Happy Birthday, Princess

‘Tis So Sweet To Trust In Jesus

By Risa Richardson

It’s a sign of these economic times, I know, but I had my first job interview in almost two years last week.

It was a part-time job, but one I thought would help me merge back into the workforce flow and wean myself and my daughter off of my stay-at-home-mom stint.

I found out today that I didn’t get the job.

But I’m okay.

You see, two years of being unemployed has taught me some lessons about life and about God. I now know that God’s clock is not in sync with mine. He works things out days, weeks, even years after I expect or beg him to, but never a second too late.

So people have been asking me for years what my plan is for getting back to work. My new response: I’m trusting God.

You see, I’ve got this “trusting God” thing down to a science. Let me share my five-part process.

Step One: Pray.
Step Two: Listen for an answer.
Step Three: Pray again.
Step Three: Make sure you’re not ignoring the answer.
Step Four: Sit back and relax.
Step Five: Repeat the first four steps.

So far, that has worked for me.

Prayer is the key. I know God answers prayers. The way I see it, getting laid off was an answer to my prayers. Of course, it wasn’t the answer I was expecting, but it was the answer God gave.

You see, for months after Michaela was born, I would weep whenever I had to leave her with her sitters. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her caregivers — they were the awesome. Her Aunt Jenny, who Michaela fondly calls “GiGi”, cared for her from the time she was a few days old and spoiled her rotten. One of my neighbors, a former daycare owner we fondly call Auntie, was also a godsend. I remember times when I thought Auntie could read my mind because just as soon as I started missing Michaela, she would send me a picture or a video that would cheer me up and help me make it through the day.

Still, I wanted to be at home with my baby. I would cry and talk to God about it on my way to work every day.

Little did I know, God had a plan. And on March 27, 2009, I was laid off. Don’t get me wrong — I was devastated. I loved my job and the people I worked with.

But after a week of mourning, I realized that God had simply answered my prayers.

And now, I suppose he’s holding me to my request. For two years, I have applied for hundreds of jobs and last week was my first interview.

It’s amazing how God works. I’ll never figure it out. All I can do is trust him.

Meanwhile, I’ll continue to enjoy my time at home with Michaela. She’ll be going to preschool this fall and I’m going to miss our special time together snuggling, cuddling, having tea parties, watching princess movies and getting in and out of bed whenever we please.

‘Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus.

***Risa Richardson is a stay-at-home mother to 2-year-old Michaela and the wife of Evangelist Michael Richardson, who has been a part of Rev. Jim Whittington’s ministry since the age of 9. A resident of Lexington, Kentucky, Risa holds a bachelor’s degree in print journalism from Western Kentucky University and is currently a graduate student studying health communications at the University of Kentucky. She is the author of a weekly blog, “Binkies, Bottles & Blessed Assurance” at BluegrassMoms.com.

She’s Ahhhsome! And So Is He

By Risa Richardson

I knew I was onto something when Michaela went running to Michael yelling, “Daddy, I ahhhhsome!”

“You did what?” he asked, pulling her into his arms after a long day at work.

“I ahhhhsome,” she repeated, and looked at me for confirmation.

“I’ve been telling her she’s awesome every time she uses the potty chair,” I explained.

Once again, my mom and Dr. Phil were right. The biggest motivator for a child is praise. Lots of it. Like, more of it than you realize. Like, when you think you’re doing way too much of it, you’re still not doing enough.

So, all day long, I praise my 2-year-old. Morning, noon and night. No matter how small the accomplishment.

And she loves it. Heck, now she expects it.

I’ve had to increase my praise vocabulary. And hers. I’ve become a praise thesaurus.

You’re magnificent, I say. Or talented. Or courageous. Or lovely.  Or brilliant.

Of course, it took me months to get this vital parenting lesson. But when I think about it, I understand the principle.

God is the same way.

He relishes and longs for our praise. He is moved into action by our worship.

