As I sit here listening to “Glorious” by Paul Baloche and hold my baby as he sleeps in my arms I realize just how glorious my Saviour really is.
I am blessed to be holding my precious, precious baby, I can smell his unique beautiful baby smell as I softly kiss his neck and cuddle him. What an amazing blessing Joziah has been and oh how he continues to make Trav and I laugh. He is still such an extremely happy baby and everyone who meets him says the same thing, “He is so content.” 🙂 He is growing every day and so every day there are new “firsts” for him. He loves to try to talk to you and answers “yep” while shaking his head up and down or shakes his head back and forth to say “no”. Proudly I can say his first word was “mama”. The last couple days that is how I have woken up in the morning, to a little voice over the monitor calling ‘mama?’. He is a great sleeper and has decided he likes to go to bed earlier and sleep in later so you can imagine I am quite ok with that. Travis (who Joziah calls baba) continues to be such an amazing dad. I didn’t think it would happen so early in Joziah’s life but Joziah gets upset and already dislikes when his dad has to go to work but gets the biggest smile and runs to hug his dad when he returns home from work. I couldn’t have asked for a better father for my child. Travis loves Joziah so much and always is playing with him, having tickle fights with him, reading books with him and cuddling him. Oh how Travis loves cuddling his baby boy! Reading books continues to be one of Joziah’s favourite things to do. We started reading to him when he was two months old and realized how much he enjoyed it and so we have a stack of books that he loves reading from every day. Music would be another favourite, whenever he hears music he listens tentatively and one song that we would say is his favourite as he always stops what he is doing to hear it is “10000 Reasons” by Matt Redman.
After a year of being on maternity leave Trav and I decided that I would not return to full time ministry right now. We realize every day how important it is for me to be home with Joziah and Travis has been blessed with a job where I am able to do that. Throughout the year I have continued to meet girls off and on when I have had time and so Trav and I decided I would continue to do this and if God opens up the doors for speaking opportunities then I will continue to do that, however, my time with Into All the World is done so I can do things around mine and our schedules.
It is amazing how God continues to open doors. In October I spoke at a Women Alive conference, in December I spoke at a Women’s Christmas brunch and I have already been asked to speak twice in 2014. Why God continues to use my story still boggles me, but I am thankful that He uses my life and all I have been through for His glory. I continue to have people thank me for sharing my story and they tell me how powerful it is, which encourages me to never stop sharing it. I also continue to have doors open to helping others dealing with hopelessness in their lives. I will not stop sharing as long as God continues to open the doors. If this is what He wants for my life how can I say no?
I look forward to 2014 and everything God already has planned for my life but also for the life of my loving husband Travis and our sweet baby boy Joziah.