Was reminded as I read 1 Peter 1 this morning that we are called to obedience of God’s holy standard, not giving in to our passions as when we were ignorant of God. I’ve heard Pastor James preach so much about obedience to Christ within the years that we have been at New Life and I have been getting more and more convicted of what true obedience should really look like. I think for a long time before I came to New Life, I thought that I didn’t really have huge issues with obedience because most of the time, obeying God was convenient for me or obeying God was what I agreed with, meaning that I thought “Yes God—those are good laws that are reasonable and it makes sense for me. I will try to obey them.” Of course, it was easy to obey things like going to church on Sundays and not stealing things from my neighbor, but really seeing what God calls us to obey is so overwhelming. We’re called not only to not steal, but also to not have envious hearts. We’re called not only to go worship God on Sunday, but also to commit our entire week to worshipping him above all the idols in our hearts. GAH! SO HARD! So most of the time, it is easier for me to not think about obedience all that much beyond the things that are easy for me to obey and then to think that I’m doing at least a mediocre job.

This morning though, the passage in 1 Peter 1 that spoke about obedience just hit me out of nowhere that I had been struggling with submitting my emotions and thoughts to obedience as well as my outward actions. I woke up this morning and as I was going about my daily routine—feed E, make a breakfast smoothie, walk the dogs, play with E, put her down for her morning nap—the whole time, I was really finding myself getting bitter and annoyed about something that had happened earlier in the week. I never said anything out loud about it or acted upon any of it which I oftentimes proudly mistake as being obedient, but the thoughts that were running through my mind while I was outwardly doing everything that I would normally do on a typical morning were making me feel so upset. And then upon reading God’s word this morning, it really struck me how God’s call for us to obey him must first arise from our thoughts and our minds. I think it’s so easy for me to let my mind run loose and then I am left with the repercussions of my thoughts through the day—feeling ungrateful, bitter, or angry about something that I shouldn’t have allowed to even take root. It’s easy for me to blame the outward circumstances or the person who I would take to be the cause of these sinful emotions. But today, I was really convicted by God calling me to obey him in my mind and emotions. I had to really repent this morning over my wrongful heart and immediately address my sinful thoughts and it felt so refreshing and freeing to know that I am not captive to my own thoughts but that I can submit them to God by struggling with them and just being really aware of what I am thinking. Don’t know if I made all that much sense but just wanted to get my thoughts down this morning to at least process them a little more permanently for myself. And I’m re-reading this post thinking, “man—I used the word “obedience” at least twenty times in this post—I should have at least attempted to use some synonyms!”

 This picture sings WAHOOO HALLELUJAH and let me briefly explain why.

Little girl has gone down to sleep by 6pm today—after a day of horrible napping, she was one fun fussy girl to take care of—but she is finally asleep! Today was just a tiring day (note to self: don’t skip her naps ever again)…but hurrah she is down for the night

The house is clean—no dishes, the roomba worked hard today, and the place doesn’t have all of e’s toys strewn about.

I am alone and the house is extremely quiet—the husband has gone out for a bible study and it is just me!! Don’t get me wrong–I love spending time with the husband, but sometimes, i love having my alone time

Because it is just me, no need to cook dinner—I have happily made a meal out of crackers, too much cheese, and hard apple cider. I might add some ice cream on to that after this post. yup–i am having a lactose intolerant party over here

SIGH

It feels pretty darn good right now.

evelyn is now 7 months! gah—okay so time does seem to be going by way too quickly now and i almost wish it to slow down a bit as i realize she’ll be crawling, walking, and talking soon….stages that i could tell i’m not going to be super excited about past the initial excitement of what’s going on so I’m already getting nervous watching her trying to pull herself up on her knees as it looks like the early stages of crawling—i’m completely okay with an immobile baby who can’t travel all that far on her own!!

