“Fearfully and Wonderfully Made” – I’m talking about YOU!!!

You are “fearfully and wonderfully made” – have you thought about that lately??

 

I want you to take some time right now to think about you and the state of your physical existence.  In fact, don’t just think about it – how about naming a body part that you’d like to praise God for right now!  This isn’t time to be critical of your body – it’s the complete opposite as I want you to praise God for something He’s blessed you with physically right now….Don’t give me the whole “I love my heart because of the love I feel for my family” or the “I love my arms because I can hug” type answers….  Seriously think of a body part that you like just because it’s right there on you.  Maybe you’ve got great calves, or great shoulders, maybe great hair…  Whatever “it” is on you, I want you to just give God a little thanks for what He’s created in you.

 

One thing I’ve discovered no matter where I’ve been when speaking to groups of women is that it’s like pulling teeth to get them to openly praise God for the physical side of their lives.  I am not discounting the spiritual relationship here at all – but I want so badly for more of us to acknowledge that we have a physical existence on this earth for a reason.  Have you ever thought that a part of our physical existence is so that God can give us glimpses of heaven here and there?  There is a reason that we’re designed the way we are and if we don’t honor our physical existence I personally believe we will miss some of the opportunities and blessings waiting for us.

 

Psalm 139:14 says, “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; you works are wonderful, I know that full well.”  That means YOU are fearfully and wonderfully made.  You are not just the evolution of an amoeba and some mud that happened to get stuck together.  You are here right now, during this particular time in history – because that’s when God thought the earth needed a “you” most.  And if we squander away our health by neglecting the physical side of ourselves, we could perhaps lose out on the special assignments and rewards that are designed specifically for each of us according to His purpose and plan for us.

 

I hope you realize just how incredible the physical side of our existence is and that maybe in honor of what God has created in you, you’ll push yourself just a little farther in your workouts or commit a little more strongly to good nutrition to nurture the blessing of your body.

 

Take care!

Steph

Four Cinnamon Rolls for supper and my new name is “Charmin”….

 

 

I know that I’m like many of you mothers out there who will go to great lengths to be sure that your children are eating a somewhat balanced diet.  This can involve sneaking vegetables into things that normally wouldn’t include carrots or green beans and pep rally presentations on the joy of eating fruit…  But what do we do to make sure that we’re getting in the kind of nutrition we need to perform the umpteen bazillion tasks we do in a day?

 

I realized how terrible this dilemma can be recently when I was cooking supper for the kids.  I was exhausted after a long day at work and I managed to at least get all of the school bags, diaper bags, coolers and the laptop out of the car and into the kitchen.  As I looked at the incredible mountain of mess sitting on the kitchen table, I realized that I was suddenly overcome with hunger. 

 

I had eaten healthy all day, straight out of my cooler with all of the pre-prepared health food it could handle.  I needed something fast and quick that would give me just enough energy to get the chicken in the oven and the potatoes and green beans cooking on the stove.  The night before my husband had cooked some of those Pillsbury Low fat Cinnamon rolls and they were sitting on the counter wrapped in foil.  After a millisecond of hesitation, I figured what the heck, I needed some quick energy, so one will do. 

 

Then it was time to get Will started on his baby food (which he eats before he takes a stab at the table food for the night) and I was still hungry.  What’s one more cinnamon roll – especially when they’re low fat?  By the time supper was on the table, I had managed to polish off two more and I probably would have had another eventually except that now they were all gone.

 

How did that happen?  One minute I’m the picture of good health and the next I’m an example of someone who needs to go to cinnamon bun rehab…  And that’s when I had to do a gut check and remind myself that we all have those moments when we cave, when we succumb to the immediate gratification wrapped in the cuddly roll of a cinnamon bun.  However, if overall we do a fairly good job at eating the right way – and if we model that for our kids on a regular basis – we’re really doing just fine and we shouldn’t get down on ourselves for the occasional mauling of a nutritional diet.

 

Changing subjects – we’re in full potty training mode, fluctuating between days of perfection and days of imperfection, and I’m trying very hard to be patient and to have somewhat of a sense of humor about it.  If you have any tips on making this wonderful aspect of parenthood any easier, feel free to share!  I recently told my husband that between the two kids and all the wiping I do, I will now respond to the name “Charmin.”

 

Hope you’re all doing well and God bless!

 

 

It’s COLLEGE GAME DAY! Are you ready to play??

I can say that with such enthusiasm because the Gamecocks have already played this week and we won…. 

