The Perfect Wedding Cake

Posted on August 26, 2014 by justeeni

When Dan and I started planning our wedding, we had no idea what we wanted for a wedding cake. A friend of ours had experience at making cakes and was eager to help us with ours. So, we scheduled a meeting. The four of us all sat down together: my Mom, Dan, the cake-maker, and myself. As we began talking we realized we didn’t really have any idea what we wanted.

“It should be white.”

“Should there be some purple in it?”

“I like ribbons…”

“Flowers are nice”

After only a few minutes we decided to reschedule another meeting after we had come to a more concrete idea of what we actually wanted. Weeks passed and we put very little thought into the cake. Our meeting arrived and we sat down and essentially designed our cake on the spot.

“White. With swirls, I like swirls on the sides.”

“How about some roses?”

“What flavor? What filling?”

In a very half-hazard way, we designed our cake. It was three tiers, all white with swirls on the sides and roses lining the edges. They were small at the top and grew larger at the bottom. There would be a raspberry filling in the middle because that’s what sounded good at the time (and it was conveniently close to purple).

The only part of the cake I was sure about was the cake topper. I had picked it out myself early in our engagement and everyone gave their approval. Apart from the topper, I had almost no idea if the cake would even look decent…or wedding-y.

I remember the first time I saw the cake. It was morning, and sky was perfectly clear as I walked through the parking lot and into the gym where are reception was going to be. It must have been the day of the wedding, so all the decorations were in place. The gym was a sea of white with purple accents and delicate white roses were scattered everywhere. In the middle of the gym was a round table, and there on a small platform, was our wedding cake.

It was perfect. I couldn’t have designed a better cake for our wedding and for us if I had actually known what I was doing. The cake was simple, beautiful, elegant, and it even tasted delicious.

Sometimes our marriage feels a lot like our wedding cake. Dan and I each came into it with our own ideas of what it should look like. We had plans that failed, expectations that have never been fulfilled. There were probably only two major things I was sure of when we got married:

1) Dan was the man I wanted to marry.

2) Jesus was the center of our relationship and we wanted Him to stay there.

I guess Jesus is a bit like our cake topper. He stays, but anything else can change (and most other things have changed). Marriage has held so much that we never expected. School changes. Job changes. Babies…early babies! Those crazy newborn months. And housing changes (and more and more housing changes). Sometimes our whole lives feel a bit disorganized. Sometimes they feel chaotic or downright out of control. But ultimately, Jesus is at the center of our marriage, and God is the one creating and perfecting our story. God is our marriage “cake-maker”.

Often we just see the messy cake-making process. But sometimes we get a little glimpse into the beauty that God is perfecting. This Thursday Dan and I will celebrate four years of marriage. Four years of chaos and four years of trusting Jesus.

We’re going to celebrate by having an extended weekend packed full of fun and friends and a nice, long date. So there will be updates and pictures and lots of sharing up ahead, but for now I’m just reflecting on the goodness of our God and the sweet results a marriage receives when Jesus is at the center.

Love, Laughter, and Bloopers

Posted on August 21, 2014 by justeeni

Last week I took the girls outside for a brief photo shoot before posting Abby’s latest update. Lydia wanted to be in on the fun, so I took pictures while the girls played together. It was sweet. Afterward I realized that I had taken some pretty funny pictures, and some cute ones too.

Mind if I share?

Few things make my heart happier than watching these two talk to each other, play together, and just love on each other.

Sometimes I’m not sure they’re BOTH enjoying themselves.

And sometimes I KNOW they’re not both enjoying themselves.

Sometimes they just need some alone time.

Sometimes bad things happen when I’m not around.

But these two forgive quickly. Then they’re back to sharing secrets.

Maybe I was just in a wedding mood, but this one reminds me of bridal party shots where all the girls are talking and laughing. Don’t grow up too fast girls!

Maybe we can duplicate this one at the a wedding too. 🙂

Abby has a tendency to bite fingers, eat faces, and poke people in the eye.

And sometimes she just won’t smile.

I love my girls. And all our squishy selfies too.

Almost Three

Posted on May 29, 2014 by justeeni

Tomorrow morning, at 7:52, Lydia will turn three. We’ll probably spend most of the morning playing outside. I will probably make her take a nap even though it’s her birthday. Then we’ll pull together a birthday dinner that will definitely include tortilla chips. We’ll tell her birth story and celebrate that God has given us three whole years with our little Munchkin. Our Little Bunny. Our Big Girl. Our Gooselet. Our Lydia.