cry it out worked so so well for us that i am really happy about it despite my frantic post last time about how hard it was to listen to her wail. it was hard the first night—really hard—it honestly went against all these motherly instincts i didn’t even know i had to not go up to my crying baby and bring her comfort. i honestly was shocked to see how it didn’t bother paul at all through it and i saw—wow, moms and dads ARE quite different.  the first night was 45 minutes of crying and paul going in every so often to check in on her…which made her wail even harder every time she saw him. i got through it with soothing music, venting on wordpress, and ear plugs. i guess you can really say that paul did cry it out with her…i just tried to mentally escape. second night she didn’t wake up at all. third night she cried for an hour in the middle of the night around midnight and i was already in bed and so tired that it wasn’t nearly as difficult the first night when i was wide alert. and from then on, it has been really good for all of us. e usually goes down around 6:30-7:00pm in the evenings and sleeps straight through until about 4am. i’ll nurse her, and then she’ll sleep for another 3 hours or so until she’s really up. when she does wake up in the middle of the night, she usually will soothe herself within about 5 minutes and go back to sleep on her own. naps are a whole different story though—she has started to fight her naps like crazy. it takes me about 30-45 minutes to get her down and then she only sleeps for an hour! GAH so much work for so little output. i do everything i’m “supposed” to do—put her down drowsy, don’t pick her up….let her try to get down on her own, but what if she doesn’t go down on her own??? i’ll blog later after i figure this one out.

i also have to clarify my last post. i said that e had been only waking up once or twice in the middle of the night to feed from 5 months to 6.5 months, but she had been getting up once or twice to FEED. it had gotten to the point where she was getting up EVERY 2-3 hours through the night and the pacifier would usually instantly get her back to sleep. but this was ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT. when the pacifier wasn’t doing it, then i’d resort to nursing her to get her back to sleep. and all this was probably extra bad because i might not be the best night waker. you would think that the sound of one’s crying baby would jolt a mother to wake up….but sadly not in my case. after she started sleeping next door in her nursery, i honestly wouldn’t hear her cry until it had been a while. maybe it’s my lazy self protecting myself from lack of sleep, but sadly, i’m not as mom-in-tune to her baby as i should be. a lot of the night wakings were done by poor paul who would hear her cry a lot sooner than i would and who also had to get up in the morning and go to work for 12 hours. if it were me…i would have gotten really mad at how unfair it was. since my primary job this year is to take care of e before i start work in the fall, i should have woken up for a lot of the night time wakings….but i admit that i did not and paul was kind of a super dad who didn’t complain much about it either. one morning i woke up almost ecstatic thinking that e didn’t need a night feeding and thus hadn’t woken up at all. “honey—she finally slept through the night again!!” and paul looked at me and said…”no honey—you slept through the night.” oopsies.

after this, i actually did really feel bad and for about a week i slept in evelyn’s nursery on the little twin bed we had put in there for when our moms were staying with us so that i could hear her cry to tend to her without getting paul up. heh—and after a week of this nonstop getting up through the night and almost trying to brush my teeth with a pen in the morning from being sleep deprived, i decided that little girl was going to have to cry it out. 🙂

i know—cry it out doesn’t work for a lot of babies and families. i really think you just gotta do what works for you as every baby is different, every mom/dad is different, and every household situation is different. i read too many baby books when i was pregnant and i definitely had my ideal way for how things were going to go with a baby but realized probably in week 1 of bringing her home from the hospital that babies don’t really work the same and i had nooooo idea of what i was doing. some things work really well for e and some things definitely don’t. the learning curve is steep for new moms and most of the time when i feel like i got this whole baby taking care of thing down, growth spurts and colds come along and then mess everything up so i have to figure out how else to cope and figure out what’s going to work.

i do have to say though that i was really worried about having a baby because i was never a big baby person before having her. paul used to be worried when we were dating and also in our first four years of marriage because i had honestly told him that i found dogs and puppies a lot cuter than actual babies. which made me worry—if i didn’t find them cute, how was i going to sacrifice so much of myself to take care of one—like what would be my incentive to actually go through this parenting thing??? but i guess the worrying was in vain. you pop a baby out, and you change. not instantly….i think i mentioned before that i didn’t honestly instantly fall in love with her like i thought moms were supposed to. the first two months?–it sounds horrible but i can honestly say i liked her and the actual love i felt towards here was quite little. gah—actually writing it down does make it sound so bad but i’ve admitted before that i’m not going to be winning any mom of the year awards so i’ll own it.  it’s month seven now, and i can see how much my love for her has grown since the early months–i look at her and i’m just filled with love—daily little sacrifices for her don’t seem like much and it makes me so happy and sad at the same time to see her growing. i can see already how my heart aches a little to think of the time when she’ll go off to college and leave me and never call because she’ll find me annoying and i think….man….so this is what love looks like for a child. it leads me back to think of God’s love for us and despite our sins and our unworthiness, he still pours out and has poured out so much love onto us from the giving of his own son for our salvation.