Spiritual Milk Drinkers....

Well this post includes some references to breastfeeding so if you're not down go web someplace else.

I have been breastfeeding my daughter Noelle for about 10 weeks now. That's not that much time, in the grand scheme of life it's like a sneeze. But it has been the most amazing ten weeks of life I have known. Every time she is hungry and starts to exhibit those sure fire "mom feed me soon or I will go ballistic" signs I take the necessary steps and make sure she gets the milk she needs. Sometime not fast enough for her liking, but usually in two minutes or less . Sometimes, however, I need to burp her in the middle of the feeding or stop and switch her to the other side. When I do this, she has the tendency to cry and fuss and generally express extreme unhappiness that she is not currently chugging milk. The other day I was feeding her, and switching her to the other side and I told her (yes I talk to her all the live long day) "Noelle! For your entire life there has been food when you needed it, what makes you think today would be any different?"

THEN
GOD
SPOKE

I myself had spent my very own week freaking out about money. Worrying that perhaps someday very soon we would default on a payment, OR not be able to buy diapers, OR the car would break down and the repairs would be more than our emergency fund plus the savings we have to sustain us until I start getting a paycheck again.

"Leanne, you've been alive for 27 years. Have you ever gone hungry, without transportation, or had your household poop needs unmet?

Scripture tells us

We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. 12 In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! 13 Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. 14 But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. ~Hebrews 5:11-14

To which I responded: "Wow God, please teach me more through Motherhood"

You see like my daughter freaks out when she stops eating for a nanosecond and is still hungry, so I when I see a potential problem in the distance or spill a drop of faith because of some small bump in the road act out like chicken little. It's NOT GOING TO BE OKAY! The sky is FALLING! The ROOF is caving in, The bottom has fallen out and this will end me!

But I am NOT an infant
I am 27 years of sustained healthy well-loved adult woman.
Who still freaks out with a "It's not going to be okay" mentality

This my friends is a value I do not want to pass on.

Dear Lord please be with me in this... help me to rise above it and show my children that you are the giver and sustainer, you are the LORD our God, and it will forever and always be more than just okay. Help me becomer a spiritual steak and taffy eater (you see these things take time to chew) so that my daugther sees it and follows in my footsteps.

And all Gods people, or at least this one said: AMEN.

Home Again Home Again

Well here I am in Michigan. I am enjoying a cup of coffee in a hoodie with the slider door open. The morning is nice and crisp and I am in my element. I am centered and there are so many paths I could go down today. The most likely of which is to the mall and lunch with my best friend Becky. I even have spending money in the budget. Wonderful eh?

The trip is going really well so far and I am just taking deep breaths and not letting my Mom or family get to me too much in a negative way. So my Moms house is messy and yes there is usually rotten food in the fridge but I've had multiple freak outs about it and it never does any good really. So might as well just deal with it and throw out the moldy hot dogs at the back by the 3rd jar of grape jelly and stop trying to figure out why my Mother and I are so drastically un alike.

It has been so good to see family and to make plans to share meals with people we love and watch them hold our baby and enjoy her simple beauty. Although after nine months of carrying her, perhaps her beauty is crazy complicated? I love her more and more each day. She is so laid back! She cries when she is hungry or has a dirty diaper or the two times I accidentally pinched her a bit with the car seat buckle. (For which I felt like the worst mom ever...) When we eat dinner she just sits and looks at us and at the lights above the table. Like she's part of the dinner conversation only she talks with her eyes and not her vocal chords... yet!

This town still feels like me, like I belong here. Don't get my wrong because Ada is better than I can imagine and the people that live there are a gift in my life. But when I drive these roads and pull into these parking spots and walk these streets and eat this food and have these conversations... I feel so safe, so unquestionable. No one could say I don't belong, no one can tear me down here, I am a fortress in Michigan, I am supported by so many people who love me so much. This feeling, this sense of belonging, it's so strong. Time and miles struggle to take it away. Will we end up here someday? I don't dare venture an opinion. For now I can tell you with a million percent assurance that Ada is where we live, and undoubtedly where we need to be living. And that my friends is enough for today.

First Friday Family Night

Well hey there from the middle of Friday night family time at the Penny household. I suppose I'm not being a good Mom blogging and netting in the middle of it, but Kel has the bean and Two movies in a row is hard for a busy-bee like me. We had pizza and ice cream, Noelle will get some later by proxy... ya know. Right now we are watching Desperaux and we just finished Fantasic Four Rise of the Silver Surfer.

Motherhood is pretty good, the only real issue we are having is Noelle's weight. We switched to a Pediatrician today and he got her back on the ol scale. She is 3 weeks and 3 days and still 9oz below her birthweight. Additionally she has lost weight but grown 1.5 inches. So the dr said this is concerning, not alarming, but concerning. I hate that we're having this struggle. I am doing my best with feeding her (although middle of the night feedings are sort of hazy) But It'll be okay. I'd just rather not be having this concern at all.

Life is going to get pretty crazy coming up here. Sunday evening we leave for two weeks in Oklahoma City and then a few days after that we leave for two weeks in Michigan. For a time this was stressing me out but I am trying to make my peace with it.

Having a baby is such a huge event, I feel like I am missing out on the spiritual beauty of it because I am wrapped up too much in the details. I need to turn the TV off more, spend more time learning her, I feel like feeding her is a dance between the two of us and we need to learn each other. I feel like my blogs are so disjointed, sorry, focus isn't there right now but there are small fireflies of truth, I Just gotta grab up and use them to light up life.

Alright back to family night.

