Congratulations on the Celebration of the Creation of your Belly Button!

Today 13 years ago you, my sweet daughter entered the world.  Your birthday was wonderful and amazing but it was also difficult for me because for 9 months I had protected, and sheltered and provided for you.  You were a part of me.  I was only 3 weeks into my pregnancy when I found out that I would be a mommy.  From the moment there was laughter and joy and the 9 months that I carried you, even with morning sickness, and swollen ankles, it was one of the happiest times of my life

I saw you for the first time at 5 weeks gestation.  You looked like a smudge, we had no idea if you were male or female, but your father and I already loved you.  The first time I ever felt you move I was in the bathtub on the phone with one of my best friends, Judy.  She and I were talking and you moved.  It was amazing and Judy and I both cried.  You grew and did well, no complications, no problems.  You would get the hiccups and my entire stomach would jump.  Those 9 months were the most anticipated, anxious, exciting and wonder-filled times in my life and they were only a foreshadowing of the next 13 years to come.   

A few weeks later the doctors did another ultrasound and found out that you were a girl.  I had known your name since I was 12 years old and had seen the movie Somewhere in Time.  The female lead’s name was Elise McKenna and even though I said I would never have kids, if I did have a little girl her name would be McKenna.  From the moment the doctors said you were a girl, everyone then called you McKenna before you even breathed your first. 

On October 15^th, 1996 when I went into the hospital to have you was an exciting time, but it was hard.  Not just the labor and delivery, but giving you to the world, where I wouldn’t always be able to keep you safe, and protected.  Giving birth was the first step in letting you go.  Early in the morning of October 16th I watched as your father helped the doctor cut the cord  Your umbilical cord, what had connected you and I and had provided everything that you needed for the last 9 months and everything I took in, food, water, corn dogs (your father was wonderful about going to get me corn dogs).  I was very aware of what I put into my body for those 9 months, because I knew that cord connected me to you and that I was responsible for keeping you okay.  And as the cord was cut, the connection severed, it was the beginning of your becoming.  

They placed you in my arms, and I looked into your eyes and while all the love in the world welled up inside my heart, I did the only thing I could think of to do, and I stuck my tongue out at you.  And our relationship has been that way ever since.  I love to hear you laugh, I love to surprise you (which I know you hate but I can’t help it) and I have loved watching you grow and become.   I looked through photographs last night and in so many you are standing with your arms wide open, wanting to hug the whole world. 

 God gave me such gift when He blessed me with you and He knew you even before I did.  He loved you before I did and He loves you now even more then I will ever be able to. 

⁵ "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,

before you were born I set you apart;

I appointed you as a prophet to the nations."  (Jeremiah 1:5)

Those who have heard my testimony know that it wasn’t until I had you that I could even grasp how it was possible for my heavenly Father to love me.  The cord between you and I might have been cut, but McKenna, you helped reconnect me to the supplier of all my needs and you continue, as you grow and become, to amaze me at the young woman I see before me. 

You don’t need me to feed you food anymore, you can feed yourself.  You don’t need me to hold your hand as you walk, you have that all figured out, and you have a passion for solving problems and helping others, and a heart that grows bigger the more people you meet. 

All of this in order to become the woman of God He created you to be.  So while you grow up and further away from needing me, please my blessing, grow in your love of God, deepen that connection with Him and allow His hand to hold you. Anytime you feel lost, or alone, or the world gets you down pray to Him but remember your belly button and know that before you breathed your first, you were loved, you were wanted, and you were celebrated, and not just by me, your daddy, and your family, but my darling, by the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, your heavenly Father and keep those beautiful eyes on Him.

I pray that you and He will ALWAYS have that connection no matter where you go or what you do.  Don’t ever cut the cord that exists between you and God and never grow up away from Him but keep growing, keep embracing the world, keep that giving heart but no matter what, keep your hand in His, no matter what your age. 

I love you and thank God for the gift of you. 

Happy Birthday Boo.   

Love,   

Mom

Grace

The word that is usually translated "grace" is in Greek charis (χαρις), which literally means "that which affords joy, pleasure, delight, sweetness, charm, loveliness".

