You know you go to FBC Joelton if...

On facebook there are all these funny things floating around. You know, pages about places where you grew up. Well, I grew up in Joelton, but I didn't go to school in Joelton. I thought it would be really funny if we made our own, "You know you go to FBCJ if..." However, there are a few rules. As I don't want this to be a negative thing, I'm asking that you keep your expressions light and mostly positive! FBCJ is an AMAZING church and a place where God is, so I don't want to bring it down. Only to be funny...haha! With that said, have fun and comment! Here are a few I've made up.

You know you go to FBC Joelton if...

1. More than one staff member shares the same name. (2 Josephs, 2 Michaels, 2 Davids, etc)

2. You can never quite find anything you are looking for in the resource room (unless you're Brother Michael and then you understand how to find anything in organized mass chaos!)

3. You wait until the very last minute to sign up

4. Brother David has visited you at 10 o'clock at night

5. You make sure to sign up for chick-fil-a night but never eat at church otherwise!

6. You wait until 9 o'clock to start your 8:30 Sunday School class

7.

8.

9.

10.

Alright church! I thought this would be funny... let me know some of your thoughts! :) 

I'll add them to the blog!

David Pulls Up!

          Wow! My little man is officially getting to be one busy and active little boy. I haven't had a chance to really blog about him lately. He's been crawling for a while now, but only in the last two weeks or so has he discovered that crawling equals mobility and freedom! It's kind of funny how babies set boundaries for themselves without ever being told. I had to coax him to follow me around the house. He didn't realize he could leave his little play area.
      

So I know that every mommy has a picture like this one, but it melts my heart! I walked into David's room this morning and found this adorable site:

 He's crying because he's sick. He has a cold and doesn't feel good. He's definitely teething, too. I feel the bump. It's almost through! Poor little guy. He's so congested he can barely breathe. The snot is just pouring, too! :( Makes me sad that my little man is getting so big, so fast: crawling, teething, pulling up. What's next? College?

 I tried to get him to smile!

This was the closest I got.

Wordless Tuesday...? I know. Here's a Video.

David learns to clap! This was last month, he's an old pro now!

This was a video taken in the hospital on Friday or Saturday of my week long stay. My Papa's 70th Birthday party was that weekend and I missed it, so we sent this video. After blogging about my hospital experience, I thought I'd post this video. This was a day when things were looking up. I still had to spend two more days after this one.

Got Wholesomeness? Sacrificing Purity for Fashion.

 

1 Timothy 4:12 Don't let anyone think less of you because you are young. Be an example to all believers in what you say, in the way you live, in your love, your faith, and your purity. 

                                     It's true, I've done it. Sacrificed purity for fashion. But that shirt was so cute...that dress was ADORABLE... here's the one that gets me every time: it made me look skinnier! So I tried googling the word wholesome. Would you be surprised to hear that the search results mostly produced food items? Organic this or that, wholesome and hearty mashed potatoes, wholesome food sure to increase your metabolism, etc. Today's topic might be a little touchy. I want to talk for a second about what it might be like if we truly had an attitude of wholesomeness in our every day lives.

Being a Christian woman in this day and age, in America specifically, is very hard. No lie. The first thing I notice, even when clothes shopping, is that the styles trickle down to every day department stores (i.e. Wal-mart and Target). Almost all shirts are fitted, v-necks, and designed to show off the breasts. (Don't get me wrong. I know most of you are not TRYING to show off your boobs. I'm just saying that in clothing they offer 9 out of 10 shirts that DO just that.) I had no idea what an issue this was until I started breastfeeding my baby. Always at the ready, modesty kind of went out of the window for a short while. Underwear is marketed towards slimming the body and making certain areas look curvier or bigger. Jeans are ridiculously tight, skirts are short, shorts are even shorter, and dresses are almost too scandalous to talk about! My husband and I were walking our local outdoor mall a few weeks ago and noticed that there were many young girls wearing shorts so short they might as well just be wearing underwear publicly. No joke. Am I saying that modern culture is an excuse to dress provocatively? No way. Am I saying that you can't find clothing that is wholesome and pure? Definitely not. Keep reading.

