Self Control....To be or not to be......

Does this ever happen to you......?  It's a typical Friday morning, I get the kids to school successfully and then I'm off to the grocery store to stock up before the weekend. It's not very crowded, but I still want to park away from the other cars, because it's just what I do to keep my car from getting banged up and scratched.  I'm only in there for about 30 minutes, and when I come out the parking lot is just about empty...except for....wait for it.....Yes, there it is, out of ALL the empty parking spaces, the BIG Ford F250 is parked right.beside.me! And parked as close to me as possible, so that I can't even load my groceries on that side.

Now, I just stand there and ponder...why? Why do people do this? What could be their possible motivation?? I am stumped, and aggrevated. I'm pretty sure he didn't do it to be mean. Why would he? I don't know this person. And yet it just baffles me! My first inclination is to ram his big truck with my shopping cart. No, that's not the right thing to do. My next thought is to pull my shopping cart between our two cars so I can load my groceries while scraping the side of his truck. No, that's not right either. Then what am I supposed to do??

I took my groceries around to the other side and loaded them in. Then I carefully opened my door so I wouldn't bang his door with mine, and I slid in ever so easily to get into my car. As I sat in my car still pondering why this person would do such a thing, it hit me. Maybe people do this to me because it's one of my major pet peeves and it is helping me with self control. See, I believe the Bible and I want to have the "fruit of the spirit"; one of which is self control.  I feel pretty good about the other ones; love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and gentleness....but that self-control one, now that's a challenge for me.

So, could it be that these people who do things to me that make me want to lash out at them, are God's way of teaching me to use self-control. Even though I felt like smashing against his truck, I knew it wasn't the right thing to do and I resisted. So then my thoughts went to this guy. What was his story? Was he getting ready to go to a job that he hates? Is his wife at home sick and he has to maintain the household chores? I have to consider that he is a person, with real problems, with real emotions. I used self-control today. Little by little, I'm getting better. Now, where is that bag of kit kats? :)

A Pregnancy Journey.....

So, six years and about 9 months ago....I took a pregnancy test and it was Positive. But that was just the beginning of the story.....Let's go back there........

When I pray, I expect God to answer; and He does. Not always the way I want.  I had 2 previous miscarriages that I prayed for God to spare me from...but He chose to say no. When I went into the doctor in early 2004, she conducted an ultrasound. I was far enough along that we should have heard/seen a heartbeat and seen the sack where the baby was.  My doctor saw nothing. She called me back into her office and said that she picked up a faint heartbeat that was most likely mine. She said that this was a 4 percent chance of being a viable pregnancy. I prayed....I cried.....I spent the rest of the day in my room grieving the coming loss of yet another pregnancy.

That Sunday, my church had a healing service. My friends gathered around me and prayed for the healing of this pregnancy. Because we all knew that our God is WAY bigger than any 4 percent prediction. I prayed, and I waited. Two weeks later, I went in for another ultrasound the day before a scheduled D& C procedure. On that ultrasound, we not only saw/heard a STRONG heartbeat, we saw my little one moving from one side of the screen to the other! My doctor said with tears in her eyes...."This is a miracle"....She still calls her my miracle baby.

Sometimes God answers with a no; sometimes with not right now....and sometimes, He answers with ALL of His Glory and Power with an Almighty YES. Emma was so close to not even being here....but God took the pregnancy and did what only He could do.......He gave me Emma. Thank you God for saying yes!