Abby Update: Eight Months Old

Posted on May 13, 2014 by justeeni

Weight: 13 Pounds, 7 ounces

Abby is a lot like me. First of all, she looks very much like my baby pictures. The only real differences are that my eyes were not so blue and my hair was not so red. Although, Abby’s hair seems to be a little less red these days. It’s hard to tell because there’s just not too much of it.

My mom always told me that I was very adaptable. I don’t know about that now, but with all of our packing and unpacking and moving, Abby has displayed some adaptability of her own. She just eats when she’s hungry, sits in her bouncy seat, and smiles at anyone who will take a moment to give her a grin. She is very content and really, a very “easy baby”. The only exception is that she still usually gets up once a night. Again. But sometimes she’ll sleep nice and long and she still takes regular naps, so we’re doing ok.

Abby has officially found her thumb. And, like me, and Lydia, Abby sucks her left thumb. It brings me great happiness to hear the sound of thumb-sucking echo through our basement home as the girls nap.

Abby is also ticklish, and, like me, she doesn’t like being tickled. It’s so cute to watch her try to fight it as you tickle her tummy. She lets out little resistant grunty giggles, but she’s so ticklish that she really can’t resist very long.

But no one can make Abby’s face light up like Dan. When he gives her his attention she gives him the biggest, cutest smile you’ve ever seen. There was a period of a couple of weeks when Abby liked to stick out her tongue all the time. It was a little weird, I thought. But one time Dan just reached out and gently grabbed it. She thought that was the best thing in the world and continued to stick out her tongue in a way that made it look like she was fishing for Dan to grab it again (and he did).

As I wrap up this post, Abby is sitting in her bouncy seat chattering away: “Ehhha, ah, wah, huhhh, ayahhh, huhh, huhh, aieeyabubu”. She is more adorable than words can possibly describe.

Munchkin Update: 2 Years, 10 Months

Posted on April 1, 2014 by justeeni

Sometimes when Lydia is sleepy, all curled up in my arms with her hair in one hand and her thumb in her mouth, and I’m just holding her as she absentmindedly plays with that hair and sucks that thumb, I think “I don’t ever want to let go”.

This kid is full of

fun.

energy.

sweetness.

spunk.

joy.

The other day Lydia disappeared into her bedroom. When she walked out again she had on a bracelet rattle, a talking toy purse, and a pair of pajama pants on her head. She said, “I’m Mary.” We still haven’t figured out if she is Mary from the Bible or someone we know named Mary.

Later Dan took Lydia to Meijer. We always stop to let her look at the fish, and the last time we visited them she said goodbye to every fish tank before leaving. When she got home from Meijer she promptly went back to her room and put the pajama pants back on her head.

Lydia has been mastering Bible memory verses little by little. We are currently working on John 3:16 (to the tune of Silent Night). I added hand motions this time and was extremely confused when we had a visitor one day and Lydia kept telling her she liked the “lotion”. We finally figured out that she wanted to sing the song with the motions.

Speaking of visitors, one of Lydia’s favorite things to do when we have a visitor is fetch them their shoes when they are getting ready to leave. We never told her to do it, she just figured out that when people leave they need shoes, and she decided to be helpful. Now she fetches their shoes, will give them their purse if they have one, and often insists on a hug before they leave.

Dan’s current favorite though, is at bedtime. After Dan spends a few minutes laying on “the green bed” with Lydia, he wishes her goodnight and gets up to leave. She stops him and insists, “No, no, stay for a while!”

Bedtime Moments

Posted on January 6, 2014 by justeeni

I had no idea what a major transition it would be to move Lydia into a “big girl bed”. It’s not that she gets out of bed now. We were pleasantly surprised when Lydia learned her very first night that she can’t just get out of bed whenever she wants. No, the major transition is that Lydia is becoming a very big girl.

One of the perks to tucking Lydia in at night now is that one of us can lie down with her for a while. Usually Dan stays with her for a few songs on the cd we play for her as she falls asleep. A few nights ago, however, Dan told me I could stay with her.

“Mommy come? No room?” Lydia would ask and I said, “Nope, I’m going to lay down with you for a while.” She snuggled up next to me, stuck her thumb in her mouth, and grabbed onto my hair with her free hand. She asked me to put the “baseball blanket” on her and the “pink one” on myself. We sang and hummed some songs. Then we started chatting.

