Melting Mommy Moments

A mother's love is a unique kind of love.  You will not be able to find it anywhere else.  It isn't that you love that child more than your husband, but it is in a different kind of way.  When Kirby was first born, I had to remind myself what God says about our love and how it is to be.  I searched and searched for the exact verses that say, "Love God first, your husband second, your children third, and everything else after."  It is just one of those principles that isn't clear as glass, its more like clear as mud.  But if you read God's word and study the scriptures that support each other, you will come away with what God breathed into these inscriptions. As a wife and mother, He wants you to love what He has given you with your whole heart.  I don't know if you necessarily will love one more than the other, but there will come times in your life where you will need to learn through love to put your husband before your children.  I don't think He means when you have a new born baby that is needing to be fed to make sure you feed your husband first.  I believe that He means when it comes to life in general, when you look back on how you served your family, as a whole, did your husband feel your love as much as your children did?  Did your husband know that he was a priority in your life over your child's gymnastics class or baseball games?  Did your husband feel like you were willing to work hard during the day sometimes and prioritize moments so that you could spend some one-on-one time with him?  Did your husband feel the love that Christ intended for a wife to give?  The way I tell the difference in love for our Kirby and my CR is this: with Kirby, my heart melts with sweetness and sometimes gets puffed up with a sense of pride for what God has in trusted us with; for CR I get butterflies in my tummy and goosebumps all over my skin.  I love them both so much, but I have learned over the last 21 months there is a different kind of love.

I can't help but think about God's love in these situations.  I think about my love for Kirby and CR; I can't imagine loving anything more.  I can't imagine having anymore room in my heart, yet God loves us 7000 times more.  And not just me, but each and everyone (John 3:16 says He loved the world) of His children.  Can you imagine?  Be still and know for a moment with me.  Close your eyes and let God's love infiltrate your heart.  I do hope you did that with me because it just brought me to tears.  That is just a tiny morsel of what His love is for us.  Even when we as his little children steal a cookie from the cookie jar; He still loves us that much.  Even when we fall off the bandwagon and sleep in too long to read His inspired word; He still loves us that much.    My prayer for each of you is that you know this love.  If you don't and want to know how to receive it, please ask me or someone at a church how.  It is simple and it is the only decision you need to make in this life.

Some recent Melting Mommy Moments with Kirby
~ She has started to request songs at night.  We have always sung and rocked for about 3 songs, but lately when I get to the last song and I kiss her on the head, she leans forward and says, "Song, one more" and shows me one.  How can you not sing one more?
~She now likes to snuggle a little bit in the morning on the couch.  This used to be a daddy thing every morning, but now she wants to "up"with mommy.
~She will now lay her head on our shoulders and squeeze really, really tight when giving hugs.

~When something goes wrong (right now mainly having an accident) she will come to me, pull on my finger to come with her, and says "Oh no, oh no no no".
~At night she starts her prayer.  Sometimes I am in the middle of a song and she says, "pray".  As I begin, she starts naming off people we are thankful for.  It usually starts off with "daddy raaaay" and then a giggle.  As we name off everyone, she giggles afterwards.  When we say amen, she puts her head up and blows kisses to God and says, "nigh nigh".
~When I say her name about something, sometimes she smiles and says, " KK".  I don't want her to have a nickname (Im in love with Kirby) so I hope this doesn't stick or get picked up by anyone else ;).

I am starting to understand the love that my mother has for me.  I fully understand the protection love that she had for me in high school and in college when she wasn't sure I was making the right decisions.  Sometimes I think forward to Kirby being that age and I quiver.  I literally have to shake my head to get it out.  I know that with God as our guide we will survive raising a child, but it scares me to death in this current world.  I know that must be how every mother has felt since the dawn of time.  Each generation is so different than the previous, that one can not imagine their baby living in such a disaster.  The place I always come back to is this: God's word never changes, so if we live our lives and raise our child according to His direction with His guidance, you are doing all you can do as a mother who loves her child.

"Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord."  Ephesians 6:4

More than Enough

And all of you
Is more than enough for all of me
For every thirst and every need
You satisfy me with your love
And all I have in you is more than enough

This is a beautiful song by Jeremy Camp.  This is my life song right now.  I sing it over and over and over.  I sing it to Jesus.  I then I sing just this part to Kirby:

More than all I want
More than all I need
You are more than enough for me

Because He is and because she is.  He is what fills my cup every new morning.  He is what soothes me to sleep.  He is what gave me life and gives me eternal life.  He is more than I can ever get from this life.  And Kirby is more than I ever imagined in the gift of a child.  I thank God daily for choosing CR and I to have the blessing of a child and the blessing of that child being Kirby.  I do.  I really, really do and I really, really mean that if she is all we ever have, she is more than enough.

But my heart can't help but cry.  I wish I was stronger.  I wish I was like my friend Jenni Hankins who has had a content heart through their struggle with not only infertility, but the waiting and waiting of adoption.  Her husband told me the other day, "It's so nice that through all of this, we haven't ever had any grief about it."  I wish with all my heart I could say the same thing.  I try to be that confident, pure spirit about it, but in the silence with God I break.  I mean I break down.  

