Heartbeat

Today, I get to hear my grand baby's heartbeat. My very first experience of connection with my grandchild within my daughter's womb and I am breathless in anticipation.

Perfectly and wonderfully made, its little details are being knit together.

Endless combinations of personality and details often entertain my mind, yet in my dreams I have met and kissed this little one.

A new generation already blessed by being born into a family of faith and tremendous love, life is a gift. And suddenly, when I feel as if I learned how much my heart can hold, God is giving me a grandchild.

In only hours, I get to hear this little ones heartbeat that will become my very own.

i-Life or Real Life?

Do you ever wish you could get back the time in your day spent on an iphone or a computer and wish you had spent the time doing something you really enjoy?

At the end of a day if we could total up the minutes and perhaps hours spent looking at a piece of hardware concerned we may have missed something, truth be told, we missed nothing of importance.

A piece of hardware with no pulse often gets more time and attention than what is truly important to us.

A time-filler, social and easy has taken over.

What would you do in the mornings if there wasn't an iphone? Would your morning routine look very different?

I have a growing dissatisfaction of what is really important to me surprisingly set aside due to an i-life that doesn't fulfill anything significant.

If I had to make a list of a couple things really important to me, hobbies or interests, I am shocked how set aside they are due to "not enough" time in the day.

Pruning is a refreshing season. Cutting off dead branches that add nothing and/or detract from what is really important in my life is like cleaning out a house. You think you need to hold onto something because what if you may need it one day. Then you decide to clean out closets, cupboards and the garage and you just feel clean and refreshed and a huge sense of relief when it is done.

Why don't we do that with the junk that fills our i-life that detracts our hearts desires and happiness in real life?

Sometimes we need to prune where empty time is spent. Sometimes we need to prune what and who isn't important that takes up seconds and minutes and perhaps totaling hours in a day. Sometimes you have to unfollow people in real life.

Reaching for a piece of hardware first thing every morning, family and friends together with their iphone in hand afraid to miss something, look around you in even a restaurant. Lost time looking at hardware that has slowly replaced real people, once loved hobbies, our hearts interests and priorities has taken over in a way that makes me think of the walking dead.

I want 2017 to be filled with all things truly important. To really be in the moment, real life important stuff.

Windows Open in January!

I predict flowers in March. I've been saying this, but words can be forgotten unless it's time & date stamped.

It has been an unusual January in Ohio. Typically, the most bitter cold month of the year; however, temperatures have been averaging mid 40's through the 50's and yesterday we hit low 60's and sunshine!!

I threw open all the windows for fresh air all day. It was wonderful!

Cleaned my house to freshen my home from winter and sat in the sunshine reading a book. 

It smells like spring with all the rain we are having and birds chirping. A taste of what is coming.

Inauguration of Trump

A migraine, vertigo and the inability to keep down water kept me on the chaise watching the inauguration of Trump the entire day.

It takes a lot to slow me down, but the timing was perfect.

I wanted to watch the inauguration every step of the way and if there was one day to be completely out of commission, I am grateful for perfect timing of absolute miserable circumstances to have an excuse to spend the day watching the television and welcoming Trump as President of the United States.

I wanted to watch to because I wanted to make sure it actually happened. Excited to see what he will to do make America great again!

The entire day I watched this I couldn't help but think Melania's feet had to be killing her after the entire day spent in heels and walking in that parade! Elegant and graceful in her Jackie O-esque Ralph Lauren ensemble and gloves, she truly has style and class.

Finding anything positive about an incapacitating migraine and vertigo was being able to watch this inauguration and events all day and learning Excedrin Migraine is a near miracle worker.

In Breathless Anticipation

My grand baby is 11 weeks developing in my daughter's womb. Loved and covered in prayer, the anticipation of my grand baby's arrival is extraordinary! 

I had a wonderful relationship with both my grandmothers. One that transcended the adoring grandmotherly type, to much time spent, hearts shared, DNA revealed that history explained, to dear friendships.

Remembering fondly and knowing how special this relationship is, I simply cannot wait to take all I know and make it more perfect for my grand baby.

It is odd to love someone so much and not even know its gender, its sweet little face, its unique little personality, its heart, hopes, dreams, aspirations, and its own very special purpose.

I will be right there present from the very beginning, loving, nurturing, and with my very own special extraordinary relationship that is different from Mariah & Jeremy.

I am in breathless anticipation of that first moment when I meet this little bundle of joy. Those first seconds my eyes get to see, my hands get to embrace, and to kiss and breathe in this baby, a perfect extension and new generation of my own daughter and son-in-law.

I am in breathless anticipation of this bond and relationship I cannot wait to have with my grandchild.

Showers of Blessings

Showers of blessings, God in control.

If you don't feel God's presence or sense His hand at work today, you are not seeing.

If you haven't heard God speak to you, you are doing all the talking and not listening.

The busyness of life drowns out God as we work like busy bees and fill our days with activity, but there are blessings from God that He does so much better than us in our own powers and efforts.

He knows. He knit us together. He remembers what is most important to us when we sometimes forget and life becomes loud.

I am a beautiful mess.

It is a perfect place of peace and seeing and hearing God.

He is the sunshine and soft rain every flower needs to thrive.

A Bucket of Holes

For months the words "a bucket of holes" has come to mind. Social media makes this term most obvious.

Selfie-junkies show desperation for attention.

Confidence does not require countless posts of your face from different angles for "friends" to "like" and comment. Empty people starving for attention. Desperation. A bucket of holes.

Gathering "friends" on Facebook, anyone, everyone. No boundaries. It isn't real. The click of the "friend" request, a simple segue peaking into someones life you ought not to be watching. A seed planted. Curiosity. A bucket of holes.

There are social media sites I will not participate on. How much attention do you need? How much approval from people who really don't matter is enough? A void in their life they are trying to fill. A bucket of holes.

Too much time is spent on technology.

Too much time is spent seeking attention and approval.

Too much time is spent looking outward instead of upward, inward, and right beside you.

A bucket of holes is never filled.

This theme is made more obvious to me and with heightened awareness I really look at others differently. The broken and desperate versus the confident, the steadfast and wise.

I've been aware of this recurring theme for months and just yesterday a still small voice echo the term, "broken cisterns."

Broken cisterns? I am searching my memory bank, where did I hear this? I believe this is biblical.

A bucket of holes, broken cisterns. There has to be a connection here.

I've been praying for weeks to hear God's voice, this is what I hear. Not the divine direction I was hoping, but perhaps what I need to be made most aware of.

For My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me,

the fountain of living waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, 

broken cisterns, that can hold no water. 

- Jeremiah 2:13

Doing some research I found this wealth of information on broken cisterns.

https://www.growingchristians.org/devotions/broken-cisterns/

What I found was a direct parallel. A theme that presented itself in heightened awareness for months, a still small voice, and a direct parallel. The bottom photo found 20 minutes after I posted the top photo. 

Awareness is a tool to spot out true character, integrity, wisdom and hero.