As many of you know Greg is in Uganda Africa until Aug. 6. He left the 21st of July to help lead a team to serve alongside with DELTA ministries. I ask that you continue to pray for the team to be open to what God's agenda is and that the Holy Spirit will have room to challenge all that are involved with these ministries during these next two weeks.
Now... moving onto more of the point of why I am writing. Today, Monday July 26 was hard. Today, I felt weak. Today, I felt inadequate. Today, I felt incompetent. Today, I felt that I lacked in every possible way. Today, God and I conversed all day.
I have to start off by saying, my children were great. They were patient with me. They were sweet to me. It was a joy to watch them play with the water outside while the weather was hot and sticky. And yet my heart was distracted. I was distracted at how I couldn't meet the needs of my youngest. For some reason she has been throwing up after each feeding for the past 24 hours. For some reason today she was desiring to eat all day and yet not being able to get much from me. She was still unwilling to take a bottle from me when I began to feel desperate. Here I am, as a woman, and I couldn't meet my baby's basic need... Food. So though there were moments of great delight, I was continually haunted by the fact that my body wasn't working the way it should. I can only imagine that I am not alone in feeling that something must be wrong with me. Today, I felt broken.
I have tried a bunch of different things to help with milk supply and getting my daughter strong enough to work on her mouth muscles so that she can eat, which in turn would help her grow. I have been to the lactation specialist every week, except for 3 of them, since my daughter was born. Zoey is 11 weeks old. That means I have gone 8 times. 8 times!! And it is only 2 1/2 months in! My mind is tired. The desire to quit is starting to creep in, and yet my heart wants to fight to the death to be able to breast-feed. This is my last child. I want to cherish that bond as long as I can. To be more honest, I want to hold onto the perfect picture of child-rearing that is still in my head. Yes, I understand there is no such thing as perfect child-rearing... but my heart is having a hard time of letting it go.
So, here I am, tired, frustrated, concerned, annoyed at myself and my body; and then God does something amazing. I finally put a bottle together walked out to the courtyard and asked a friend to feed my baby. And as the two women began to ask how I was my eyes filled with tears and told them that today I was struggling. They patiently held my baby and fed her. In that same moment a dear friend of mine called and was checking up on me. I began to cry again as I told her of my heart's struggle. She listened. She prayed on the spot for me and Zoey and Mak and Zeke. When I finished that phone call I went back out to the courtyard and I saw a husband of my neighbor was holding Zoey and feeding her the bottle. I sat down on the grass with my friends and I watched as one person after another took turns taking care of Zoey. And in a moment that could have made me feel like everyone else was taking care of my child why couldn't I... I didn't. What I felt was joy, honor, and humbled by these people's love for my child. God was so gracious to me and to Zoey in that moment. In that moment He reminded me gently that He sees me, He remembers me, and He is taking care of me. Who am I that He would remember me? I felt so loved in that moment.
God thank you that you remind me daily that You have not turned Your face away from me. You have not promised me an easy life, but You did promise to be with me. Thank you that you tangibly love me through human hands. Thank you that you have designed a system where, we as humans, can be your hands and feet, and mouth and ears. God I love you. Lord, I am weak please grant me the strength to remember who is in control and to bend to Your helping hands.
