2 You Hold Me Now

So, Wednesday night Raleigh and I headed to the hospital to see our sweet baby girls.  On the way, he played his new Hillsong c.d. and immediately I started to cry when the song "You Hold Me Now" started playing .  Earlier that day, I had visited the girls with both of our moms and I got a little sad. They are still too little to hold and Raleigh's mom mentioned that she knew she was "Gabby" but she just wanted to hold her grand babies so bad. It was so hard to see them with all of those tubes inside of them.  Usually, all I see are precious teeny tiny little girls but yesterday I kept seeing these images:

While this song was playing, all I could do was close my eyes and listen to the lyrics:

No weeping, no hurt or pain

No suffering You hold me now

No darkness no sick or lame

No Hiding, You hold me now,

You hold me now

Friends, this is really hard to write.  As I mentioned before, I am trying to look at the positive things and I know that this is a marathon and we are running baby steps right now but I really do want to hold my little girls.  I want to hold them and kiss them and see them open their eyes.  I wonder if they feel those tubes and if they are having a hard time through all of this.  I would have a C-section without my pain medicine again if that could take any pain from them.  I wonder, can they hear me?  Do they know that it is me that gets to touch them?  Do they feel all of this love that surrounds them?

I don't have the answers to these questions.  But, as I boo-hooed in the car on the way to the hospital, I began to experience God's love holding me now, in that moment.  And I realized that even though I can't hold Adeline and Maralee, HE IS.  He is taking away their hurt or pain.  They don't have suffering or know that they are sick.  He HOLDS THEM NOW.

Shakily, I wiped away my tears, and my husband said, "Let's go see those baby girls."  We went inside the NICU and got to spend a wonderful amount of time with the twins.  Raleigh got to see Maralee's face for the first time that night and my heart filled with joy and love as he smiled down at her.  He is such a great husband and dad.  I love him so much. 

On the way home, we continued to listen to the Hillsong c.d. but "You Hold Me Now" was still on my heart.  As I mentally played those words in my head, I heard this voice say, "This song would be great to play at Maralee's funeral."  At that moment, I didn't know what to think, wondering did I really think that?????  All of a sudden I busted into tears and asked Raleigh if they were going to die.  If Maralee was going to die.  We immediately had to pull over because neither one of us could hold back the flood gates.  As we held each other, we started to say the words of the song:

No weeping, no hurt or pain

No suffering You hold me now

No darkness no sick or lame

No Hiding, You hold me now,

You hold me now

All of a sudden, I realized the game that was being played.  Satan wanted to throw some spiritual warfare inside my head to freak me out.   He saw how well I was doing, how much I was coming to Jesus instead of him, and he got JEALOUS.  He wanted me to feel hurt and pain.  He wanted me to be in darkness.  He wanted my deepest fear to come true.  Raleigh, totally out of his normal character, was so angry- he looked as if he wanted to fight.  As we sat there, absorbing what was going on, we both realized how sick Satan really is.  How manipulative and deceiving.  He used a song that brought me comfort hours ago and turned it against me.  He is playing hardball and doesn't care if feelings and emotions get hurt.  In fact, he dwells in it, yearns for it, it is his deepest desire to turn God's children away from their father.

Sitting at the stop sign just a block from our house, we began to pray.  We prayed for God to take away our fears.  We prayed for strength and endurance.  We prayed for Him to continue to hold us.  We listened to the song and we heard:

In this life I will stand

Through my joy and my pain

Knowing there's a greater day

There's a hope that never fails

Listening to these words, our hearts filled with God's love and we realized this important fact: WE ARE ON JESUS' TEAM.  HE HAS ALREADY DEFEATED SATAN.  "Shout unto God" is another awesome song by Hillsong that fits this perfectly:

The enemy has been defeated

And death couldn't hold You down

We're gonna lift our voice in victory

We're gonna make Your praises loud

Shout unto God with a voice of triumph

Shout unto God with a voice of praise

Shout unto God with a voice of triumph

We lift Your name up

We lift Your name up

Praise Jesus that HE has already kicked Satan's butt for us.  Friends, I pleading with you....if you don't have Christ in your life, get on his team.  Life really, really stinks and hurts at times but having Him take the pain helps us to keep going.  I can't imagine being on the dark side while going through this battle.  Friends, I am praying that God just puts up an electric fence around my head and heart.  The minute satan starts to sneak into my thoughts I want him to be zapped on the highest voltage.

That will make any dog tuck his tail and run :)

TO GOD ALONE BE THE GLORY 

Till next time, let your light shine!

Blessings, christen

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1 Imitators of God: Opportunity

This afternoon, I had a mini-date with God. Actually, I am still on it and it is quite a nice date. I came home after work and found myself with nothing to do. Raleigh had to run some errands after work but they were to boy places so I opted to not go with him. It is raining so that eliminated taking the dogs on a walk and I really didn't feel like exercising at the gym this afternoon so I came home, put on my comfy clothes, opened my Bible and got to have a good conversation with Jesus Christ. Boy, it feels good to be in the word. I knew I wanted to write a post this week and I was having a hard time trying to come up with some scripture to base it around. My church has a woman's group that is currently doing a series called "Spiritual Boot Camp" that is focused on Ephesians so I decided to start my reading from that book tonight.