When Abby was in the hospital a couple of different people from church would stay at our house some nights while Lydia slept. Even though we tucked her in before we left, she still knew that we were leaving. By December she was no longer happy when Mommy and Daddy left. So after Abby came home Lydia would often ask at bedtime, “Mommy, Daddy stay?” with excitement in her voice. Sometimes she still does.

As we lay in her big girl bed she asked me again, “No leaving? Mommy stay?”.

“Yep, we’re staying here tonight. We’re not leaving.”

Lydia smiled a satisfied smile and stuck her thumb back in her mouth. “Mommy tired?”, she asked me.

“No, but Mommy has a headache.”

We had a short conversation about my headache and what I was planning to do after I left Lydia’s room. One of the things I told her was that Dan would probably rub my shoulders, because that helps my head stop hurting. I showed her what it meant to rub someone’s shoulders. Lydia listened intently, all the while holding my hair and sucking her thumb. When I’d finished, she reached up with both hands and started to rub my shoulders.

After I left the room I couldn’t help thinking that, when Lydia grows up and moves out, these are going to be the moments I miss the most.

2013 in Review

Posted on December 30, 2013 by justeeni

One of our favorite things to do at the end of each year is remind ourselves of some of the year’s highlights. Originally I intended to post the “Top 10 Blog Posts of 2013”. However, as I looked at what those posts were, I realized that most of them were the first Abby updates. Rather than include ten Abby updates, I’ve edited the list slightly to give a fair view of some of the favorite posts of the year:

10. Wasted Seasons

This is one of Dan’s favorite posts of the year.

9. Anniversary Date

A sweet story of a special date just days before Abby was born.

8. Suffering and the Sovereignty of God

Some thoughts on the lessons I’ve learned this year about suffering.

7. Ten Things I’ve Learned in Three Years of Marriage

An anniversary post.

6. Abby is Home!

This was the highlight of our year!

5. A Letter from Abby

Abby hijacked my blog one day and wrote this sweet letter of thanks.

4. Abigail’s Birth Story

A detailed account of the day Abby was born.

3. The Birth Story I’ll Never Tell

In this post, I shared why we will never have the birth story we had always hoped for, and how God helped us to accept the situation.

2. Abby Update: 66 Days Old

This is the day Abigail was transferred from St. Joe’s over to UofM Mott’s Children’s Hospital due to her excessive spit up and weight loss over the past several weeks.

1. Introducing Abigail Faith

Was anyone surprised? This was the first post published after Abby was born announcing her early birth at just 28 and a half weeks.

This is Love

Posted on December 9, 2013 by justeeni

A few nights ago I was up at three in the morning with Abby. Dan had taken a few days off of work when Abby came home but he went back on Thursday and Friday, and he had asked me to start taking over all of the night time feedings, which was what both of us had planned on happening all along.

But I was so tired. As I sat in the glider with Abby my mind drifted off to all of the couples I have seen lately who have recently become engaged, or married, or celebrated their first wedding anniversaries. According to their Facebook pages their days and nights have been quite full with a lot of dates, love letters, flowers, and special time together.

My mind drifted through Dan and my own early days of marriage, then fast-forwarded to the past few months. We spent almost three long months with Abby in the hospital. At times, it felt like one long nightmare. Three emotional, exhausting, painful, long months. There wasn’t time, energy, or money for flowers or chocolate or date nights. We didn’t even have a free moment to just sit together on our couch.

And now Abby is home. Things are happier and much less crazy. Our house is cleaner than it has been since we moved in. But things are still busy, as any mother of two or more would surely understand. And once again there has been no time, money, or energy for date nights or flowers or love letters…you get the idea.

So as I sat there with Abby, so tired, thinking about all these latest events in my life and others, I was struggling to have a good attitude. I began to pray.

God reminded me of the reasons I married Dan. And I remembered my first joy I at being the one who gets to serve him for the rest of his life. I remembered how Eve was created to be Adam’s helper, and how that’s my main job today. And then God brought to mind a passage from Philippians:

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

It occurred to me then, that this is true love. It isn’t always happy, or easy, or pretty. This is how Jesus loved us. He humbled himself, came to earth, suffered, was rejected, and died. If this is God’s great example of love, then I can follow His example in how I love Dan. So even when there’s no money for flowers, no time for date nights, and no energy to stay up a few minutes longer together and talk at night, I can still love Dan like Jesus did.

