"Fear not for I am with you"

"For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power, love and a sound mind." 2 Timothy 1:7

So the topic of "fear" has been on my heart a lot lately.  We live in a world filled with stress and anxiety and I find it very hard to go through the week (maybe even day) without having a moment of panic.  I am typically not one to walk around freaking out about things in life b/c I know without a doubt God has my back.  But its something I have to remind myself every day.  I feel like when I do start to worry its not about anything abnormal, usually its about every day stress that can effect anyone in life.  But when I really think about fear in my life I realize its rooted very deeply in me.  I can remember being afraid since the time I was a little girl.

When I was young I was TERRIFIED of the dark.  I dont think many kids go through life not having this fear at some point.  But why?  I think for me it comes down to not being in control.  In the dark you cant see....therefore if you cant see how can you protect yourself if the boogie man was to come in and get you?!  (Ok so I never actually believed in the boogie man but you get my point.)  I developed this sense of needing to be in control at a very young age. And thankfully had a mom and dad who let me sleep in their room until I was like 12 haha. 

Fast forward to my Freshman year of high school and the death of a close friend of mine.  His name is Joe and he tragically passed away in a car accident.  It was such a crazy moment in my life and has effected me even to this day.  I started having nightmares of people close to me dying.  I was afraid for my mom to leave every day for work b/c I didnt know if that would be the last time I would see her.  I have gotten a lot better with this fear, but it still lives inside of me.  I am still very much afraid of  losing people close to me and its something I worry about on a weekly basis.  Once again this fear goes back to lack of control.

Senior year of high school.  Of course everyone constantly asks you what your plans are for after high school.  Pretty much "What do you want to be when you grow up?"  Well I mean I had it all figured out so I didnt really mind the questions.  I knew I was going to be a teacher, I knew who I was going to marry, I knew how many kids I was going to have, and when I was going to have them, and all of their names....and so on.  I went so far as to write it all out on a piece of paper....like exact dates all of this stuff was happening.  I couldnt help myself, I am a planner.  Still to this day I love to plan things. But can we say CONTROL FREAK?!  I look back now and laugh b/c essentially I was selling myself short.  Not that the life I had planned out for myself was a bad life, it just was not the life God had in store for me.  God taught  me very quickly that HE was in control.  However I still wanted control.  I feared that I would not "be somebody" when I grew up.  That I wouldnt do anything big in life or be used by God in a big way.  I spent so much time worry about this stuff that I probably missed out on a lot of opportunities to be used by God right where I was.  This is something I am still learning.  To be in the moment and not always fearing on missing out on the future.  No one is promised tomorrow and you truly have to take advantage of every moment you have.

I realized how much this effected my life when I was pregnant with Greyson.  I found it so hard to know that I had absolutely no control over this beautiful miracle growing inside of my belly.   I already loved him so much yet I couldnt do anything to protect him yet.  I just knew once he was here and I could hold him myself he would be protected.  What a dumb thought that was...I mean do you know how many germs and harmful things are out in this world?!  It doesnt matter how tight I hold on to my son, something could still harm him.  Again I had to let go of my control and give this to God.  There are no better hands to be in.  God taught me this by taking me on a 17 hour bus ride on a missions trip to New Orleans when I was 20 weeks pregnant.  I almost backed out of going at one point.  I couldnt raise all of the funds to go and I thought maybe God was telling me it would be too dangerous for me and my baby.  I still had this overwhelming feeling though that I was supposed to be on this missions trip.  So I prayed that if it was truly meant to be that I go, that God make a way...b/c we were 2 days away and I still had over half of my money to pay with no way of getting it.  God showed me right then and there that miracles do happen.  I got an email from my church saying they had given both me and Chris scholarships to go on the trip and would be paying the rest of our money!  Wow such a blessing!  So I went on the trip.  And God revealed to me how much my needing to be in control and worrying was effecting my life.  In a point in a womans life where its usually all about her and taking care of her baby and "taking it easy" God brought me to a place to bless other people.  I wanted to bless other people but I started feeling guilty that I should be taking better care of my child.  I mean one day for lunch they gave us lunch meat sandwhiches.  LUNCH MEAT SANDWHICHES?!  WHY DONT YOU JUST FEED ME AND MY UNBORN CHILD POISON?! I literally almost had an anxiety attack right there.  Pregnant woman are not supposed to eat such things.  But there is nothing else to eat.  Whats a girl to do? So I took the lunchmeat off and just ate a cheese sandwhich while still freaking out about the fact that the lunch meat touched my sandwhich.  So God and I had a talk right there.  I basically said ok God you win.  I can not be in control over every aspect of my life, and I dont want to be.  You have made a way for me to come to this missions trip and I know that you will protect me and Greyson in the process.  I then asked for some friends to pray for me and a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders when I released that control to God.

As I look at my life right now, I have A LOT going on.  I wish I could say I never worry a day in my life and everything is happy go lucky, sunshine and butterflies.  But thats not the case. It seems like every time I turn around life is smacking me in the face with something.  At least I am at a point where I can sense fear creeping into my life.  And I am much better at giving things to God.  At least I am trying.  We always ask the question "Why do bad things happen to good people?"  It really just doesnt seem fair.  However I think the most honest answer to that is b/c we live in a bad world.  This world is full of sin and evil...more than most of us even know or experience thankfully.  This world is not the world God intended it to be.  We truly made a mess of it.  But thankfully with His grace and sacrifice by dying on the cross He has saved us.  (Totally getting all sermony on you...the alter call is coming just wait for it...haha kidding).  But its true, He died so that we can live.  Life can really suck sometimes, things happen in our lives that are difficult.  But God is with us every step of the way.  We dont have to worry b/c God truly has our lives in His hands.  He always makes a way so that we dont have to worry.  He wants to carry us through these bad times, and let us be in peace knowing He is in control. 

