First, some fun things I forgot to mention yesterday:

• Alex and Erin are definitely interacting with each other now.  Alex will flail on his tummy, which makes Erin laugh.  And not the pity laughs she gives us.  Nope, belly laughs.  And when he realizes she’s looking at him, he does it more so she’ll keep laughing.  He’s such a social little guy, it’s amazing.  
• Both babies pushed up into crawling positions at the end of last week.  Alex even rocked back and forth in that form before his legs slid back out from underneath him.  We are seriously thisclose to movement.  Yikes!
• I think they’ve both figured out how to turn their crib sound machines on and off.  Mostly on purpose.
• We won a prize in the drawing at the picnic on Sunday night.  An autographed puck from the Columbus Blue Jackets!  Too bad we don’t like hockey or follow the Jackets at all.  But it was still fun to win something.  AND we didn’t win the gift card to Golden Corral, so that’s good, too!

Yesterday was pretty good for me.  For a couple of reasons.

1.  I got a few things done.  The babies took good naps and went to bed MUCH more easily than in recent days.  We ran some errands in the afternoon.  Dinner fell into place easily. Eric came with us to the grocery store in the evening.  All in all…very nice.

2.  More importantly, I focused on someone other than myself for the day.  And spent a lot of time in prayer.  It did me a world of good. 

See, in the morning, I clicked into this blog to read about Baby Stellan’s heart issues.  He’s just a bit older than my twins.  And yesterday, he was in VERY bad shape.  And my heart broke for his momma.  So I joined the prayer war on his behalf.

For the first half of the day, I mostly just cried (literally) out to God to save this little boy’s life.  But gradually, I began to realize that I had to pray not just for what I wanted, but also for God’s will to be done.  No matter what it was.  And suddenly my prayers began to change.  They got…bigger, for lack of a better word.  Prayers for his family and, of course, still for his healing.  But also prayers for God’s glory and for strength for them all if God’s healing came in the form of Stellan’s passing.

And then my babies woke up from their naps.  And suddenly I was holding a little man, just about Stellan’s age, who is healthy and happy.  And my heart just about burst with love for him and with gratitude that I am not the momma in that hospital room today.  We prayed together, my little guy and me, for this family we do not know.  But because of them, God helped me to live yesterday more fully than I’ve done in a while.  No more slogging.  Just lots of praying (for someone other than myself for once), lots of thanking God for babies, and lots of letting God fill my day with his presence. 

It was lovely.  Refreshing.  Eye-opening.  It made me think a lot about prayer and how I pray.  It made me grateful that He is a God who hears and answers our prayers.  It made me wonder why I don’t spend more time really interceding for people like that.  It made me forget about slogging through and helped me really “remain in him”…and I saw fruit, even much fruit – just like he promised.  

So, all in all, it was a good day.  And gave me a much better perspective from which to approach today.  So on that note…Happy Tuesday!