Joy, pleasure delight, sweetness, charm and loveliness.

I don’t feel much joy right now. I am not getting a lot of pleasure as to where my life is in the moment. And I am finding it hard to take delight in the day to day. The grace that I have is depleted. I don’t want to be sweet, charming and lovely. I want to pout, get angry, and cry. Want to know why? OK, I’ll tell you.

Because life is hard.

I know, not a news flash, but when you are working so hard every day to make sure everything is okay, and then the world throws you a curve ball that makes it all go out of whack, it’s hard.

I know, I’m speaking in broad strokes when I need to narrow it down a bit.

The following has to do with three people in my life. My WH (wonderful husband), my DD (darling daughter), and me (me).

My DD’s 13th birthday is coming up very quickly. She had a wonderful idea to have a birthday party that would act as an outreach for a ministry that she feels very strongly about. Things were coming together and I was just in awe of all that God was doing in making this happen. And then… I found out I was to have surgery the Friday before her birthday. This is going to be quite an extensive surgery so we are unsure as to the recovery time. Everything for her had to be put on hold because of me. I feel awful. The doctors will not let me put it off, even for a month, so that I could celebrate the day of my daughter’s arrival on earth. I don’t remember a lot of my birthdays, but my 13th I do remember. It’s almost like a rite of passage, and I’m letting her down. I’m being honest, it’s very hard to find the joy, the pleasure or the delight in not being able to come through for your child. I realize that I should look at the blessings, that she is healthy, that I have a surgeon who is attentive enough to want me to be healthy, that God worked out the details so that I could get in…But… why now? I know His ways are not my ways, His plans are not my plans, but I hate letting her down but I just don’t know what to do. I have to find the grace, but right now it’s not in me.

My WH made a decision about something that I am having a hard time submitting to. I like to control things. I will admit that. My brother always said I was bossy, and yes I will claim that as well. But in my heart, I want, desire my WH to be the head of our home, to fall under his leadership and to submit to his authority because that’s how God says marriage is supposed to be and the marriages I see that are structured that way, they work. Now, I’m not going to say that that those marriages are perfect, because they are not, but whenever we do things God’s way, even in our imperfection God will work it out. God knows we can never be perfect, but He never wants us to stop trying.

So anyway WH made a decision about something that I don’t agree with and it’s taking EVERYTHING in me to not “just fix it”. This is not about his mistake, it’s about the internal struggle that I am having with submitting to my husband. To running headlong ahead of him and God and taking care of it myself…(how has that been working for me?)

So grace is needed. I need to give him grace. To be sweet, charming and lovely, but I don’t FEEL it. I feel hurt, angry, mad, and frustrated. But feelings can be changed can’t they? So my grace tank is empty. I look into the bank of my heart and find out I am overdrawn. I have no more grace so I cannot feel joyful, I cannot take pleasure and delight, and I cannot be sweet, charming and lovely.

I cannot do it by myself.

But God…….

Grace I cannot give to everyone else if I am not willing to accept it from my heavenly Father.


8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—Ephesians 2:8


This not from myself, or from my WH, or from my DD, or from my family or friends. But the gift of God. I have to focus on His Grace, accept His Grace, and replenish my bank from His supply. I have to look to Him to give me the joy, the pleasure and the delight in ALL things even when it’s hard.

I don’t know what DD birthday is going to be but God does.

I don’t know what my WH is going to do, but God does.

Nothing surprises Him so I go to His well this morning and drink deeply from the living waters His grace and today, tomorrow, and every day when it gets hard, I will go back and drink again, through reading His Word, through Prayer, and through Trust.

God I know that your grace is sufficient. We often say that without understanding what grace means. God I pray that when each of us is lost in our day to day life and feeling overwhelmed and undone, that we will come to you to renew our joy. We will come to you to find the pleasure and delight in our lives and in our circumstances. Lord I pray that we will each come to you to replenish the sweetness, charm and loveliness that gets depleted in our day to day lives. Help us each not to rely on those around us to fill up our wells because man will let us down, but to fall on our knees and reach to you for the gift of Grace that you have given each of us. In God’s name we pray. Amen.