I feel so tired that I don't quite feel well, and I know why it is. Today you gave me such a wonderful blessing! A surprise that I had no idea was coming! You are so gracious and perfect, and I love your timing!
Today I discovered that you have opened my womb and begun to form a precious new person inside me! What a wonderful God you are! How I worship you, Lord! I am beyond joyful and excited, oh my heart just leaps about for joy at what you have done! My head is swimming with thoughts and feelings, and excitement and happiness top the list. But late at night is always the time when I am most susceptible to "thinking"....
I am so tired, and I know why. I know that the tiredness will get worse, and the nausea will begin. It's Saturday and I know that tomorrow my sweet lovely husband will let me lie-in. But if I think like it's a weekday tomorrow morning... then I feel nervous. I think about homeschooling the boys, tired like this, and I feel nervous. I know that in about a week I will reach the stage where morning sickness kicks in, and then I wonder how on earth I will manage, Lord.
Last time I was pregnant, school ground to a halt for 3 months while I rode the waves of morning sickness and total exhaustion. I know that other mamas do this and they are encouraging and say it's just for a season. And homeschooling allows us to be flexible. But I am nervous, Lord. I feel I can't let anything slow me down. We just got off the ground with homeschooling, and oh you know me Lord - you know how hard I find it to get organised on ANYTHING, and how I have never ever, in my own strength, managed to stick to ANYTHING that takes perseverance. There's always "something" that interrupts and I get off track again very easily. My own strength and effort isn't enough. But this time, I can't fail, Lord, I can't. I must continue with school, and I wonder how I will do that.
I praise and thank you Father, for my children! I thank you for pressing homeschooling into my heart and CALLING me to do it - ASKING it of me. And I have. And I will! As long as you still ask me to do it, I will do it with great delight, because I want to do your will, and because I LOVE it. I love not sending my children to school, I love being with them all the time, I love being the one to teach them. So I praise you for homeschooling, and the gift it is to my family.
Please help me, Lord! To get up every morning with strength and determination, and with a good attitude. To persevere and really develop character through it. How my character needs work! I know it. Thank you for this opportunity to really stretch myself. But God, I know I am going to fall FLAT on my face unless you enable me. Once I am exhausted and sick and struggling, how am I going to make meals for my family, keep some sort of lid on the laundry and housework, wipe bottoms and change 3 sets of nappies several times a day, stay on top of naps and routines around them, homeschool the children who are needing school, discipline little ones appropriately and endlessly every day, and be NICE to my children hour after hour?! How can I do it, Lord?! I know the answer - I totally can NOT. And that's what worries me. But you know I promised you I would not worry about stuff... I am trying, but it's hard when the habit is so ingrained.
I am worried that I am bleeding, and whether that means I will lose this baby, or just do my "usual" early pregnancy bleeding and all will be okay.
I am worried that I can't be a good mummy to six small children aged 7 and under.
I am worried that we will not have "enough" - money, space... our home is small and we really can't afford to move anywhere close enough to where Neil works...
I am worried that my milk will dry up too soon, and I don't want to wean either my 8-month-old OR my 2-year-old...
I am worried that I can't homeschool because I just won't be "enough".
I am worried that I am going to get a lot of flack for being pregnant again, from various sources.
I am worried that something will be wrong with my baby. I only just now started to take my pre-natal vitamins, and I took a not-safe-for-pregnancy medication once, a week or so ago.
I am worried about getting the boys out for air and exercise when I palpitate just getting up from sitting to standing, and then have to sit back down again to rest from that exertion! Lord, what shall I do?!
But. 1 Peter 5: 6-7 says this, "Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you."
So:
I thank you that this baby is fearfully and wonderfully made! And that I am too!
I thank you that you chose to bless us AGAIN! It makes me laugh for joy every time I think of it!
I thank you that the Bible says I should not lean on my own understanding, but to TRUST in the Lord with all my heart.
I thank you that I can find so much encouragement in your Word!
I thank you that my husband is happy that we are having another baby, and my children are so excited to meet the baby already. I thank you that my husband is WONDERFUL, so supportive and lovingly helps me so much with the little ones. Thank you that he's a great daddy! Oh how you've blessed me!
I thank you that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me! I thank you that I don't HAVE to be enough - that's the whole point - because I'm NOT, and can't ever be. If I am enough, it's evidence of your power in my life, and I know that you can make me able.
I thank you that you will not call me to a task or purpose that you will not equip me to do.
I praise you that you consider me enough and love me enough to want to bless me with opportunities to refine me. This is another one of them! I am so glad to know that some serious dross is about to be burned off me in the process! :) Remind me, help me remember that, when it's hard, Lord.
Thank you for LIFE, for life growing inside me! Please help Neil and I to spend time praying together every day about each day ahead, and about our growing family. It's so hard to carve out the time, and it's easy for it to be forgotten, but it's life-giving and essential. How we NEED you Lord!!! How we need you. More than ever, I want to press into you and seek you, and find your peace when I am afraid about things.
Amen.
This is random, and I am tired, but I needed to write this prayer, so I could sort out the jumble that is my head tonight. A precious new baby brings me right back to my knees before God - the reason and the source, and the way forward. I need God more than I ever did! I love Him more than I ever did!
I am so blessed to be mummy to six children. I count this little one even now, so early, so in-the-balance, because he or she is HERE and alive. I just praise God, and I'm overwhelmed with His goodness to us, and His love for us. So happy! :)
I am pregnant! Expecting my sixth baby on May 23rd 2012! What a wonderful surprise! So much to look forward to, and pray about. God is so good to me!
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