Pregnancy, Exhaustion and Hunger, Oh My!

I am so tired, boy oh boy, there is nothing like pregnancy to let you know that you are a finite human who is bound by the need for sleep =)
Of course, today is the day I was planning on getting lots of work done, so yesterday I took it slow. Lesson learned: when you are feeling good, get the work done so that when you are exhausted and suffering from a headache you can rest.
Don't put off 'till tomorrow what you can do today.
But, by the same token, acknowledge that there are some seasons more restrictive then others and learn to work with them. As my darling reminded me last night, just being pregnant is work in itself. Caring for our growing baby and doing my part to protect his life by not overdoing it and risking miscarriage is important.
So, I will clean out the fridge tomorrow, for those of you who wanted to know =)

I have been thinking a lot about pregnancy and the importance of seeing it through biblical worldview glasses, if you will. Carrying a child is not a picnic to say the least. The adventure includes, though is not limited to: dealing with boughts of all day long nausea (forget "morning" sickness) for the first three months, finding that your bladder seems to be shrinking as you run to the bathroom for the third time this hour or getting up at 2 am for a bathroom break; you start wondering how your stomach became a bottomless pit that demands to be filled even when the very thought of food makes you sick; You may find yourself running from the kitchen, thinking that if you smell, let alone see food, you just might keel over and die, you can sleep for 12 hours straight and by 2 pm feel like you haven't slept in a week, and to top it all off your lower abdomen is sore from muscles being stretched as your uterus grows. Yep, the Lord wasn't kidding when He told Eve that in "sorrow thou shalt bring forth children". It can be easy to have a weak moment and cry about not wanting to feel this way for the next 20 years of your life.

We all need to take encouragement, the Creator and Sustainer of life sees a much bigger picture:

"And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God. . . blessed shall be the fruit of thy body. . . and the Lord shall make thee plenteous in goods, in the fruit of thy body. . . " Deut. 28 :1, 4 & 11

"So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning. . . he also had seven sons and three daughters" Job 42:12-13

"Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is His reward" Psalm 127:3

"The wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house. . . "Psalm 128:3

"And did He not make make one? Yet had He the residue to the spirit. And wherefore one? That He might seek a godly seed. There for take heed to your spirit and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth." Mal. 2:15

"That they may teach the younger women to . . . love their* children" Titus 2:4


Scripture teaches that children are a blessing, that they are to be raised to the glory of God and that God will never give us beyond what we can bear. So when pregnancy wears on my body I try to remember the blessing of this little life that God has intrusted to us, to realize the priviledge of having a child knit together in my womb- a priviledge that men don't have and the barren don't have-one that shouldn't be taken for granted.

*in the greek "their" is not in the text, it is literally to "love children"

Birthday and Baby

Today is my Darling's 22nd birthday!!! I made him breakfast in bed, a tradition I brought with me from the Hoffman family (my folks!). We had fun taking the morning slow and spending time together. Yesterday we had gone hunting with two of his brothers, Isaac and Phillip. The boys got up sometime between 4-5 am, I personally waited until the last minute and then jumped out of bed, ate and dressed. We were out there and in position by, I forget, 6:30 or so? Jon and Isaac both got deer; Jon got a 5 point buck and Isaac got an 8 point buck.

Since we didn't get home and in bed until 11pm we slept in today =)

Also, today marks the 12th week of pregnancy!!!

Jon and I have a little one due in June. The baby weighs approximately 1/2 oz and is the size of a large plum (about 2 1/2 inches!) Almost all of his systems are formed and just need time to mature. He already has teeth buds in his gums, a heartbeat, sexual organs, bones, cartilage, white blood cells, muscle, hair and finger nails! According to a site I was looking at, the baby can already move around: doing stretches, somersaults, and forward flips.

". . . Thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise Thee for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are Thy works, that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from Thee when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in Thy book all my members were written, in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there were none of them.

How precious are Thy thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them." Psalm 139:13-17

Picture credit:

First Post of the New Year! (I know, kind of sad) :-)

Hello All! I am so sorry for neglecting to update my blog! Believe it or not, I have neither forgotten nor abandoned it, but other things have taken priority! :-)

By way of personal update I am happily home again with my family after spending 32 days (Dec. 27-Jan. 28) helping some dear friends, the Phero family. I thought about trying to do a post to sum up my time in Pennsylvania, but decided I really couldn’t do any justice to the people and events! As a very quick recap, I had a wonderful time! I really enjoyed being able to work alongside Sarah, talking with her and learning from her; Sarah, you are such an amazing example and I am so thankful for the way you made me a part of your family while I was with you! Sarah and her husband made a point of making sure that I was able to get some good, encouraging fellowship during my stay and I am so grateful! There are two families I really came to love and hold dear: the Einwechters and the Martins. I think the best way to describe my time with these precious families is: contagious laughter; sober discussions; studying the word; randomness; snowball fights (the epic snow battle, fighting for our rights!); and a bunch of “long time no see”! Karen and Abigail, Carmen and Candace, you all hold a special place in my heart! Bet you didn’t know I have five sisters! :-D

The Einwechters and Martins opened their homes and hearts to me and became my “family away from family”, thank you all so much and may the Lord bless you in a special way!