Ephesians was written by Paul and that man sure did have some good stuff come out of his mouth. The main verses that I want to share are from chapter five but the whole book of Ephesians (which is only six chapters so you could read one a night with one free night and have read the whole book in a week) is really good, practical information. Ephesians 5 starts out, "Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God." To me, that one sentence sums up our purpose on earth. What I would like to do over a couple of posts is to really scrutinize what it means to be imitators of God and how we use that in our daily lives.

One way that we can be imitators of God is to make the most out of every opportunity. Ephesians 5:15 states, "Be very careful, then, how you live - not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is."

In high school, how many of us got a talk from our parents before we went out on the weekend? Raleigh has often told me his dad would pull him and his brother aside and say, "Remember whose you are." In saying that, he would always stress to his sons to not only remember their family name but also to remind them to make Christ-like decisions. Now, let's be honest...sometimes that is easier said than done. How often, as teenagers, would our parents give us advice and then we would do the exact opposite? It is so easy to make the wrong decision. The devil is so good at manipulating us into believing that if we do things of this world we will feel better, have more fun, and be a cooler person. We have to stop giving in to his tricks, friends! Before we make decisions, we need to really think if that decision will make us an imitator of Christ or Satan.

We all struggle with this constant battle of good vs. evil. Right now, we are either living in a pit of darkness or know someone that has fallen into the devil's lair with poor choices that have been made on this earth. Paul tells us, "For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them."

Friends, our sins are washed clean by the blood of Christ. We are dearly loved by God. It doesn't matter how many wrong decisions we have made, we will always be welcomed into the arms of Christ. When he died on the cross for us, all of our poor decisions were automatically forgiven by our Father in Heaven. I love how Ephesians 5:1 states that it was a "fragrant offering." It was a sweet-smelling, loving act of God's grace and kindness shown to us so we could live our lives of love, living out our lives by making the most of every opportunity.

Please take time today to pray for our fellow travelers that are walking in the dark. By the grace of God, let them see the light.

Till next time, let your light shine!

Blessings, christen

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0 Sneak Attack

Boy, I thought I would never get on here tonight! My laptop is a grandma compared to all these new cool computers and it literally took me 20 minutes to start old Ellie and log on to blogger.

How is everybody doing? Today was a pretty good day for me. These past couple of months have been a little rough for me since I have been pregnant. I won't go into the gross details but let's just say that morning sickness should be called continual 24 hour sickness. And, there should also be a huge warning label for husbands that they are going to have to be their wives' Superman during those months.

I tell you what, Raleigh has been a great husband to me. He has always been wonderful but it has been so cool to see certain characteristics that he has really take center stage. One of those is obedience. He has always been a very obedient person and that has been a trait of his that I have always admired. Since I have been feeling so sick for so long he has really had to take on my share of the household duties. He has been cooking dinner, washing clothes, cleaning the house, and doing so many other random tasks that I just have not had the energy to do. He has gone above and beyond and has not complained once...I appreciate it more than he will ever know.

Since I have been pregnant, a lot of change has occurred in my normal every day routine. For instance, I used to always get up in the morning and read my devotional, Bible, or something along those lines while eating breakfast. That was my quiet time and helped me get my day started. Well, thanks to morning sickness I get nauseated even looking at a book much less reading it and I have been eating dry cereal and Gatorade in the bed for the past month. Also, I have been working out on occasion but it has not been a rigorous routine. My body is just so tired! I am surprised I am even still up right now. The days that have been the worst so far are the ones where I don't leave my bedroom or change out of my pajamas. During Christmas, I could tell you all of the commercials that were on T.V. because all I could do was lie down and listen to what was on during the day.

That sounds so pitiful, doesn't it? I'm not trying to be a complainer I am just giving you some background that relates to the reason why I am writing tonight. All in all, I wouldn't trade being sick for anything because this really is such an amazing experience. Raleigh and I could not be more thrilled that God has blessed us with not only one but two little babies. Every day I think about them and pray that they are growing into healthy little ones. They say getting sick means that they are healthy so to me it has been worth it one hundred fold.

What I have found interesting though is how the devil works the hardest during our most special moments. When God gives us such blessings as being pregnant or getting married or fulfilling our life calling; Satan is busily trying to mess all of this up for us. For me, the little devil has taken away my will to have alone time with God. I have always cherished our mornings together and rely on that time to give me strength through my day. The minute he saw I wasn't feeling well he stepped in to make sure that I would start neglecting my prayer and devotional time. It's funny...I have felt the worst on Sundays so far. I don't think that is a coincidence...I believe that Satan is using this to get me to not spend time with God on his chosen day of rest and worship. He knows that if I start to lose my personal relationship with Jesus Christ that he has planted a stronghold in my mind and I won't be as willing to rely on Christ when things really get tough during this pregnancy.

Well, no more. I'm tired of letting him win this fight. I want my time with God and by golly I am going to find it some way and some how. It might not be in the mornings because I just can't control Mother Nature's timing but it is going to come sometime during the day. I miss spending time in the Word. I miss hearing the band play on Sunday mornings. Most of all, I miss feeling so close to Jesus. He is right there for me but I haven't met him half-way lately.

Friends, have you ever found yourself in these types of situations? I'm sure you have at some point. Next time you have a God given blessing, don't let the enemy sneak in the back door.

Till next time, let your light shine!

Blessings, christen

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