Love is a Beautiful Thing.

I am a part of a girls group and we recently started reading Jesus Is ____. 
This book is seriously rocking my world. And I am only on chapter 3, but my eyes are being opened more with every page I turn. 

"In the name of hating sin, the Pharisees ended up hating sinners."

"Jesus didn't care about the scandal, he cared about the scandalous."

"Maybe my sins aren't as obvious, but they are just as real. And had I been born in different circumstances, I cringe to think who I would be, what I would have done, whom I would have hurt."

I suck at life, no doubt. No, I'm not a rapist or a murderer but I suck. And a lot of times I catch myself looking down on others who suck worse. I somehow drift into the Pharisee mindset without even noticing it, even though I sin as well. Why do I have the right to look down on someone "worse than me" when I am the one who decided whats "worse" in the first place? Jesus never gave us a list of sins from best to worst. I made up my own. And you made up your own. And society made up it's own. And that is what we use to judge people with. Jesus, though, didn't make up his own. He views sin as sin and that's just that. 

At one point in the book he asks the question, "If Jesus could say just one thing to you right now, what would it be?" He then says how most people would expect correction or rebuke. When I tried to answer this question, purposely trying to avoid making my answer be correction or rebuke, I answered with something that would've been correction. Like he needed to fix me.

"Stop thinking negatively about yourself."

That was my first thought of what he would say to me. This might not really seem like correction as much as "stop cheating on your wife" or "stop looking at porn" or whatever some might think theirs would be, but it's still a correction. No, I'm not saying thats the only thing I do wrong, but that's the first thing that came to my mind. At first, I didn't even notice that it was correction, I just thought it would make sense for him to not want me to think negatively about myself because he created me. He knit me together in my mother's womb. He thinks I'm more beautiful than words can describe and I constantly tear myself down. All of that is true, and because that is true, I realized that he wouldn't try to fix me if he could say one thing to me right now, he would remind me.

"I love you more than you'll ever comprehend. You are so beautiful and wonderful and I created you that way, you are mine."

Jesus loves me just the way I am. He loves me even when I suck at life and he loves me even though my thighs aren't as firm as I want them to be. And he loves you the same way. He doesn't only love you when you overcome your battles, He loves you through them.

"Jesus loves us right now, just as we are. He isn't standing aloof, yelling at us to climb out of our pits and clean ourselves up so we can be worthy of him. He is wading waist-deep into the muck of life, weeping with the broken, rescuing the lost, and healing the sick."

If we could realize that this is the way Jesus loves us, that his love is what he wants us to focus on, then we wouldn't view each other so harshly. We would stop tearing each other down. We would stop tearing ourselves down. We would stop focusing on people's sins and start focusing on the fact that we are loved by Jesus just as we are, and so is everyone else. Instead of going out of our way to point out what someone is doing wrong, maybe we should spend more time focusing on what they're doing right. I've come to learn that encouragement is a great tool. Sometimes that's all it takes. One time I posted on Facebook about when I told my little sister that she was great at painting. She had been talking about how she wasn't good at it so I decided to let her know that I thought she was great at it. A few minutes later she said, "Wow, I am great at painting, I think I will be a painter when I grow up!" Then we talked about how she could teach other people how to paint. Now she is a world famous artist who does art shows for a living and makes millions of dollars. Here is some of her work:

So, maybe she's not really making millions of dollars with her art, but she's only 6 years old. Maybe one day she will be. That first picture is on my fridge and I wouldn't trade it for a million dollars so that's pretty much the same thing. But you get my point, encouragement goes a long way. Love goes a long way. So moral of the blog, Jesus is a lot of things. He is grace. He is life. He is my creator, my father, my best friend, my healer, the list goes on. But the one that's sticking out to me the most in the very few first chapters of this book is that Jesus is Love. And love is a beautiful thing. <3 


"And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:30-31

A Few Things About First Time Mom-hood

First things first, I am a first time mom. My daughter, Emersyn, is only a month old so I am not going to act like I know everything there is to know about all this mom stuff just because I have one baby. BUT there are a few things that I feel like most people don't know about birth/motherhood that I have experienced and thought I'd share in case you wanted to know. I read about a million "10 things no one told you about childbirth" articles and I feel like they all said the same thing, thus making it more like "10 things you just read in the last article about childbirth." Anyway, I don't have a million things that I've discovered, but I wanted to share the ones that I did:

1. Wipes.
You can not have enough wipes. It looks like there are a million is one pack and then before you know it, you go to grab a wipe and you're out! Then you have a poopy butt aimed straight at you and chances are that in the 12 seconds you spent trying to figure out what to do, more poop is now coming out of your tiny human. Everyone is always talking about how much you need diapers all the time (which is absolutely true) but no one ever mentions how quickly you run out of wipes.