My flight home was pretty good, I flew out of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and went from there to Philadelphia, about a 25 minute flight and from there home, which was about 3 hours. I missed my family so much and I am so grateful to the Lord for safely reuniting us! Dad and Mom, Joseph; Samuel; Noah; Timothy; Benjamin; David and Victoria, you all deserve a word of praise, I never would have been able to serve the Phero’s if you had not shouldered my responsibilities while I was gone, I know it was a sacrifice on everyone’s part and I thank you for your love, support and service!
A special word of thanks to my adopted Christian Grandmother, Mrs. Linda Fordyce; your prayers, love and support carried me through some interesting times, thank you! :-)

Not long after I got home and started trying to get back into the swing of things we received a call from some friends in Illinios, the Smiths, whose mother/grandmother had just been treated for cancer in Texas. The elder Mrs. Smith lives about 45 minutes north of us and was in need of someone to come and stay with her for about six days while she got readjusted at home. So, that is where I am currently, I go home tomorrow for the weekend. If she needs me again, she’ll call, otherwise I get to stay home :-)

So, things are busy, in the midst of this we are gearing up for the busy-ness of Spring. Joseph trying to get his own business up and going, he is selling naturally raised beef and possibly chicken. So he is busy developing contacts for that. I am getting ready for the milking season to start up. Samuel has egg laying chickens and he is trying so hard to get an egg business up and going, unfortunately predators have done a number on his hens, I believe they’ve killed over 20! Poor Samuel! He, Joseph and Dad and trying to track the varmints down and ‘remove’ them. We’ve found several cats, some we got in live traps and took elsewhere and then I think we’ve shot two. Last year we had barn owls taking the chickens out. Owls are protected by law (wish the chickens were too!) so all we could really do was trying to owl proof the chickens’ home, thankfully we haven’t had any problems with them this year. Unfortunately, we have had some problems with coyotes. They try to get the chickens, they good news is that we built the MCCU’s (Mobile Chicken Containment Unit) securely, the unpleasant part is coming out the next morning and finding a chicken running around missing a wing, or scratched and bloody inside the MCCU. I won’t go into details, but you can learn quite a bit about chicken anatomy that way! Actually, the dogs were worse. We haven’t had any problems this year but last year they got I think 3 or 4 of the chickens. Do you have any idea what it’s like to try and convince your dog to give you a chewed chicken? Unfortunately, dogs don’t reason, so you have to get your hands in there and open the dog’s jaw and pull out the chickens. The cool part is when you can identify the various organs, the nasty part is that there are visible organs to identify!

We are also trying to prepare for a family garden, we’ve never really had good success with gardening, but we are determined to master it at some point! We aren’t licked yet! It looks like the plan is going to be to give each person a portion of the garden for their own, to plant as we please and to be responsible to care for. We kids are pretty excited and trying to figure out what we are going to plant. My grandfather Hoffman passed away Thanksgiving 2007, one of his favorite things while he was living was gardening. He had come down and helped us start our gardens many times. When we were stationed in Norfolk, Virginia he brought up potted tomato plants since we were renting and couldn’t tear up our landlord’s lawn J As we prepare for the garden this year there is an underlying sadness, we really miss him :-(

I am also hoping to get some sewing projects done, I want to make a few dresses for the Spring/summer and I really want to start on a quilt, Sarah, Karen and Abigail have inspired me! It’s something I’ve wanted to do for four years now, but after actually seeing some homemade quilts I decided to get a little more serious about it!

Well, by the grace of God this former suburban, military family is really having fun living on 38 acres and learning to be a little more self-sufficient.

I have contemplated adding pictures to my blog, to give some visuals. It would be anything amazing as I am not camera savvy in any way, unlike some good friends of mine, but it would be fun just the same. Unfortunately, I am not sure how I would do that just yet. We have s-l-o-w internet access, it takes about six minutes to upload a single photo L So, unless I can figure something out, it might not work. We’ll see.
That’s it for now.
His servant,
Monique Hoffman

Some Frequent Concerns

*Note: I received a comment from Mrs. Milton for the post “True Power for Women”. Because many of the concerns she brought up are ones that frequently come up in relation to family integration and/or daughters at home I wanted to post her comment and my answer. I tried to ensure that I answered her concerns with the respect due an older woman (1 Timothy 5:1-2) and the love due a fellow sister in Christ.
I have taken it apart and answered it point by point. (The original comment is in black, mine in purple)

Enjoyed the post for it's call for women to remain firm in the roles set forth by the Lord, but I do have to take issue with a couple of things. One is that the family is the foundation of society. It is God who raises up and maintains societies for His purposes. We are to be obedient to His Word to bring glory to Him but God has determined the direction society will take to fulfill prophecies.