What does wholesomeness look like in this day in age? Where is the line between dressing in a fun, fashionable way but staying pure? How can I dress sexy for my husband but wholesome for other men? The last question is huge for me. I want my husband to think I am sexy, but I don't want other men to think so. Or do I? That's the touchy part. I challenge every woman to think about that including myself. Do I find satisfaction in attention from men other than my husband? Touchy question. Please know that I am not accusing anyone of anything here. Just asking for self-awareness and a little soul searching. All women like to be noticed or told they are beautiful. God made us that way. We want to be appreciated and loved. Maybe your husband does a GREAT job of telling you that you are beautiful and special. If so, then this may not be a problem for you. But sometimes, husbands aren't always perfect and life gets away from them. They forget that we need their attention, devotion, and especially their affirmation. We need to be the apple of their eye. When we are feeling unloved and unappreciated it's quite tempting to go look for attention elsewhere. Let me define what I mean by that. Some examples include: dressing so that you'll get a complement from a fellow male coworker, dressing in a way that draws attention to certain areas of your body, or dressing to increase your self-esteem rather than honoring God.

Can I be fashionable and wholesome at the same time? I think so. Definitely. Scripture says to be in the world but not of the world. There are several women in my life who I give props to for dressing impeccably well but modestly. They have an aura of beauty and don't need to exude sexuality to get attention. Men notice they are beautiful because of their spirit not their clothing. One example of these women is my friend Shelly. She always dresses adorably fashionable, but is never too good to wear a cardigan. Speaking of cardigans and cute jackets (aka A Christian Woman's BFF), they are the best tool to make a somewhat racy dress exude wholesomeness! Anyway, Shelly went to an extremely conservative Christian school. Every day she had to wear dresses and after 13 some odd years of this... I can tell modesty is apart of Shelly's every day lifestyle. She wears purity very well! She's a wonderful example to young women of how dressing appropriately can still be fashionable and beautiful! 

The Bible says to offer our bodies as Living Sacrifices to God (Romans 12:1-3). It also says to not be conformed to the world but transformed by the renewing of your mind. Corinthians says that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, should Christ indeed live inside of you. And if a temple of God, then holy. And if your body is holy, then that means it is set apart for a special purpose and calling. God's purpose. God's calling. Ultimately it boils down to this: Is my body mine to dress or God's? Am I trying to build my own self-confidence by dressing in a worldly way? That's a huge soul searching question. Personally, I still have 25 pounds to lose. Baby weight. I find that dressing sexy and highly fashionable makes me feel better about my self-esteem since I no longer weigh what I used to. I have to constantly remind myself that my self-esteem is founded in who I am in Christ. NOT what I wear. That does not define me. In Christ, I am a beautiful daughter of the king! I am a princess who has been adopted into the family of God. Nothing can separate me from God's love and I am more than a conqueror through Him who loves me. I am being molded into His image and likeness with every increasing glory! 

So I would love your thoughts on this topic. There are no definite answers. This is just a challenge, a call to think about what we wear. I know that I fail at this. I sacrifice purity for fashion. But God calls me to holiness in all things. To be like Him in all things. What do you think? I want to open this topic up to conversation. How can I dress sexy for my husband in a way that's still wholesome? If you are single, how do you think men will feel about you if you dress more modestly? 

Lastly, what do you think are ways that honor God the most in this area?

Darkest Days of My Life...Continued.

 A few short seconds after he was born! Weighing in at 6 lbs 14 ounces was my beautiful, healthy baby boy! David Rich Curd

 Within a few hours I had several visitors meeting David for the first time! My former boss/children's pastor at FBCJ...Brother Michael! 

 Grandma Sherry holding baby David.

 Uncle Perry and Aunt Becca meet David for the first time!

 This was shortly after I had him. Within the hour or so. I couldn't FATHOM that this was my little boy and I was finally, after 9 very long months, holding him!

 Charlie holding and meeting baby David.

 Same day he was born, you can tell his fingers are still purple. Yes, he has all five fingers. The other two are around there somewhere. I LOVE this picture.

 Beautiful Hannah came to see Baby David! So did Tommy, Shelly, and Matt! Lots of people came the same night he was born!

 

Our pastor, Brother David Royalty holding baby. 

 Grandma Paula meet Baby.

 Papa Keith

 I am amazed by the perspective of this picture! You can see how TINY he is compared to my hand!

 Friends for life!

If you've never had Stacia's cookies, the BEST time to try them is right after you've delivered a baby. Best thing I could've put in my mouth ever. I will always have a special affinity for those cookies! 

