(Ok so I wrote this months ago and must have forgotten to post it! I guess I had pregnancy brain even back then.)

I was reading some C.S. Lewis the other night and I came across this quote which actually brought me to tears (easier to do these days with the pregnancy hormones but still...).

When you teach a child writing, you hold its hand while it forms the letters: that is, it forms the letters because you are forming them. We love and reason because God loves and reasons and holds our hand while we do it. (Mere Christianity)

Sometimes I forget that God is our Father and that he is a perfect Father. I forget that he loves us the way a father does which means at times he will discipline us when we need it, but perfectly and in love. Most of all I forget that he will guide us through life if we are willing to listen to him. "The ear that listens to life-giving reproof will dwell among the wise." (Proverbs 15:31) But no matter what the situation we find ourselves in he is always holding our hand and giving us pieces of himself to help us.

The imagery of God holding my hand, always with me and guiding me by giving me his character and his love, has really helped me this week. The past week I have seen some things in myself that I really haven't liked, some serious areas of sin that need weeding out. Normally when I come to a place where I acknowledge sin in my life I feel defeated and broken down, but this time, knowing that my Father is holding my hand and guiding me out of my sin, I feel humbled and at peace, I have hope.

I have come to Jesus, I am asking for forgiveness and I am confident that over time my Father will pull me out with his strength, grasping my hand with a grip that will not be broken. I know that I can't do any of this without my Father, without my Jesus and without the Holy Spirit who lives in me and shows me the way and I am forever thankful that I am in the right hands.

C.S. Lewis said is well but God himself says it so much better:

and another goodie:

For the past week the hymn "It is well with my soul" has been running through my mind. I remember hearing an incredible story awhile back about this hymn but the details were fuzzy so I looked it up. Perhaps that was God's providence because I have also been pondering the concept of identity a lot lately and as it turns out the two are very connected. Let me explain.

The hymn "It is well with my soul" was written by a man named Horatio Spafford. In 1871 Spafford's wife and four daughters were on a ship headed from the US to Europe that collided with another vessel and sunk. By the grace of God his wife, Anna, survived the shipwreck but their four daughters did not survive. After the loss of his four daughters Spafford, who loved Jesus, wrote this hymn praising God.

Here are the Lyrics:

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.
* Refrain:
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.
Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.
My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!
For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live:
If Jordan above me shall roll,
No pang shall be mine, for in death as in life
Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul.
But, Lord, ’tis for Thee, for Thy coming we wait,
The sky, not the grave, is our goal;
Oh, trump of the angel! Oh, voice of the Lord!
Blessed hope, blessed rest of my soul!
And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.

So here's where identity comes into play. I am sure Mr. Spafford was devastated by the loss of his four precious babies, I cannot even imagine that pain, but even so he was able to say that God is good and that Jesus is Lord. In the midst of his pain he was able to write a beautiful song praising Jesus and proclaiming that it was well with his soul because Jesus was bigger and more important than anything else in his life. His identity, ultimately, was in Jesus and not in his daughters, his wife or any other created thing. Amazing.

Today when I got to church the first song we sang was "It is well with my soul" and the sermon was incredible and all about our identity in Christ and the glory of God. Amazing, I love how the Lord weaves our lives together day by day.

With all of this said I've been thinking about my own identity lately and what that means. In my life I am a wife, a mother, a sister, a daughter, a friend, a home builder; I have been a worker, a student and so many other things but none of these things can be who I am. If I claim any one of these things as my identity, put all of my hope in one, I will ultimately be let down. None of these things can truly fulfill me because they are not God.

If Spafford had put all of his hope in his children he never would have written this hymn. If he had made his life about being their father and invested all of his hope and joy in them and their future then his world would have ended when their lives did. He probably would have grown bitter and angry and perhaps taken his own life as a result of their loss, but he didn't. He didn't because his identity was in the only thing that cannot and will not fail you, ever, Jesus.

So even though I am a mother and a wife and it would be so easy for me to put my hope in Ryan or my babies, to make my world all about them, I can't. Ryan has in the past and will continue to, let me down at times (as I have, and will him) and the same goes for my children. God is the only one who will never leave me or forsake me because I have put my hope in Jesus, his son who died for my sins and rose from death because he is God.

