11 weeks

Dear Little Bean,

There is no doubt in my mind or in anyone else's that you are moving and shaking and swimming and growing. Mama has felt very, very sick over the last week or so. You should know that no matter how many times I throw up and how much I don't like it, it doesn't make me any less glad that you're here. You're a gift and a miracle, and I never want you to forget it, no matter how tired I am, how much heartburn I have, or how many stretch marks I get.

Before we knew you were coming, we both wondered if we'd be able to have a baby at all. The last few years of my health have been a roller coaster and it got bad enough at times that I was pretty sure that having a baby wouldn't be possible at all. We were open to you, and we waited. And then suddenly, there you were. We know many people who have tried and tried and tried to have a baby, and it just doesn't happen for them. It is one of the saddest things in the world, baby, to want to give life to a little one such as yourself, and not to be able to. So it's really not lost on us, what a great gift this is, and how fortunate we are to be able to have you around at all.

We got to hear your heartbeat last week, and we nearly floated out of the midwife's office with joy. You must have been squirming and swimming and doing flips or something, because you were so hard to find. And then just about when we were ready to give up on finding you this time around, you paused long enough for us to hear that long-anticipated thud-thud-thud-thud; it sounded like someone running on a treadmill. Loren (the midwife) said you sounded strong and healthy. Somehow, we knew you would be. Even so, we do not take that fact for granted.

You should know, Baby, what a good man your daddy is. He's taken such good care of me when I've been feeling too sick and too tired to take care of myself. He makes me breakfast, puts together my lunch at night, and sets aside my prenatal vitamins since the sight and smell of them tend to make me sick. He gets the foods I crave and doesn't cook with the ones that don't sound good to me. He talks to you and tells you how much he loves you. I'm sure by the time you're born, you will know his voice well.

Love to you, sweet one. I hope you liked the granola and yogurt.

first comes love, then comes marriage, then ...

... comes a positive pregnancy test.

130/365: positive pregnancy test
31 january 2010
canon 40d

Answers to the most popular questions thus far:
1. Our little bean is due to arrive on the scene about October 5 or so.
2. We do intend to find out the gender ahead of time. James is squarely on Team Pink and has requested that his little girl have curly hair.
3. I'm feeling OK and have the typical symptoms for 5 weeks into the game: very tired, light-headed, headache-y, and occasionally feeling like I got socked in the gut. I'm hungry all the time and always ready for a nap!!


I know there are some schools of thought that say you should wait until you've passed through the first trimester or hear the heartbeat to announce it to the world, but our thinking runs along these lines: this is a person, with a soul, unique and loved by God. Regardless of what happens at this point, someone is alive and present who was not just a few weeks ago. And so we believe this little one will be well served by people who will likewise love and pray for him/her. So if you think of it, we would be humbled and honored by your prayers for this little person that we love so much already.

Blessings to you!!! And ... WAHOO!!

christmas vignettes: a photo journal

You and I all know very well that any tale of our Christmas-time would be incomplete without pictures. Here are a few snapshots of our first Christmas together, and those we spent it with.

Before we left for Bellingham, we received a special gift from a special friend. The lovely Christianne sent us this beautiful book with the words she penned just for our wedding day (incidentally, the only time I cried that day was when she was reading these words).

We had some beautiful trees to look at during our stay.

Kaari and I didn't really intend to go all matchy-matchy, I promise!!

Mmm ... nothing like breakfast with the ones you love!!

James and I attended Mass on Christmas morning.

We put together a puzzle together later Christmas morning. Miss Lulu and the stuffed moose also got in on the action.

We opened gifts.

Some of us put bows on our heads. It's what we do.

I was really excited for Kaari to open her gift, so she saved it for last.

It was a book I made on Shutterfly with pictures I took fo our trip to Ireland!!

We drank coffee (mmm!!) and enjoyed our gifts some more.

