::faithful::

our pastor this weekend challenged us to reflect back over the year and think of all the ways God has been faithful to us...

i realize i have not posted a blog since march. there are several reasons why i haven't. i have wondered whether or not i should share the trials of this year with you all - but i feel that the Lord has been faithful in the midst of it. and any opportunity to bring him glory is a good opportunity, right? so here goes...

i want to share some of the context of how this year has refined both my husband and i. but i do not want that to be the focus. my prayer is that you will praise God for his faithfulness, mercy and compassion at the end of this post. but it is necessary to know the context of what we have been brought through in order to know how great He is.

2012 kicked off with the death of my grandfather. we lost him in february, and he is now in such a sweeter place. but his loss was devastating. he was the first grandparent i had ever lost. i love and miss him very much. that loss was soon followed by the death of my other grandfather- my mom's dad. there was only about five weeks between the deaths.

however, i did not have much time to grieve, as soon after, my sweet husband was diagnosed with lupus. this came as a complete blow to us. it was as if the rug had been completely swept out from underneath our feet. he had been having some on and off pains and other minor symptoms for months. but in february, his symptoms worsened - including chest pain that was inhibiting him from being able to get up off the couch and daily severe joint pain. we went to the doctor hoping that his aches and pains were from normal activity... but the nurse in me knew it couldn't be so. in my head, the worse i could come up with was rheumatoid arthritis. we were praying that it was not RA. the doctor did not seem worried. she put our minds at rest saying he was a healthy guy and that it was most likely just minor aches and pains. but she thought it'd be safe to run some blood tests just in case. we could not believe the words she said as she spoke them over the phone to us, "i am 95% sure you have lupus. i'm so sorry. i will refer you to a rhemuatologist."

now i know what you are thinking... what in the world is lupus!? those were my thoughts exactly. even as a nurse the only things i could think of about lupus was that dehydration caused flare ups and it primarily effected ethnic women. so how could it be lupus, right? there was no history of it in dave's family and he's about the whitest boy on the planet (and the handsomest too :)). but as the next few weeks unraveled, his diagnosis proved true. you see, lupus is an autoimmune disease that can effect any part of your body. where as with chron's disease, your digestive tract is effected - or with RA your joints are effected - lupus is a free for all. it can effect your heart, lungs, kidneys, skin and so on. and we saw the damaging effects it can have as my amazing husband suffered through his first flare up just days after we received his diagnosis. i will not go into great detail, but some of the things he suffered included nightly fevers of 102 or greater, joint swelling beyond recognition, weight loss, trips to the ER, nights of vomiting... it went on for weeks and weeks. it seems so unreal now to even think that all happened. even now i think "you don't really have lupus..." but then sure enough he'll get a little flare up and prove that he really does.

in the midst of this diagnosis, we are still barren. a few months after dave was diagnosed, the doctor i've been seeing thought it would be best for me to have surgery (i did not know that endometriosis can destroy organs if left untreated!) the doctor thought that i may have endometriosis but was not sure. i didn't know if i wanted to put my body through surgery - but as stated above i also didn't want to take the risk of endometriosis damaging my organs if indeed that was what i had. and boy was it ever what i had! after an hour and a half under the knife the doctor had removed profuse amounts of endometriosis from my little body. they were hopeful we'd conceive within six months of my surgery. but here we are five months out, and yet, no baby.

so whew. deep breath. i realize that's a lot to soak in. and that's just the big stuff. we've also endured dave's dad losing his job, my parent's losing their 3 year old pup just a week before christmas, and a church family crisis that has rocked our world. not to mention the fires, the shootings and all the sadness outside our little world... (is Jesus coming back yet or what?? :))

so where is Jesus in the midst of all this? where was God in 2012? you see if you haven't given up reading this incredibly long post by now, you just got to the best part... here's the sweetest things i've seen in the midst of our hardship:

