Sick and Tired

I had heard from friends that two of the most difficult parts of pregnancy can be when you get sick (since you can hardly take any drugs) and when you feel totally exhausted. Well, today is my double whammy. A head cold took over my body yesterday morning and I wisely responded with a sleepover for my youth group girls last night. So today I am, indeed, sick and tired. Boy, do I miss my cold medicine!! Fortunately, a very thoughtful group of girls at school gave me some hot tea in a baby gift pack and it's really working to soothe my ailments. Now if they only made such remedies for daily headaches (like homework), I'd be all set!

Another classmate and his wife are expecting their first baby about a month earlier than me, and they found out their baby's gender this past week. In some ways, it's so hard for me to believe that time is rapidly coming up for us too - and I'm so excited! Even though I hear the picture we'll see in the ultrasound looks more like an alien than a human being, just knowing whether the baby is a girl or a boy really opens up the imagination and more firmly sets the idea of "baby" in reality. As if constant morning sickness weren't real enough!

On a much more serious, and important, note - yesterday was Good Friday and tomorrow is Easter. Not yet being a parent, I know I still have much more to grasp about the measure of God's love for us in sending his child as a sacrifice for our sinfulness. But I already recoil at the thought of someone abusing MY child, even in small ways like pushing on the playground or breaking his/her heart by asking someone else to the school dance...how infinitely much more did God hurt to see His Son beaten, rejected, and killed? Especially when He had the power to make it all stop? Thus brings us back to one of the core realizations of Christianity - God loves us THAT much. Wow. I pray that this weekend, though there's much going on and some of us may be struggling with health or emotional hurdles, will be a time of great reflection about how much our God and our Savior love us.

Love in Christ ~ Valerie