So where do I begin? I finally delivered David! SO excited! I thought all my blood pressure troubles were over and my baby was safely here and life was good! I just had to learn to breastfeed and never sleep. By the way, side note, there were lots more precious people who came to visit David the first night and while we were in the hospital but I can't find all the pictures. I just had a baby, so it wasn't MY job to take the pics.. haha! My grandparents came, Jospeh Taylor came, Dana and Sarah were my very first visitors, etc, etc. 

After you have your baby they move you from the delivery room to the postpartum floor. Usually you stay two to three nights depending on what time you had your baby and then you get to go home and enjoy your task of parenting for the next 18 some odd years. That night we had SO many visitors. Also, I wasn't sure about feeding baby. I was trying to breastfeed and every time I tried someone would come! We were having a hard time latching on. Lactation nurses kept telling me it wouldn't hurt. Boy, were they wrong! I was starting to feel VERY stressed out. But it was all under the surface. I was overwhelmed that every three hours I had to feed my baby. We let him sleep in the nursery most of the night, but they would bring him to me and it was take an hour to try and breastfeed, then pump, then call the nursery to come get him. Needless to say, I didn't sleep the night before having baby NOR did I sleep the night after...I didn't sleep for the next week. I'm not even joking with you. After I had the baby they did several post partum checks throughout the night. Several times my blood pressure was still 130's/80's or 140's/80's. I cracked it up to the fact that my BP had been high for months so it wasn't going to all of the sudden come down immediately AND I get so nervous every time they take it. I started feeling very woozy, even lightheaded, and wracked it up to having NO sleep in two days after delivering a child. 

Tuesday would've been the day we were sent home. We'd taken the little newborn class they make you take. David was healthy, other than not pooping enough. He'd been circumcised and was healing fine. They came in to take my blood pressure and decided that I needed to stay another day so they might monitor it.Being at the hospital was the most stressful thing I can think of. Between visitors, ordering breakfast, lunch, and dinner from the cafeteria, feeding David every three hours, PLUS pumping after each feeding because usually he didn't latch on... there was no time for sleep. I would finish one thing and it would literally be time to do something else. Tuesday I got up mid morning and took a shower and even tried to do my hair and make up. I wasn't feeling like myself (I just thought it was because I'd had a baby the day before), so I didn't finish getting ready. I remember one time during the day on Tuesday my mom tried to walk me around the corridor of the hospital. Just around the wing we were in, and I got really lightheaded and the room was spinning for a minute. I wondered about my BP but I also thought I might just be weak. I knew something was off a little bit, but I didn't have any of the normal indicators. Headache, seeing spots, blurred vision, stomach ache, nausea, or vomiting or diarrhea. Those things happen if your blood pressure is too high. It can cause stroke or seizure and the latter symptoms are related to liver and kidney function when BP is too high. Anyway, that night around midnight a Nurse Tech came in to get my stats. I was sleeping so I was pretty calm and she read my BP aloud which was 168/110. She said, "Oh my God! You are just sleeping!!" She kept saying that. Let me tell you, that did NOT, did NOT, did NOT help my anxiety level. By Wednesday morning, I had a doctor come in and explain to me that sometimes blood pressures rise AFTER you have a baby when your body is trying to rid itself of all the fluid and can't properly do so quick enough. They said it usually peeks two to three days postpartum and then recedes to normal. They started my on a medicine called Lebatalol (I have no idea how to spell that) hoping my BP would come down. The next time a nurse came in the take my BP was the scariest thing that's ever happened to me. My blood pressure rose to 197/110ish and I was immediately rushed back up to labor and delivery (as immediate as hospital goes, by that I mean, within an hour or so). They hooked me up to an IV called Magnesium Sulfate which is an all over body muscle relaxer. It literally HEATS your body up from the inside out. This is an anti-seizure medication. OH and did I mention that Wednesday morning they decided that Baby David's jaundice levels were too high and he needed to be put under the lights? Yeah, my Wednesday hospital experience sucked. No other way to put it. Not only was the hospital the LAST place I wanted to be, but I was TERRIFIED for my life. I KNOW from the outside looking in that this does not sound that scary. But keep in mind the hormonal fluctuation of a woman who just had a baby and the anxiety that can occur from that alone! I was on anti-seizure medication for crying out loud and my baby was facing possible liver failure. I know a ton of babies get jaundiced. But he just wasn't pooping. It was scary! So I guess I should mention the amazing thing about all this. They kept running labs on me because as high as my BP got, I never had all the symptoms of preeclampsia. But they were officially diagnosing me with POSTPARTUM PREECLAMPSIA. Two very scary words for me. My liver and kidney function were perfect. The numbers veered off just a tad, but nothing crazy. Never any protein in my urine. Thank God, I never had a seizure or a stroke. Once you have a seizure you are diagnosed with ECLAMPSIA and then it gets really serious when your red blood cells stop doing their job and that's called HELP disease. That was the biggest fear. Anyway, I spent the  next 36 hours on Mag. It was absolutely miserable. Like I said, HOT from the inside out. I did get some rest, but still no sleep. Here's the hard part. I cannot tell you how dark and lonely a hospital room is at night. Calvin was always there, sleeping on the couch. But if you know my husband then you know he doesn't wake up for ANYTHING! I had to get up every three hours while on this crazy medication and pump. I pumped and pumped and pumped. Sent the milk up to the nursery. I hadn't seen my baby in over a day. They started me on another medication called procardia. So now I was on anti-seizure meds and TWO blood pressure meds. On Thursday morning the doctor came in and explained that postpartum preeclampsia is caused by the dad! Haha... my body's reaction to the protein in Calvin's sperm. My body was exposed to the conception matter through delivery and yada yada yada you get the picture. She did say that there is a much lower percentage of that happening again to a woman who gives birth to a child with the SAME MAN! Luckily, I plan on having lots of more kids with Calvin. If I can get over my fear of Blood Pressure Cuffs. Anyway, every couple of hours a nurse would come in and check my BP! FINALLY, the doctor ordered (my doctor that new my anxiety tendencies) that the nurses take it manually (instead of with that stupid computer one that goes off by itself every few minutes). I would tell all the nurses that if you just took it twice it would go down! They would take it and it would be 150's to 160's to 170's over 80's and 90's. Mostly 90's. Several times I had to get my meds upgraded. They would increase the dosage. 