One of my favorite Bible characters is David. I can truly relate to him. His life, from his childhood, was purpose driven. He slayed a giant. He was selected by God to become a king. He led soldiers in the heat of battle. He conquered the hearts of beautiful women.

Yet, he was a sinner. Among other things, he had sex with a married woman and got her pregnant, then had her husband, a soldier, killed so he could marry her.

But the man sure knew how to praise God. The book of Psalms is full of his praises.

A few of my favorites:

Psalms 28:7 — The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in him, and I am helped: therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth; and with my song will I praise him.

Psalms 34:1 — I will bless the LORD at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth.

Psalms 106:1 — Praise ye the LORD. O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.

Just recently, as I was in the midst of potty-training Michaela, I read Psalms 119:64 for the first time and made a praise pact with God.  I promised God that at least seven times a day, I would praise him.

For life. For health. For my family and friends. For sanity.

I don’t praise him in expectation of a blessing.  I praise him because he deserves it. Even if he never blesses me again, I could spend the rest of my life thanking him for what he has already done.

So in the midst of praising my toddler for every little thing she does – or doesn’t do, in some cases – I make a point to praise God.

If he’s anything like Michaela, God loves praise way more than criticism and complaints.

Just yesterday, I was lecturing Michaela for writing on her doll. She was caught red-handed and was a upset that I was upset. I guess I went on for a bit too long and she started squirming.

“Okay, you can go now,” I said.

“Okay mommy,” she said, and turned to run back to her room.

She paused at the doorway.

“Mommy?” she said, a look of concern on her face.

“Yes, baby.”

“I ahhhhsome?” she asked nervously.

“You sure are. You’re terrific!”

With a smile, she went back to her toys.

**Risa Richardson is a stay-at-home mother to 2-year-old Michaela and the wife of Evangelist Michael Richardson, who has been a part of Rev. Jim Whittington’s ministry since the age of 9. A resident of Lexington, Kentucky, Risa holds a bachelor’s degree in print journalism from Western Kentucky University and is currently a graduate student studying health communications at the University of Kentucky. She is the author of a weekly blog, “Binkies, Bottles & Blessed Assurance” at BluegrassMoms.com.

The Kiss of Faith

***Risa Richardson is a stay-at-home mother to 2-year-old Michaela and the wife of Evangelist Michael Richardson, who has been a part of Rev. Jim Whittington’s ministry since the age of 9. A resident of Lexington, Kentucky, Risa holds a bachelor’s degree in print journalism from Western Kentucky University and is currently a graduate student studying health communications at the University of Kentucky. She is the author of a weekly blog, “Binkies, Bottles & Blessed Assurance” at BluegrassMoms.com.

“Playing Church”

By Risa Richardson

I had been waiting for it. I saw little signs here and there, but I still wasn’t quite sure.

Finally, on Sunday, my dream came true.

I was doing some homework when my husband, Michael, quietly got my attention and pointed to my daughter in the corner of my bedroom.

She was standing there singing her version of VaShawn Mitchell’s “Nobody Greater” into one of her crayons, her dolls and stuffed animals all lined up on the pillows from our bed. Later, she grabbed a book and pretended to read from it and pace the floor, yelling at her toys.

My baby was having “church.” My heart soared.

Okay, I thought, we’re doing something right.

You see, “playing church” is something I did with my siblings when we were just kids. There were 11 of us, so we had quite a congregation, even as some of us aged out of membership.

While other kids were playing cowboys and Indians and Nintendo, we were having services on the basement steps of our childhood home in Elizabethtown. As the oldest, I was the lead singer, the head usher and the choir director, of course. My brother, Jeremiah, was the drummer and minister of music. My brother, Jerome, sang and played the organ. Every now and then, we had to have a funeral, because my brother Samuel always wanted to be the funeral director.

We took turns preaching. And we acted out things we saw in church. We sang, shouted and danced Pentecostal style all over the basement, whipped our “kids” for “cutting up in the house of God” and had preaching marathons.

