gratitude

Well, tomorrow I will officially be 27 weeks.  Now, 40 weeks doesn't sound that long when you hear about it, but really, it's just 12 weeks shy of a year. I have had to fight a lot of discontentment. I think that's a struggle in pregnancy because you keep looking forward to when you can hold your baby in your arms, when you can just take a break from life and have that new honeymoon time with your sweet little newborn baby. You don't think about all the crying, the struggles with nursing, the struggles with sleeping and schedules and them needing to gain weight or spitting up everything...

I want to be content with today. I want to thank God for today, not hope for tomorrow, not wish I was in the past. Just to be thankful for today.

I have had a rough time with Levi these past few days. I'm going to preface this by saying, I have a very good little boy. He is sweet and attentive and intelligent, but he also disobeys. What child doesn't disobey? If you don't believe that we are born with a natural tendency toward sin, you just need to parent a two year old. It actually starts around 18 months, they just round it up to two. After that you have the threes and then the fours and the fives and all those struggles in all those stages. Are you catching my drift? It's NEVER done. Romans 3:23 could never be truer: ALL have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Okay, sorry, that was a bit of a tangent. Levi has now decided that every moment is a chase game. I am laughing in my head as I say this because it feels like EVERY time I ask him to come, I go to pick him up, I tell him we are going to change his diaper he gets this look in his eye that says "You gotta catch me first!" It feels a lot like if there is ANYTHING I want him to do, he won't do it. He wants to do the opposite of it. Even if it's a fun thing like getting in the car or reading a book, it's starting to feel manipulative. I'm wondering if he's trying to punish me because I was gone for a week, or maybe he's just trying to see what I will give in to. Either way, it has felt relentless. This morning he wanted me to read to him, so I went and sat down on the loveseat for us to read and he insisted on sitting on the couch. No, mommy's not going to move, you have two little legs, you can come sit on the loveseat. So he protested and protested. And I kept telling him, no, we are sitting on the loveseat. Finally, I thought, this is ridiculous, we are wasting time and he is whining, I'll just go sit on the couch. No lie, I hadn't been sitting there for five seconds when he got down and walked over to the loveseat and climbed up on it. Are you kidding me? No way Jose, I'm not doing this. I'm warring in my head? Do I punish him? Do I go do something else? Do I just sit here and wait for him to come back? I ended up sitting there and looking at him. He eventually came back, but I realized in that moment that he was testing me. Oh my gosh, to be controlled by a two year old... I've got to watch out for this stuff in the future. I mean, I can't let him control me like that. Lord, help me to be discerning of my child's heart. I love him, but I don't want him to think he can manipulate people into doing what he wants. Please help me Lord!

Today I am thankful for (in no particular order):
A smart little boy who is always surprising me
Decaf coffee in the afternoon
Lunch with an awesome friend
A husband who is solid, faithful and consistent
A beautiful house to live in
Our washing machine, dishwasher and other appliances that I take for granted every day
My yoga video
Being able to listen to Dave Ramsey podcasts
The living and active Word of God and how I get to put it on my walls and it speaks to me almost every day in a new way.
That I have hope beyond this short life we are living, I have hope that someday I won't live every day wishing for the future, I won't struggle with discontentment, my flesh won't be yearning, my spirit will be with my eternal Father, I won't struggle with loneliness or isolation, I won't struggle with trying to connect with friendships, fellowship will not get drowned out in business or just the fact that we live in a broken, fragmented world.

Life is good, life is beautiful.