2. Diaper changing.
If you refer to number 1, you will probably catch that changing diapers is not always so easy. I have eight siblings so I had already changed my fair share of diapers before bringing this baby into the world, but my husband had not. I actually got the vibe that he had never in his life changed a diaper, but I never remembered to ask him. So this one is more for people who haven't had much experience with diaper changing. Here's my advice: the quicker, the better. The longer you have the diaper open, the more likely you are to get poop everywhere. Just open it, clean it, close it. Boom. You're done. And clean. (just make sure you do actually wipe them good)

3. Breast Milk.
Not only did you just become the source of nutrition for your little one, you also become a freaking water faucet. Your breasts will leak like crazy ALL THE TIME. You will have to wear a bra 24/7 (every girls nightmare, I know). In the shower is the only time you get to not wear a bra and you will probably leak some milk while you're in there. You cannot go anywhere without nursing pads and if you nurse laying down and happen to fall asleep, you will most likely have a cute little puddle of breast milk waiting for you on your sheet when you wake up. Don't get me wrong, I love breastfeeding. I absolutely love knowing that I am giving Emersyn the best nutrition that I possibly can, but I am counting down the days when I can take my bra off before bed!

4. Natural Childbrith
IT IS POSSIBLE. One time I read one of those "10 things no one told you about childbirth" articles and one of the things was that your epidural is your best friend. If you need an epidural, go ahead and get one but this article made it seem like thats just what you do. Like going into labor = epidural. Thats so not true! My labor started at 5:00 Monday morning and Emersyn wasn't born until 10:00 Tuesday night. When I went in around 5:00 on Tuesday night, I was dilated to four, so some people say I'm lucky because my hard labor was only about 6 hours long, but I was having back labor, so even when I was in early labor, it SUCKED. All night Monday night, my husband had to push on my back every time I had a contraction. So anyway, my labor lasted over 24 hours and I went naturally. It was absolutely positively hell. But it was absolutely positively worth it. I was up and moving not long at all after she was born. The only back pain I had was from pushing and it went away after a bit (you will be sore from the pushing too but it's not so bad). I didn't have to risk getting a spinal headache. I didn't have to risk having back pain for years to come (my mom had an epidural for my oldest brother who is 26 and still has back pain from it). I didn't have to risk getting paralyzed or hurting my baby or making my chances of needing a c-section higher or potentially messing up my chance to breast feed or any of that. It definitely wasn't easy. It took more focus and "I can do this" mentality than anything I've ever done. But it is possible. You will absolutely need someone there to talk you through every single contraction. And I mean every. single. contraction. All 397548925 of them. Because I promise you, if my mom wouldn't have been there for even just a few of them, I would've gotten an epidural. (side note: if you're having back labor, have someone there to talk you through contractions and a different person there to push on your back...if I wouldn't have had my husband pushing on my back for every contraction while my mom talked me through them, it would've been much worse.) Also, don't get an epidural because you are afraid of tearing while trying to go natural. I considered that. Then I went natural. And I tore. And I didn't feel it at all because contractions are so painful that you really just do not feel anything else. Believe it or not, pushing the little creature out is relief compared to contracting. But you already know that childbirth hurts, everyone already knows that. So don't let yourself be surprised when it hurts...you already knew it was going to. Don't go in with the mindset that you won't be able to do it because then you won't be able to do it. It hurts so bad for a while but then before you know it, BOOM! You're done. The pain is gone and your baby is here.

5. Post-partum
Peri bottle. Dermoplast. Disposable underwear. Giant pads. Sore nipples. Cute baby. Lack of sleep. Plenty of visitors. These are all things I read about in those other articles, so I am not going to talk about them here. The main thing that no one warned me about before hand was how freaking weird and scary it is to bring that tiny little thing home with you. It's beautiful and exciting and so long awaited, but it is scaaaarrryyyyyyyy. What if she stops breathing? What if she's not eating enough? What if her poop isn't yellow by day four? You mean no nurses are gonna come check on us now? Nobody is there to answer my 5,000 questions every 10 minutes? JUST ME AND PATRICK? Thats how I felt. As time goes by, you slowly begin to realize that you knew nothing about motherhood beforehand. You will find yourself googling things like "how to bathe a newborn." I have bathed Emersyn a million times by now and I still feel like theres gotta be an easier way but, heads up, babies are slippery when wet. Theres not an easier way and you are most likely doing it right. Oh also, your crotch is gonna hurt like hell. You would assume I would've known that but somehow I didn't so maybe some of you didn't think that through either so yeah, heads up again. And one more thing! Your uterus doesn't automatically go back down. You still look pregnant for a few days after you give birth which is pretty much the weirdest thing in the world, but eventually you look normal again.

6. Childbirth Classes
Take one. The one we took told us everything we would ever need to know about natural, epidural, and c-section birth because you really need to be prepared for all three just in case. It also taught us things like why you shouldn't get an episiotomy (unless absolutely necessary), how to handle postpartum depression if needed, and a million other things that are important to know.



So yeah, there's my list. I hope it is helpful and I hope by reading this, you will not be surprised by these things! I've only been a mom for a month now but motherhood has been fun so far and I wouldn't trade it for the world. My daughter is beautiful and perfect and even though she poops on us if we don't change her fast enough and spits up in my raviolis, she's the greatest thing we've ever been given! I can't wait to be surprised by a million more things on this little roller coaster called motherhood. I'll make sure to share them with you if necessary. :)