Tabitha’s Neighborhood

Today Serena and I took our lunch hour to go get our first ultrasound!

The kid was bouncing all over the place in there.  Our friend, Nurse Angie (who works at the local Crisis Pregnancy Center associated with our church) performed the ultrasound and gave us pictures of the baby.

She also told us, based on measurements, and other factors the computer takes in to consideration, that our due date is actually 09/09/2009!  Wow!

When she first saw our baby, she said, "This is not a 9-week baby!"  As it turns out, the baby measures like it's 14-weeks along!  In a couple of weeks we can find out the gender of the baby, even!

One of the things our baby did was look directly at the transducer (aka the probe they put on the mommy's tummy), then it stretched its arm and legs.  It's going to be a BIG baby!  Nurse Angie said that normally doesn't happen, so we're going to have an active baby.  Normally they keep their arms close to their chest and suck on their thumb or something.

She says we're doing a great job as parents, me just taking care of Serena, and Serena just taking care of herself and the baby!  We are SO excited to become parents!

Thanks for all your continuing love, prayer and support!

Josh & Serena

Driving home from my weekly church meeting, my mind was full of our discussion of how to talk to the teens this Sunday about our topic. Included in our talk, some people are doing testimonials which got me thinking. What is mine? When did I fall in love with Jesus so to speak? I was raised in the Catholic church, went to a Non-Denominational college and what has it led me to? My mind started racing almost as fast as my heart. I was bursting with thoughts. I fell in love when I walked away. I walked away in freshman year of high school, rebelling from my parents telling them I would not be forced to go to church. I walked away from Catholicism in my freshman year of college, overwhelmed by this new way of worshiping that I had never known. I walked away again when I was in Belgium for 6 months, surrounded by people who believe religion to be a culture rather than a faith. And once again, I walked away after I graduated from APU, feeling lost in my new-found solitude. And that's when I realized it. Each time I walked away, I realized how utterly stupid I was and came runnning back to Him. To His arms, His comfort, His ultimate Truth that could be found no where else.

So there I was on the 210, driving to my home that is not really my home, passing my job that I don't want to be my job, driving my car that was only supposed to be temporary, holding my phone I was not supposed to still be using, texting the boy I had not planned on still talking to, and it hit me. Why am I making things so hard on myself? Why am I fighting my life? So it's not exactly what I had planned, no I'm not in Africa right now speaking french, teaching and learning from those I'm living with in the middle of no where. So I'm still in the same area, still see people from APU and feel super weird about it, and live with APU grads even. So I'm no where near a solid relationship, (aka getting married like MOST of my friends) and I'm not in my dream job.

And then I remembered....this is NOT my life. This is HIS life. I am living in His life. I am living only because of Him and I have everything I have because He has granted me the power, desire, strength, persistance, grace and ability to do so. Why would I ever want to change that? Why would I want to take control of His life? It would be a horrible life! It would be...exactly how I've been living for the past few months...scared, nervous, heart broken, anxious, depressed. I felt like a HUGE rock had been thrown off of my shoulders. No matter what, He had me in His hands! Oh how good it was to speak almost scream to Him that I would continue to pursue to become closer to His life for me, to follow Him, to have Him guide me. I will continue to SEEK Him, no matter how many times I walked away first. I only asked for patience.

And all at once, I felt at peace. I am not living this life to make money, to travel the world, to fall in love, to be held down by worldly things. I am alive to lead out His plans for me. And hey, if those things aforementioned are intertwined in His plan, then man I'm all for it. So if I go to the Peace Corps, if I get a job in the church, if I find something else that He grants me to be blessed with, so be it. I will be His path into those around me. And I will not be afraid. I will not let the world around me get in between Him and I. Between His plan and this life He has mapped out for me. It's like a GPS. No matter how many times I fall off the course or make a wrong turn, it will always say (in french of course for my GPS lol) "recalculating" and give me a different route for how I should get to where I need to go. Only God knows this path that I should stay on and unfortunately because I am human, I stray from. But I have faith enough to know that I WILL come back and I WILL strive to show others this light within me.

and with that...I woke up in an amazing mood this morning, worked out this exhausted but willing body, spoke to a best friend I would be nothing without and as I drove the car that I pay for and appreciate, the job that I hate but am lucky to have, pass the boy who encourages me and I'm lucky to have in my life, I realize...All of MY stuff has become HIS stuff and I feel weightless as I walk with an open mind and ready heart.