Basically I wanted to write this to encourage anyone who is dealing with their own fears and anxieties in their own lives.  We all deal with them from time to time.  I am taking a stand now that I will not live in fear, b/c that is not the life God wants me to live.  I will live in peace knowing that I do not have to be in control.  I do not have to worry about what tomorrow brings.  I just have to show up every day with a loving heart and allow God to use me.  He will provide and He will protect.  So I right now let go of those fears that have consumed me from the time I was young.  God did not give me a spirt of fear, but a spirit of POWER, LOVE and a SOUND MIND.  Amen.

Breast is best....except when its not...

And just like that my baby boy is almost 4 months old.  Where did the time go?? Seems like just the other day I was sitting here writing my last blog post before Greyson was born.  So much in my life has changed in these last 4 months.  My life has become full of more love and joy than I could have ever imagined.  Sometimes I will be holding Greyson and I will just start to cry while thinking of how much I love him.  I am so thankful God blessed me with him and I just pray every day I can raise him to be a strong man of God.  I have learned SO much in the past 4 months.  Before having Greyson I felt prepared to become a mom.  I have always had motherly instincts and I just felt I was going to transition into being a mom very smoothly.  And I have to say for the most part I did.  I loved Greyson from the moment I laid eyes on him.  I felt the need to protect him from the moment I held him.  However I would have to say the first month was definitely difficult.  The first week was relatively easy minus the lack of sleep.  But Greyson just slept or ate most of the time.  He had latched on right away and breast feeding was going pretty well....or so I thought.  After the first week all of a sudden Greyson went from this sleepy baby to crying ALL THE TIME.  I went from feeling like I knew what I was doing to feeling completely helpless.  I had a feeling I wasnt producing enough milk but all the research I did said that all woman worry about this but that you are producing enough and the doctors I talked to told me to "keep trying."  So I did...Id even let Greyson eat for a whole hour.  Which sucks when your baby wants to eat every two hours.  What sucks even more is breastfeeding that long and your baby still acting hungry at the end.  When he would cry I kept telling myself he just ate there is no way he could be hungry!  But then instead of gaining weight he started losing weight (more than the original weight loss after leaving the hospital.)  I felt so helpless.  I was trying so hard to feed my baby and take care of him and provide for him like his mother is supposed to....and it just wasnt working. We finally started feeding him more formula and to my surprise he was eating 3oz of formula AFTER breast feeding.  Thats beyond supplementing....thats showing that he wasnt getting much from me at all.  Then I had a huge eye opener when my friend who just had a baby told me while pumping she would produce 4-5 ounces at a time.  I was producing a whopping 1/2 ounce to 1 ounce at a time.  OBVIOUSLY something was not right.  I finally had to start using my own judgement and trust my own instincts.  I really wanted to be able to breast feed but my babies happiness and health was way more important to me.  And what do you know...after switching Greyson to formula and weaning off breast feeding he started gaining weight and stopped crying all the time.  He turned into a happy baby right before my eyes.  My poor little guy...I was practically starving him unknowingly!  I felt horrible for that and also happy that I trusted my gut even though everything I read was telling me otherwise.  I tell this story for 2 reasons.  First I think its important for all women to know that its possible to not produce enough milk.  Everything I read said otherwise, but even my Dr. told me that 5% of women dont produce enough (after I already made the decision to formula feed).  I feel like there is a lot of pressure to breast feed and I really think its unfair.  I for one really wanted to and planned on it....and I simply couldnt. Every woman is different, every baby is different and I for one am glad that I live in a world where there is another option available to me and my baby isnt going to starve!  I will agree especially in the beginning "breast is best" but I dont think any woman should be judged for how they feed their baby.  When I first started feeding Greyson formula I would try to hide it out in public...I didnt want people to think I was a bad mom for giving my child formula.  How stupid is that?!  I hate that our society has made women feel less of a mom if they have to use formula.  Thankfully I took my emotions out of it and used my best judgement to do what was best for my child.  I tell this story for another reason.  I think its important to point out that God truly gives you a motherly instinct when you become a mom.  I learned very quickly that I had to trust in God and trust that he would guide me and my motherly instinct to make the right decisions.  Not only with the formula but pretty much in every area of Greysons life.  I spent so much time those first few weeks looking up things online to make sure I was doing everything correctly.  When really all that was was me worrying.  Once I started trusting my instincts my  life became so much easier and I was a better mom for it.  We Co-slept with Greyson for 2 1/2 months (something I never thought I would do) and they tell you not to do that.  But once again I had to trust my gut.  And I now have a baby who sleeps through the night and has been the last two months.  Before we co-slept with him he would only sleep a half hour at a time.  Basically what I am trying to say to all moms (and dads too!) out there is do your research, make sure you know whats safe and whats not, and then TRUST YOURSELF.  God designed you to have a motherly instinct and you need to go with that.  Every mom is different and every baby is different.  What works for one might not work for another.  Dont judge others for how they parent their children.  Instead of bringing other moms down we need to encourage each other.  Its a hard job and we dont need to make it even harder on each other by expecting everyone to be "perfect."  And I am in no one saying that my way of parenting is the right way for everyone or that I am a perfect parents so I hope its not coming across that way!  I have definitely made mistakes as a parent but I am learning every day and not beating myself up about the mistakes I make.  I know when I was going through all this with breast feeding I felt very much in the minority so I hope that this blog encourages someone who may be going through the same thing!