Scraping ice off the car was a daily routine. And taking pictures? Oh yeah. I was chomping at the bit to take some pictures.

Speaking of which ... I've got a lot more to process!!
I'll see you soon!!

What are some of your favorite moments or
memories from Christmas 2009?

beautiful-ordinary

Every weekday, I wake up at 4:15 to take my temperature and pop a thyroid pill. Generally, I'll snooze a few minutes and push myself out of bed and lumber toward the bathroom. Flicking on the light, I reach for my toothbrush and nine times out of ten, will lament the frizziness of my hair.

I boil the water for my coffee in the red tea kettle we received as a wedding gift (which, sadly, doesn't whistle), pour it over the grainy, brown, and aromatic grounds of the Pike Place Blend coffee I had especially ground for my French press. After four minutes, I pour the brew into a favorite mug, add a packet of stevia, stir in some vanilla soy creamer and enjoy. My fingers cling to the ceramic curves, soaking in its heat, and I enjoy every life-giving sip.

I go to work, wrap myself in a black fleece blanket that has "Happy Holidays 2002" embroidered on a corner, and sit the cubicle and type words into the computer. To my left are sixteen pictures from my wedding and honeymoon that I had printed with thin black borders, and they make me happy.

After I work, I might grocery shop, picking up several bags of frozen green beans and some fish for dinner. I might select a bottle of wine that generally costs about $6-10 and then head to the gym. I like the cardio theatre for its darkness and how cool it feels. I'll go out and work the weights: squats, lunges, presses, curls. I feel good and accomplished when I'm done.

I drive home in about five minutes, drop off my grocery and gym bags, and my husband greets me: "Hello, sweet one." I kiss him, hug him, hang up my black wool coat, and sit down on the couch. He asks me if I want anything to drink.

After dinner, we sit on the couch together. We might watch a video on YouTube or from our Netflix queue. I'm probably processing pictures I took five days ago. I like to drape my legs and feet across his lap and relax, resting my head on the arm of the couch. We do this until I can't stand to stay awake anymore (generally, about 9:30 pm) and get ready for bed. I savor the moment just after I pull back the sheets and the comforter and I can crawl into bed with my too-cool body, sharing in his warmth.

He kisses me, wraps his arms around me, and then we sleep.

This is our beautiful-ordinary life. There is no glamour, no glitz, no flash. We are far too boring to have our own reality TV show, and that's just the way we like it (no matter, we don't have cable anyway). From the outside, our lives look like a lot of others right now. But this life is ours, and I love it.

Please tell me about your beautiful-ordinary life. What "ordinary" moments of your day are extraordinary and beautiful to you?

photo by kirsten.michelle

cleansing my conscience

My thank you notes have been done for months, I swear. About five months ago, they were written, signed, sealed, not all addressed, but at least had the names on them.

And they've been sitting in a neat little pile on a shelf in our kitchen.

Ooooh, they're newlyweds some say. I know etiquette says we have a year to get these out, but honestly ... the fact that these thank you notes have been sitting in our apartment unmailed for over five months is a little embarrassing to me and now that I've told you, my conscience is at least partially cleansed. I have tremendous pangs of guilt whenever I use the mixing bowl you gave me, or whenever I cook dinner with the electric grill and griddle you sent. The kitchen towels? I can barely stand it.

All this to say, these thank yous will be sent out with our Christmas cards.

Now that I've purged my conscience, I can move on. Almost. I think. The silverware is totally getting to me. So if you were at the wedding and gave us a gift and have subconsciously (or consciously) muttered in wonder about what the heck those newlyweds are doing, not sending out their thank you notes after this long, then wonder no more. We're on it, I promise.

One thing I will say is that having had a wedding this year is making gifts for family easy. When asked what they would like, "Pictures!!" is nearly a unanimous reply. So needless to say, Shutterfly is loving me this holiday season. Our thank you notes/Christmas cards will include a lovely photo of the blissed-out newlyweds (or not-yet-weds, as we are in the timing of this in particular photo) wishing you a blessed holiday season. It's the least we could do.