I was doing good until January when I had a chemical miscarriage.  It happened at 3 a.m. and before I even got out of my bed, my heart knew what had happened.  I was o.k. with it .. after reading why they occur I was really o.k. with it.  It is amazing how God formed our bodies and how everything works together.  And when something ain't right, it does the right thing to fix it.  Terrible to say that a miscarriage is the right thing.  

Then after that, just about everyone we know asks us when we are going to give Kirby a little sibling.  I was used to that from when we were trying before and everyone was saying, "When are you going to start a family?  Don't you think it's time to start a family?"  

My friend Kayla Nemec tackles infertility issues head on as well.  I love her reminders.  I love how she has taken positive, public steps to deal with the pain of the issue.  I pray for her daily, that she would get to experience at least a Kirby in her life.

Cause that is just it ... I should be so happy and feel blessed beyond measure that God gave me at least this one chance at being a mother.  I'm not saying I will never be able to get pregnant.  I am not saying I am giving up the possibility and that God is done with me.  Hear me loud and clear, I  HAVE FAITH LIKE A MUSTARD SEED.  Again the issue is that I am not ovulating.  We haven't tried any medication yet, because I know that when God's timing is ready it will all work out again. 

Now, how do I get that message from my head down to the inner most veins of my heart?

He is more than enough.  Kirby is more than enough.  CR is more than enough.  My cup literally runneth over, yet I crave more ... 

Cleaning house

Did you notice I rearranged things on the blog again?  It just wasn't sitting right with me.  I have never been 100% in love with the name after my Picking Patricks got hacked.  I've been thinking about it a lot lately and what the blog portrayed of our family.
I am 100% in love with Ree Drummond.  If you don't already follow her here you need to.  You.  Need.  To.  I love her cookbook - waiting eagerly to get her second one.  I know it is out, just haven't been able to get it yet.  I love her show.  CR and I watch it together.  Their life is so similar to ours (well, except for all of the glamour they get with having a TV show).  Ree and I are like this - if you could see me I am doing the eye thing.  We are so very similar in personality, our passions, and our story.  I have been blogging just as long as she has and have been taking pictures just as long (she is a lot better, and actually since she is older probably has been doing it longer).  I am not comparing us in any way - she definitely far exceeds my talents, but its just so fun to read along with her story and think, "there is someone just like me out there!  There is someone else who feels like they were uprooted and placed out in the middle of nowhere!"  When I first read her book I said, "Ugh, someone beat me to writing my story!"  But then I began to really think about it ... our stories are very much alike, however, I know mine was on purpose.  She says on her show and in her book, "I'm an accidental country girl!"  I loved that.  It rang so true to my heart.  This morning as Kirby and I were walking and I was getting to see this  

 it occurred to me that our stories may divide there.  I know that God purposefully planted me here in Bishop, hence the new name.  I know God "has plans for me ... plans to prosper and not harm, plans to give me a hope and future.  Jeremiah 29:11 (paraphrased)  He knew that this girl who grew up with a golf course as a backyard would end up playing hide and seek with cows one day ...

 do you see her?  We do this every morning.  He knew that I could trade my four iron in for a shovel to help feed the cows cotton seed.  He knew that the thorns in my side would no longer be sand traps, but these beautiful things that most people would call flowers ....

This one, my dear friends, is a weed.  Funny story, when we first moved down here my mother went out and cut a handful of these off of our fence line and put them in a vase on our kitchen table.  Within a day CR had to throw them out because he was sneezing and getting all kinds of allergy mess going on.  He had to explain to momma that these weren't the typical sunflower; they were weeds.  Who woulda known?  

God knew that I would get excited when I started to see this in the fields

 The touch, the feel of cotton.  The fabric of our lives.  Literally, the FABRIC of our lives.  We raise this stuff.  How cool is that?  Sometimes I have to remind myself how amazing it really is what my family does for a living.  We farm.  WE FARM.  It isn't a hobby.  It is a living, breathing farm.  When I met someone a few weeks back they said, "You mean, like, doing the big tractors and everything?  You mean like having crops right there in your backyard?"  Yup, I mean right there ...

 This is a picture of our garden.  The tall stuff on either side of the short rows is corn.  The crops in the middle are green beans and I think black eyed peas, too.  Kirby calls all of the crops corn.
God knew.  His loving, gracious hand has been upon it since the day I met CR in 2004.  His hands were holding me tight as I fought hard and dug deep to stay in College Station.  His loving arms embraced me as I cried many mornings and nights our first year of harvest.  And His hands are upon us every moment of our lives here.  As fun as it sounded to be an "accidental country girl" ... that is Ree's story.  I am an on-purpose farm girl raising another one as we speak.

 Her newest thing is to take her daddy's old remote control and pretend it is a camera.  Here she is taking a picture of me, taking a picture of her

 And of course she had to bring it along for our walk so she could take pictures of everything just like mommy.  Every time I stopped to snap, she did too and said, "Cheese".  Yes, the John Deere boots had to be on today.

 My beautiful view on our walks.  Wouldn't trade it for anything.

 The dogs decided they wanted to ride instead of walk.

This is our home; this is our story.  This is our journey with God as our tour guide and His Word as our map.  I hope I never forget that.