Louisa is one month old!

2/21/14 -- one month old!

Louisa Joy is a month old and we have survived being at home for a week and a half!  We had our first appointment back at Mott this week to see the Nurse Practitioner in charge of the inter-stage monitoring program (where they keep track of her daily O2 sats, weight, and meds/feedings until her stage 2 surgery).  She said everything looks great so far!  Praise the Lord, still a miracle everyday.

I have been thinking and praying about the Lord's strength for each day when I feel weak...

Encouragements:

Verse 3 of Great Is Thy Faithfulness --

         Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth,

         Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide;

         Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,

         Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside.

     

My dear Aunt Judy reminded me of Gideon this morning --

"We first meet Gideon in Judges 6, hiding in the winepress as he is threshing wheat, because of his fear of the Midianites. The Lord appears to Gideon and calls him a mighty man of valor. Gideon doesn't feel real mighty and even questions what the Lord has been up to and why He has forsaken them. The Lord tells Gideon that He will use him to fight the Midianites and that Gideon should go in this might of his and that the Lord sends him. Gideon tells the Lord that he is the weakest in his father's house and the Lord reminds him that He goes with him! Later in Chapter 6, verse 34, it says that the Spirit clothed Gideon. I love that! Even in Gideon's weakness, he is clothed by the Spirit to do what he is called by the Lord to do. In the verses following, 6: 36-40, Gideon continues to ask the Lord for reassurance that the Lord is with him and plans to use him and each time the Lord patiently gives Gideon the signs he needs to go forward. In chapter 7, we see Gideon going forward, specifically led by the Lord, clothed by the Spirit. Gideon was weak, but the Lord was strong!"

And of course some Spurgeon that I have reread 10 times in the past week --

His bow remained unmoved; his arms were made agile by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob.        Genesis 49:24

"The strength that God gives to His Josephs is real strength; it is not a boasted valor; a fiction, a thing of which men talk but which ends in smoke; it is true -- divine strength.  Why does Joseph stand against temptation?  Because God enables him.  There is nothing that we can do without the power of God.  All true strength comes from "the Mighty One of Jacob."  Notice in what a blessedly familiar way God gives this strength to Joseph -- "His arms were made agile by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob."  God is represented as putting His hands on Joseph's hands, placing His arms on Joseph's arms.  Just as a father teaches his children, so the Lord teaches them that fear Him.  He puts His arms upon them.  Marvelous condescension!  God Almighty, Eternal, Omnipotent, stoops from His throne and lays His hand upon the child's hand, stretching His arm upon the arm of Joseph, that he may be made strong!  This strength was also covenant strength, for it is ascribed to "the Mighty One of Jacob."  Now, wherever you read of the God of Jacob in the Bible, you should remember the covenant with Jacob.  Christians love to think of God's covenant.  All the power, all the grace, all the blessings, all the mercies, all the comforts, all the things we have flow to us from the fountainhead, through the covenant.  If there were no covenant, then we should fail indeed; for all grace proceeds from it, as light and heat from the sun.  No angels ascend or descend except by the ladder that Jacob saw, at the top of which stood a covenant God.  Christian, it may be that the archers have sorely grieved you and shot at you and wounded you, but still your bow remains unmoved.  Be sure, then, to ascribe all the glory to Jacob's God."