kirbygates

[kirbygates]

 A look back to February 9th

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I ALWAYS feel like such a failure when anyone in our house gets sick. August got bacterial pneumonia and was having such a hard time breathing. He usually has to do breathing treatments when he gets really sick (hello 36 weeker lungs). He took it like a champ and was running around everywhere after just a few days.

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I was doing detox baths, eucalyptus, lavender, breathe again, and various other oils diffusing, (sniffle ease in August’s room as well), elderberry, vitamin C, zinc…ALL THE THINGS! 

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After a few days I started to feel bad and of course did the Mom thing and waited it out as I was focused on my kid first. This did not work out well and I ended up on steroids, antibiotics, and breathing treatments which ultimaley cleared me up and made me feel so much better. 

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I say all this to talk to the Moms out there ,like me, who when sickness comes into their home they feel an immense amount of guilt and shame; that they were not a good enough mom to prevent it. You are NOT a failure and you are NOT a bad mom. We can do ALL the things to help prevent and treat sicknesses BUT they still happen. 

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Hey Mom, I see you. Keep pushing forward and stewarding your family well.

#mom #gatekeeper #wellness #sick #essentialoils #allthethings #momguilt #momshame #keepmovingforward #youarenotalone

[kirbygates]

Grace In Waiting

Written in May of 2018

Every story has a beginning and this beginning started in January of 2014. Over the last four and half years I have had six pregnancies that have ended in miscarriages. How could anyone be prepared for that?

But I’ve found that God has been prepared for my story from the very beginning of time. He knew me and was waiting, already prepared for me. Because you see, as we are knit together in our mother’s wombs, our heavenly father is gracing us for our stories, the good, the bad, and the downright ugly parts. He knows we live in a fallen world and all the circumstances we will face because of that. He knows exactly what we need and when we need it, in every situation we come across. The trouble comes when we don’t rely on the prepared One to walk us through it.

During our journey with infertility we had options available to us to take this into our control and see what we could accomplish on our own rather than relying on the promise God had already given us. In the middle of our journey, God told me that our legacy would be the proof of God’s faithfulness through our biological children. After this, I knew we would be blessed with a baby that would have no other explanation other than God. It can be so easy to take God’s promises into our own hands and try to fulfill them our way. There are so many examples in the bible. 

Sarah was barren and even though God promised her that she would have children, she intervened and sent her servant Hagar to conceive a child for her with her husband, Abraham. A similar story happened with Jacob and Rachel. Even when we take it upon ourselves to fulfill a God given promise, God always shows up and fulfills it. God ultimately gave Sarah and Rachel the children He had promised them. But because they took control, they had to deal with more than God ever wanted them to have to deal with. When we intervene it brings us pain and consequences we would have never had to go through if we would have simply waited for Him. God told me His promise for me after we lost our fourth baby (Jacob). Waiting is hard, but waiting in full faith on God is so worth it.

I held onto this promise during baby five and six, and now with sweet August. Each and every pregnancy we thought, “This is it, this is the one!”, but God had more for us. He showed us His peace and his love with baby five (Elijah), and He showed us His miraculous healing powers with baby six (precious Shiloh).

This journey is hard and excruciatingly painful at times but it is also full of warmth and love from my Father. He has graced me not only with this, but for this. We could have given up and stopped all together. Trust me, we have heard it all. “You should adopt!” “Isn’t there some kind of treatment you could do?” “Why on earth do you keep doing this to yourself?” “You just can’t do this again.” Maybe some of that was just in my head, but it sounded real. God’s promise is God’s promise. We knew He would fulfill it if we just stayed faithful in the waiting.

It’s beautiful how God can do anything on His own but, He chose to need us to fulfill His promises. Matt and I just had to not give up. To get to number seven, God’s perfect number, the number of completion, you have to go through a sometimes rough six. When you do your part God always shows up, big time.

I always look back to Ephesians 3:20-21:

God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.

I can’t even imagine what God will do through August but I know it’s big and I will always sit in wonder of how amazing my God is. God’s not been preparing me for this harvest season, but for a generational harvest season through all of my children.

In reading this and knowing a little about my story, my prayer for you, is that you cling to those God-given promises. In your struggles and in your hardships, don’t just think God is going to bring you through it, maybe just maybe He has already graced you from the beginning of time for it. After all, God can do anything, you know.

#womens devotion #miscarriage #grace #god's promises #ephesians #legacy #pregnant #my story #devotional #hope #infertility #fertility

[kirbygates]

My Favorite Reads of 2020

Picking my favorite reads from this past year is about equally as hard as picking out my favorite flavor chips. Spoiler alert, I usually like them all. I normally choose a book to read because it interest me and I am also a pretty easy critic.  I like most books I’ve chosen to read.  With that being said I read 41 book in 2020 and my average rating I gave them was a 4.3 so I did enjoy most of them. Looking back, I chose seven that were my favorite.

My favorite book of the year was by far...

