Let Grace Abound

Let Grace Abound

"For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law but under grace." 

Romans 6:14

Ahh, grace. What a beautiful gift! Grace sets us free. Grace redeems us, in all our unworthiness. Grace beings reconciliation and eternal life. 

If you've ever read or studied the Old Testament, you've seen a bleak picture of hopelessness. Man has fallen into sin and depravity, separating all of humanity from God. To bridge the gap, God offers The Law. He gives man a clear set of rules and regulations by which to live. Breaking The Law meant punishment and exile. Man knew what to do, yet, due to sin nature, they failed to obey. Repeatedly. The Old Testament is full of stories of God reaching out to His people, redeeming them, and then them going on to rebel against God and bring judgment upon themselves. Over and again. Opportunity, redemption, rebellion, exile. It's truly a sad and hopeless cycle, if you think about it. The strict laws and consequences were meant to keep God's people in obedient submission. Yet, thanks to sin, they constantly rebelled and widened the gap between God and man. 

Then comes the New Testament! After showing humanity that they could not be holy on their own, God offers the Ultimate Sacrifice to bring reconciliation once and for all. God sends His own son to die for the sins of humanity and, through His death and resurrection, usher in a new way of living in relationship with God! Gone are the days of living under The Law! God replaces rigid guidelines with grace. Amazing grace! 

What does this mean? Instead of being subjected to living under The Law of the Old Testament we, as New Testament believers, are offered a gentler alternative. We are offered reconciliation with God, through His gracious gift of Jesus Christ. Rather than struggling to adhere to The Law, we are redeemed by the blood of Christ! Grace has saved us from inevitable death (that is, eternal separation from God). Jesus has paid our debt. 

Now, we are still called to obey God's commands. However, we have a constant companion in the Holy Spirit to do so. We are not asked to obey by our own power; for indeed the Old Testament has shown us that man's power is not enough to truly bring reconciliation between God and man. Rather than being bound under The Law we are now set free by grace!

The image we see of God in the Old Testament is one of an unreachable, strict Father. Yet this side of God's character was shown to prove the point that we could not reconcile ourselves. In the New Testament we see God as gracious and patient. He knew that The Law would not redeem us. That is why His perfect plan all along was the sacrifice of His Son. Grace was always God's plan; through Christ that plan was fulfilled once and for all. 

What does this mean to us, as parents? I believe it means that we have a beautiful model to follow, and that is one of grace-based parenting. Oftentimes the model that is shown to us by "parenting experts" is reflective of God's Old Testament character. It is a parenting style based on punishment rather than grace. But aren't we dead to The Law, that is the Old Testament way of living? Aren't we ourselves saved by grace? If we have been shown such grace despite all our shortcomings, don't our children deserve to be shown grace as well? 

I'm not saying that children should not be disciplined, corrected or guided. The point I'm trying to make is that we should parent on a basis of grace. Not punishment. Grace meets us where we are and helps us to overcome the things we struggle with. Isn't that what we want for our children? That's certainty what I want for mine!

As parents, we are our children's first glimpse of God. Do we want them to believe that He is rigid, unforgiving, and ready to punish us the second we make a mistake? Or do we want them to see that God is slow to anger, full of forgiveness, and abounding in love and grace? If we are to be an example of God for our children then we also should show grace in all situations. 

Ironically, the only way we can show this kind of grace to our children is by the grace of God Himself working in our lives! (A little caveat here: we must also remember to show grace to ourselves! No parent is perfect. We all make mistakes. What matters is that we learn from those mistakes and move past them.) As we receive, so shall we give. As He fills, we empty. As He continually bestows grace to us, let us likewise bestow grace to our children. Let grace abound, in and through us. Amen. 

