Confidence & Condemnation

Lately I have been reading a book called “A Confident Heart” by Renee Swope. For me it’s heavy reading. It’s a book I’ve needed to read for a long time, and it’s been good, really good.

And I want to write about it – about my lack of confidence, about why it’s present in me. I started writing and sorting through my feelings and in the end I just felt overwhelmed and like I was trying to justify myself. I knew something in my heart was not right. I want to blame my lack of confidence on people “judging me” and God showed me my sin in that.

My sin: I try to justify myself. I’ve always tried to justify myself. I try to justify myself even when I don’t need to! Even when I am doing good things; things that are in line with Gods plan for my life. I still feel like if I’m not doing what everyone else is doing I need to explain why.

Justify: a : to prove or show to be just, right, or reasonable

I had to really pray about this. I think it’s something I’ve been doing my whole life. Ever since I was a very young child I was the “scapegoat” of many family problems. I spent the majority of my childhood being accused of doing something wrong when I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I spent a lot of time explaining myself and/or asking for forgiveness for things I hadn’t done wrong in order to avoid trouble I was sure to get in anyways.

Eventually as I got older I just determined I was a failure. It didn’t matter what I did: I was always going to be “wrong”. So I decided I would continue to do things wrong because it was more freeing to be in trouble for actually doing something wrong than to be accused of not doing something wrong.

When I became a Christian I attempted to “redeem myself” by doing the right things, but I still ended up doing the wrong things (proving myself to be human and in need of grace). I still end up feeling the need to justify my actions and the cycle has never ended.

Example: For the past six months I’ve spent my time trying to explain why my child’s hair is blonde to everyone who says “Wow, his hair sure is blonde.” I felt accused. I felt ashamed. Who knows what people were meaning, or whether or not they knew how I was feeling. I was relieved to have an explanation when we found out our beautiful boy has albinism. How sad is that? I get relief from my son having a “problem” because it cures my need to justify myself.

My thoughts once having been “Everyone is judging me” have turned into the cold hard fact that “I am judging myself and trying to redeem myself”.

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. Romans 3:23-24

“Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.” Romans 5:18

There’s truth right there. None of Satan’s lies. I don’t need to justify myself, HE already has. I don’t need to prove myself, HE is my only way out of here. I don’t need to feel condemned, HE is my salvation. I am not a child who is always being punished, I am a child dearly loved by Christ.

Lord Jesus, you are my father. I do not want to play the victim. I do not want to or need to earn my salvation. Thank you for saving me, thank you for your grace. Please help me to find rest in the fact that I don’t need people’s approval. You are all I need. Amen

Why am I blogging?

I suppose I better write about why I am doing a blog. It seems to be customary and I'm trying to be a good girl and follow the rules (perhaps shortly I will write a rule book on blogging) anyhow - onto my reasoning.

It's not that I think that my life is particularly interesting (I suppose it is to me) and it's not like I'm particularly good at a whole lot of things (I have my unique share of talents and then I have my un-talents). I guess what I'm saying is, I won't be blogging about my awesomeness - so you all won't be overwhelmed by my know-it all abilities or how awesome and amazing my children are (they are, but I'm not going to tell you that).

I'm blogging to share my life and my thoughts. The life aspect of it for me is maybe a way for me to keep a pretty picture in my head of the fun things that are going on in my life. It's a way for me to reflect on good things that have happened when life gets rough. It's easier for me to reflect when things are pretty - and journal writing is not pretty (have you seen my handwriting?).

As for the thoughts aspect: I think really I just feel like life is so busy sometimes that I can't get all of my thoughts out there - like they are swimming around in my head but I find no real direction for them. I could of course journal these too, but again there is the handwriting issue, and the fact that I've laid my thoughts out but I don't have anyone to respond to them, or give them insight, or share experience with. Sometimes it's easier to blog about it and then have someone say "Hey, I was there" or "I was thinking this...". It's nice to relate to people and to not feel alone.

With friends that are grown up, moved away, making babies, and me doing the same I don't always have time to talk to everyone that I love and cherish so much. So I am going to blog a bit and share things I find encouraging, discouraging, insightful & curious and the like and then I'm hoping to get input from all my amazing friends.

By the way - I think blog is a strange word. It's kind of like "blob" so it's hard for me to type it (side bar on y part, sorry). Also, for those who don't know me well and are reading my blog: I'm a bit sarcastic and silly - you will learn that more as I continue this adventure!

Why is his hair blonde?

Orion and I have had quite a few visits to the Opthomologist recently because of a horizontal twitching in his eyes. That horizontal twitching was to me a sign that he was just curious and active, but to the doctors it was something else. Today Orion and I went to Kirkland to see "the best pediatric opthomologist around" and that was true to form - he was wonderful.

Diagnosis: My baby boy has Congenital Nystigmus.Congenital Nystigmus is: "Slow and fast movements from side to side that have been present since birth". What does that mean for our sweet boy? It means that he will likely need to wear glasses as he gets older because his vision won't be as strong as other peoples. He does have the ability to stop his eyes from twitching when he looks to the right (that is called his null point). Other than that he will live a healthy and very normal life. But now for the more interesting question: Why does he have nystigmus?

Nystigmus can happen for all sorts of reasons but for Orion he has Nystigmus because he has albinism. In other terms - my son is Albino. Wow! Never expected that did you? Yup, baby O has blonde hair because he has albinism - an inherited and recessive gene that both the mother and father need to have in order to have a child with albinism. 1 in 17,000 people have albinism. Now, what does that mean for my baby boy? Well again, he will live a perfectly healthy life and that is great news to this momma. He will have to wear glasses eventually (their are holes in the pigmentation of his eyes), and he will need to keep his skin protected (no tans for my boy), and he will have beautiful, wonderful (and explainable) blonde hair.

Will and I are handling everything well (they kind of gave us some warnings as to what it could be last week). If you'd like to read more about Albinism you can go to http://www.albinism.org/ and they have some great info on the site. Please keep us in your prayers as we discover more about our baby O.