During the late nights, the hard work, and the times apart I can still demonstrate real love to Dan.

Not that there’s anything wrong with the other stuff.

I know it’s an old lesson, and I’ll probably need to learn it again. But it was a good one I thought worth sharing. I made it through the three AM feeding with a song in my heart and a smile (a sleepy smile, that is) on my face. And a couple of nights later the girls were asleep and Dan and I, for the first time in a long time, had the time and energy to sit together on our couch chatting and looking at the lights on our newly decorated Christmas tree.

10 Things I’ve Learned in 3 Years of Marriage

Posted on August 28, 2013 by justeeni

Today Dan and I are celebrating our 3rd wedding anniversary. So, in celebration mode, I thought I’d share 10 things I’ve learned in 3 years of marriage. (photo credit: Dan Carlson)

1. Respect is love

During our first months of marriage, Dan and I read a book together called Love and Respect. Through that book and our premarital counseling, I learned that the best way I can love Dan is by respecting him. What does that look like for us? (I’m all about the practical application) Well, Dan’s a visionary sort of fellow. So that means when he comes home and tells me his latest brilliant idea (that I may or may not think is brilliant), I don’t squash him like a bug! I listen and support his ideas, because I know I have a trustworthy husband who won’t put us into bankruptcy following some crazy idea he had during his lunch hour.

I can’t imagine any feeling better than the feeling of being loved, but for Dan, it’s the feeling of being respected. So, I can’t say I completely understand, but it really does work.

2. Physical exercise is to Dan what sleep is to a pregnant Justine

This is one I just figured out in recent months. For most of my pregnancy I’ve required a nap-a-day. Ok, so I can go one day without a nap and be alright. But give me two days in a row and I turn into a basket case. I just need the rest.

I used to get annoyed at how much Dan enjoyed exercise. Every single day he wanted to go lift weights or run or play a sport. When he started working full time, I realized that he starts to go crazy if he doesn’t get his exercise. So, I finally figured out that it’s not something to resent. I need my sleep and Dan graciously guards my naptimes. In turn, I’m learning to guard his exercise time.

3. Efficiency makes us a happy couple

Because Dan and I have one car, we usually do all of our grocery shopping on the weekends. For one semester, we had an arrangement where Dan was able to work out while Lydia and I did the shopping. In fact, Dan was so busy that semester that we had to do it that way. When the semester was over, I was thrilled to be able to have that shopping time with Dan once again. However, much to my disappointment, we seemed to get frustrated with each other during every single shopping trip. I figured out that Dan just felt like shopping was taking way longer than it should (even though it always took me that long). So, I decided to change things.

I started organizing my list in the order of the store aisles. We have a very particular route we take through each store now, every single time. On top of that, I planned far enough ahead so that we weren’t shopping at three stores in one weekend. I rotated every other week for two of the stores and bought things ahead of time.

Then Dan developed Super Shopper. It’s a simple, yet wonderful invention. I have an excel sheet where I keep a database of everything we’ve bought from three different stores. In the excel file, I list the items in order of our in-store route. When I make my grocery list (in totally random order), I run the program, and it automatically sorts my list by store and puts the items in the correct order for each store. This ingenious program took my grocery planning from over an hour to just minutes a week.

Efficiency saves me time during the week doing a chore I don’t enjoy much, it saves us time on the weekends so we can get in and out of stores crazy-fast, and it saves unnecessary tension and frustration between the two of us.

4. Love is doing what Dan loves

When we were first married, I would always try to make Thursday nights (our “date nights”) special by cooking some elaborate meal. Finally I figured out that Dan wasn’t big on elaborate meals. He much rather would have tacos or meat and potatoes than anything gourmet, and those things were easier for me to cook! Likewise, for my birthday a couple years ago I planned an elaborate surprise date night where we dressed up and ate a fancy meal in our apartment which I had decorated to look like a fancy private restaurant. It was fun, but afterwards I talked to Dan and found out his dream date with me would be to go to a Tigers game.

So I have learned and am learning, to love Dan by doing what he loves, not just what I love.