Ultrasound & Gender Reveal

We had our anatomical ultrasound yesterday morning and found out that we are having a GIRL!!! <3

I had a feeling we might be having a girl this time around but I wasn't as certain as I was with Camden. Also, ever since we told Camden that he was going to be a big brother he insisted that he was getting a baby sister. Anytime we asked him "what's in mommy's belly?", he would reply "baby sister!". We tried to convince him that it might be a baby brother but he would hear nothing of it! Haha. I guess he had some big brother intuition going on ;) So I think that made me think girl even more, so I wasn't entirely sure if it was Cam's little voice in my head or my own intuition. Either way, I'm thrilled that we're having a girl!!

Our ultrasound was awesome. Jacob was able to take the day off from work to go with me, super thankful for that! Baby girl was transverse in my uterus- laying side to side. We got a lot of great views of her profile right away, then we saw her heart (with four perfect chambers), her abdomen, arms, legs... The technician said she couldn't get a clear enough view to tell us the gender initially but that she would keep looking as the scan continued. A couple minutes later, she said "and it looks like you're having a baby girl!" I was so shocked at first! We didn't find out Camden's gender until the end of our ultrasound so we were both surprised to know so quickly. The technician told us that she was confident that baby's anatomy was a girl, which is reassuring! I was so happy and excited that I cried a bit at that point. I just couldn't believe that we were being blessed with a little girl!! In all honesty, when we first found out that I was pregnant I was slightly terrified by the thought of having a girl. The boy mom life is all I know, so it scared me to think of having a girl and it all being so brand new again. But as my pregnancy went on and I thought about it more, I realized how amazing it would be to have a daughter! Every baby/child is different so it would all be new again in a way no matter what. There are so many things I'll be able to share with this little girl that I won't be able to experience with Camden. I think it will be really awesome to be able to have all the fun and experiences of having both a son and a daughter! Gosh, I feel overwhelmingly blessed just thinking about it! We have a beautiful, perfect little boy and now God is blessing us with a beautiful, perfect little girl! It's amazing. Amazing.

Back to the ultrasound- everything looked perfect! The technician said she got great views of everything she needed to see and that there were no markers for any special needs or complications. Baby girl cooperated so well, and even wiggled quite a bit for us. She had her little feet pressed against the top of my uterus most of the time, but would occasionally kick them around, giving up perfect pictures of her adorable little feet! She had her hands up by her face a lot, too, which reminded me of Camden in all of his ultrasounds! She measured right on track for my due date of February 7th so that will be staying the same. I was a little surprised to hear that! I thought for sure it would get bumped back to somewhere between February 12-14, but I guess not! Although part of me is still hoping for a Valentine's Day baby! I think that would be a cool birthday for a little girl ;) But our due date is set for February 7, 2016 so we'll see!

Now on to the gender reveal part... I knew that I wanted to do a little something special to share the gender news with our friends and family. I had tons of ideas and it was tough to chose which one to do! But Jake and I both liked the idea of having Camden holding a pink or blue balloon to make the announcement. We had one of each color filled and took the pictures on Monday so that we would be ready to share as soon as we personally told our parents and a couple close friends first. Camden cooperated great for the picture-taking, offering plenty of smiles and assuring me, yet again, that he was getting a baby sister, haha. I edited the pictures and we were set to go! Now for our parents, we wanted to do something else special. Jake had the idea to fill two separate bags with pink things and blue things, ship a set to his parents, and have them open the correct bag once we knew the gender. This way, they had both bags set to open and, again, nothing to do but find out once we knew. Timing didn't work for them to all open together via Skype or FaceTime, but we were able to share the experience with each set of parents individually. My mom was at home watching Camden and my dad was at work, so we had the two of them Skype while my mom opened the bag. As I expected, my mom totally flipped out with excitement as soon as she saw the pink! It was a fun, exciting moment that I wish I had thought to record. Next, we Skyped with Jake's parents a couple hours later when they were both free. They were able to open their bag together, which was nice. My mother-in-law also screamed with excitement when she saw the pink! They asked if we were serious and we assured them that they were getting a granddaughter! It was a really fun and special way to share our big news with the grandparents. As far as sharing it with the rest of the world, we used the picture above to post to Facebook and Instagram.