I remember once when we moved services outdoors for the summer and my brother Eulaun was standing on a pile of wood preaching the sermon of his life when he fell and broke his arm.

Good times.

At the time, we were just having fun, mimicking the people we saw at church. We didn’t realize the underlying value of it all.

My parents were preachers. They loved God and taught us to do the same. Church was like a convenience store, open 24/7. We had church all day Sunday, then prayer meeting on Tuesdays, Bible study on Thursday, and Youth Night on Fridays. On the “off nights”, we had to clean the church and attend rehearsals and practices and other meetings.

A year after I graduated from high school (thank God!), the church started a school, so my younger siblings were literally at church all day, every day. Coupled with the fact that my parents didn’t allow us to watch television or go to the movies or spend the night at friends’ houses or go to ball games or school dances, church was all we knew.

My childhood church had some major issues, some things I’ll discuss some other time. But, through it all, we developed a healthy respect for the house of God, the people of God and for God himself.

Even about a year ago, when I vowed never to go to another church, when I lost “church friends” and became angry with “church people” who seemed to be so hypocritical and judgemental and greedy and full of rules and regulations that were meant to keep people bound and unhappy.

Through it all, I still loved God. I still trusted God. I still kept my faith.

And that’s what I hope for my daughter. I don’t want her to be in church all day and  I don’t want her to be raised with rules and issues that cloud her vision of Christ.

But I want her to love God, to have a personal relationship with him. I want her to know people who love God. I want her to learn to worship and respect God.

The Bible tells us in Proverbs 22:6 to “train up a child in the way that he should go.”

As much as Michael and I want to teach Michaela how to tie her shoes, ride a bike, clean her room, play basketball and bake cookies, we want to teach her to love God.

I hear people lament that God has been taken out of the schools and out of public places. People want to see the Ten Commandments hanging for city hall and from their child’s classroom wall.

But many of those same people don’t even have God in their homes. They don’t pray with their children. They don’t teach them the greatest commandment of all, to love one another.

I believe that God is wherever his people are. If I instill the love of God in my child, he will be with her at the schoolhouse, in the college dorm, in the voting both or wherever she may go. God doesn’t live at church, he lives inside his believers.

So while she may be playing church now, one day she will be running the world.

I send her forth with God.

***Risa Richardson is a stay-at-home mother to 2-year-old Michaela and the wife of Evangelist Michael Richardson, who has been a part of Rev. Jim Whittington’s ministry since the age of 9. A resident of Lexington, Kentucky, Risa holds a bachelor’s degree in print journalism from Western Kentucky University and is currently a graduate student studying health communications at the University of Kentucky. She is the author of a weekly blog, “Binkies, Bottles & Blessed Assurance” at BluegrassMoms.com.

Women In Touch Post #3: You Can’t Hurry God!

By Risa Richardson

I like to call Michaela a “DVR baby”.

We got the DVR from our cable provider just before she was born. We got it because I wanted to be able to record some of my favorite shows and watch them in the wee hours of the morning when I couldn’t sleep or when Michaela wouldn’t sleep.

Then, of course, we realized that the DVR also allowed us to put a show on hold, run to the bathroom or the refrigerator or change a diaper, then come back and never miss a minute of the show.

Even in the womb, Michaela’s second-favorite sound (after her daddy’s voice) was the television. I would lie on the bed or the couch and she would float her way to whatever position would put her closest to the television.

She did the same thing as a newborn. And now she’s a full-fledged television connoisseur. One of her first words was “remope” (for remote).

And to our dismay, we came to realize how hooked she is on the DVR. It has made her the most anti-commercial child I’ve ever known.

Anytime a commercial comes on, regardless of whether we’re watching a “live” show or a recording, she yells “remote, mommy!” and cries and whines if we tell her to wait until the show comes back on.

The child simply can’t sit still through a commercial break.

That impatience carries over to other aspects of her life.

