"I Will Hold Your Heart" -God




Abby sleeping in the new bed she got for Christmas



I have 2 purposes for this blog.  One is to keep people informed about things going on in our lives, and also to help others dealing with similar struggles in waiting for the gift of a child.  This post addresses both!

First of all, we had a really good Christmas!  We’ve been able to see most of our family and extended family at a number of gatherings.  Though, we were pretty disappointed that this has been a brown Christmas with little to no snow on the ground. 

I received a Wii Fit as a gift which has helped my Bible reading time believe it or not!  There is a ‘game’ where you do basic step on and off the Wii board.  The game keeps track of your steps and tells you at the end about how many calories you have burned.  Now how does that help my Bible reading time you ask?  Well, I do most of my Bible reading in the morning, but when I’ve had a short night I find it hard to do my Bible reading without falling asleep.  So, I found that I can do the basic step game and read my Bible at the same time!  I have a chair with my journal beside me so I can pause and write notes and highlight things in my Bible reading.  I can get exercise for both my soul and mind at the same time!  I have also found that the movement actually makes me more alert!

I received another fairly small gift from my sister, SW which I didn’t realize how significant it would be to me.  It was two shrinky dink pieces attached on a string as a bookmark;  The top one saying ‘Little sister’ and the bottom one with a picture of children holding a banner of crosses.  The next two paragraphs expain it's significance.



Bookmark made by SW



New Year’s Eve was a busy day for us.  We had a gathering, I was doing singing at the evening services at church and we had a New Year’s Eve party that night.  All went really well and we both had a lot of fun.  There was one area though that made ringing in the new year pretty hard for me.  Between the gathering and evening party, I endured (mother’s in waiting understand the use of this term) a total 7 pregnancy announcements!  I think that’s a record for me in one day!  It was all God’s doing that I didn’t fall apart that day (it's been 36 months of waiting so far).  My heart ached, but I was able to smile, congratulate my friends, and carry on with the evening.  God reminded me of what he’d said another time when I was praying in hopes that this month might be the one, he simply said: “I will hold your heart”.  If God is holding my heart, I will not crumble, I will not get angry, I will not be jealous, I will not fall apart.  He is holding me!

Now, our New Year service at church was on ‘I Exist On Purpose’. (If you would like to hear the message for yourself you can click on this link:  http://www.mysouthland.com/index.php/en/i-exist-on-purpose.html )  After the service that week, I continued to think and pray about what my purpose is.  I thought about all the pregnancies, and the way God was holding my heart.  God has been using these tough times, waiting to be a mother, to make me stronger in my faith.  With this faith, I am better equipped to reach out to children and teach them.  This bookmark has already become a reminder to me that God has a plan and a purpose for me!  Right now he is calling me to reach out to children.  I don't know what God has in store for me this year; Maybe I'll become a mother, maybe I wont.  But God is holding my heart and he has a plan much greater than mine!