• when my first grandfather died, his mind was completely intact. i got to tell him that i loved him and what an incredible grandfather he was. and the Lord was merciful and took him quickly. we had the sweetest conversation about Jesus and heaven a few weeks before he died, and i know that's where he is now. probably fishin.
• when my second grandfather died, it brought back family who i had not seen in a long time. his memorial service was very sweet and i was able to connect with people i hadn't seen in years.
• when dave received his diagnosis, so many of the little pieces came together of why the Lord did not allow for us to have children yet. there were so many days when he was so sick where he needed my one on one attention. one night when we were driving back from the ER at 3 am, he took my hand and said, "well sweetie, at least we don't have an infant at home." he was so right. i could stop and praise God that he knew in his sovereignty that my sweet husband was going to need every last bit of me during that month and a half- and i'm thankful that i was able to offer him my undivided love, prayer and heart.
• when dave's dad lost his job, God provided quickly through his armed services retirement fund. the time off has actually allowed him to think through what he wants to do for a job and it has actually blessed him more than he ever thought it could.
• when i had my surgery in august, the dr was scared he may not be able to get all of the scar tissue out. and not only was he able to, i suffered zero damage to either of my ovaries or tubes which is one of the biggest risks of endometriosis and its surgery. it brings tears to my eyes thinking about that even now.
• since dave's flare up in april, his medication has been effective in keeping him from having any other flares. he has had multiple days where he has been completely symptom free. we are slowly but surely figuring out his specific triggers that send him into flare ups. and by God's grace we hope we will never experience one again!
• the crisis we've gone through as a church body seems to only have strengthened our church. we have a long road ahead, but God's glory has been so evident through his people.

• oh and also, we have paid every medical bill, paid off our loans, and had a getaway surprise trip to the cayman islands in november. we are so blessed by our family, friends and loved ones who have shown us deep support and love this year.

now how's that for faithful?? our God is an awesome, awesome God. and although its been one of the hardest years of my life- i can say i love Jesus more now, at the end of 2012, than i ever have before. i trust him in every way. and i know, that even though i don't always see it, he is working all things for my good. because i love him. be encouraged that God uses even the hardest things to refine us and to make us look more like his Son. and there is no one else i'd rather look like. it is only by God's grace that i can look back over this year and praise him for all we've been through. i am thankful! what a faithful God we serve!

if you would like to find out more about lupus please go to this website: www.lupus.org it is accurate and credible. or feel free to ask dave and i questions! 

also i love this song. i feel like it captures our year well. i hope you like it too :) happy new year to all of you!

::arms length::

i don't know how many of you have ever felt hurt by God...

in all honesty, my time in the Word and my prayer life has been severely lacking lately. its not that i'm angry at God, and really i cant remember the last time i was truly sad about our struggle with infertility... so why has my time spent with the Lord been so absent lately? i wake up longing for quiet time with the Lord, but as my morning progresses, i set aside my Bible and my journal and go along with my day. and trust me, i am reaping the consequences of my lack of time in the Word... i hate being in that place where you know if you spent more time with Christ your heart would look drastically different, but your walk is so dry, and so then you don't have motivation to make effort. its a sick cycle really... and its exactly where the enemy wants you to be.

as we were driving to church the other day i was reflecting on why i was keeping the Lord at an arms length. lately i have loved to pray for others in my life, but have not wanted to trust the Lord for requests in my life. i feel like i've been down that road before, and it is "safer" for me to not open my heart to hope. (by the way, how skewed is that perspective?? :)) a few months ago when i finally hit my anger stage with this whole journey, i was so broken with the Lord. being a person who doesn't really tend toward the emotion of anger, i did not know how to handle myself. so trust me when i say i praise God that he quickly brought me out of that stage in this whole process because i really don't know what i would've done had he left me there for long. but i think it was a stage that i definitely needed to experience. it showed me how quickly i can think i've been given something i don't deserve, right? life isn't fair! why does a meth addict who doesn't even care about her child get to have multiple babies but dave and i can't even have one. listen to that thought... as if i deserve a child any more than she does. in all honesty, we deserve nothing. in fact, we deserve eternal condemnation and hell. that is what we deserve. and the fact that God has given us anything more than that is nothing short of a miracle. we take so much for granted.

but even though i understand all of this to the small degree my brain will allow me to, it still didn't explain the reason why i wasn't letting God in. and as we were driving i realized that i feel hurt by God. as if he were a peer to peer relationship, i feel like he hurt me. now obviously this statement is not true. a wise friend once told me, "the Lord allows for our hearts to break, but he never intentionally breaks our hearts." in the process of our molding, and our journey with God, we will always encounter hardship. the Bible promises us this. but God also promises to always sustain, always provide, always be a shelter we can run into and find strength. always. we so easily allow our thoughts of God's character be based on our surrounding circumstances. and that is the enemy at work. God is always good. He is always faithful. His love never fails. ever. isn't that a sweet promise? let your heart truly soak that in today and forever. believe the best about our Heavenly King! he deserves nothing less.

i'm lovin this song right now. it really speaks to my heart. i pray it blesses yours as well.

