A Hymn For My Son

Every morning when I go to wake Silas up, I sing his hymn. I sing it to him while I am changing his first diaper of the day. Usually I too, am first waking up so it is with my groggy, morning voice that I sing it. I have a copy of his hymn typed out and placed on his special bulletin board I made that hangs over his changing table.

I wish I could say that there was some deep, theological reason for choosing this particular hymn, but I can not. The reason this hymn has such special to meaning to Silas, and to me, was that is was the first song of worship that we sang at church the first Sunday our new family attended after Silas' birth. I was holding my sweet two week old son in church for the first time. My new mommy hormones were raging, so of course there were many tears as the worship band led us with the hymn "Take My Life", the Chris Tomlin version.

As I was singing it, I was moved my the words. It is my prayer for Silas that someday he will sing the words for himself, and mean them.

Take my life and let it be, consecrated Lord for thee. Take my moments and my days, let them flow in ceaseless praise. Take my hands and let them move at the impulse of Thy love. Take my feet and let them be swift and beautiful for thee.

Take my voice and let me sing, always only for my King. Take my lips and let them be filled with messages from Thee. Take my silver and my gold, not a mite would I withhold. Take my intellect and use every power as Thou choose.

Take my will, and make it Thine, it shall be no longer mine. Take my heart it is Thine own, it shall be Thy royal throne. Take my love my Lord I pour, at Thy feet it's treasure store.Take myself and I will be, ever only all for Thee.

I typed the hymn out and placed it on Silas' board above his changing table so that I would see it every time I changed a diaper during the day. When I see it, I am reminded to sing the hymn over him.

I'm linking up to: Like a Bubbling Brooke

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A year in my heart

A year ago this past week I found out I was pregnant with Silas. I remember how excited and terrified I felt all in one. It is hard to believe that Silas has been in my heart and on my mind for over a year now.


I love being Silas' mommy. Every day he does something new as he grows and develops. I am reminded to slow down and to see the world through his eyes as he discovers everything for the first time.

My favorite thing is when he stops nursing, looks up at me and starts smiling all while milk is rolling down his little check. He is absolutely precious!


I been given the responsibility to raise and train him up to become a man after God's heart. That is a pretty humbling challenge, but thankfully I'm not alone. I have a wonderful husband who is right there beside me.

Transitioning from working full time to being a stay at home mom has been a slow change. I love my days with Silas, but it just takes some getting used to being at home instead of being out and about. Honestly though, I wouldn't have it any other way. Every day Silas seems to grow and I don't want to miss anything.

I can't believe how quickly my little one is growing!

Join us for Gratituesday at Heavenly Homemakers!

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O'Dark Hour

It's 4:45am and my alarm is going off. I have three choices: I can hit snooze and fall back to sleep for a little while, I can completely turn it off and sleep in or I can bite the bullet and actually get out of bed. It's what my mom lovingly describes to as O'Dark Hour

Why am I faced with this dilemma? Because I have accepted the challenge to start my day by getting up and spending time in the Word and praying for my day and for my family.

I am a planner, and I need somewhat of a set schedule or routine. With a new baby having any sort of routine or schedule can be rather difficult. To be perfectly honest, most days I am lucky if I get half of the things done on my to do list. I realized how lacking my devotional life had become in the past year. I was rarely in the Word, except for Church and for mine and my husband's evening Bible reading and prayer before bed. I was desperate for a change, then I found the Maximize Your Morning Challenge at the Inspired to Action blog. I signed up, was assigned a Face book accountability group and every few days I check in with those ladies.

It has made a huge difference in my life over the past few weeks. Instead of waking up TO Silas, I know wake up FOR Silas. I am able to wake up and have my devotional time before Silas wakes up. I am also able to work out and even some mornings, get a shower in before he wakes up! So in order to do all that before Silas wakes, I chose to get up at 4:45am every morning.

To be able to wake that early, I make it a priority to go to bed at a reasonable time, usually I am in bed reading before 9:30pm. I also lay out my work out clothes before bed, and make sure my Bible and journal are ready to go in the living room. In essence, I Maximize My Evening in order to be able to Maximize My Morning.

Now I know that I am pretty lucky because I have a four and a half month old who goes to sleep around 9:00pm and sleeps until 6:30am, most mornings. With that being said, I can very vividly remember the first three months where Silas was only sleeping in three hour stretches and I was exhausted. That is when I was in the phase of waking up TO Silas as he was crying and hungry for his next meal. I thought that phase would never end! But, at last, it did and now I can joyfully greet him in the morning when he wakes with his hymn that I sing over him every morning.

I really try to get up early, the same time every morning. Sometimes that doesn't always happen, but I try. I find that the days that I get up early, spend time in communion with God and work out, I am able to be much more productive during the day. I am taking care of my needs so that I can better serve my family.

"Entering the day without a serious meeting with God, over His Word and in prayer, is like entering the battle without tending to your weapons. The human heart does not replenish itself with sleep. The body does, but not the heart. We replenish our hearts not with sleep, but with the Word of God and prayer." John Piper

So every night I set my alarm clock and pray that the Lord would help me to rise early and meet with him before I start my day.

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Motherhood

At the beginning of the year I had an idea that I would journal and list something that I was thankful for everyday. Well that lasted until February 10th when Silas arrived in the world, and my life changed, in a good way. I didn't stop becoming thankful for all the blessings in my life, rather I just didn't have the time to write them all down. And to be honest, during those sleep deprived first few weeks of motherhood, it was all I could do to try and function everyday.

I am thankful for all the support my family provided me while I was recovering from childbirth, dealing with a jaundice baby, nursing difficulties (let's just say that nursing wasn't as easy or natural as I thought, but I'm so grateful that after a long, frustrating struggle, nursing is now one of my favorite things to do with Silas!) and just trying to figure this motherhood thing out. Motherhood is no joke and is definitely not for the weary, but every time my eyes meets Silas', my heart just melts.

Currently I am also a working mother and I have great respect for the number of women who do work full time, and still care for their family. I'm lucky enough that in about two weeks I won't have to work anymore (I am going to be taking a long term maternity leave for my current co-teacher in the fall, but after that six weeks I can pick and choose when and if I want to continue subbing in my school). I do look forward to long, lazy days of summer with Silas as we establish a routine.

Silas is growing so much and is cuter than ever! This week he started to giggle whenever we make faces for him. He also started to roll over to his back when on his tummy. I love it when he greats me with a smile when I pick him up from his crib. Everyday is so special with my little one. I knew that I would love being a mother, I just couldn't comprehend how much I would love it or how much I would love Silas!

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