I just went to iTunes and selected "Party Shuffle" (because I'm too busy and lazy to make playlists). These are the first 5 songs it played:

New Year's Day - U2 - War
Consume - Scars of Tomorrow - Demo
The Levee's Gonna Break - Bob Dylan - Modern Times
Three Times a Lady - Cloud Cult - They Live On the Sun
Break The Curse - xDisciplex A.D. - The Revelation

time to organize before I get into this

#1 - I like doing what I'm good at. I don't like doing what I'm not good at

#2 - people's perceptions are SO incredibly interesting to me and this is a whole new world for me...

Governors of Illinois have a great track record.

1921-1929: Len Small - Indicted for embezzlement. Acquitted (four of the jurors got state jobs after the trial)
1961-1968: Otto Kerner, Jr. - Three years in prison for bribery, conspiracy and perjury
1973-1977: Daniel Walker - Eighteen months served of a seven year sentence for fraud
1999-2003: George Ryan - Six and a half years for racketeering and fraud
2003-Present: Rod Blagojevich - Indicted on fraud and bribery charges. Hasn't been convicted, but damn is it funny as hell listening to what he says on the tapes.

"I’ve got this thing and it’s f--king golden, and, uh, uh, I’m just not giving it up for f--kin' nothing. I’m not gonna do it. And, and I can always use it. I can parachute me there."

I went to the Tamale Festival today. I had a traditional pork tamale; a blue corn with grilled chicken and habaneros tamale; a beef with roasted garlic tamale; a shrimp tamale; and, an apple tamale. O so good.

I now have a head ache and I don't know why.

I had my wisdom teeth taken out this morning. I haven't been myself all day. So I wrote a lot about the issues in the Presidential campaign and ended up not voting for any candidate in any race (except one seat on the school board). I did vote on the ballot initiatives.

I was just reading an article in a magazine of the 50 best albums of all time. I also have the Rolling Stone 500 best albums book. Basically I'm an expert on" top album" lists.

I think they're all very subjective. Of course this is the only way to judge music, but I think they're out of touch with my generation. They all talk about albums nostalgically. An album was the first album to introduce them to psychedelia, drugs, sex, or whatever. They spent long nights wearing the grooves out on their LPs. It was exciting.

Thing is, everything is exciting to the young. When you hear the kids these days talking about movies they think Transformers is a work of creative genius. Have you heard the popular bands these days?

40 years from now when today's kids write their 50 best albums of all time, I can only imagine American Idiot ending up on that list. I can't image any American Idol will ever be on that list.

It amuses me, but it also makes me depressed. The fact that two grown, mature men and their intelligent cronies, are acting like children. What's worse is they're both vying for the most powerful position in the world.

John McCain and his side are using this silly inference about someone Barack Obama met a few times to call into question ... I'm not sure what they're inferring. They say, "Nobody cares about an old, washed up terrorist." If nobody cares, why bring it up!? Because, "We know there is more to their relationship than Senator Obama is claiming." So they're calling him a liar? Yes. "It's about time Barack Obama came clean with the American public about his relationship with William Ayers."

So they're subtly inferring that Barack Obama is a terrorist sympathizer, and claiming he's not truthful about it. An outrageous claim because they don't have evidence there is more, they're just claiming there is and Barack is lying about it. But if there was more, wouldn't it be in the public interest for McCain to explain what's it is? No, he'd rather just throw it out there claiming it's about Barack's transparency.

One politician calling another one a liar. Amazing! You don't do that because then it opens yourself up to criticism for your lies. Like when McCain said he was going to run a respectable campaign, they would not run a negative campaign, and negativity would not come from their side at all. Lie! When he "suspended" his campaign to solve the credit crisis. Lie. And that's just the last few months.

And then out comes Senator Obama calling McCain, in essence, a "chicken." Really? He said Senator McCain made claims about him but didn't have the guts to "say it to my face." What is this, high school? Senator Biden took his jacket off while saying, "In my neighborhood, if you have something to say to a man you say it to his face." Was he threatening John McCain with that gesture? Maybe it was just hot, but it sure looked like you wanted to beat him up.

So the stock market lost $2.5-trillion in the last seven days, and these gentlemen are talking about lies and cowardice. You know who's not a coward? Hugo Chavez. He came to New York and stood in the same podium George W. Bush did and said he still smelled the sulfur. Now that's balls! He doesn't lie either, he said he would boot the US ambassador from Venezuela - and he did. The point I'm making is that it's the policies that matter, not the personality.

Maybe voters in America are stupid. Maybe that's why Presidential candidates can't use language higher than a 5th-grade level without being accused of elitism. I have hope that voters take this more seriously, but more than likely they'll vote for the guy who "looks presidential." That means you can have a beer with him, and he makes tough choices. Sounds like most of the guys I know.