I can't claim that I will live a perfect life, in fact I can guarantee that I will not, but I can say that my hope is in Jesus. I pray that I do not have to endure the tragedy that Spafford endured but I also pray that no matter the trials I face I will always be able to say that God is good, Jesus is my savior and it is well with my soul.

I was reading through Joshua today and I couldn't help but marvel at how God helped Joshua and the Israelites conquer Jericho.

When I face a problem (not that any of mine are as big and scary as trying to conquer a city like Jericho) I look at it from the most logical angle, sort out the options and details and rush head on in to try to fix it...logically. But God doesn't always work like that and truthfully I need to be relying on my faith more than logic.

God told Joshua to march around Jericho for seven days with the Israelites and on the seventh day to shout at the top of their lungs. God told them that if they did as he instructed then the walls of Jericho would crumble at their shouting....and it worked! Amazing.

For awhile now I've been facing my own mini Jericho, a bunch of walls in my way that seemed impermeable. I could see the promised land, a place where I knew I wanted to be and where I really felt the Lord was calling me to be but there were too many road blocks. I had no logical solution on how to get from A to B but I did have faith in the Lord. So I started to pray and have been waiting and praying ever since.

I've been waiting on the Lord for some time now....and not so patiently all of the time. My plans to break down the walls fell short and I knew all I could do was wait. He hears my prayers and knows what I need better than I do so all I could do was have faith and wait.

As time has gone on the walls that once stood in my way have crumbled at my feet. Not all at once and not in the way that I thought they would, but bit by bit, stone by stone and by methods I could never have imagined he has brought me through. Today I am where I felt he was calling me to be and I didn't do anything to get here, it was all Him. God gets all the glory for defeating my Jericho.

If the past year has taught me anything it's that God knows so much better than I do. Although he usually has a different way of going about things than I would, his way is perfect and mine is flawed. Although I may not always love the path he leads me down, I at least know I have Jesus at my side the whole way and I am going to learn and grow as a result.

Thank you Lord for this calling you have given me and for providing in the way that you do.

I'm building a home. Not a house of brick and mortor, dry wall and beams, but a home for our family that glorifies God. Our home is being built on a rock, Jesus is our corner stone, and our home is being pieced together day by day, hour by hour, and prayer by prayer.

"By wisdom a house is built,and by understanding it is established; by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches." Proverbs 24:3-4

Lately the Lord has placed a huge burden on my heart to be more intentional about our home, our children, my husband and most importantly my walk with Jesus. I have always been a sort of fly by the seat of my pants kind of person. I've had enough structure and organization in my life to look good and not be labeled a slob or a sluggard, but in reality that is what I am.

Most of my life I have been a very good deceiver, a liar with crafty ways of making it look like I've had it all together. The truth however is that there is usually a lot of chaos in my home, in my mind and in my heart.....and it is almost all a product of my poor planning and laziness. (Please don't post comments about this saying that you disagree and think that I'm great. I'm sharing my heart here, the truth, and what the Lord is working on within me right now so it's ok. I am actually happy to admit this because now that I've owned up to it and I am talking to Jesus about it, he's changing me.)

For a while the flexible Annie, fun-loving and easy going, sort of worked, sort of. But now that our family is growing and becoming increasingly more complicated I've noticed that I'm failing. I'm failing at being a wife who pursues her husband and gets to know what is going on in his heart and his head, instead just making sure the facade looks good, lunch packed, laundry done, dinner made etc.....and even with that I've been failing. I've been failing at being a mom who teaches well and loves well. I've been failing as a friend to those around me, thinking of myself before anyone else. And most of all, and most shameful of all, I have been failing as a worshiper of my sweet Jesus. I've made selfishness and comfort my God and put Jesus on the shelf along with a dusty bible and unprayed prayers.

So I'm building a home, a new home, and Jesus is my architect. The holy spirit has burdened my heart and my amazing Jesus, who forgives and gives grace abundantly, is saving me from myself...once again. He has taken this lazy, prideful failure and renewed me. He has given me a very strong desire to sluff off the lazy sluggard, the lying comfort seeker that I was, and work hard every day on my home and my family.

I have so much more to say about this, so much that I'm learning and I'm excited about but instead I'll leave you with this, think of it as the foundation. The cement has been poured and is hardening, becoming a solid foundation for my home and soon I'll begin to frame it.

"Prepare your work outside;get everything ready for yourself in the field,and after that build your house." Proverbs 24:27

I just saw this article and it breaks my heart. The article is about a doctor who performed abortions, specifically late term abortions, who was shot and killed outside his church. This isn't right.