First mom-blog

Believe it or not, this is not the first time I've tried to blog since Noelle's arrival. I am doing so great, and loving motherhood and really everything that comes with. We have been home from the hospital two weeks today, and Noelle is two days more than two weeks old (16 days for those of you who can't read my typed math) I was so worried about postpartum depression given my families history of depression and anxiety but so far no sign of it. I am really doing well, not that I pretend everything is perfect or that we are in the clear for any of it but so far God has given me the grace for each day and that's all I am asking for :-)

There are so many people out there, who read this blog and who don't that I wish I could introduce to our lovely baby girl who is snuggling on my lap, but I am so thankful for the communication options we have in place.

So my days are all Mom ish now, and I am at home a lot, a lot a lot. I am still recovering from major surgery I know but I want my energy levels back NOW, I need them more than ever now. But I have to have patience, boo patience. We went to WalMart but that wore us out two days ago, 20 minutes in walmart put me flat on my back. So that's what I am working with right now. Not typical for Leanne at all.

Not to mention that in two days my Mom comes, then we go to Oklahoma city for nearly two weeks. Then a few days after we get back from that we go to Michigan for two weeks. Wow, then it's middle of July. I am not ready for the busy-ness of that.

Well I should go continue to be productive. Hi from my patch of Oklahoma to you, enjoy your day.

Threads of love

I got a very special package today from some very dear friends back home. A garlic press, which is amazingly welcome in our house, and a handmade blanket. I smiled at the garlic press because I this of Kellye O every time I think of a garlic press so it's fitting that there should be a garlic press in our home from her. I draped the blanket over my (seemingly huge) tummy and told our daughter that someone loves her so much to use their hands to make this for her. And that;s just one of the reasons why Amber is a wonderful perosn. It just makes me feel like no matter where God takes our family the threads of love from our past are still interwoven into our present. I am starting to feel at home here more and more. Or at least at peace here, happy. But home is still home in a sense. If this makes any sense.

I have spent the last week or so of my life coming to terms with our sideways daughter and analyzing what this might say about who she is. Is she going to be difficult? Can I still feel like the mom I want to be with a c-section? An C-section was never what I wanted but if it can't be avoided I have to come to peace with it. And all the other unknowns that are flying around my head right now. I am praying for my faith to grow, to become more solid. There is so much at stake to be and to teach and learn. Bring it? Yeah... bring it on.

In America?

I am really glad to live here in America. We have freedoms here that are unparalleled in other parts of the world. Don't get me wrong sometimes the greed and cosumerism we display on a daily basis embarasses me and I see us through the eyes of the rest of the world and well. We may have liberty and freedom but we have a few things to learn... That's not really what this is all about however.

I am currently re-reading "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini. (Author of "The Kite Runner.") I am re reading it bc I enjoyed it the first time and because I have yet to get to the library to check out a few more novels to see me through the days at my boring job. This book is about the plight of women in Afghanistan and the cultural norms that are in place which serve to make the lives of women harder. It's heroine who was born out of wedlock, is persecuted and considered "less than" because of her birth status. She is given in marriage by her insincere and absent father at the age of 15 to a 50 year old guy. And all that goes with married ... Her life is hard and she struggles through beatings, mistreatment and more than you can imagine.

And so I sit at my desk with nothing covering my head carrying my soon to be newborn daughter. Each of us two gals have an endless meadow of possiblities before us. I can still be or do whatever I want to be or do, do back to school for dietetics hopefully. And she can also live and grow, free and loved, with a father who doesn't send her away as an adolescent or treat her as anything less than a beautiful creation of God with the same rights as all the rest. I could have been born into anything, she could have been born into anything. If you are a women the same is true, if you are a man you could have been raised to believe truths about women which are quite different than the ones you currently hold. (which I hope are equalistic and biblical) Anyway, you weren't. I wasn't, and baby girl Penny won't have to experience it either. So today I am just thankful to be a woman in America. I am thankful for my husband, my education, and my upbringing. For my God, and I pray he is with those and shows himself to those who are so much less fortunate than I am.

So here's to pants, push-up bras, and the right to vote, and all the other (maybe more important :-) things we get to have as american women.

Easter

I love the power of Easter. I love the hope that it brings to my life, the realization of the hope that is with me all year long. We spend so much of our year focusing on what cannot be, what is broken, what is not. And then on Easter morning, God reminds me that because he lives, he will restore. We have nothing to fear. The words to so many hymns come rushing back to me.

- Because he lives, I can face tomorrow because he lives, all fear is gone, because I know he holds the future, and life is worth the living just because he lives
- No guilt in life, no fear in death, this is the power of Christ in me, from life's first cry to final breath Jesus commands my destiny.
- Where oh death is now your sting?

I could go on but those are the foam on the top of the mug of Easter hymns floating through me.

I love mixing contemporary worship in with classic hymns because I really do believe that some truths have already been perfectly stated. And I love that it brings me back to hearing my Grandma sing them in church as a little girl, and the smell of her Sunday coat, and the windmill cookies and orange drink after church...

But you have to apply it to your own life in order for it to resonate so here is my Easter hymn

Because he lives...
- The mental illness of my family has no power of the kind of Mother I am.
- I will get to laugh and cry about life with my Dad someday
- I will never let this life overtake me, and destroy my hope
- I will bloom where I am planted and stop lamenting about where I am not.
- I will not let worrying about potential problems steal the joy from my life
- I will demonstrate this faith to my children
- I will show them the love that runs between Kel and I and model for them what marriage in Christ lives like.
- I will fight to feel the hope and see the truth in each day
- I will keep going, keep fighting, and keep healing from whatever this life throws at me
- I will remember that because he lives restoration from the brokenness is coming for my sister.

I will live as one in-between salvation and restoration.

Because he lives.