I thought that as I blogged I would want to go into all the details. But I don't. It's really not all that interesting. You must know this: The scariest times of my life were at night in the hospital. My baby was under lights and I couldn't see him. He went under lights on Wednesday for 24 hours, brought him back to us on Thursday, back under lights on Friday, Saturday with us and on Sunday we went home. I also should mention that the very FIRST TIME I saw MY doctor (there were about 5 in the practice I went to) was on Saturday and Sunday of our week long hospital stay. So it wasn't until Saturday that I was FINALLY a little more stabilized and moved back up to the postpartum floor. Here's the deal: they told me I was out of the woods for seizures and stroke and my kidney and liver were working perfectly pretty much. But my BP was still running high. Sunday morning my BP was 150/110 or something like that. Dr. Cassidy came in to see me on Sunday morning and by this time I was begging to go home. I knew the medicines were NOT working in the hospital because I was NEVER going to get over my anxiousness and nervousness. I just knew I HAD to get home. I hadn't slept in a week! Dr. Cassidy came in on Sunday morning and took my BP herself! She told me to calm down and we got a reading of 148/88 or something like that. I think she realized that if I could just go home and calm down it would be better. She told me, "Look, I have a very hard time sending someone home with BP that's 150/110, but I know you and what you did at the office every time. I'm going to send you home against my better judgment." It was the LONGEST Sunday of my life. The nurse took ALL day to get the paperwork together so I could go home. The pediatrician, I will NEVER forget this and how wonderful she is, timed it perfectly to where David could go home the same time as me. He stayed admitted to the hospital the entire week, too! 

They read me (a hypochondriac to the nth degree) off a list of all the symptoms that if they should occur I should come straight to the ER! They read me off a list of symptoms to look for in David too should he need to come to the ER! What a wonderful note to leave on. I'm not going to say that once I got home life got better. It didn't. I had a day where my BP shot back up to 180/120 or so. Had to up my meds and call the dr. SO thankful I recognized the feeling, told my dad who happened to be visiting that day, and had medication on hand. That was the only time that happened. After 8 weeks I was completely off of BP meds and THEN I started to feel peace again. Live normally again.