  In the spirit of the kick off of football season, I’d like to encourage each of you to find your “inner athlete.”  God did not intend for you to sit on the sidelines of life while all the action takes place away from you on the field.  You ARE on the field every day that you breathe on this earth with a God-given opportunity to make the plays to get you through the day successfully.  Coach God has a game plan called the Bible and there’s not a single play you can pull on this earth that He hasn’t already covered.  (Isn’t it nice that there’s already a play book where you know in the end if you follow God’s will you will win without a doubt??  No losing, no tie breakers – just a perfect victory lap in heaven!)

And I also encourage you to find your own outlet for the athletic side of you.  Think how hard football players train.  They work on building strength, agility and speed.  To be excellent they have to invest in proper nutrition.  They also have to learn the plays or all of that training is wasted.  It’s the same with you.  You have the power to make the choices to make your body as healthy as possible and a God who then wants you on the field, in the action -and by all means He wants you to have a great time too!! 

So, get off the bench whether it’s spiritual or physical and GET IN THE GAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Let’s all push ourselves a little harder today and remember that we’re always in training for this gift called life.

God bless!

Steph

A couple of things….

First of all, my mother just wrote the nicest note to me on my “Holding Tightly, Letting Go” thing and I just want to say to her:  MOM YOU’RE THE BEST!!!  I’ve gotten almost 5000 hits and she’s probably a lot of them as she’s always been so incredibly supportive of me.  (Actually, she’s so busy that I’m glad she stopped by and maybe she’s only half of those!)  That means hopefully she’s sitting down at the computer and not painting, volunteering, helping out with a doctor’s office as a nurse – and this is from a woman who is supposedly RETIRED!!

Secondly,  if you look at my training log for today, you’ll notice that I really didn’t do anything.  Actually,  I got up at 4:00 because Will was fussing then tried to go back to bed.  He went back to sleep and I did not.   So, I had a cup of coffee, spent some time praying for my best friend who had a very long surgery today (she’s doing fine and God has heard from a lot of people today about Denise    ) and then got ready to do a heavy leg workout.  I managed to get on my workout clothes, head upstairs, and then I just kind of sat there and realized that today I just didn’t have it in me.  My body clearly wanted to rest and though I could have told it “no” and gone on with it, I think I really needed it.   However, I have a deal with myself that if I take a rest day, the next day’s workout better be darn good.  So, in a matter of hours I’ll have another opportunity to tackle another workout and hopefully I’ll have something substantial to report to you.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Steph

The Glamorous Beginning of Motherhood….

Have you seen all the Hollywood mothers out there?  You know the ones I’m talking about – they are equally fashionable when they’re carrying the extra baby weight as when they’re not and they somehow magically show up in their pre-baby bodies approximately 3 months after delivery, usually at some fancy awards show wearing a designer gown, draped in diamonds.  This portrayal of those early phases of motherhood as something so glamorous truly makes me laugh.  Actually, I was so hormonal after the births of my children that at the time seeing such women was more likely to make me cry…

 

I had girlfriends kind enough to tell me that after delivery, I shouldn’t expect to look much different than I did when I showed up to birth each bundle of joy.  Somehow I just couldn’t believe that.  After all, a whole person was moving out and that had to make a big difference….right?  In a word, “no.”   Everyone will be overjoyed about the new baby, but your body will somehow resent the fact that the nine or ten months of baby growing are now over. 

 

So, you head home from the hospital and have high hopes that as you walk around in your zombie-like state, you can at least put on a pair of decent pants and perhaps a shirt that doesn’t look like a mu-mu.  This is where I wonder what the Hollywood moms do.  Surely they can’t walk right in the door when they get home with the baby and walk right into their designer jeans too, can they?

 

Once I settled into the fact that I would still be walking around the house in what I was wearing prior to delivery, I also began to have this weird feeling that I was being followed.  And do you know what?  I was!  It was my new rear-end!  It had grown to new dimensions and it followed me everywhere I went.  Whether I was trying to feed the baby or even trying to do something relaxing like take my first shower in two days, there it was – and it had two friends tagging along in the form of new thighs.

 

I’m happy to report that during those first post-partum months I learned to be forgiving of my body.  I developed an even greater awe of God and His infinite wisdom in figuring out how to keep the human race growing despite ourselves.  This body, this blessing,  has given me two of the most important things in my life so I celebrate it – even for the times when there was more of me than I normally prefer.  And of course, with consistent workouts and good nutrition I’m getting back to my “normal” and even looking forward to taking on some new fitness challenges.  It hasn’t been glamorous and I’ll never be one of those moms on the cover of People  who jumps right back into her “skinny” clothes, but I’ll trade glamour for what I’ve been blessed with any day.

