Week 30 ~ Short and Sweet

A beautiful flower I found on my walk

This Sunday I sang on stage at church. This has been such an area of growth for me. I started out hating the sound of my own voice, speaking negatively about myself every practice and being too afraid to lead a song (hello anxiety attack). All because a long time ago I let a series of comments from someone who I looked up to take root in my heart and grow into this massive weed and almost kill my gift from God. It completely paralyzed my breathing, my control and my voice. Through the years at my church I have had some hard conversations with a friend about it as well as crying out to God for freedom in this area. I LOVE TO SING! I don't like singing in front of others necessarily but at the same time if God gives you a gift and you're given the opportunity to bless others with it then I think you should do so. I have learned over these years of being totally paralyzed with fear on stage to ask God for the grace to sing each time, to not take it for granted when I get up there with the team and am at ease, to give Him all of the praise and glory and to know in my heart that any ability I have to share my voice with anyone other than myself, comes directly from Him.

This week was a very big work week for me as next week I'm transitioning to 3, 10 hour day work weeks instead of 4. However this week also included a date night so I ended up working 44 hours which God got me through physically and so I was able to love every minute of it! Don't be fooled though, even though it was awesome I was exhausted and am looking forward to next months 3 day weeks and training the new nanny. I mourn at the loss of daily interaction with these children who I have treated as my own from day one but my body is so worn out that I also am looking foreword to these changes. Bittersweet takes a whole new meaning for me in May 2016!

Rest Ladies! Week 30 Bump!

This Saturday I had 2 things scheduled that ended up falling through and while they were fun things that I was really looking foreword to it was good that they didn't work out as my body needed to take this day to rest and recoup after the exhausting work week I just finished. Make sure you're getting the rest your body needs pregnant ladies. If it's your first baby make sure your friends, job, house and husband aren't demanding too much of you! If you have littles running around make sure you use your voice and call upon your support group to get that nap in that your body needs to enable you to keep being the amazing mommy that you already are! Without rest and sleep we will run out of steam.

Trust that God knows all of your needs and that He is faithful and He is taking care of you! Embrace and celebrate the disappointments along with the blaring good because He's working it all out for our good and even though we may not get it right now or understand something happening, we will. One day we will.

Fruit Salad makes me happy!

Keep searching for the healing and sunshine!
Love your friend,
Laura

Built your own Salad = everyone is happy!

Need that protein and those greens!

Also, make sure that you are eating lots of veggies and not only counting on your prenatal vitamin to fill your body with good things for baby. Good food is the best way to go! You can have treats, just make sure that's what they are that, treats!