To the best of my knowledge God, in scripture, never establishes Himself as the ‘foundation’ of society as He does the church (1 Cor. 3:10-11). He establishes rulers (Rom. 13:1-4) and calls leaders to account (Ps. 2:10-12) but He never claims to be society’s foundation. By the same token I am not aware of any passage of scripture where God explicitly calls the family the ‘foundation of society’. This is rather an extra-biblical assumption based on history and logical deduction. For example, as American’s we look back over our relatively short history and see that at the beginning of our foundation we had strong families, a strong church and a strong government (not in the sense of a powerful government, but one where politicians at least were willing to take responsibility). We were a culture that understood that freedom is derived from God, that understood that the government was accountable to a ‘higher power’; where men and women understood and were dedicated to their roles as fathers/husbands and mothers/wives. We then watch as over history the family was attacked through feminism (which did not start in the 70’s and 80’s); Marxism; public, government funded education (which is by the way an unconstitutional institution) and we see the decline in the church, and the government as the next generation arises under the training of Darwin, Spock, Stanton, and others. As the say, the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. Men such as Hitler and Lenin understood that in order to build that order they sought (whether it be Nazism or Socialism) they had to train the next generation from a young age.
Destroy the family, you destroy the country. -- Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

We must be careful not to assume that just because we maintain a right standing before the Lord that our society will remain untouched.

Neither Miss.Brodock or myself ever made this comment. However, I would remind you of passages such a Deut. 28 and the entire book of Proverbs where God says that He will bless obedience and curse disobedience, notice He does not make salvation a prerequisite for these blessings.

We live in a very important time in history where we have the joy of demonstrating to the world Christ's work in our lives. God's word calls us to live a quiet life of honor toward the Lord which speaks volumes in our society. We must always keep in mind that this life is not about our comfort, rights and privileges; but taking up our cross and following the One who paid our debt. It's not us against them, our fellow sinners. We are just privileged to have been chosen and must be about in all humility urging others to follow the way of the King of Kings and praying that He will open their eyes.

agreed, but I don’t understand your point, it was never said that we should do otherwise.

Yes, the family is very important as it is one of the institutions the Lord has used to demonstrated how authority and submission in the Godhead works, but should not be elevated as the foundation of society. Christ alone has that honor.

Nowhere in scripture has Christ given Himself this ‘honor’. See first point.

We should not be offended nor surprised that our society does not recognize the importance of the Christian woman's role, but excited when we see a glimmer that they do.

Speaking for myself, I am not offended nor surprised that neither society nor the majority of Christians for that matter, do not recognize the importance of woman’s God-given role (Gen 2:18-24, Titus 2:4-5). The purpose of my blog is to encourage young ladies who are going against the grain and seeking to be obedient to this calling.

This nation has never been "Christian" as many in the believing community purport. We are just fortunate that God, in His mercy, has allowed us the freedom to worship Him without physical persecution over the 200+ years. Yes, many came here to have that freedom, but our government has never been truly Christian; moral, yes, but not God fearing.

I don’t recall ever commenting on this blog that our nation was Christian, though I may have made the comment verbally. Perhaps this needs some explaining, this nation has never been Christian in that there was never at one point all citizens born-again believers. Even Israel can’t claim that! However, the people I know who make comments like this or similar are referring to the incredible influence of Christianity on this nation, her laws and her founding people. For instance, even men like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, who were not saved, made comments such as “I tremble for my country when I think that God is just” and requesting prayers and fasting for God’s intervention on behalf of America. So, it is true that America was never a nation where all people were born again believers, but there was a time when the majority were under the influence of the word of God.
All this to be said, I don’t see the purpose of this comment since there was no mention of America being Christian in this post.

I know this was a lengthy response, but I see many young ladies making some assumptions which go outside of Biblical teaching, and thus am genuinely concerned about the increase in legalism within the Christian community.

In this comment the word, ‘legalism’ is taken way out of context. Having been accused of this often our family has taken some time to research it. The basic definition of legalism is, “adding work based requirements to salvation.” I have never stated that a woman must be a keeper at home or else she won’t be saved. There is nothing legalistic about evaluating woman’s role in light of scripture and in contrast to our society.