Whew.

Christmas photo card designed at Shutterfly
Wedding photo Copyright 2009 Jen Fox Photography

a particular gratitude

Held & Loved
Canon 40D
November 2009

One year ago at this time, I had no idea that I would be as loved as I am today, or that I would know it for sure. If you had told me at last year's Thanksgiving table that by the same time next year, I would be married, I would have laughed (perhaps spewing cranberry juice in your face in the process) and asked you please to pass the green beans.

I've said it many times before, but it bears repeating: when James came into my life again just over a year ago, I had believed for some time that I was meant to live as a single person. I do not know whether this belief was the product of revelation, a personal response to my circumstances, acceptance of my state in life, or some melange of that list. Frankly, I'm not sure that it matters. I do know that it was a decision to guard my heart in a way that perhaps, I always should have been guarding it. I had been too open. I had committed many sins, many had been committed against me, and my heart bore the hurt and the memory of those things.

A celibate life was something I accepted both with resignation and enthusiasm, that I celebrated and mourned. I counted the loss this entailed, but I could also count the possibilities that might arise from such a choice.

But God ...
(My favorite stories begin with those two words)

But God had other plans. And if you've been reading this blog for any amount of time, you know what those other plans entailed. I still look at him in wonder. I see him and shake my head as though trying to shake off sleep; like waking from a dream, I'm surprised to see that all of this has not been the product of an overly fanciful imagination. I see him and know: this is not of my own doing. And I'm thankful. Grateful. Exceedingly so.

Married just over six months now, I still lose myself in wonder over it: that God could part the curtains of chaos in our universe and see me so particularly, to see me and to know what I needed for my holiness and my happiness, to see us and to know that we needed each other for those things. To see us and situate us such that His purpose and His plan were alarmingly clear, to compel us in a way that we could not deny, but at the same time, in no way limited the freedom He gives.

And it has been clear from the beginning: This is not my doing. This is not anything I've earned. This was given, gifted to us, but is not for us alone.

I am not in any way trying to quantify my gratitude. I would not say that I love and appreciate my spouse more than any wife has ever loved or appreciated her husband. I would not dare say it, because I know those cannot be quantified. An attempt to apply any form of measurement to love would be to minimize it. I am finding to be true what I've been told a hundred times by those with marriages I respect: you love much, the most you ever have, and yet it grows. And grows, and grows, and grows. You get the idea.

There are many things to be thankful for this season, but this one arises as prominent in my mind. As we go tomorrow as husband and wife to the place where I celebrated Thanksgiving last year (the same place at which we were married), I offer this particular gratitude for what has been given, for what continues to be given, and for what will be given. For the hand I hold, for the arms that embrace me, for the lips that kiss me, for the body that warms me when I am cold, for love received and given ... I am infinitely thankful and growing up into thankfulness.

It is more than my hands or my heart can hold.

it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship

One year ago today, Facebook played a pivotal role in changing my life forever.

Hi James!! How the heck are you?

These were the first words I wrote on the wall of his Facebook page after accepting his friend request on November 12, 2008. I had no idea then what I was in for. We hadn't kept in touch since our days at Biola and for all I knew, the pictures on his profile page were of his own children.

I remember a knot in me relaxing when I learned from his reply that the children in those photos were all nieces and nephews.

After several more replies back and forth, then came a phone call (that one, four and a half hours) and a second phone call (that one, five and a half hours) and a third brief one in which I had to tell him exactly how much I was feeling, and how unexpectedly I was feeling it. Nearly a year before that, I had embraced my singleness enthusiastically. Because of this and the vow of celibacy I knew he had made (and which only God could undo), it was painful for me to tell him that my heart was not available to anyone else.

I knew I was telling him: if I don't marry you, I don't marry. Period.