And I can’t blame her. She is part of the “right now, right away” generation. Everything from microwaves to instant messaging to Skype has led her to believe that she shouldn’t have to wait for anything. And me being a stay-at-home mom for the past 2 years hasn’t helped—she expects me to come running when she calls, to fix her little problems in the blink of an eye.

“Wait a minute, little girl,” I always say. “You won’t die from waiting.”

And she gives me her usual response: “No! Now, mommy.”

What’s a mom to do? Especially when I have a little patience problem of my own.

In one of my earlier blogs, I talked about how I throw adult temper tantrums sometimes. I want people –and God—to move when I say move. I want instantaneous results. And when I don’t get them, I get angry/frustrated/depressed.

It’s no wonder that the Bible talks so much about patience and waiting.

Psalms 37:7 — Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for him …

Psalms 40:1 — I waited patiently for the LORD; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry.

Psalms 25:5 — Lead me in thy truth, and teach me: for thou art the God of my salvation; on thee do I wait all the day.

Psalms 27:14 — Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.

Of course, we all know the story of Job. The man lost everything he had – his children, his wife, his property – and, on top of that, he lost his health and was covered from head to toe with boils.

Still he waited – and trusted — on God.

See, that’s the thing about God. He is all-powerful, so he could give us immediate answers and instant deliverance. But sometimes, he wants to know we can wait — without losing faith … or having a tantrum.

Contrary to how Twitter, Facebook and other technology has conditioned us, there is no fast-forwarding, rewinding, instant messaging or microwave solution to our problems.

There is no DVR for life. We have to stay tuned through the commercials.

It reminds me of an old gospel song, the kind my grandmother sings. It goes like this:

You can’t hurry God

He may not come when you want him, but he’s right on time!

***Risa Richardson is a stay-at-home mother to 2-year-old Michaela and the wife of Evangelist Michael Richardson, who has been a part of Rev. Jim Whittington’s ministry since the age of 9. A resident of Lexington, Kentucky, Risa holds a bachelor’s degree in print journalism from Western Kentucky University and is currently a graduate student studying health communications at the University of Kentucky. She is the author of a weekly blog, “Binkies, Bottles & Blessed Assurance” at BluegrassMoms.com.

Women In Touch Post #2: How To Sleep Like Baby Jesus

By Risa Richardson

Ever since Michaela was just hours old, one of my favorite things to do is watch her sleep.

In the wee hours of the morning, when those 2:30 a.m. feedings gave me chronic insomnia, I would stare at her for hours sometimes, watching her little belly rise and fall. I would put my face against hers to feel her breath tickle my cheek. I would get a love high when I sniffed in her sweet, baby-powder, Snuggle-fabric-softener smell.

She is so perfect, especially when she’s sleeping peacefully. It always makes me think of the words of the old Christmas song, “Silent Night”.

“Sleee-eep in heavenly peace,” I sometimes whisper-sing to her.

And then, of course, there are those nights when I was just dying to get a few winks in before she woke up to eat or be changed. At those times, I would envy her.

Not a care in the world, I would think. No electric bill. No job. No traffic to beat. No worries, no problems.

“It must be nice,” I would think, “to be able to go to sleep without a care in the world.”

But then, really, I could sleep like that. I just don’t sometimes.

Why?

Because I don’t leave my burdens and problems at my bedside. Instead, I say my prayers, tell God my problems, and then crawl into bed with them still on my mind.

I worry about this and I fret about that. I go through a list of complaints and issues and try to figure things out.

One of my favorite songs, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus”, says it best. When my siblings and I were younger, we used to sing the hymn for the old folks in the nursing home where my daddy worked.

It goes, in part, like this:

What a friend we have in Jesus,

All our sins and griefs to bear!

What a privilege to carry

Everything to God in prayer!

And then, there’s my favorite part:

O what peace we often forfeit,

O what needless pain we bear,

All because we do not carry

Everything to God in prayer.

