Day 45 - February 26

Almost 6 1/2 years ago I said "I do". Tim is an amazing and caring husband. I am continually thankful each day that God brought us together. Tim and I are in the process of learning more and more about communication with one another. With no TV to distract us for the 45 days I think it will a great time to learn more about communication in marriage.

This is the first year of marriage that we have really taken the time to "work" on our marriage. We try and keep Monday mornings set aside to spend time together focused on this. We've been watching a marriage podcast together and spent time asking each other the hard questions that followed. Over the past number of weeks though we've strayed from our Monday mornings together and have allowed schedule or sickness to get in the way with out replacing that time later in the week. Last night we both really noticed how our communication with each other has suffered and how working on your marriage always needs to happen regularly. One thing I want to learn during Lent and of course continuing on after is how to lay down my selfishness in my marriage. I am so quick to desire to be served or to get my way or have all of my many opinions heard.

Phil 2:3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.

In my life I need to consider Tim and Layla better than my self. I need to lay down my selfish desires and serve. OK - so easy to type , so hard to live out. I just thank God that He is not done with and that He and Tim have much forgiveness for me when I turn on the selfish switch.

Day 46 - February 25

My house has been wonderfully peaceful today. I think I'm addicted to noise. I normally have the TV on or my IPOD blaring but today for the most part the house has been quiet. With this quietness has come peace. I've just felt a sweet calmness that I haven't really had this winter.

Anyways, the noise that was in the house today came from Francis Chan. I was listening to a podcast of his called Intimacy With God. In one section he was talking about how BIG our universe is. Francis listed and explained different facts about vastness of our galaxy and the universe.

So, Did you know that it would take you 100 thousand light years to travel across our galaxy. Wow huh? That's big and that's just our galaxy. There are hundreds of billions of galaxies that we can see the Hubble Space Telescope. Just trying to wrap my mind around how big that is and how small I am almost leaves me speechless... but that would make for a boring blog. So I'm sitting here contemplating this and then looking at my daughter who is banging a block on the tray of her highchair. God created hundreds of billions of galaxies and he then created my daughter, He created me. God CREATOR. WOW. That is pretty humbling to me. God creates me and then chooses to allow me to have a relationship with Him and calls me His daughter. WOW.

Psalm 139:13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb

Layla at 26 weeks in my womb

Layla at about 2 minutes old

Psalm 19:1 The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Images from the Hubble Space Telescope

Day 47 - February 24

Okay, we'll here goes nothing or something. I've decide that I would observe Lent this year. Lent is the 40 days (plus the 6 Sundays throughout the 40 days which actually make it 46 days) before Easter Sunday. For 2009 Lent falls from February 25 to April 11. Lent is suppose to be a time for a person to prepare themselves for the Easter season. Repenting of sin, fasting and prayer. I've been taking stock of what my days look like over the past little while and the one huge obstacle for me at times is the big box that sits in the corner of my living room and pumps me full of entertainment. So confession - I watch way to much TV! Since I've been home on Mat leave, its been even worse. (I think I enjoy the adult conversation.) So can you see where I'm going.... I feel like I should fast from TV for the next 46 days. I should spend that time where I would normally just veg out actually getting some house work done, spending time with Tim and Layla, reading way more or the most important thing
~ Spending time with God~

So why share this with all of you? Well I'm pretty lousy at this. I make commitments to do stuff like this and them break them the next day. I figure if I put this out there now I'll be way more committed because people actually know. So if you would like to follow along with me over this next 46 days lets go, bad grammar and all. I'm going to try and blog everyday (I already know that there are few days I'll miss because we are out of town) I'm really excited to see where God takes me over this next weeks. Don't get me wrong I'm a bit sad about missing LOST and 24 but I then remember " ahh yes real life more important"

Away we go....