That phone call ended tenuously. I had just blurted the entire contents of my heart out, and I didn't have any idea of it being reciprocated.

But then it was.

He loved me and he married me, and so we grow in love, still.



{And, PS ... he was right again.}

photo by kirsten.michelle
Canon 40D

36 reasons to celebrate james

Today is my Beloved's birthday and so I thought it would be fun to come up with a reason for every year of his life why I adore the sweet man I call my husband. The list ranges in reasons from silly and superficial to deeply serious, and are the first things that came to mind at the time I was writing it.

I wish I could take credit for this idea, but I cannot: the idea came from a Facebook friend of mine who did the same for her husband on his birthday. It was difficult to limit myself to just 36 reasons, but (Lord-willing) I will have many years ahead in which to add others.

Or maybe next time, I will come up with 10 reasons for each year of his life ...

James Polaroids, ca. 2002
Canon 40D

Reasons to celebrate James:
Because he first loved me.
He calls me his “sweet one”.
He does the dishes and cleans the bathroom.
My lips are the only ones he’s kissed.
His shaven cheeks are soft and sweet.
He maintains high ideals, even when it seems crazy to do so.
He is unashamed of the gospel.
He cares deeply about knowing the Truth, and living accordingly (even when it hurts like hell).
He’s serious.
He’s hilarious and silly.
He’s just the right amount of nerdy.
He’s generous.
He picks up homeless people, gives them a good meal, and sits and talks to them about Jesus.
He can quote Shakespeare (mostly Hamlet and Much Ado About Nothing) at the most appropriate times.
He speaks New Testament Greek to me and knows exactly what it means.
He tweaks popular songs to include my name.
He gets these songs stuck in my head.
He put a ring on my finger and could hardly wait to say his vows.
He’s made an adjective of my name: “kirsteny”.
He whispered to me at the altar on our wedding day: “I want to be one with you.”
He’s not afraid to cry when something moves him.
He likes to talk to our as-yet unconceived “baby Kirstens” in my belly.
He loves my crazy family.
He’s really, really cute.
He can put together Ikea furniture without losing his sanity.
He has saved me from a slobbering, nasty drunk guy.
He doesn’t run away when I cry.
He’s the safest person I know.
He gets the mail.
He is the man of God’s dreams for me.
He left a place of familiarity to move to a place he had never been to marry me.
He is loving, even toward people he doesn’t know.
He refuses to compromise.
While his intensity can overwhelm me at times, I know I can trust that it’s aimed at knowing and living in truth and the highest possible earthly good.
He catches my tears.
I am his, and he is mine.

Happy Birthday, James!! I love you
XOXO

the many faces of james*

Sometimes, I can be caught totally off guard by a James-ian display of the wholly unexpected.

I was minding my own business the other day, transferring pictures from my camera to the computer and found these. I laughed. I cried. I may have snorted.

Life with James is many things ... boring is not one of them!!

mushy love stuff*

I can't get enough of it -- so I'm PDA-ing blog-style.

variations on a kiss
photos (& kiss) a collaborative effort by james & kirsten
Canon 40D

So here I sit listening to the ethereal soundtrack from The Mission, looking forward to a weekend of loving and togetherness. Wishing you much love and beauty in the weekend ahead!!

P.S. Aren't Peder (my brother) & Annie adorable??


photo by james

rich*

Who, being loved, is poor?
Oscar Wilde



reflection: kirsten & james
Canon 40D
July 2009

Tomorrow marks twelve weeks of
loving
learning
growing in intimacy
crying (a lot)
laughing
revealing
knowing
studying
praying, praying, praying
being his sweet one
not being poor
growing richer every day


This weekend, we're off to my hometown to celebrate the cluster of birthdays and anniversaries that occur in August, and I'll have James at my side. My husband. I never thought I'd be speaking those words. Will they ever lose their luster?