5. Love is loving what Dan loves

Like my last point, I have learned to love what Dan loves, even if it’s not necessarily my “cup of tea”. This is another recent lesson that I remember journaling about last anniversary. Dan was on a kick where he read the news every day and would come home and talk to me about it. I thought it was boring. Finally I realized we would both enjoy our dinners together much more if I actually made an effort to care about what he was telling me. Later the conversations switched from news to business ideas and more recently it’s been a lot of talk about Dan’s career. It’s not annoying anymore. I’m thankful that I have a husband who trusts me enough to tell me what’s on his mind, and I don’t ever want to risk shutting that out because the topic isn’t one I would have chosen on my own.

6. Research is in the job description

After Dan and I were married, I had one semester of college left. Once that semester ended, I became a full-time homemaker. Through some well suggested reading from ladies at church, I learned that being a homemaker is a real job and should be treated like one. Dan and I always joke that stay-at-home-moms sit at home all day eating bon bons. Then Dan tells me that I’m the best stay-at-home-mom because I don’t just eat the bon bons, I make them!

Joking aside, there is plenty to do around the home to stay busy and part of that job (a big part in my case) has been research: nutrition, pregnancy, parenting, budgeting, cleaning…the list could go on! Since I am a steward of my home, I want to make sure I’m doing my job well, not just going with the flow.

7. It’s ok to take a nap

That last point being said, I was a pretty driven homemaker and new mommy after Lydia was born. I felt like it would be lazy for me to take a break. After all, Dan doesn’t take a nap in the middle his work day. However, Dan also isn’t on call 24/7!

I’ve learned to take time out of the day to nap, rest, or at least relax. It makes for a happy wife when Dan gets home, which makes him a happier husband.

8. Having a preemie is more stressful than taking 19 credits at UofM any day

Dan and I don’t really fight. Our “fights” involve my being super sad and Dan being kind of distant until we can reconcile. But we had never had any of even these fights until Lydia was born. Through friendship, dating, engagement, wedding planning, and being married and in school full time we didn’t fight. When we got married, I had to take a bus every day to get to campus and stay until evening. We were super busy, super poor, and super happy.

The most stressful period of my life was my 19 credit semester at the University of Michigan, in engineering mind you! I would go home in tears regularly because I was so overworked and sleep-deprived.

But none of that comes even close to comparing with Lydia’s birth. For six weeks we dealt with postpartum emotions, going home every night without our baby, not getting enough food or rest, and to top it off, we had moved the weekend Lydia was born and hadn’t had a chance to unpack. That is when we had our first “fights”. (The best gift anyone ever gave me was when Dan’s parents and grandparents came home and completely moved us in about a week after Lydia was born)

Ladies and gentlemen, if you don’t handle stress well, I would advise you to never have a preemie. That being said, God helped us through that hard time and we made it and are stronger for it. And, I’m extra grateful to have a wonderful husband who did go through all of that with me, and who stayed with me and even tells me that he still likes me in spite of it all!

9. I will always love to hold his hand

When we were dating, Dan and I decided not to touch each other at all until we were engaged. Sure enough, when Dan proposed, I said yes, and he asked if he could put the ring on my hand. Many nights just before we fall asleep, Dan reaches over for my hand. Or while we are riding in the car, he’ll put his hand out to hold mine. Maybe I’m just a hand-holding sort of person, or maybe because of our history, it still always makes me grin.

10. It’s just better together

Each year I sit back and think to myself, “What is my favorite part of being married?” The answer has always been, “No more goodbyes!”. I just love being together every single day. Three years in and I still tell Dan I’ll miss him when he goes away to work, I still want to sit and watch when he plays sports, and I still look forward to Friday nights when Dan comes home and I get him for the whole weekend. Things just go better when we can be together.

Happy Anniversary, Love! It’s been three wonderful years, and I’m looking forward to many, many more.

Midnight Meeting

Posted on August 14, 2013 by justeeni

During my Junior year of college I lived by myself in a cute little one-bedroom apartment on campus at the University of Michigan. While there are ups and downs to living alone, I enjoyed that transitional year and am grateful for it. I have many priceless memories of spending time there alone with God; sometimes in prayer, singing, or reading the Bible. One of those occasions happened to be about five months after Dan and I had started dating. And, while I enjoyed that time alone with the Lord, I started to panic as I thought about the possibility of getting married and giving that time up. I had heard how busy it is to be a mom, how you’re always tired and the work is unending. I had heard that it becomes impossible to have significant quiet times alone with the Lord. I also knew that just being a wife was, in a way, a sacrifice of the freedom that I had to spend time alone with the Lord so often without interruption. So, by the end of this particular evening, I was seriously questioning whether or not I ever wanted to get married, even to someone as wonderful as Dan. However, after a few weeks of serious prayer, thought, and a helpful book I felt let to read, I decided that this was indeed the direction in which God was leading. So, sacrifices or not, I obeyed.