My biggest fear was that God wasn't there. It felt like He wasn't even if my faith knew He was. Alone in the hospital at night, completely terrified and afraid, I would try to pray. I knew that claiming the promises of God was the only way out of the darkness. I did that, even though I didn't FEEL God nor did I FEEL His peace or promises taking over. I look back on that horrible experience and know now that if I had delivered David perfectly, went home without a problem in the world, I probably would've given myself all the credit. I always wanted to be supermom. Well, she doesn't exist. God sent me people to comfort me. Calvin was the biggest help I can imagine. The most wonderful father to our son. My dad and grandparents came and stayed with me during the day every now and then. I had visitors and friends. My mom came over almost every day. If it weren't for her I would literally NOT have made it. God gave me a wonderful mother who, at the perfect time, was there and is there when I need her the most. She represents HIS comfort and protection! 

My hearts desire is and has always been to have a big family. I always say when asked how many kids I want: 3 or 4 or 5. I don't know! More than two, though! It's really up to God. Honestly, I can't handle the emotional/anxiety of being pregnant again. I can ONLY do pregnancy with God's help! I'm terrified otherwise. Also, I should mention that I LOVED being pregnant and that other than the BP issues it was the most wonderful experience in the world and I long to do it again one day! 

And lastly, I'm really gonna' finish now, I want you to know that God is THERE! Even when the night is black, and dark, and no one else is...even when you can't see past the anxiety, fear, trouble, hurt, or pain...God is there! He's right beside you, walking you through your darkest night!  

You're Not Alone - Merdith Andrews

This song pretty much sums up all my feelings looking back on that situation! KNOW that God is with you. He loves you. Adores you.

Darkest Days of My Life...

 The Very FIRST time I looked at my precious baby. I was having a very hard time not balling my eyes out! I couldn't believe I had just pushed that little guy out!!!! This picture means more to me than you can ever know. I know it's gross. There's blood, vernix, all that yucky stuff. But unless you are a mom, you have no idea...

 After some of the darkest hours of my life... reunited with my baby after 36 hours of not seeing him... I'll explain later. You can't tell it, but I'm balling here too.

Having a baby that's jaundice is very common, still doesn't make it less scary to a new parent! We just thought this was so cute!! It gave us something to laugh about when we were so scared for our baby and for myself. 

I wanted to recount my experience before any more time goes by and it's too late to remember all the details. Might take several blog posts, who knows. I really need to clean my house right now, baby's napping, all that good jazz. But I wanna' start telling you my story. I've talked about it before and probably told most of you. But I'm not sure how many people GET the fact that the darkest, scariest time of my life was right after I had my baby. So I'll start at the beginning. 

 I was 37 weeks pregnant and on bedrest. I had PIH - pregnancy induced hypertension. High Blood Pressure. There. I said it. Scariest words ever... for me anyway. Throughout my pregnancy, every time I would go to the doctor they took my BP. (blood pressure). It was always through the roof, because I would get ANXIOUS and NERVOUS and my heart would start to pound outta' my chest. I could feel my BP rising every morning that I had a dr.s appt. What happened was that the first BP I took was 120/80 at 9 weeks. I asked if that was high and the nurse said, "Kinda, but you are probably excited." The next time I went, I got kinda nervous about it, thinking, "Well, what if it's high?" It was 138/80 something... don't remember exactly. And so forth and so forth. It would get higher at each appointment. I started expecting it. Started getting nervous and anxious before each appointment. This is called WHITE COAT syndrome. It's not that my BP ran that high all the time. It's that I ran it up myself thinking about my bp. It's a HORRIBLE catch 22 for me. My mom had very high bp during both her pregnancies and so did my grandmother. So I was terrified about it in the first place. Anyway, the dr. would always lay me on my left side and take it again and it would go back down to a safe or even normal bp. I would monitor my BP at home and it would do the same thing. Actually, at home it was pretty low. I was safe and comfortable. So that's kinda the background... what I'd been dealing with for 9 months. Basically, the biggest fear I had was getting preeclampsia. A synodrome where your blood pressure gets too high and can cause seizure, stroke, blurred vision, kidney failure, etc, etc. It was could HELP disease. Once you have seizures it is called "eclampsia". Needless to say, I didn't wanna' have ANY of that. Several times I saw spots, but I never had any liver pain nor did I get any severe headaches. BUT I am a hypochondriac. SO knowing symptoms for me was the hardest part. I always was terrified that I HAD the symptoms. Back to the story...