my story

lately, i've been thinking about what i really want in life. (now take this with a grain of salt, because if i have learned anything in the last 18 months it is that i have zero control over my life...) i'm discovering that i have been incredibly influenced by what my friends and some of the people who are around me really want in life, and it turns out those things are not what i really want. i thought i wanted a really big family, to have all my children really young so that we could be young with them and so on and so forth. i thought 26 was the ideal age to have a baby, and then that window slowly came to a close. so then i thought, yeah 27! 27 is a good age to have a baby... but now that window is slowly coming to a close... so now i think 28! come on 28! right? but in all reality, that may not be the story God is writing for me. and as i slowly let go of these "ideals" i thought i really wanted, i'm discovering that i'm falling in love with the story the Lord is writing for me. and as i've let go of my expectations, God has not disappointed me. He knows and promises me he will give me exactly what i need. so why do i fight it so hard?

its so easy to compare yourself to those around you. but step back, and really evaluate what is perfect in the story that the Lord is writing for you. at one point in scripture, i think its peter who asks Jesus if a group of men will be going to heaven after Christ promises heaven to peter and john. peter points over to them and says well what about them Jesus? will they be going to heaven too? Christ looks at peter and says, "that is of no concern of yours." you may be looking around you wondering why so-and-so has what you don't and why God has not given it to you yet. but just as Jesus said, that is of no concern of yours! the story he is writing for you is what is perfect for you! and no one else. let him write. and trust him as he accomplishes the good work he began in you.

love this song lately! hope it blesses you :)

perfect timing

so... i haven't written in awhile. part of that was because we didn't have internet for quite some time after moving in and part of it is because i just couldn't bring myself to write. the last few months have been a bit of a harder journey with the Lord (let's just say i had some anger and bitterness in my heart that i didn't even know existed until these last few months...) but God is so graciously bringing me out of that and i am ready to write again.

so just a quick catch up of the last few months - when i encountered my anger stage (for the first time in 16 months) a sweet friend of mine pointed out to me that i may be going through the stages of grief, which i had already OBVIOUSLY thought of on my own being a Human Development and Family Studies major and all... (nope. hadn't thought of that at all. thanks a lot CSU ;)) anyways. as i processed through that thought i felt like so much came together for me. no i haven't experienced the loss of a child, or even a miscarriage, but perhaps i am grieving the possibility of children lost by not being able to maybe ever even have a child. now notice all the disclaimers i put in that sentence- that is because i believe my God is still able! and i am trusting him for that.

dave and i have recently had some testing done at a doctors office here in town. so far, all of the testing has come back completely normal. completely normal. which means that if God has so chosen to, he could have easily given us a baby at any point in this past year and a half. he has a reason for why he has not! and seeing all those results has only confirmed in my heart more than ever that his timing is perfect! he does not delay! he does not make mistakes! he knows exactly what he is doing. and he has planned before the beginning of time, in his perfect sovereignty, my life, dave's life, and and life of the little ones he may or may not give us. God is so incredible!

its amazing how when you go for quite some time without something, you start to question how much you really want it. this month marks 18 months for us. a year and a half of attending baby showers, receiving baby announcements, hearing of pregnancies and then seeing those babies be born... and i am still barren. i feel like as hard as this last year and a half has been at times, i am finally starting to really embrace where God has us. God has given me four and a half incredible years of marriage with my amazing, Christ centered husband and i couldn't ask for more. in fact, lately i've been scared that a baby would really mess that up ;) (of course if we got pregnant, we would be thrilled...) but for now, i'm thankful for sleeping in on the weekends, going to old town and staying up late eating fudge and ice cream, being freed up for ministry with women whom i love and adore, and learning from my friends who have children so that if one day the Lord does decide to give us a baby, we will be able to tell them how much they were prayed for and how excited we are to have them.

this verse really spoke to me a little while ago. at several points in the last few months i have bought into the lie that God's word has nothing to offer and that it won't comfort me anymore. oh man this could not be further from the truth! for all of you who God is calling to wait on him for something- trust him! surrender! fight to be in his word daily! he is worthy! keep asking! he wants your heart. and in his perfect timing - he will answer. it may not be yes - but he will answer. and his answer is always worth waiting for.