Fast forward to this past Friday evening. Dan and I were talking, as we often do, about our future. Where would we live? What sort of career will Dan have (long term)? What are we supposed to do about all that right now? And, as is often the case, we weren’t coming to any solid conclusions. This evening, though, I was getting frustrated and impatient. So, as Dan ran into a store, I took the moment to pray through some of my unhappy thoughts. It’s not really ok to be angry at God, despite what our culture (even the Christian culture) tells us. I knew that I was getting angry, but God was gracious enough to offer me some clarity and comfort during those short moments in the car, and I was excited and grateful.

That night, I woke up earlier than usual. (In recent weeks of this pregnancy, I’ve been waking up once a night, around 3:00 AM to get a drink of water and go to the bathroom) I thought that was a bit odd and was soon fast asleep once more. Then, I woke up again. Now that is really unusual. That time, I couldn’t fall back asleep. So after tossing and turning for a while, I decided this was another one of those evenings when God was waking me up to meet with Him. I shuffled out to the living room, made some tea and a snack, and settled down to read my Bible.

I have been flying through the Gospels lately, and I found myself starting off another one, the Book of John. Different things have been standing out to me from each book, but I haven’t been doing any in-depth studying, just reading. In John 1-4, the thing that stood out very clearly to me was Jesus’ interaction with and care for individuals, one at a time. Andrew. Simon. Philip. Nathaniel. Nicodemus. The Woman at the Well.

Each person, Jesus already knew, before they knew Him. Each person, He told to “follow”. And, for all except Nicodemus, each person went and told others. And in the case of the woman at the well…

“Many more believed because of His word; and they were saying to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this One is indeed the Savior of the world.’”

As I sat under the cozy light from the lamp perched on a ledge above our couch, I enjoyed this uninterrupted time of Bible reading. No laundry to fold, no dishes to wash, to toys to pick up, no diapers to change…just uninterrupted time to sit back and read. I thought about how my name goes into that list of individuals. Like Philip, I have heard the call, “Follow Me”. Like Nicodemus, I was up during the night to meet with Jesus. Like the woman, I have had moments of discovering my own sinfulness, only to realize that He already knew. Throughout my childhood I heard about Jesus until I too could say, “It is no longer because of what you said that I believe, for I have heard for myself and know that this One is indeed the Savior of the world.”

I thought, more specifically, to the Friday night before, and how patient God had been with me and my frustrations. I thought about that night in my apartment alone when I was so afraid that I would never get any special time with the Lord once I was married, and certainly not once I was a mom. But those rumors I heard, about how moms just don’t get to spend any time with the Lord, I have found them to be false.

True, I don’t often have hour-long daily quiet times. True, I can’t just drop everything and sit on the floor and pray when I’m feeling emotional, sad, tired, anxious…and, true, I have a larger number of important priorities now than I did back then. But what is also true is that God gives us the spiritual food that we need, sometimes only one day at a time (or hour, or minute!) and sometimes only in small moments. But He feeds His sheep. We shall not be in want. He makes us lie down in green pastures and leads us beside still waters.

I have heard an analogy that God feeds us in the same way a baby is fed milk. Some newborns take hours to eat a meal, only to need another meal an hour later. As babies grow, however, they eat faster. Even though their stomachs are bigger, they still get all the food that they need, but in a shorter amount of time. Sometimes our Bible times after dinner are my only “food”. Other times I get a few minutes, or half an hour, to spend with the Lord. But sometimes, God wakes me up in the middle of the night and asks me to spend a little time alone with Him.

So, what’s the take-away from all of this? God gives Christians everything they need. God cares about individuals: me, you. God is gracious, and likes to give us good gifts, and loves to have special alone time with His Beloved. And the peace, and contentment, and hope, and joy that I have in this moment don’t come from a perfect life, or a well-planned future, or a sweet baby girl, or a wonderful husband. They are gifts that God delights to give His children. May you experience those gifts today.

MI Taylor Family

We live in Michigan.

Tag Archives: Love