Again: 37 weeks and on bedrest. I was on bedrest because towards the end of my pregnancy my BP really did get high and stay high. Not just nerves. Saturday, September 11th, I prayed that I would not go into labor. 9/11 is such an important day in our country's current history, but I didn't want to celebrate my baby's birthday on that day. Kinda sad... but I definitely felt a few minor cramps and thought they were just braxton hicks contractions. I was 36 weeks preggo and new it would be very normal to start having contractions here or there. I'd went to the hospital the previous weekend thinking that my water had broken. They amniosure test that they did said my water had indeed broken and I was in labor and would get to have my baby. Alas, the test lied. I was sent home after an expensive over night stay at the hospital. False alarm. Needless to say, I wasn't in any hurry to go back to the hospital for any false alarms. Sunday, September 12th, I stayed home from church (being on bedrest and all).

That morning I started having contractions. Only, I wasn't sure if they were contractions. They didn't hurt. They felt like slight menstrual cramps. I was expecting like WHOA BABY kinda pain. Oh and spotting. I had spotting. Sorry if you are a guy and reading this: but it's my story and I'm stickin' to it. I called the on-call doctor at my practice and asked her about it. She did NOT tell me I was in labor, but her exact words were, "When your contractions are 3 - 5 minutes apart c'mon in to the hospital." I was kinda wondering what she meant by that. I guess she knew that I was in labor. But I didn't know. Anyway, Sunday I stayed at home all day. I had this gut feeling I was starting labor. I kinda knew it. I got excited and started walking around the house. I fixed my hair. Around 1:00 p.m. contractions came every 3 - 5 minutes. But they didn't hurt. I could talk through them, breathe through them. I kept thinking that if this were the real deal I would feel more. Anyway, by 9 p.m. they started hurting a bit more. Enough that I started trying to talk Calvin to take me to the hospital. He was VERY hesitant to do so. He didn't want to go through all that to have another false alarm. He wanted me to go to bed. I couldn't sleep at this point. I was a good girl and only had a bowl of cereal for dinner, too. At 6 p.m....so I hadn't eaten for three hours. At this point, it really started hurting and still faithfully coming every 3 - 5 minutes. I took a hot shower (so much for fixing my hair and looking cute during labor). By 11:30, I was packing stuff in the car regardless of whether or not Calvin was taking me. At this point, I was having a hard time talking through the contractions. We got to the hospital around midnight (Cal came through for me!). Ha! They checked me into triage, where a labor and delivery nurse decided my BP was 170/110 (through the roof!) and wanted me to stay if only for that reason. They decided I was definitely in active labor though.  BUT after laboring a whole day at home, I was only dilated to 3! Within an hour or so of arriving to the hospital and getting checked in and all the belts and wires and bp cuffs hooked up... I was offered my epidural. They lower BP...no one tells you that. Good thing for me. 

Let me tell you something if you don't already know. EPIDURALS are God's gift to women! I coulda' had ten babies and I still might! haha. I didn't care how big of a needle they stuck in my back, as long as afterwards I was pain free. Which I was. You know, they tell you to sleep in the hospital, but if you are like me and you keep thinking about having to push a baby out in a few hours and not getting around it in any way, there's no way in the world my nervous self could sleep at all. Anyway, I got my epidural around 2 or 3 a.m. OH and I called my mom and told her to come to the hospital and my sweet mom was there ASAP and she held my hand all through the night. I can't tell you how wonderful it is to have a mom do that. So, I "snoozed" (NOT slept), and just waited for the magic number. 10. The big one oh. Pitocin, snoozing, more pitocin. My BP was 130's/80's which was GREAT! Completely under control. Did I mention that I got a hot spot on my right side? The epidural wore off on my right side and I FELT the contractions on that side. It hurt really bad. I can't imagine feeling them on BOTH sides. Finally, it was time to push. I started pushing at 2 p.m. and had David out my 2:20. Woulda' had him out sooner, but we seriously waited for 10 minutes on the dr. Nothing like having a baby crowning and having to WAIT to push. Let me tell you, that did NOT feel good. Pushing itself felt GREAT. It was relief and I am glad I felt the contractions because I knew when to push. 

Anyway, having that baby laid on my chest was the most amazing feeling ever!