I don't agree with abortion however I also don't agree with killing the people who perform them. I am praying for his family and for those around him.

(Sorry for the blog silence folks. Between morning sickness and the usual riggers of life with a 1 year old I am just now starting to get back to normal.....whatever normal is.)

Our little boy has come to a point in his tiny life where his sinful heart is beginning to show through and he needs discipline. The bible says that we are all sinners from birth and we all fall short of the glory of God, even cute little one year olds.

Because our boy is growing up and needs guidance from his parents I have felt it exceedingly necessary lately to learn all that I can about what God says about disciplining a child and not what the world says.

The world tells me that as long as my child is well behaved and grows to be a good member of society then I've done my job, well done me!

Well that's a bunch of BS.

What I am learning from reading my bible as well as a couple key books written by christian authors is that God wants my child to honor and obey Him and always seek Jesus. It's not just about their behavior but more about my child's heart....which is where all of our behavior stems.

Today while reading a book on biblical discipline it dawned on me that this heart thing is still something that I'm learning and probably will be for the rest of my life. On the outside I was acting very gracious and kind toward those around me. I appeared to be a saintly wife and mom but in truth my heart was in an ugly place. I was harboring some serious resentment toward someone I love all because I felt wronged by them. On the outside I was behaving well, acting like everything was great, but my heart was in a dark and angry place.

Enter prayer, repentance and a very humbling moment where I realized how much I too am going to learn from this whole discipline process. The world has taught me how to look good and behave on the outside but Jesus is changing my heart and causing me to actually be good and desire good on the inside.

Here's a great quote from the book I'm currently reading that sort of summarizes what I'm saying:

"When we focus on our children's outside behavior and neglect what is on the inside, we will cause our children to become manipulators. They will learn to please us by jumping through the hoop (by acting the way we tell them to act out of fear of punishment) but they will not learn the righteousness of Christ. As a matter of fact, if we only focus on the laws of outward behavior but fail to train their hearts in accordance with God's Word, we risk them viewing Christianity as a set of burdensome rules. As result they may never experience what it means to truly know Christ and His power to transform lives."

My job as a mother is a high calling, albeit a kind of scary calling, so I am taking it VERY seriously. I know that God has given me a job and I want to honor Him and do it well but I also know that I can only do it with Jesus at my side.

I pray that the Lord will give Ryan and I both the wisdom that we need to raise our children well and that we will be able to shepherd their little hearts toward Jesus. I pray that we won't just focus on how our kids are acting but more on what is going on in their hearts when they are acting out and helping them to see their own sin. I pray that they will come to know Jesus at a young age and follow and serve Him for the rest of their lives.

I think a lot of Christians believe that they have to be joyful and positive all of the time and never discuss or admit to the hard things in life. In fact, there are entire churches dedicated to never talking about sin, Satan or hell for fear of offender their parishioners; all the while forgetting that Jesus talked more about these things than anyone in the bible.

Peter says that we are tested by fire and fire is hot. Fire is uncomfortable. Fire makes you want to scream and cry out in pain, not plaster a smile on your face and tell everyone you’re doing great.

I think sometimes as believers in Jesus we feel pressure to "sell" our faith to those around us and in doing so we feel that we need to make it look appealing. Like selling someone a used car we highlight all of the good parts of our faith and hide the struggle and sin like a busted radiator or a muffler tied up with a coat hanger so you don’t know that it drags on the ground.

The truth is however that sometimes, a lot of times actually, my radiator is busted and my muffler is dragging and sending off sparks in every direction.

We live in a broken world filled with broken people, most of whom don’t believe that they are broken. We sin every day against each other and God and as a consequence we are on fire. So how can we pretend to not feel the flames?

There's a song that I love and one of the lines goes "You never said it would be easy, you only said I'd never go alone.” This song reminds me that the Lord doesn't promise we won’t suffer or that we'll be blessed with money, fame and happiness, but he does promise that he will never leave us or forsake us.

I have a very strong desire lately to be real and not hide what’s in my heart (hence this blog) and if I’m going to do that I have to admit that there is a lot of pain and hurt in my life and there will be until I am in heaven with my savior. Jesus doesn't promise us a life without disease or pain, but if you have put your faith in Him he does promise eternal life in heaven with Him and that is what I look forward to.