The Gift of Prophecy

I used to have a Xanga site... well I guess I still have it I just don't use it anymore. Anyway, this is a post from that site that I wrote back in December. The spiritual gift of prophecy is incredibly misunderstood. I still don't really understand it. But it is my spiritual gift and I'd like to share what that looks like in my life...


I've come to the decision that the Spiritual gift of prophecy is simply the hardest. I realize I don't know what it's like to have any of the other spiritual gifts, but at least for me, I cannot figure how any other could be more trying.

First comes the spotting of the sin. It can literally become agonizing. When I see someone that I love living in sin and I know God wants me to confront, I cannot find peace until I've said or done something. The prophets of Scripture would rip their clothes and throw ashes on their heads and cry and mourn and plead with God to release them from their gut-wrenching duty. They wouldn't eat for days. Some even tried to flee the whole situation. But I'll tell ya right now that even if Jonah hadn't been swallowed by a huge fish, he never would have been able to truly flee his responsibility. It becomes part of you. Your purpose. My experience is obviously dust compared to what those great men and women went through, but I do believe that I often get a taste... It does not taste good.

So then comes the waiting. Sometimes God lets me in on something and I have to sit back and trust His timing. Everyone knows how irritating it is to wait! And the whole while I will have phases of overwhelming frustration and unrest. I'll lie in bed tossing and turning while I beg God to let me sleep. I'll cry. Sometimes I have screamed. I'll go over multiple scenarios in my head and almost always end up screaming at whoever (in my head), "How can you be such an idiot?!?"

That brings me to the part where God reveals to me how I need to get rid of the plank hanging out of my eye before I run off and tell the other person how terribly horrible their little speck is. Again, we can all relate to conviction. It stinks. Enough said.

So now I'm back to focusing on what God wants me to do about the whole situation. I start to get really nervous. I've done plenty of public speaking in my little life and I know how terrifying that is. But, at least for me, there is nothing more terrifying than facing someone you love and confronting them with the Truth. Humbly looking them in the eyes (and praying that they realize how humble you are) and bringing up something that suddenly you feel like is none of your business anyway. And there's the fear that the relationship will be ruined. That fear has caused me to fail so many times. Or the fear that by bringing this up, I will cause more issues than there was in the first place. And the thing about confronting with the Truth (even in love!) is that these fears are completely legitimate. These things happen. Again, it stinks.

Then comes the part where the other person responds. Will they become humbled themselves and together you can cry and pray and all will be better? Will they nod and say you're right and agree with everything then walk away unchanged, only so you can go back and try again another day? Will they get up and walk away, leaving everyone involved hanging? Will they get angry, throw at you that you're not perfect and have no right?

This Spiritual gift is hard. I am not qualified. And yet God gave me this gift, and Jesus makes me qualified. So I press on, scared to death of ruining relationships and being hated, but praying that lives will be changed and reconciliation with myself, and most importantly with the Father, will be reached.

To God be the glory.

Lactation Consultation

I am not a Lactation Consultant (although my husband often says if I were to pursue a different career, an LC would definitely be the way to go). I don't have any professional training in the area (other than the one class I took at the hospital before Marie was born. Everyone MUST take a breastfeeding class pre-baby!). In fact, I haven't done a whole lot of my own reading or studying on the subject. BUT my experience qualifies me to give all new/soon-to-be mothers who happen across my blog some knowledgeable advice.

Be warned - my spiritual gift is prophecy with a side order of mercy. This is where I'm being merciful: I'm warning you that I will no longer be merciful following this warning.

If you are pregnant or plan to become pregnant, educate yourself! Why breastfeed? Figure it out for yourself! If you've studied up on the benefits of nursing and still decide you prefer to formula feed, stop reading. (I will throw in a little mercy here and not say what I would like to about the pre-baby decision to formula feed). I could go on forever about the necessity of nursing, but there are qualified specialists that can prove that better than I can. After learning what you need to know, decide how important it is to you. I decided that nursing was the only option for me. I decided this before I had any idea that nursing could possibly be difficult. But I made it a conviction, that conviction was seriously tested, and I passed.

So piece of advice #1 - Decide that breastfeeding is the ONLY option.

Breastfeeding is HARD. For some people, it's barely hard at all. For others, such as myself with my sweet Marie Love, it's NEARLY impossible. But it is possible. It is incredibly important that you understand that, while it's supposed to be natural, we live in a fallen world, so sometimes there seems there is nothing natural about it.

So piece of advice #2 - Be prepared for breastfeeding to not go as planned.

I strongly encourage anyone who only has one child or is expecting to become a new mom to do whatever it takes to make nursing work with the first baby!! If you don't work through nursing issues with your first, you'll more than likely have issues with the following babies and it'll be significantly harder to deal with them having an older child to raise at the same time.

So piece of advice #3 - Breastfeed your first child.

