Answered Prayers

6 Weeks Pregnant

Eli and I have been praying for a family since we got married on 26 June 2010. And here we are, a testament to an answered prayer! We are currently six weeks pregnant!  Truly a miracle!  God has brought us SO far in the last year and eight months of our marriage.  It started out very rocky and tumultuous due to my having something likened to post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) with aggravated Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and major anxiety disorder (MAD) that I had no clue of.  All I knew was that I panicked at nearly every event Eli and I were together - feeling like I was going to be abandoned, forgotten about, overlooked, etc.  This caused me to become very intolerant, aggressive and  jealous.  I was constantly worried that my husband was going to forget about me and leave me so I was wrapped up plagued by constant fear and anxiety.  We started marriage counseling with a Christian Marriage and Family counselor named Joseph Kozinski who not only negotiated his price to fit our budget but took God's perspective and made it ours as we ARE His children.  After seeing that I needed more help than just talking through things and explaining PTSD to us, he set me up with Dr. Kohut out of San Bernardino to help evaluate and place me on an anti anxiety medication.  I have had the most normal and rational life ever since which has allowed my marriage to soar and my body chemistry to regulate and to conceive!  I have never been so clear headed emotionally!  Thank You Lord for your never ending involvement in our lives and for seeing us through the good times and the bad!  We are forever Yours.

Now back to the pregnancy!  So far at six weeks I have been feeling a bit tired.  Usually right after I do something, anything, I feel like rest is needed.  Also, my baby feeders are quite tender.  I feel cramping in my uterus area from time to time which is totally normal.  Eli is SO happy!  Neither of us can keep our mouths shut about it!  We love telling people that we are pregnant and especially to pray for a full term and perfectly healthy baby!  And now that you know, please join in on the prayer ; )  I plan on keeping you all updated week by week with the priceless belly pictures so keep reading and I would love to hear your thoughts!

Lots of love,
Candace

Ahhhh... There's something so soothing about fall...

 The first things to make my heart leap for fall are the colors!  Oranges, olive greens, burnt yellows, multitudes of reds and so forth as the color spectrum is limitless.  I am absolutely eager to start my holiday decorating at the coming of the full, moisture rich clouds, and the changing colors.  The day light gets a littler shorter allowing for the lighting of warmly scented candles, sooner, with each passing day.  The chilly nights grant the usage of toasty blankets and piping hot herbal teas which seem to sooth the tensions of the day.  

There is nothing like walking into a warm home with the pleasant fragrance of fresh baked goods and flickering candles in the background.  

Beautiful center Pieces from www.KallistoEvents.com

Top view of the two right centerpieces at left.

The center pieces were brought home from a business meeting we attended for Gillespie Insurance Services.  You can see more floral decorating by Kallisto Events by clicking on their highlighted name.



To the left you see a decorative tree about a foot and a half tall.  I try to decorate it for every season in attempt to bring the seasons and holidays alive in our home rather than having them fly by with no memories of them.

The center the the three diagonal pictures is an old fruit stand that I didn't need to use so I stocked it up with some festive items to brighten up our room, bringing the warm fall colors into our home.

And Mr. Turkey here is just an awesome find from Joann's.  He was on sale so I had to give him a home!

Oh the joy of pumpikins!

Then the bows come out and the festive decorations that transform the environment get splashed around the house, as well as out doors!

 This year is my second fall season being married too!  Last fall we were only married for four months and with our tedious arguments, it was obvious.  This year, we are a little more comfortable with sharing our environment with each other as well as growing closer to one another.  Fall could be particularly awesome because this is the season in which my husband and I met in 2009!  We would go for walks in the cool autumn nights, holding hands for as long as we were together, walking closely to keep warm.  So many charming memories from the fall!!!

I especially love that feeling of being freezing and then walking into a warm home!  Oh Lord, thank You for fall!  Actually, I like all of the seasons but I think I like fall a little bit more than the rest : ).

Do you have a favorite season?  What makes it your favorite, I'd love to hear about it!  

My Latest Read: How We Love

In which way do you love your spouse?  Your friends?  How about your neighbors?  What about those chronic issues that seem to emerge and reemerge?   Or are you the one who stuffs emotions somewhere else besides the current moment, planning never to revisit them?  Either way, you are one of billions of people in the world (yes, each and everyone of us) who have learned to love in one way or another from the people and life circumstances who imprinted their pattern into you.

How We Love, coauthored by Milan & Kay Yerkovich, is a book that doesn't talk about gender differences, how men and women are different in relationship, but about  life styles and the ways those styles directly relate to "how we love."  They summarize many studies of the Attachment Theory into six styles of relating and loving, the Secure Connector, the Avoider,  the Pleaser, the Vacillator, and the Chaotic love style which is broken into two - the Controller and the Victim.

Given each of these love styles, Milan (a Pleaser) and Kay (an Avoider) expand on case studies from their own counseling office experiences including an in depth look into their own marriage, and explains how these imprints are taken from, "our first lessons in love" (p. 25, How We Love) as children.  Believe it or not, it is incredibly common for a Vascillator to marry an Avoider, a Pleaser to marry a Vascillator, a Controller to marry a Victim, and for an Avoider to marry a Pleaser.  Too often couples struggle and don't even realize that they are doing the same "dance" that many couples across the world are doing.

The best and most giving aspect of How We Love is their proven methods to break the "all too familiar" cycles and to love your spouse in a deeper more loving way than what one ever thought was possible.  Milan and Kay have developed techniques for deeper communicating, for slowing down when a situation gets out of control, and so much more.  In addition, this book comes with an entire workbook at the end which will further navigate your marriage and/or relationships down the path of success. A couple of my favorite sentences from the book read as follows,

"As you learn to listen and engage more fully with each other, you'll be entering into all the life experience of your spouse - the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, the inspiring and the routine, the admirable and the mediocre, the happiness and the pain.  Remember, deepening in your bond means embracing the whole person."  

This is followed shortly with,

" Love consists in seeing into the very center of the twistedness and sin and self-love that are in the heart of another person, and yet not being repelled;  holding onto the grace by which we ourselves are loved and finding in it the strength to descend with another into their darkest place.  If we love other people for their saintliness, then we do not love at all.  Love is wasted on saints.  It is meant for the sinner."  (p. 283)   

We hear all too often about couples "growing apart" or "changing," etc. and the result is divorced relationships, be it a marriage or friendship.  There is such a concept of growing together, not apart.   How many relationships could be saved if we learn to communicate our deepest of feelings and if we learn to accept the deepest feelings of others.  I know that "feelings" is a HUGE task for some, but the truth is that "feelings" are everywhere, and they deserve your attention in order to make relationships work.  And an even more tangible truth is that "feelings" are the very first experience we have as human beings - as children do not know how to relate with words, but with "feelings."

As for myself, I am on a journey to love my husband for who he is and to love myself for who I am.  We have the classic "Avoider marries the Vascillator," but who says we have to do the same ol' dance?!  We want to learn how to truly love and how to truly love deeply.  Change never comes easy, but endurance will overcome!

I want to hear your thoughts on this book if you have read it.  Has it changed your relationship?