"From of old no one has heard
   or perceived by the ear,
no eye has seen a God besides you,
   who acts for those who wait for him"

::isaiah 64:4::

too wonderful

one way the Enemy frequently attacks my heart in this season is by making me feel defeated. its amazing how i can read so many promises about the Lord and have him reveal himself so abundantly and consistently in my life and then one little prayer goes "unanswered" and i doubt everything he's proved to me that he is. i am so faithless! and yet he loves me the same... i'm so thankful that even in my wavering God loves me in his perfect way. i've never known such love!

a few days ago i was feeling weak and inadequate to fight hard against the lies that were coming my way... "you're never going to get pregnant" - "you're never going to find a job" - "you will always be in debt" - so silly right? but so believable in the moment... its amazing how some days the spiritual warfare is so intense you are literally fighting the battle moment by moment. God is gracious to meet me well on these days and to help me fight - but this day i was feeling particularly susceptible to Satan's schemes. i was on the phone with a sweet friend who challenged me and asked me what scripture i meditate on when feeling this way and this is what came to mind. i wanted to share with you so that you who may feel similarly to me may be encouraged.

in genesis, God promises Abraham that his offspring will be as numerous as the sand on the shore and the stars in the sky. many years go by and Sarah, his wife, is infertile. although God has promised them that their offspring will be as numerous as the stars in the sky, they panic and Sarah tells Abraham to sleep with their servant, Hagar. yeah, this kind of drama is in the bible, can you believe it? :) so Hagar becomes pregnant and of course drama ensues... but that's not the point of my story. Sarah and Abraham doubted God's promise - just as i do everyday with the ones he's promised me... and even after they mess everything up, God redeems it - as he always does. God appears to Sarah, years and years after she has stopped menstruating (in fact they think Sarah was around 90 years old when she gave birth to Isaac!) and tells her that she is going to conceive. now hang in here with me because this is where it gets really good! Sarah laughs when the Lord tells her that he is going to open her womb, and the Lord replies to Abraham, "'why did Sarah laugh and say, 'shall i indeed bear a child, now that i am old?' is anything too difficult for the Lord?'"

is anything too difficult for the Lord? in some translations the word, "difficult" translates to the word, "wonderful"...

is anything too wonderful for the Lord?

anything? what are you not trusting the Lord for? nothing is too wonderful for the Lord. nothing. our God is able! i believe Lord! help my unbelief.

longing

it is safe to say that i have longed for many things in this season: a more consistent job. a child. a house. a dog :). for our loans to be paid off. to be healed. no more pain. to sleep through an entire night consistently throughout the month. for my brother and some dear friends to be saved. but more than ever, i have longed for heaven with more longing than i ever have before...

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away." And He who sits on the throne said, "Behold, I am making all things new." And He said, "Write, for these words are faithful and true." Then He said to me, "It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost. He who overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be My son."

i can't even begin to imagine what heaven will be like. but it (ironically) brings tears to my eyes to know that God has promised me a place where i won't cry anymore! or long anymore. free from pain. no more illness! no more hurting the ones i love. but will live in perfect harmony with my God, and the ones i love most! oh come back even now Lord Jesus this minute! glory to God for promising me this place i don't deserve.

hope against hope

this weekend, part of our sermon was about praying expectantly. i feel like this is something the Lord is definitely refining me in. although i don't exactly know what it looks like to pray expectantly, i feel like God is definitely beginning to reveal to me what it means. my problem is that when i start to pray expectantly, i inadvertently put my hope in the thing i'm praying for. for instance, when i pray for a job, or for pregnancy, i put my hope in whether or not God is going to answer that prayer, and then am thoroughly disappointed and sad when he doesn't. and then i become frustrated with prayer, and don't understand why we even pray for anything at all... and this is exactly where Satan wants me, you see? disappointed. sad. frustrated. hopeless... not good! the Enemy would want me to give up on making my requests known before my Abba Father. here's the thing though. we aren't to put our hope in the thing we're praying for - we are to put our hope in the One we're praying to. when we make our requests known to the Lord, but then step back and expectantly wait on Jesus - the Author and Perfecter of our faith - we are never disappointed. ephesians 3 says:

now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever, amen. 

so whether God answers my prayer the exact way i'm hoping he will or not should not determine my emotion toward Him. if my heart is waiting on Christ, and he is who he says he is, and he is able to do far more than i could ever hope or imagine, and he is working all things for my good, and he has a perfect plan for my life - then i can't wait to see how he answers my prayer! and that is praying expectantly. it is still right and good for me to make specific requests made known to our Father - but then i must wait excitedly, with my hope in Him, as to how he will answer, resting in His promises. doesn't that bring your heart peace? praise to Him!

God often comforts me through music. the 'buy now' button on itunes is just too easy... my poor husband didn't know what he was getting himself into when he married me :) this song has brought my heart great comfort lately. i will most likely blog about music a lot. i pray it blesses you too.