During this holiday season, when I think about Baby Jesus laying a manger filled with hay, in a cold barn with the farm animals, I can’t help but think that he had to be a bit uncomfortable. Furthermore, he knew what was in store for him, that one day people so filled with hatred and contempt would nail him to a cross and murder him.

Yet, the song says he slept in heavenly peace. Why? Because he was the Almighty. He had all power in his tiny hands. He had a purpose and a plan. He was a newborn baby, but he had things under control.

Yes, we too can sleep like a baby. We serve an awesome God. We serve the man who made the world, so he has no problem handling our little problems.

The Bible tells me so:

Jeremiah 32:27– I am the LORD, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?

Matthew 19:26 (NIV) — Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

So the next time you find yourself tossing and turning, trying to figure things out and worrying about your problems, just remember that God has your back.He has it all under control.

He can work it out quicker than you can take an Ambien.

With that in mind, excuse me please. I think it’s time for me to … zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

***Risa Richardson is a stay-at-home mother to 2-year-old Michaela and the wife of Evangelist Michael Richardson, who has been a part of Rev. Jim Whittington’s ministry since the age of 9. A resident of Lexington, Kentucky, Risa holds a bachelor’s degree in print journalism from Western Kentucky University and is currently a graduate student studying health communications at the University of Kentucky. She is the author of a weekly blog, “Binkies, Bottles & Blessed Assurance” at BluegrassMoms.com.

Women In Touch Intro: Seeing God In My Daughter

By Risa Richardson

After almost a year of trying and crying, I sat on the toilet in our one-bedroom apartment, praying with my eyes squeezed shut and my fingers crossed for good measure. Slowly, I peeked out of one eye at the test strip and gasped.

Pregnant, it read.

I was elated. But, to be sure, I kept taking tests until I ran out of pee — about four in all. Then, I called my husband, Michael , to tell him the news.

From that moment, I was fascinated. I read books, surfed the Internet for hours at a time, listened with rapt attention to other moms and asked a million questions at every doctor’s appointment. I wanted to know about every stage of her development. I wanted to know what was new about her every single week — when her legs and arms were forming, when her lungs were developed, when her hair and finger nails started to grow.

I was raised in church, a Pentecostal church no less, and like any kid with perfect attendance at Sunday School, I knew the story about the Creation. I’d read about how God took nothing and formed a universe. How he flung the stars into space, set the planets in orbit and spit out the oceans and made a man from clay.

The story had been illustratively etched into my memory from the time I was a toddler.

But it wasn’t until I had the Creation taking place inside my very own womb that it really hit home. Even the reproductive system, which I’d studied in Mrs. Mudd’s Anatomy and Physiology class in high school, suddenly amazed me. I mean, it’s a miracle that every thing happened when it was supposed to, that the sperm met the egg and they hit it off and that the egg made it down to the uterus and that the uterus was ready and that – well, you get the point.

Yet, God was putting my baby girl together, cell by cell, limb by limb, system by system, week by week.

About 101 zillion things could have gone wrong, and any one of them could have been devastating, and for some of my closest friends, things did go wrong. Almost three months along, one of my dearest friends, the godmother of my child, was dealt a blow when her doctor couldn’t find the baby’s heartbeat. She was devasted; it broke my heart and made me count my blessings all the more.

In my life, I’ve met many people who didn’t believe in God. They didn’t believe he was the Creator or that he alone made the universe. They didn’t believe he breathes the life into every human being, that he controls the weather, that he rules the world.

But motherhood has strengthened my faith. Who but God could design a system so dynamic as the reproductive system? Who but God could engineer the formation of these tiny, microscopic beings and prepare them to thrive in the world outside of the womb?

Psalms 139:13-14 says it best: “You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

Now a precocious 2-year-old, my daughter never ceases to amaze me. And I’m still fascinated by the handiwork of God.

I am so happy for this opportunity to share my motherhood moments of inspiration with the supporters of Rev. Jim Whittington’s ministry. Please leave your comments and suggestions and check back each week for a new blog post.