In the Potter's hands...

I continue to be touched by what the Lord has been showing me over the last couple weeks. I sense that I'm in a growth period, like if I were a garden this is a period where the ground is being tilled and prepared so that new seeds being planted can grow healthy and strong. As God has impressed upon me just how much I've been forgiven for (as I mentioned in a past post), that's stayed in my mind and I've had things come up that I'd forgotten that the Lord has forgiven me for. What stands out about that is often those memories trigger shame and guilt, but now God's using those memories as a way of growing my thankfulness, and I'm noticing more freedom from the shame and guilt as I embrace real forgiveness. There are some things of my past that have been especially hard to feel forgiven about. So this is a huge area to see God helping me to grow in.

There's something else that has come up a few times now and that's verses that refer to the potter and the clay (Jeremiah 18:4 , Isaiah 64:8). Whenever I see or hear the same verse from a few different places I always take note that God is speaking something to me. It has me search my heart. When I first saw the verse and some commentary on it I liked how it talked about pressure being placed on the clay to mold it into place. How times in our life where we feel very uncomfortable or feel pressure are times to picture him molding us and shaping us which is causing us growing pains. When I saw this verse again the person had shared a prayer that the Lord would give us grace to bend and mercy when it hurts. Seeing this prayer and taking some time to really think about it brought the question am I really open to God molding me? I thought about some areas I'm struggling in right now and can see where I'm resisting being molded by him and instead wanting to keep my "old shape" instead. I pray for the grace to allow him into those areas even though it invites discomfort and even some pain. These potter verses have given me the courage to let him dig deeper into that garden of my life that it would produce fruit in these areas I have to keep surrendering to him. I have sensed the Lord showing me he is beginning redemptive work in me in some of the areas of past forgiven sin that only now am I ready to do. For he wants to redeem those areas as another part of my healing from the past.

Yesterday Julian and I had a pretty quiet day on our own. We made a quick trip to the grocery store in the morning and then out to the YMCA before lunch and other than that we were hanging out inside. I happened to open the front door to check if a package had come and Julian came to take a look outside. Being a cold day, the storm windows filled up with steam from the warm air of our oven from baking muffins. We were soon "finger painting" in the steam and taking turns one after another to make our little squiggles and blotches. It's amazing how something small like this can capture my son's attention and be so much fun.

On a friend's blog we found some fire truck videos and Julian just loved watching them drive around and around sirens and all. We watched them a few times and still I don't think he was tired of them. A little milestone is I've noticed he's finally using the duplos to build small towers, which is something he's never done. He liked handing them to me so I'd put them together and then he'd tear them apart. He also likes it when I build something and then he'd knock it over. So the building part is new. He's also taken an interest in the bristle blocks he got for Christmas and had them all over the living room in various Julian designs.

There's something about those Little People that Julian just loves. We keep finding them in different places around the house. Usually they're just behind things in our living room or in the hallway far away from his toy bins. But we really got a chuckle when we found his boots in the back hallway and inside each boot he had stuffed one of his Little People. It's something silly like that which touches my heart. It's just so cute.

Today we went to our MOPS group and the muffins I made actually worked out. I've never made them before so I wasn't quite sure how they'd turn out. I'd only had them at my baby shower. The recipe is on my Tracey's Kitchen blog that you can get to from the link on this site. Julian did really well in the nursery which was great since last week he had a hard time. We had just a nice relaxing afternoon watching PBS and hanging out together. We did a little finger painting and then played with his little music kit Julian banging on the drums and me playing the tambourine.

Now I need to go and get some rest since tomorrow will be a full day. Play group at Blackhawk Church at 9am, my women's bible study at 1pm and then Mom's Nite Out at Blackhawk where we are doing a soup swap. More on those things later I'm sure.