 

Stay tuned for some of my preggie pictures… I wouldn’t want you to miss out on what a 55 pound weight gain looks like J

 

 

 

 

 

 

Holding tightly, Letting go

Holding tightly, Letting go

(I wrote this almost two years ago exactly when Gracie was not even 1 yet… now that Will is almost 9 months it’s amazing to see how he’s repeating so many of the same things and I feel that it will be equally hard to let him go one day as well…)

 

I have an overwhelming need to write – or should I say document – everything my daughter does.  Even the smallest of things seem to have the greatest importance.  If it weren’t for digital cameras and the ability to see and store mass quantities of pictures we’d have to take out a second mortgage to cover photography.  Is she in the bathtub?  Better go get the video camera as we don’t want to miss a thing.  Did she babble another sound combination today?  Let me go get my journal and write it down before I forget.

There are so many special moments that I want to capture and hold on to forever. I love the way she laughs when I make my bangs move by blowing a little puff of air toward them.  The sparkle in her eyes is mesmerizing – shining with the glow of the anticipation of each brand new discovery.  She reaches for my hair and sometimes manages to catch it, laughing out loud, thrilled with her success.  Right now she wrestles on the changing table and it’s a major accomplishment to get a dirty diaper off and a clean one on her.  The sheer determination she has to avoid the diaper changing is beyond belief and it’s a determination I hope she’ll use for good in the future.  She’s crawling and pulling up and standing for a second or two.  As soon as she realizes that she’s standing she sits down quickly, back to where she feels safe and can wreak havoc on anything she can get her hands on.

Today she uttered the word “Bubba” in reference to our dog who shares the same name.  We are taking this to mean that she clearly has spoken her first word attached to an identifiable object.  I’m very proud of her and also glad that we didn’t name our dog something along the lines of “Hooligan” as that would be much harder for her to say.  I secretly wish her first word ever would have been “Momma,” but “Dadda” won out.  I’ve heard that babies say “Dadda” first because phonetically it’s easier to say and they find their tongues before they know they have lips.  I’ve also heard that it’s an anthropological development as men are not as moved by small children so they learn to say “Dadda” for survival hoping to touch the tender area of an apparent cave man’s heart.  Regardless of the reason, I’m willing to take second place (that would actually be third place, counting the dog) as long as I’m so blessed to be a part of her life.

Sometimes this seems so easy, so right.  Other times I wonder why in the world God allows any of us to procreate.  The decisions involved from what to feed her to how to be sure I’m providing an educationally stimulating environment for an 11 month old can drown me with worry.  The evening news strikes a mini-panic attack with the mere thought of the world I’ve brought her in to.  I find myself sounding more and more like my parents with my comments on the state of world affairs.  It’s amazing that for so long I thought that they didn’t have clue, that they were behind the times.  Parenthood has slammed me into a new mode of respect for my own mother and father.   They do know what they were (and still are) talking about!. 

Being a mother has taught me immensely about God’s love.  I imagine that sometimes I’m like a baby who refuses to be still and be comforted though His supporting arms are waiting to hold me tight.  I imagine the joy God must feel when we finally stop fighting, curl up in His love, and rest in perfect security and trust.

I hope I can provide Gracie with the same kind of security and trust – the kind that means no matter how bad things get, not matter what happens with wars and sickness and death and bad luck, I’m here for her with outstretched arms with nothing but pure love to surround her.  I’m sure we’ll have our challenging times and I’ll long for the days when she’s right where she is today – crawling and pulling up, standing for a second or two before sitting back down again – but I know I have to let her grow up, good times and bad times included. 

I guess when I look at my place as Gracie’s mother, the true challenge is that from her very arrival the point is to help her grow – then to let her go.  This struck me when she was about 7 weeks old.  I was rocking her in her nursery and I was overcome by waves of never ever wanting to let her go, not even to put her in the crib for a second.   I wanted to sit in the chair and hang on to her for dear life while everything and everyone around us moved ahead at the frantic pace of existence.  And then it hit me clear as a bell – the job of a mother is to love and let go. 

I don’t want to let go.  I don’t want her to go to kindergarten, to elementary school, to dances in junior high.  Then there’s the prom and graduation and then college.  And then the day that she tells us that she’s found a man she wants to marry and she’ll be starting her own family.  It seems too much, too heavy, too fast.  My eyes tear up as I realize the incredible privilege I have to love this little girl, to help her grow up…. to let her go.

I try not to be sad but instead to think of the journey ahead and the fact that I will always have memories of these special times to hold in my heart forever – special moments between the two of us that no camera could ever capture in their fullest.  I thank God for the blessing of motherhood and at the same time ask Him for guidance as I don’t want to fail at the most important job I have.  And then I ask Him for special strength to help me to help her let go as she begins to stand on her own.