I know there are two!

Dear Twinkles,

Yes, I know this early that there are two of you! Not only was my hCG through the roof at only 17 DPO (880! that's almost 6 times what it was with your big sis Olivia on the same day!), but you have made your presence known very early, very strongly.

- I am only 4.5 weeks and I already threw up this morning.
- My uterus feels like pizza dough being stretched out extremely quickly - so much that I thought I was cramping for the past week, wondering when my next cycle was going to start, and that stretching is so strong that it is making my lower back hurt! Ouch!
-I also know that there were two eggs. I saw you both before you were alive!

You are so darling to me, my loves. I hope that we have the next 60-80 years together, but whatever time we have is precious to me!

Your daddy is bursting with love for you already. He has already tried to find the "What to Expect" book so that he can make me eat right, he called me several times yesterday to remind me of things I was not allowed to do any more (lift anything, run around, fall down the stairs, clean the bathroom or anything else). He is already calling you "the babies" and prays for you frequently.

We love you and can't wait to see you for the first time! Only two weeks, and yet it seems like it will be such a long time before then!

Love and hugs and kisses from your smitten mommy,

Waiting for the Morning...

"Good theology is essential if we are going to suffer well. It will help us persevere during our trials, and it will give us hope. We believe that 'Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning' (Ps. 30:5). It is faith in our good and sovereign God that enables us to wait until the morning. But we must never forget that often the night is long and the weeping uncontrollable.

"No amount of good theology is able to take the pain out of suffering. Too often we allow ourselves to believe that a robust view of God's sovereignity in all things means that when suffering comes it won't hurt. God's sovereignity doesn't take away the pain and evil that confront us in our lives; it works them for our good.

"...After all, it isn't suffering if it doesn't hurt."

-Dustin Shramek, "Waiting for the Morning during the Long Night of Weeping" (taken from Suffering and the Sovereignity of God, edited by John Piper and Justin Taylor

I don't WANT to envy...

...but some days I just want to SCREAM. Mostly at God. (Yeah, how awful is that?)

Can you tell that I'm having a problem with bitter envy today?

"A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones."
Proverbs 14:30

"For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean.'"
Mark 7:21-23

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud."
-I Corinthians 13:4

"But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such 'wisdom' does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, of the devil. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice."
James 3:14-16