it's not anything (it's colic...) and you feel so helpless. This just continues from pregnancy really when you're at the mercy of the growing baby and what it does to your body. I'm extremely thankful to have my body back to myself. But now even more of my life is dependent on Emersen and what kind of day she is having.

Pegnancy was a lesson in patience and surrender from the Lord, and parenthood continues these lessons. It's hard to surrender to God's will and just let Him be in the driver's seat. I mean, He's in control whether we acknowledge it or not. It's just easier if you stop the denial and embrace it. Doing it our way instead of His, which always is the best for us anyway, is hard!

A lady at church shared some testimony this past week and kept repeating "If you don't know God, go find Him, because you just don't know when He's coming back riding on clouds." Many of us say we know God because we believe He exists. But the Bible says that nobody can come to the Father except through the Son. As we come up to the month of celebrating Christ's birth, it's important to remember that to be a Christian, to expect to receive forgiveness for your sins and to have life forever in heaven after we die, we have to recognize that Jesus is real, died for our sins, rose again and is the one and only way to heaven. This is another lesson is realizing you're not in control and learning to surrender. You lack control in that you can't DO anything to get to heaven, to receive forgiveness for your sins (lying, lusting, jealousy, adultery, murder - all are the same in God's eyes). You cannot be good enough to get to heaven. Only by surrendering to God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and saying He will be in charge of your life, that your life will revolve around Him and letting Him take control as master of your life will you experience mercy and grace. Mercy in that He forgives sins that we deserve punishment for and then grace in that we receive blessing (a relationship with the creator of the universe and eternity in heaven) when we deserve punishment for sins (death).

I'm reminded daily that I have to "let go and let God" when dealing with a needy infant. I cannot do this mom thing, much less do it well, without God's help. He gave me this little baby, His child, and we are her stewards here on earth. My prayers have changed a little these days. It's often 3 am and as Emersen makes noise over the baby monitor, I start praying "please let her stay asleep, please don't let her wake up." This is silly but I'm just being honest. It's truly been amazing to see God's hand in everything over the past month or so - in my labor and delivery, in Emersen's weight issues and in the overwhelming outpouring of gifts and support from friends, family, friends of family, co-workers of family, even people I've never met before.

I don't know that you know God better after becoming a parent or anything. It is just another experience the Lord has used in our lives to teach us how to become more like His son - which is part of our purpose in life. The other part is to give God the credit and praise He deserves and to tell others about how awesome He is - so hopefully Emersen doesn't mind that some of the attention has come off her in this post and is put on Him. I hope to always do that and to teach her to do that as well.

Happy Thanksgiving - count your blessings!