2nd Trimester and I'm Back!

Okay, so it has been pathetically long since I wrote anything on my blog. Even if I hadn't been gagging on and off for two months, I wouldn't have had much to write about though. The view from my couch, or bed is not that exciting, and you would have gotten sick of all my new mother details which centered around what I've eaten and how much I've slept in a day.
Now I feel as though I have started to come back to life. I'm no longer gagging up my prenatal vitamins and they are making me feel just swell. I get an extra little kick each morning from my folic acid supplement, it's one of the B vitamins you know! Oh, and I ate eggs today, that I cooked myself, and they tasted great!

These are all huge accomplishments for me as a pregnant lady, but that is not all I want to talk about. There's more on my mind.
Christmas!
That is the real reason I wanted to write.
We're missionaries, as most of you know, but this is the first Christmas that we haven't spent it with our little girls in a community surrounded by other missionaries. It has been an awkward reminder of the junk that has still been hiding in my heart. Doubts and worries and fears and comparisons that have been coming out over the last six months in our new home. We are surrounded by people who work at jobs that pay them a regular income each week. No matter how slim their check is though, they always know they have one coming at regular intervals. Our livelihood is completely dependent on the Lord. We don't know when or where the next check is coming from, I can't plan my grocery shopping on the same day of the week, I just go when we have money. Most of the time I can handle this. I've grown use to living with the unknown but always timely provision of the Lord. He has never failed us, He has always provided, and I've grown quite confident that He will supply all our needs.
Holidays throw a kink in this confidence though, because Christmas presents aren't really a need are they? Do they qualify as a necessity? How can I ask for Christmas presents when what I really need is enough money to pay the gas bill or rent?
Yet I live in a community where all my friends are preparing for the holidays and I feel as though I am holding my breath, hoping they don't see how little I am able to join in with them. I have been believing the lie that I am not as good of a parent as my friends because I can't do all the things that they can do for their children. Another lie, I am not a good friend, daughter, wife, mother, etc. if I can't buy so and so a present on their birthday, Christmas, anniversary, etc.
Recently the extent of these lies that I was believing came to the surface in one of my emotional breakdowns.
Ken sat as patiently as possible and listened to all my nonsense and then he methodically thwarting all of my arguments/lies and gave me a  much needed pep talk on who my Father is and what Christmas is all about.
Ugh, I both love and hate that man! Love that he tells me the things I need to hear, but hate that he is so right a lot of the time.
By the end of the episode and certainly by the end of that day though I had come to some revelations. Here they are:
Who cares if we can't get the girls what I had been hoping to get them, who cares if we can't buy our family anything this year. We will send them our love, and a card, and maybe even something handmade if I can find the time to finish the dozens of half started projects. People who love us and are close to us are not going to think we are cheap or ungenerous. Our kids aren't old enough to count how many presents are under the tree and calculate the total cost that their parents have spent on them.
All of that means that I can just relax then (well once I have all my homemade presents done) and enjoy the season. My parents are coming down to visit us over Christmas, and that is a cause for celebration, not panic. They don't care if I get them anything. My sweet mother told me today that my dad would be happy with some cookies. Well I know how to make those, so let the baking and sweet making begin!
Another added benefit to all this drama has been that it caused me to re-evaluate what we are doing here in South Carolina. Apparently two months of being sick has caused me to lose sight of what the Lord has called us to here, and it certainly isn't so that we can live the high life and buy everyone expensive Christmas gifts that they don't need. We are called here to pray, to encourage our community to pray, and to serve the body of Christ in the areas the Lord has opened to us. The simplicity of our call should be a reassurance, and it is when I stop and take time to remember it.
And......Jesus is the reason for this season, and what a better way to celebrate Him than by remember to slow down and talk to Him. To take the focus off of all the stuff that is thrown in our faces at this time of year, and just sit and think on our Savior, our King!
He has never let me down, not once!!!