Now your child is born and you're doing the nursing thing, but the tiny child (that did not seem so tiny coming out of you!) is losing weight or not gaining weight as quickly as Dr. Quick Fix says he/she should be. This is the point that prompted me to write this post - a HUGE pet peeve at this point in my life. Do not supplement. I repeat, do NOT supplement. Just in case you didn't read that correctly

DO NOT SUPPLEMENT!!

Any lactation consultant will tell you that breastfed babies gain weight slower than formula fed babies. You want to know why? Well I'm going to tell you why anyway. Because breastfed babies are getting the amount God has intended while formula fed babies are getting FAT. Okay, because I can't completely ignore my secondary spiritual gift I must say that by no means are all formula fed babies fat. I'm just trying to make a point. The doctor says as you're leaving the hospital, "Your baby is not up to birth weight yet. He/She must not be eating enough. You need to feed him/her a couple ounces of formula after every feeding so that he/she gains weight as quickly as possible." I appreciate doctors and all, but the moment you hear your pediatrician say that or any variation of that - FIND A NEW PEDIATRICIAN.

When Jack was 8 days old he was still almost a pound under his birthweight (which put him at about 9lbs 12 ounces). He was being very sluggish and didn't seem interested in eating, so I brought him in to have him looked over. As it was a last minute appointment, I did not get my usual pediatrician (who is wonderful). The nurse weighed Jack before the doc came in and he was 9/10. While we were waiting for the doc, he was acting hungry so I nursed him for no more than 2 minutes. Then the doc came in and weight him again. He was 9/12. The doctor literally weighed him 3 times, then took off his diaper and weighed him again. He didn't believe that he had gained 2 ounces in 2 minutes of nursing. In spite of the fact that Jack had gained 2 ounces in 2 minutes, he told me to supplement! He decided that Jack gaining weight was more important than Jack getting the essential nutrients from nursing. Needless to say, I totally ignored his advice. Came in for a weight check the next day and Jack was up another 2 ounces. His sluggishness was caused by the ridiculous humidity and our lack of quality air conditioning.

The moment you start supplementing, you might as well say goodbye to nursing. Your body will learn to produce just the amount of milk your baby is eating from you. So after just a couple days of supplementing, your body will no longer produce enough milk for your child who has been eating too much. (And there is no pump out there that can keep your milk producing the way a baby will. You might be able to get away with it for a while, but it'll end long before you want it to).



So final piece of advice (for now) - DO NOT SUPPLEMENT.

Maybe I shouldn't be an LC. I'd probably make too many hormonal moms mad.

If you have any desire to know more about my breastfeeding story, I'd love to share.

In closing, please understand that none of this is directed toward anyone and is not meant to be offensive. I've gotten real frustrated lately with doctors pushing supplementing in spite of the importance of nursing. Instead of ranting just about that, I wanted to share some advice. I never think less of a woman who does what is best for her child and her family (which can mean not breastfeeding). The only woman I may think less of is the one who decides not to even attempt nursing at all. That, I think, is wrong.

Starting from Scratch

If you don't know anything about us considering moving out of PA, catch up here (Jan. 14 entry).

After Derek was offered the job that we were sure was exactly what God wanted for us, I had a sort of prophetic meltdown (for a little more explanation on my spiritual gift visit the Dec. 21 entry). While learning another side of my spiritual gift (the side where I cry), I unwittingly announced to my wonderful husband that I would be miserable if he took this job. If momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy... so the saying goes. In a weird twist I begged him to take the job anyway, but he's much better at knowing when God is speaking through me than I am. The next day we officially decided that God did not want us to take this job.

So we're back to square one. We don't really have any job leads. We don't really have any churches that we feel confident about at this point. But really that's like square 2. We're not even there. We don't even know if God has called us to the Elkhart area for sure. We still see it as a serious possibility, but not a definite.

Grr. I know God's ways are the best and the last place I wanna be is where God doesn't want us to be. But... grr...

We see Russia way out there... it's like we know what to do once we become missionaries. The path is crystal clear way out there. But there's this HUGE empty hole between the step we're chillin' on right now and Russia. We can see nothing. Nada. Completely blank.

I've never really been one to plan all that far ahead, but this is driving me nuts.

The only thing we know for absolute sure right now is that we need to pray with open hearts. We've been dreaming of moving back to Indiana for a couple years now. But we don't want to pray with that end in mind. We want to pray with that big, black, empty hole in mind. What does God want us to fill it with?

We are also praying that God will provide a job that is ministry related and pays 30 grand a year. (We believe in praying for specifics!) If the job isn't ministry related, we're praying that it will be a day time, week day job that will leave our schedules open to be involved in ministry in the evenings and on the weekends. We are confident God will provide this. Where and when is the question. Please pray with us!

"Thus Noah did; according to all that God had commanded him, so he did." Gen. 6:22