Happy New Year!

2008 is drawing to an end in about 20 minutes. What an awesome year! At a time when so many are ripping the calendar off the wall and wishing the past 12 months good riddance, I can look back and rejoice - knowing that my steps were ordered. Halleluyah.

We started this year with a baby that was just turning 12 months old, wobbling around learning all sorts of new things. We're ending the year with a vibrant, healthy, exuberant and expressive toddler about to turn 2 (and me 9 months pregnant). Praise Yah!

We started with a dream of maybe doing some photography. We're ending with a fully supplied studio and a year's worth of new knowledge/experience under our belt.

We started the year with a rocky marriage and turbulence that seemed to get worse as the year progressed. We're ending it in perfect peace and restoration. Amen.

We started the year in foreclosure. We're ending the year still in our home, having caught up on payments and making plans to pay the house off in its entirety.

There is none like Yah. I praise Him tonight and give thanks for 2008. I look forward to the next 365 days, knowing that He has already gone before me to make the crooked places straight. I look forward to the relationships He will bring into my life, the experiences that will change me, the opportunities that will stretch me and His Holy Spirit that will draw me closer.

I praise Yah that there will be no death in 2009. There will be no sickness, no disease - only life, and life more abundant. I cover 2009 in the blood of Yeshua right from the start and declare it holy. Shalom, Shalem. Glory to glory. Our best year yet, by far. Thank you, Abba. Let's do this.

Merry Christmas!

This year we had a wonderful Christmas. The tradition is to visit my dad's in Long Island - but we don't attempt that trip when I'm this prego (the same thing happened with Joshua). Instead, on Christmas Eve we traveled to south Jersey to Pierre's cousin's home about 45 minutes away. We got invited like the day before and I truly didn't want to go at all, but since we go to my dad's every year, how could I say no to going to his family? They told us the party was going to start at 9pm. Ouch. I was actually hoping Pierre would get too tired and change his mind. It didn't happen. What did happen though, in pure Laguerre fashion, was that we got there around midnight.

It turned out to be really nice. Most of his family was there - his sister came out from Brooklyn, his grandma and aunts with their husbands and children, more of his cousins, etc. The food was great (yea, we ate that late). I baked chocolate chip cookies to bring and they were a hit. They even had some gifts for Joshua under the tree. It was nice talking with everyone and Pierre had a good time reconnecting with his family. We got home around 3:30am - all in all, not so bad.

The next morning we all slept in and got up around 10am for breakfast. We opened our gifts, took some pictures/video and relaxed some more. Joshua played with his new toys (little piano, video game, truck, coloring book/crayons, glow sticks). Pierre was really surprised to find two CDs he'd been wanting in his stocking (I got Rachael to buy them for me online and I gave her the money). I also got him a beautiful red tie and this really nice pair of Italian leather casual shoes which look hott on him. He loves them. The dude only had sneakers and dress shoes before. He is giving me a certain budget for some more studio equipment (yay!) and as a "labor gift" I'm getting Wii + Wii Fit in the New Year. He also wrapped some things for me so I would have stuff to open on Christmas day (perfumes, toiletries and the second Narnia movie).

The three of us hung out at home all day until the evening when we moved the table in the breakfast nook into the kitchen, put out a blow up bed in that area and projected a movie unto the wall in the dining room (The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian - good movie). Joshua asked for bed at precisely 8pm, then Pierre and I finished the movie, watched some youtube and jibjab, followed by a preaching by Bishop Garlington before going to sleep.

Today the boys are at church fixing computer things while I have the house to myself so I can clean up some more. I'm in major nesting mode for this baby - so excited. I have a couple more photoshoots to do before the end of the year and am looking forward to really going full force with photography in '09. Yay! Life is beautiful. Thank you, Yah.

Soooo itchin'

I'm so super excited to take newborn photographs. I find it a bit odd that I'm about to have a daughter in roughly 3 weeks and the excitement comes from taking her portraits. I'm imagining the different angles I will capture in the birthing center where there will be tons of gorgeous natural sunlight streaming through the windows. I'm mentally composing the shots of her and Joshua both on location and in studio. Could this mean photography has become "passion" of mine?

When I started 2008 I was simply following a leading in my spirit to take photos. Everything was supernaturally supplied, from the camera to the studio equipment, and off I went. Although I've always loved taking snapshots everywhere I went, I totally got into professional photography just to enhance my graphic design skills. Now I really can say I love the technicality of it all - to the point that I was rolling around on the floor yesterday (at 37 weeks prego) to get a picture of my snow globe in front of the Christmas tree. I'm totally hooked. I guess I write this as a warning to my children - say cheese!