I love you, James.

joy in the morning

Weeping may tarry for the night,
but joy comes with the morning.
Psalm 30:5 (ESV)

Joy indeed.

For a time, it was hard to believe that the nightmare I found myself in last week would ever end. James and I knew something like this would likely happen -- we talked about it but we had no idea to what degree it would grieve us both.

Without saturating your brains with details, I found myself facing the many consequences of past sin: sins I've committed, and those committed against me. I experienced pain like none other that stemmed from some of the earliest memories of my childhood and into my life as an adult. Things for which I had long since confessed, grieved, and repented were bleeding as though newly committed. Decades old wounds were oozing afresh. I saw the consequences of these things reaching their thick tentacles from my past and suffocating the life out of my present, driving a wedge, causing a separation that felt like death. I had full and hellish experiences of how they hindered me. I consistently felt like I was getting the hell beat out of me. Words like awful and terrible are (to borrow a favorite James-ian phrase) the hyperbole of understatement to describe what this was. It was a nightmare, and the nighttime was long.

But then something changed.

I can't tell you how often and for how long my heart has been poured out in prayers for healing, for repentance, for a heart changed and healed and made whole. I desperately wished I could just snap out of it, but this was wholly beyond my power. My life and my vitality were being choked to death.

In the nighttime, I couldn't know why this was happening or how it would end. Or if it would ever. I told God so many times: I can't fix this. I can't do this. I need You to heal. I need You to redeem. If it were as simple as me choosing healing, it would have been done long ago. And so I waited for God to extend His hand.

And then He did. It was not anything I did. I was reading a passage of Scripture I had read many times before when it happened. But in almost an instant, my mind was changed. My heart had shifted. There was no drama, no weeping, no insane laughter. The transition was like passing from one room and into another.

In matter of moments, those particular pieces of my heart that were in ragged tatters were mended, or at least held together in a way they hadn't been before. I somehow became separate from the sin and darkness that moments before, had engulfed me, separating me from myself and those around me. There was a movement, almost imperceptible to me, from intense introspection to outward love, away from separateness and toward intimacy. The faith given me was lucid and sure, my hope so substantial I felt like I could sink my teeth into it. It filled me completely.

I have no doubt that sorrow will return in one form or another. It always does, and it seems to follow all too swiftly on the heels of joy. But since I am so good at forgetting, it is good to be reminded in truth and in reality:

Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don't let yourself lose me.

six months ago today ...

... I nearly fell out of bed when I received the following message:

I like you ... a lot ... and by like I mean adore ... and by adore I mean adore completely ... and by adore completely I mean I love you ... and by I love you I mean I'm in love with you ... and by I'm in love with you I mean I would give my life to you ... and by I would give my life to you I mean if you don't marry me then please throw a 4-wheeler back on top of me and leave it there.

James
4 February 2009


My mind reels that this came to me just six months ago. It seems we've loved each other always. Here is to many more months of loving the one I adore completely ...

Kirsten & James
Married since May 23, 2009
Photo by Jen Fox Photography

married life*

Probably the most common question I've been asked over the last six weeks is: So ... how is married life?

The question, though simple enough, has a loaded and somewhat complex answer. There are a lot of things I could say about it, most of which are answers you would expect. It's challenging. Sanctifying. Humbling. Revealing of my character, my fears, my doubts, my insecurities. I'm more in love than I was six weeks ago. I've cried a lot. I'm even more certain I married the one person on the planet who is right for me, for whom God made me. Yeah ... it's good. Really, really good.

I wouldn't trade it for anything.

There is a lot more I could say -- I could spend some serious time expanding on any one of those thoughts. But for now, I'll leave you with a pic (of course!!) and a quote from one of my favorite authors that just about sums it up perfectly:

I love you -- I am at rest with you -- I have come home.

Dorothy Sayers

Busman's Honeymoon

kirsten & james
taken by kaari

june 26, 2009
Canon 40D

I love my James.