Thirteen....

A lot can happen in 13 years....
I've learned:
I need the love of the Father, the true Word and Wisdom of Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit in me more than I ever realize at any given moment.
I can do nothing on my own, but all things God asks of me through Jesus Christ who gives me strength.
What I thought I knew, I don't really understand. But admitting that is a good starting place to learning.
Marriage is harder than I thought. Part of that is because I am married to a sinner. And I am even more shocked at how much harder I make marriage because I am a sinner.
These little people that have changed me and shaped me so profoundly....well, they keep growing up. And I can't stop it. Now, I know that I wouldn't really want to stop it, per say, but I am still learning to live fully in each moment and savor it and be thankful for it before it is gone. This is a beautiful art....a supernatural work which I pray the Holy Spirit continues to work in me.
Being a wife and a mom requires truck loads of character that I just didn't have. But studying and submitting to God's Word, obeying one step at a time, and being surrounded on every side by little people who are able to bring out the exact weaknesses in me...well....all that really does build some of that character. ;-)

I have been confronted more clearly with my humanity-my weaknesses, my faults, my limitations-in this pregnancy than perhaps ever before. The beauty of it is that I have found God's grace to be more far-reaching, more sustaining, and more powerful than I ever imagined. So perhaps that is what I have learned more than anything in these 13 years....it is God in His kindness that has sustained us, and each year we have ahead will be the same. We need Christ desperately, He is our hope, and we look to Him for all the years ahead.

"Therefore...let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God's throne. Think of all the hostility he endured from sinful people; then you won't become weary and give up." Hebrews 12:1-3