Coming out of the dark

I feel like I’m dying spiritually. Then it’s like, “duh”. I hardly read the word except for in church. I rarely pray except for on the corporate prayer calls in the morning. It’s not rocket science. It’s just a simple choice. Do I want to live? Yes. I want to live. I want to live a victorious Christian life. I want to impact generations starting with my own household. I just don’t seem to have the resolve to do it. It’s the same old story of self resistance.

Why do I write this faithless blog entry? I write it because it's truth - no, fact - at the moment. Facts change. The truth is I am an overcomer, even of my own mental blocks and spiritual dry places. I am an overcomer of boredom, idleness, and downright laziness.

Resistance is the enemy that has prevailed in my life time and time again. For some reason, I never see it coming, yet it's so predictable. Every time I get a "breakthrough" of sorts, an inspiration, a motivational spurt...here comes Resistance. It disguises itself in different forms and defeats me every time. It's gotta stop.

We read this passage at church last night and the last verse jumped off the page. Hope!

2 Peter 1:3-8 (Scriptures version)

3. as His Mighty-like power has given to us all we need for life and reverence, through the knowledge of Him who called us to esteem and uprightness.
4. Through these there have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, so that through these you might be partakers of the Mighty-like nature, having escaped from the corruption in the world, caused by lust.
5. And for this reason do your utmost to add to your belief uprightness, to uprightness knowledge,
6. to knowledge self-control, to self-control endurance, to endurance reverence,
7. to reverence brotherly affection, and to brotherly affection love.
8. For if these are in you and increase, they cause you to be neither inactive nor without fruit in the knowledge of our Master Yahweh Messiah.

Belief -> Uprightness -> Knowledge -> Self-Control -> Endurance -> Reverence -> Brotherly Affection -> Love.

Those are awesome words. BUKScERAL. Ok, acronyms don't work for everything. lol. I'm promised if these things increase in me, I will not be unfruitful or inactive. Cool. Resistance is overcome this year. In Yeshua's name.

Yah's word through me on the prayer call this morning

“Fear not for I am with you. Be not dismayed for I am your Yah. I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with the right hand of my righteousness. With long life I will satisfy you and show you my salvation. No weapon formed against you prospers. Every tongue that rises up against you in judgment shall be condemned – every tongue that calls itself your enemy, every tongue that calls itself your friend, every tongue in the natural and every tongue in the spirit. You are not what the enemy is after. He is after my life in you. So rebuke this day an idle mind, a bored spirit and a procrastinating soul. An idle mind does not actively cast down vain imaginations that exalt themselves against me. Receive instead my mind – one that is full of my Word and the knowledge that all things are possible because you believe. Rebuke this day a bored spirit. A bored spirit is not connected to My Spirit because I am constantly communicating with you. If you are bored, you are not hearing My voice. Receive instead My Spirit that shows you limitless opportunities. Rebuke this day a procrastinating soul. A procrastinating soul is filled with dread of the work that needs to be done. It is filled with fear. Receive a sound mind, sound will and sound emotions. Receive true Shabbat, a true rest because you know you have done all that needs to be done.” In Yeshua’s name, Amen.

Crazy thoughts

I think a lot of crazy thoughts. As I was putting my son to bed tonight, I thought, "If something were to happen to me right now, he wouldn't even remember me." That's a crazy thought. What I realize, though, is that it's not my thought. Not every thought that pops into my head is my thought - especially thoughts of my own premature death. That's how the enemy snags so many people. He and his little partners in crime whisper ideas around us that we pick up in the spirit and he has us believe they are our thoughts. Worse yet, he has us meditate on them and eventually speak them out - giving them power. That's why I praise Yah tonight for the knowledge He has given me of casting down every vain imagination that tries to exalt itself against Him. Ha! The devil is a liyah, liyah. I won't believe a word that comes out of his mouth - not for a moment. Not ever. Yahweh will satisfy me with long life and show me His salvation. All curses over my bloodline are broken. Now THAT'S something to think on! Woohoo!

Nothing seems normal

Living a life according to the kingdom of Yah is completely upside-down, backwards and utterly insane as compared to living a "normal" human existence. Sometimes I wish for just a moment I could be normal - like, white picket fence soccer mom normal. Oh well. Not my lot in life. Being peculiar is exhausting. Just my thoughts. Don't mind me, I'm pregnant.