Hello everyone, yes I am still alive. I was on a great blogging role, than everything went crazy for a week! I’d appreciate some prayers though. I am having some pregnancy related back problems and starting to feel like the end is near (although it’s still 9-ish weeks away). Strength, health, perseverance and more strength would be great!

Anyway, I wanted to give a little update on how facing one of my fears went. I wrote about some things I was going to have to do that I didn’t want to in 2013. You can read about it here.

My husband went on his first youth retreat without us this past weekend. I had never spent the weekend alone with just my son, and I had also never been away from my husband since we’d been married (except for one night, that was kind of an emergency situation, so I didn’t prepare for it).

Before Andrew went away, my 20-month old was trying on all his snowboard gear, trying desperately to convince dad that we should be going too. 

Our first night went by well. I had heard about a play time for toddlers at a local community centre on Saturday. To some of you this will not make any sense, but I was so nervous to go. I really knew nothing about it. I didn’t know what type of people would be there, how many or if the play time was suitable for my son.

I hummed and hawed about going, and almost didn’t, then last-minute decided I needed to just go check it out. I hate to admit it, but I really feel “safe” within the confines of church programs, and this being a non-church event had me intimidated.

I faced my fear of a new situation, and did we ever had a great time! Caleb went crazy when we walked in and saw a big, clean, well-organized room filled with every type of fun toy he could imagine. It was hard to leave.

It was a great challenge for me as well, since I got to meet some other moms apart from a Christian environment. There was actually room to step out and share my faith. Nothing really came of this time, but I look forward to going again in the future, building relationships and pushing myself beyond my comfort zone.

Joy definitely strengthened me to get through the weekend without my husband as I tackled obstacles that previously held me in fear. It’s certainly good practice to do something that scares you, just to prove to yourself you can.

I hope I don’t have to do many nights alone over this year, but I know that God gives the grace I need to handle it!

And I really fell more in love with my little guy too! He was a fun date! We even bought him a new little puppy that he is completely infatuated with!

With my husband’s work schedule, our typical Friday’s are a morning “off” together as a family, then he goes to work, comes home for supper and has youth til late into the evening. The first few weeks I dreaded being … Continue reading →