Thursday, August 23, 2012

Giving My Child to God



My devotional for today (from Jesus Calling by Sarah Young) says the following:

"Entrust your loved ones to me; release them into My protective care.  They are much safer with Me than in your clinging hands.  If you let a loved one become an idol in your heart, you endanger that one-as well as yourself.  Remember the extreme measures I used with Abraham and Isaac.  I took Isaac to the very point of death to free Abraham from son-worship.  Both Abraham and Isaac suffered terribly because of the father's undisciplined emotions.  I detest idolatry, even in the form of parental love.  When you release loved ones to Me, you are free to cling to my hand.  As you entrust others into My care, I am free to shower blessings on them..."

Wow.  Would I be willing to take Kaelyn up on a mountain top and sacrifice her if God asked me to?  This chapter in Genesis 22 suddenly reads in a whole different way for me!  Lately, I have been feeling like God has been challenging me to let go of my need for control and to trust God more wholly and completely with HIS will for my life.

(Kaelyn's baby dedication)

As I have been preparing for the beginning of my counseling internship (that starts Monday!!) as the last part of my graduate program over this next year, I have been so filled with anxiety about leaving K for 15-20 hours a week.  Scott is going to work from home one day, and my step mom has offered to take her for another full day, and yet I can't help but be nervous about leaving her in the care of others.  Over-controlling much????  I'm leaving her with FAMILY!  And yet, I'm still scared to be away.  I'm scared to physically miss her, scared I'm going to miss out on something, scared to pursue my passion and dream of being a counselor at the risk of feeling like a bad mom... it's like I feel guilt for doing something for myself.  Like if I finish this degree and am not watching her 100% of every minute 100% of every day, I'm not being a good mom or something.  Wow.  It sounds so weird when I write it out.  Glad I did this post so I could get that out of my head and see just how strange my mind works haha.


Anyway, all that to say, I know I'm not a bad mom for pursuing this dream.  I know that God has called me to help others in this way.  I don't think this is about my concern for her.  She is going to be fine!  I think it will actually be really good for her to not be smothered by me all the time.  This is about me.  This is about me letting go of my need for control and to entrust my sweet child into the hands of the Lord.  I don't ever want to have my parental love be an idol that I worship.  My priorities are first my God, then my husband, then our child.  Everything I have been given on this Earth is from my heavenly Father.  Who am I to think I am in control?  Every Earthly possession I have is a blessing from Him.  God has extremely blessed me with a loving husband and precious daughter, but even they are not mine.  I don't want to take them for granted one single day.  He has gifted me with the privilege of being a wife and mama, but ultimately He is in control.  With that knowledge, I can appreciate what He has given me.  Today, I will entrust my loved ones to the Lord, and be thankful for all of these abundant blessings.

Monday, August 6, 2012

10 Months Old!

Happy 10 months to Miss Kaelyn Grace!!  Here are some pictures and milestones from this past month.

Most of July was spent in the glorious mountains of Happy Camp, California at my Grammy and Grandpa's house!  They were quite gracious to have us for 2 whole weeks!  This is a picture of us at a beautiful spring.  Kaelyn loved the outdoors and spent quite a bit of time exploring the world and napping in the Ergo carrier!
Meeting some of her first cousins once removed (my 1st cousins:)).  It was so fun to watch them play with her!!
Learning how to clap and play patty cake!  Yaaaay!!!
Always melting mommy's heart with that big smile!!
Showing off those two bottom teeth!  
Loving eating a large variety of different kinds of fruits and veggies!!  Especially watermelon on hot summer days!  She is still primarily breastfed but gets snacks in between meals.
It was quite fun to be in Happy Camp where it got cold at night and in the mornings!  I stayed in my comfy PJ pants and sweatshirt as much as possible and K got to wear cute footie PJ's!  Here she is playing on the floor with some of my mom's old toys and wearing a hat that my grandma knitted for my mom when she was little!
Walking through the tide pools at a beautiful beach in Crescent City, CA and learning about sea stars!!
This is her newest smile.... we call it the cheesey grin.  This was taken in Crescent City right after our hike down to the tide pools.  She loves her Puffs and sippy cup!!  She just learned how to eat food out of her no spill cup (shown on the left by her foot).
She also had fun playing with her great Grammy (my mom's mom) in Elk Creek who she hadn't seen since her birth!  This is the Grammy that helped deliver Kaelyn 10 months ago.  She is quite simply THE BEST!!!!  Kaelyn had fun chewing on all sorts of different kinds of rocks in the creek!!  Wahooooo!
And her latest trick... a picture of K taken this morning... standing up in her crib!!  Such a big girl!!  Time to lower the mattress!!

We are having so much fun with this little one!!  This month went way to fast!  Her main accomplishments this month are inventing her own version of crawling and learning to stand.  She army crawls and rolls to get where she wants to go and is getting quite good at it!  We are unsure if she is going to do the traditional crawl on all fours or not.. but in any case, she gets around pretty well!  She is still incredibly vocal and has the cutest giggle anyone has ever heard!  We love this little munchkin!!  Happy 10 months baby K!!