Even as I've typed up this blog, it still seems so surreal to me. I'm still in shock that we're having a girl! I already love this little lady so much and I can't wait to meet her in a few short months. I know that Camden is going to be the sweetest big brother, and I'm pretty sure my heart is going to explode when I see the two of them together! Ahhh, I'm blessed beyond measure! Bring on all the pink things! :D

Baby Hildreth #2!

I'm baaaack! It's been nearly a year since my last blog post (oops) but I'm hoping to get better at blogging more often. Hopefully. We'll see ;)

Right now I am about 17 weeks pregnant with baby Hildreth #2! We found out that we were expecting again on June 2nd. We had the pregnancy confirmed with a blood draw on June 4th that had my hCG at 83. I requested an immediate blood test because we lost two pregnancies early on this year (January 23rd & April 4th) and I was worried that my levels might be low. But everything came back right on track and we've been doing great so far! My doctor set my due date at February 7, 2016. I think it'll get moved closer to Valentine's Day after my anatomical ultrasound (my due date got bumped back 8 days with Cam) but we'll see. Now that we have that all out in the open, I want to recap this pregnancy so far...

My first trimester had me in a constant state of nausea and exhaustion. I had some off-and-on morning all-day sickness with Camden but nothing too bad. This pregnancy was similar but the nausea lasted longer throughout each day. It was never terrible (no throwing up, thank goodness) but it made it tough to eat much or workout regularly. Plus, being pregnant with a toddler to chase around is a whole new game! Haha. Camden keeps me quite busy! But I took advantage of nap time to sleep while he slept. Thank goodness for naps! I also had a terrible aversion to meat and veggies (go figure, since that's usually the majority of my diet) for most of my first trimester. Just looking at raw meat that I planned to cook for dinner made my stomach turn, forget about attempting to touch it! I couldn't. Poor Jacob ended up coming home from work and cooking dinner or pretending to be happy with breakfast food for dinner for quite a few weeks, haha. I lived off of scrambled eggs, dry cereal, and fruit. It was rough but I'm glad to be past that phase.

So far, the second trimester has been amazing! I have my appetite and energy back, and I've been feeling little flutters of movement since about 15 weeks! I've felt a few stronger movements, possibly very early kicks in the past week, too. I forgot how incredible it is to feel baby move around in there! It's one of the coolest feelings ever. I love it. Ironically, as my energy has spiked Camden has decided that he doesn't nap anymore (wahhh!). I was seriously hoping to get a few months of overlapping naps from Cam & baby but it looks like that was just wishful thinking. Oh well. We've been reconfiguring our schedule and making it work. Now that he isn't napping, he joins me for my afternoon workout! That's probably my favorite part of this whole no-nap thing ;). I've been doing a mix of 21 Day Fix and PiYo so far during this pregnancy. I'm starting to modify a few moves here and there, and I occasionally have to pause to do something for Camden or catch my breath, but I'm doing my best every day. I feel so much better when I workout regularly, pregnant or not. And I fully believe that staying active during my pregnancy with Camden helped me to have a great birthing experience. Squats help with labor, ya know! So I plan to do as much as I can (with my doctor's permission, of course) for as long as I can.

That's all I can think of for the major highlights so far! The next big highlight is on the 15th when we (should) find out the gender! I'm super excited and anxious to know! I have a guess but since I was right with Camden I'm opting not to share my opinion this time around ;). I can't wait to see our little belly baby in just 13 days! Hopefully baby cooperates so we can announce the gender later that day. I'll try to post more regular updates but I'm not sure I'll be able to do weekly ones like I did with Cam (sorry, baby #2!). If you want to see more updates and bump shots, feel free to follow me on Instagram (@fitmommalifestyle). Thanks for taking the time to read and follow along on this new baby journey! <3

P.S. I'm also in the process of giving the blog a makeover so bear with me while it looks wonky! Haha.