The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry: How to Stay Emotionally Healthy and Spiritually Alive in the Chaos of the Modern World  by John Mark Comer. 

Buy your copy here! https://amzn.to/3cAL3kK 

“Ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life. Hurry is the great enemy of the spiritual life.” I think we all wonder from time to time Who am I becoming? Or What did I even do today, this week, or dare I say it year? This book to me was very thought provoking and convicting and required me to look at my day to day life and see what was really consuming my time. It pushed me into thoughts of actual Sabbath and what that means and allowed me to start applying that to my weekly normalcy. I highly recommend this to anyone. It is an easy read ( my husband loved it so much he read it in one day) and it is laid out beautifully.

The rest are in NO particular order of most favorite to least favorite I just scrolled through my list until I found them.

Get Out of Your Head: Stopping the Spiral of Toxic Thoughts by Jennie Allen

Buy your copy here! https://amzn.to/3cuegxJ

To me this was the first time in a spiritual development book that I have read (although I have read quite a few I have not even begun to scratch the surface to what is out there) where doubt, fear, and hopelessness were so raw and real. In other books similar to this I’ve read, those experiences were described in a very shallow jump right over way.  Jennie seems to open the curtains and lay it all out for everyone to see. Even the deepest darkest parts you would never want to admit to anyone. I would also recommend this book to anyone. It is a beautiful story from despair to hope filled with help and guidance to apply to your own life along the way. 

The Folk of the Air Series by Holly Black was my favorite series I read in 2020. This series has three books; The Cruel Prince, The Wicked King, and The Queen of Nothing. 

Buy your copy here! https://amzn.to/3pGaV2w

These are classified as a YA fantasy series and follow a human who lives in a Faerie land. This is an enemies to lovers back to enemies to who knows what roller coaster of a series. It has twist and turns that are unexpected and keep you guessing when you think you know what’s going to happen. The world Black builds in this series is both magical and terrifying at the same time. I love this series and recommend it to anyone who likes fantasy stories. 

Raising Passionate Jesus Followers: The Power of Intentional Parenting by Phil and Diane Comer

Buy your copy here! https://amzn.to/3tbFkYB

The tag line for this book is “Hope and practical help for parents whose greatest longing is to shepherd their children into a vibrant faith in God” and that is just what this book is. It is by far the best parenting book that I’ve read. I will re-read it at least once a year for sure. They give practical and biblical parenting tips, advice, and strategies based on different developmental stages of your children. (Hence the going back and reading over and over). I read this book last February or March before I read The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry and John Mark’s name sounded so familiar and I couldn’t quite figure out why well Phil and Diana are his parents so there’s that. Two of my favorite reads came from the same family and I didn’t even know until after I finished both. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has a strong influence into a child’s upbringing.

Again but Better by Christine Riccio

Buy your copy here! https://amzn.to/2NWPtIN

I had no knowledge of anything about this book before I started reading it. My husband purchased it for me and it was honestly sitting on my bookshelf for several months before I picked it up. It turns out a pretty popular Booktube creator wrote this and it has quite the mixed reviews probably mostly because of opinions of the author herself and not really the actual book. I thought it was a really fun story of a lost love that had unexpected twists on its journey to  possibly finding again. It has elements of relationships, friendships, traveling abroad, and even a little bit of time travel. 

If you got this far, Thank you! I hope you enjoyed my thoughts on my favorite reads of 2020. I hope you are encouraged to find a book that interest you and start reading. Come find me on goodreads to see what I’m reading this year. 

#best of #reading #spiritual development #intentional parenting #fantasy books #cute reads #read everyday

[kirbygates]

The Surgeon is Waiting

It’s ok to sit down and be quiet and listen when the world is telling you get up and scream. Quite honestly, if the world is doing something my heart aches to do the opposite. It’s hard to hear when you never stop talking. I wrote this in the notes on my phone at the beginning of 2020 during a staff prayer night when Matt was working for a local church. I felt nudged to look back at it recently and it caught my breath. Reading the words brings me right back to sitting in the sanctuary seeing this while we prayed.

I’m seeing this in an old school operating room because I guess I see in theatrics. All white doctor and nurse wear with the hats and cloth face masks ( mind you this was in January of 2020 😳) and stainless steel everything else. Lord bind my heart to thee. In order for a heart to be bound to the Lord it has to be free from attachment of anything else. The great physician is cutting all veins and tendons and ligaments to a heart. He is working precisely and evenly and perfect so there is no blood loss, the cauterization is meticulous. The next thing I see is a picture of Gods heart with hearts tethered to it with blood flow to them. A new life a new beating; His rhythm, their rhythm. Once the heart is ready it is put back but only blood flow to it is through God.

We think it’s the new state of the art technology, the new way of thinking that does the best work or will fix everything, but it’s really the steady hand of The Great Physician that can do the work.

I’m humbled and thankful that God spoke this to me a year ago and and grateful to be reminded of it now.

May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord shine his face upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace. 

Numbers 6:24-26

#womens devotion #christian #biblequotes #bible #heart issues