jana and jacob

I always get so much out of Elisabeth Elliot's writings. Her wisdom amazes me. Today I read about meekness which I honestly feel may be the first time I have actually had a chance to think about this fruit of the spirit. I guess it is just so easy to push aside as unimportant, especially when it is most often misunderstood as being weakness. It is definitely not "indifference or laziness", Elisabeth says, "Meekness is teachability. . . It is the readiness to be shown, which includes the readiness to lay down my fixed notions, my objections . .  my certainties about the rightness of what I have done, thought, or said." She says this is learned, which I can attest to, since I can't say I have quite learned this yet. Jesus was meek, he was "despised, rejected, reviled, pierced, crushed, oppressed, afflicted, yet He did not open his mouth." He is amazing! He was even willing to kneel before Judas and wash his feet knowing that he would soon betray him! He also prayed for the forgiveness of his killers before he died. What do my silly injustices or sufferings matter in comparison with his? It doesn't matter how I may have been wronged. I am not to be bitter, or hold a grudge or a chip on my shoulder to show my disapproval. It doesn't matter if I am misunderstood or betrayed. I am to respond the way he would and give grace, never holding to what I feel are my rights. This goes against everything the world teaches, but such is this thing called Christianity.

Well, I think Audrey is teething again. It's frustrating you can't be exactly sure, but I think that Jacob and I have learned the signs at this point. Before we see a new tooth appear, she gets congested and runs a fever - sometimes high, like 103 even.  I feel so bad for her and know that she's really not feeling well, but at the same time, she really is so sweet when she's under the weather. Not that she's not sweet otherwise, she's just more willing to crawl up in your lap and lay her head down which is one of my favorite things. This also wakes her up at night, I think mostly because she can't breathe, and so I've not been meeting my sleeping quota either. I functioned like a pro when she was a newborn and I wasn't getting sleep, but it's a totally different story now. I'm out of practice. I'm not going to complain though, if teething is our biggest challenge, we are doing very well.

Well, Audrey turned one this past weekend. It is so crazy to me how fast this year flew by. It feels like yesterday that we were bringing her home from the hospital! We had her birthday party Saturday night, August 2, and although the original plan was to have the party at our house, we moved it to Jacob's parents' house. We had more room that way, and were more comfortable temperature wise. Our AC has a hard time keeping up in 100 degree temps, especially we were to have 15 people over! Audrey was a little late to her own party since we wanted her to get as much of a nap as possible, and I'm not sure she really had a clue what was going on. We all enjoyed watching her none the less. We had a cupcake theme, and she enjoyed her yellow cupcake with pink icing. It was so nice to have our families there to celebrate with us on this momentous occasion! We survived the first year, and I know that the fun is just beginning!