Got my first glimpse of our soon to be grandchild yesterday and so I will post it here for all to see and marvel at. The video is on my Facebook page. My mouth was open the whole time as I watched this little life swing and sway to the song "See You Soon" by Coldplay that Eli so cleverly arranged. It's hard to make out heads or tails at 21 weeks but I'm sure I saw a little hand wave to me and the last frame is of a tiny little head with a turned up little nose that made me weep. Grandmother love is going to be an experience of a lifetime and I am so ready to begin the journey. Many of my friends are way ahead of me but now it's my turn!!!

I realize just how much I love each child and the urgency that I have within for each one's well being and that this is what God must feel for us as well because we are His birthed children. Same love, same desire for everything that we are going through. It says in His word that "He knew us while we were in our mothers womb"; kind of like us all peering into Jill's womb through the wonders of technology and feeling as if we know this little one already. All the hopes and dreams and plans for a bright future are of course the prayers we have for our unborn children. Once they arrive into this world the issues of life sometimes provide a few twists and turns we didn't expect. As I've said before there seems to be a direct parallel with our relationship with God and our relationship with our children. I like to stop and think about this every now and then as it gives me a deeper understanding of how God is growing us up. The image that the Bible paints of container and content seems so right. "We have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves"(2 Corinthians 4:7)


I like this explanation by Dan Stone:
We are earthen vessels. We have this treasure in earthen vessels. The beauty of the vessel is it;s content. The frustration of the vessel is when the vessel tries to become the contents. When we reduce the illustration to that, we see how silly it is to try to be the contents. If you became the contents, there wouldn't be any vessel to hold you. You can't be both the vessel holding(expressing)the life of God and at the same time try to be the life of God. Your eternal purpose is not to become the contents of the cup. Your eternal purpose is to be the vessel, to let the life flow out of you. We reflect the glory and the nature of the One we contain. God manifest Himself to men through men. He first did it through the God-man Jesus and He does it now through us."

So we now have another little vessel coming into the world who we call Baby-Gio at the moment. I pray that God has a great and wondrous image of Himself that He is preparing to express through this perfect container. I vow as his/her grandmother to do all I can to love,cherish,and support this creation of God. My cup runneth over!!!

Climbing A Mountain

Today is the eight day of my ten day fast and so I think it is time to put down on paper if only for future reference some of the highs and lows of taking on this mountain of self-restraint. I have to admit,the last time I took on this task, my motivations were more from the physical rather than spiritual. Everyone swore you would drop 10lbs and they were indeed correct and as much as I would like to slim down the 10lbs I put back on in the course of a year,that was not my motivation this go round.

The Lord has been dealing with me in the area of the division of flesh and Spirit for the past few months. I have been on a quest of some sort, trying to figure out what is it and where exactly does the pull of temptation come from and why is it ever with you from the small seemingly insignificant areas of your life to the larger issues. I read a fantastic book last year by William Landon called The Devil You Don't Know and came to a better understanding of just where this magnetic pull resides. Much is spoken in scripture of the division of soul and spirit and the components of each one. Soul being the container for our mind,will and emotions and Spirit being the container that was created to connect and have relationship with God. The body or flesh of course is what houses it all. Landon's point is that our soul when animated by the Spirit is much like a masterpiece....meaning a poem, a song, a dance, any work of art that is completed to it's perfection. On the other hand the soul animated by the flesh which is the dwelling place of our fall away from God, encompasses all of the inner turmoil and angst that nips at our heels continually to pull us away from Truth. Of course we were given free will to choose between the two which is how it should be. Nothing forced could ever be true and pure. God has given us a little window which we call "time" to work this choice out but what He's really after is a family birthed for eternity that lives and breathes and moves with and in Him. Similar to our own birthed earthly families....one in spirit but separate.

So this fast has been interesting as it has made me look deeper into this thing called Soul, where in the past I have put so much emphasis on the things of the Spirit. I know the Spirit is where God lives and have spent over 30 years studying His ways of dealing with mankind but never gave a lot of attention to the Soul other than realizing that it expresses much of what I exhibit to the world.....how I think, what I choose, how I feel. I could sense this past year a real laziness taking hold in several areas of my life that did not feel good. I started eating things that were not healthy,drinking one to many glasses of wine,putting exercise on the back burner. I could feel this strong pull within to just take a vacation and curl up and get fat and lazy. Now I know that God loves me too much to let that happen and so my inner promptings from Him were to wake up,focus and get back on track before you move into an area you will not be happy with.

The challenge has become discipline with a capital D! The mind speaking to the body versus the other way around. Of course the first thing you have to do is choose a mind animated by God or else the opposite will be a mind that wants nothing better than to render you useless and ineffective; then of course all your promptings will be,"have another piece of cake", it's too dreary out to run", "one more won't hurt","if it feels good do it","no one will ever know". Maybe they won't, but the inner dissatisfaction will start eating away at you and there will be a price to pay.

So......I took the challenge. Ten days of denying my flesh. I'm taking my vitamins, drinking plenty of lemon water and cleansing with Senna tea and feel very energetic and able to go another ten days if I chose to which I don't think I will. The real battle with this truly has been in the mind. By day four, I was starting to hear the voice of defeat saying maybe it would be better to just do a five day fast, rather than ten or maybe just eating a few raw veggies wouldn't be so bad. Many whispers to pull me away from my goal of continuing on and I still have three days to go. I swore I was not going to look at the scale since I did say that this is not about weight and what did I do on day six.....I looked at the scale! Believe it or not I GAINED two pounds!!! How could that be?? I haven't eaten a darn thing in six days and I gained weight??? I had to have a long talk with myself that night as I could feel my motivation slipping. A reminder of how much the Lord is involved in this vessel He is shaping and so I haven't looked since. Maybe this is a spring board for a deeper understanding of this journey I have chosen. God has told us that our growth will be in stages just as a child grows; baby,young man and father.(1John 2:12-14) I know that I am always pressing on for this mystery which is Christ-in you. I would appreciate your prayers.