Always remember that there is a distinct difference between the specific do's and don'ts of scripture and the preferences which we choose to set up in our personal lives to assist us in remaining holy before the Lord. These are not the same for everyone. It's really OK that the society in which we live does not embrace our choices. We need to make sure that we are not trying to impose our choices on others(this includes other believers as well). Then it becomes sin for us rather than the holiness which we desire. We must stop looking around us and strictly look up, otherwise we compare ourselves to others and elevate parts of our lives to a level where it was never intended to be... we begin to judge in ways we were never instructed to do.

Our lives must be evaluated in light of scripture rather than compared to society, I agree. By the same token it is important to hermeneutically evaluate the cultural shifts in America and it’s effects on us today. We need to know what God says and how I am to live and to also understand that our society has by and large rejected biblical truth. While we are not called to pass self righteous judgments we are called to discern.

Believe it or not, I am simply trying to encourage young ladies to make sure they are living according to the Word of God and not according to personal preference which leads to unrighteous judging of others and a critical spirit as time goes. We become like the ones who we say judge us for the choices we have made personally to serve our Lord in holiness. (Titus 2:3-5, I Corinthians 10:23-33, Romans 14: 1-15:13, 1 Corinthians 8:1-13, 11:1)

I believe you :) , but I think you missed the point entirely.

Thinking Biblically on these issues:1. Remember we are not the one who accepts our brothers in Christ, Christ is. (Rom 15:7)

How have we rejected our brothers? I still have fellowship with sisters who work outside the home, girls in college, etc. We still pray together and love each other. How is that a rejection? Where in Miss. Brodock’s post was there any inference to rejecting our Christian family over this issue?
I think you have misjudged us.

2. Remember we are not their Lord, Christ is. (Rom 14:4-9)
3. Remember you will not be their judge, Christ will. (Is 45:23, Romans 14:10)
Agreed.

We are to confront sin and error not the morality of the issues of conscience. We must not take pride in our convictions. We must leave room to grow to see God's Word is sufficient.
not Moses.

What about the verses like Titus 2:4-5 where God says that young women need to learn certain qualities so that the word of God is not blasphemed? That is not an issue of the conscience, that is truth, it is sufficient and it is serious!

I think you misread the post entirely. The post asked “why the inconsistencies? Why am I praised if I am out in the world and condemned if I am at home?” and then answers those very questions, “because our culture has lost sight of something it once treasured, Motherhood in the home. We once understood that a mother’s influence in her children’s lives was invaluable. Right now we’re too busy worrying if she got the right raise, how soon she can return to work after the birth of her baby, if her husband is contributing 50/50 rather than leading in love and on it goes. Our culture is decaying and becoming horrific just looking at the news reports will prove it. Yet another mother has murdered her own child-outside of the womb, a young college woman murders her roommate, children are failing in school, marriages are falling apart, young girls committing suicide and we could go on.
To be very honest, if I had to choose something to point out in this post it would have been this, the example of Moses it a very weak one. His mother nursed him for somewhere around two years and then he was raised in the pagan house of Pharaoh. Moses is, if anything, a good example of God’s divine intervention to prepare a leader for His people despite the child’s surrounding. I would have put someone else up there like maybe Benjamin West, who said, “It was my mother’s kiss that made me a painter” ie her love and support. Or Abe Lincoln or George Washington, or John Quincy Adams, but not Moses.

Been Awhile. . .

Hello Everyone,
Sorry it's been so long. I've started work on another post, but our family is in the midst of a difficult trial right now so it's going to be a bit :}
However, as a heads up, I am going to take the next couple posts to talk about being daughters in our fathers' homes. I am going to address the service oppurtunities and the importance of preparing for the future role of wife and mother. It should be lots of fun!
Well, until next time.

New Jersey!

The Lord has graciously seen fit to allow me the privilege of visiting some very dear friends of mine who live in New Jersey, so I am currently away from my precious family and the wonderful Mid-West. I do miss my family dearly, but I am enjoying my time here. My friend Sarah and I have had our good, solid, encouraging Bible based discussions, thoroughly enjoying each others company and edifying each other in the word. My friend Rebekah and I had done the usual stay up 'til 1 am being giggly and talking about everything and nothing. We've also had opportunity to comfort each other during two difficulties that have come up in the last five days that I have been here. Wednesday I am leaving the Fullers to visit another friend of mine* that I haven't seen in three years-I can't wait!!!! I have enjoyed my time with the Fullers, prizing every moment.
however, as precious as this time has been, I can't wait to see my family again. I have had the time of my life sharing with the Fullers how much my family has changed, telling them how blessed I am by each individual family member and having fun trying to describe the individual characters of each of my wondrous siblings and my parents. At another time I'll have to share with your some of our conversations, but for now I have a headache and need to get off.
'Till next time :D


*Name withheld in respect to the young lady's wishes