This is the beginning of my 3rd trimester... only 3 months to go! Crazy.I had my midwife appointment last week, and now I will be going every two weeks instead of once a month, which is kind of exciting because that tells me I'm getting closer. Although at this point I'm not just dying for the baby to come out, I am enjoying the time I have with TJ because I know that soon enough that little person will be taking a lot of our time. :) We are also attending our bradley birthing classes on Monday night, and really are learning a lot.
On another note these past couple weeks have been sort of life changing for me, in the things that God is teaching me. I would say that in the past couple years I have doubted my salvation, but it really comes down to doubting God. The main way I do this is comparing my spirituality with other people, and deciding whether or not my story is good enough to save me, whether or not my experience is good enough. (God tells us not to compare ourselves with other men)
So for the last while God has really been showing me myself. I have noticed how every single thing I do is from a selfish motive. I know that sounds funny, but even if I am trying to do something good for someone else it comes back to me trying to so hard to be a better person, it has nothing to do with that other person. I have tried and tried, I have asked God to help me change the way I act, and my thoughts, basically to make me a "better" person.
I have seen God change people, and I have wanted that for myself, I have seen amazing things that God has done, and have strongly desired to be apart of that, and have begged God for that.
But you know what? I can't change myself, God is the only one who can truly change me, He is the only one who changes people's hearts. I can't do that with my own strength, I've been trying to change myself for a long time now, asking God to do it. It is in His timing, and He will put you where He wants you, and change your heart when it needs to be changed.
Everyday to varying degrees I would struggle with this, feeling kind of beaten down, and alot of these things came to my mind when I was sitting at my friend's (Steve and Betsy) home during a bible study one night. We were talking about community in Christ and what it looks like for us all to interact with Christ in us. And for some reason God was just speaking to me. And the next night at church Pastor Barron was talking about how God is very clear on what he is convicting you about, and I thought WOW! God is not a God of confusion, and what I have been experiencing... this almost despair, feeling like I've been beat down and can't get up, this spirit of confusion I've been experiencing is not from God, it is from another source. I know that sounds like a simple thing but that truth hit me really hard.
After all this making so much sense to me, I have felt so free, it's inexplainable. It's settling to know that I can't change myself, and my constant selfishness. Everything I am is God's and He is the only one who can change me, and I'm trusting Him for that. Jesus Christ died for my sin, my selfishness, and my sin doesn't have to take over my life because He lives in me, and He will be reflected in what I do, because of what he has done for me.