I am SO thankful to God to get to be a woman and push out a baby. I'm not gonna' lie. With my BP situation, I was SOOOOOO grateful to have gotten to do a vaginal birth and not have a c-section. I was so PROUD of myself. Little 'ol me pushed a baby out. Couldn't believe it. My baby was finally here. I won't lie here either, the first time I saw him, I thought oh dear he's all smushed and not very pretty.

LOL! I know, horrible, right? I didn't love him any less, I was just thinking it. Anyway, it's amazing the transformation newborns go through because by that night, he became unsmushed and his features were so much prettier! He was beautiful and looked just like his handsome daddy!

So, that's the climactic part of the story. I had my baby. I can't blog anymore right now. I'll tell you more of the story later. The dark part...the part that I don't like to talk about or relive. The part that makes me terrified to have more babies. Keep in touch! ;)

Where Do I Find My Security?

Unshakeable Peace: A devotion by Gwen Smith

              Click on the link above to read the above devotion. At the bottom of the devotion it asks a simple question: What am I putting my faith it? Which caused me to think about where I find my security. What makes me feel peace? Or should I say, a false sense of peace?

           She asked you to read Psalm 16, which is one of my favorites! My favorite verses are 5 and 6. Lord, you have assigned my portion and my cup. You have made my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places. Surely, I have a delightful inheritance. Italics mine, of course. ;) Can I not just fall out of my chair right now? These adjectives for what God has done for me overwhelm me!!! Before I go forth explaining why I love the verse SO much and why it speaks directly to my soul today, I wanna' tell you what convicted me.

        My false sense of security...? Money. What else? My husband is amazing. He works so hard, went to Vanderbilt and has a great job that he loves and is doing well at. He's a great provider. According to society we are just an average middle class family. But I get to stay at home, feed my baby organic homemade food, and I'm never hungry or poorly clothed. We don't always have the nicest and best things, but we have an abundance of material blessings that we don't really need. Oh, and I get to buy Pampers. Wahoo! Love my fancy diapers. Anyway, I digress. I realized today that there's a part of me, a part that I put blinders on and keep under the surface, that finds peace and security in Calvin's provision for my family.
I know women are supposed to find security in their husband's provision. That's biblical. But I'm talking about the root of it. Deep down. Not just that my husband is a good (NO: GREAT) provider, but the fact that deep down...I love money. Don't you? The root of all kinds of evil.


       By the way, when I say I love money, I'm not talking about the object. I'm talking about what money provides. Security, safety, food, shelter, clothing. All the things we should depend on God for. I'm not talking about the excesses of life: Purses, Cars, Clothes, etc. I love those things, too. But the heart problem...the root. What or Who do I really trust in? You cannot serve both God and Money. I think if you searched your heart deeply enough, you'd probably find the same sin. Alas, I'm not the Holy Spirit and definitely not a finger pointer by all means. I'm just talking human nature here. So, that devotion this morning showed me something about myself. I need to continue to remind myself, that YES my flesh wants to depend and love money and find security in Money, but GOD is my ultimate provider and security! HE has assigned me my portion and my cup. What does that mean? I feel like that means that God has given me my share in life. Everything I have and will have and have ever had came from Him in the first place! Remember? Every good and perfect gift comes to us from God above who created all heavens lights. Unlike them, He never changes or casts shifting shadows! James 1:17 So, God has given my my share in life. My lot. He made me Brittany Nicole Williams Curd, to be wife to Calvin and daughter to Brett and Sherry, Granddaughter to Rose and Buck, Cousin to Ryan and Dana, Mother of David, to live in Hendersonville, TN, to be born into a middle class family, in Nashville, TN in 1986, etc, etc, etc. He mapped out my life. My lot in life is "secure"!

  My favorite line in Psalm 16:5-6: The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places. I love my life and especially that God designed it just for me. No, it's not perfect. But the lines of my life...they are pleasant. It was all apart of His plan for me. He guards all that is mine (the message)!

 
       Lastly, and bestly: Surely, I have a delightful inheritance. Talk about provision. Talk about finding security and peace! My inheritance is God himself! Eternity with God! 1 Peter 1:4 says it like this: and we have a priceless inheritance—an inheritance that is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay!


        Unshakeable peace? That can be found in Christ. Unshakeable Security? Also found in Christ. Is there anything you CAN'T find in Him?