manifesto

Listen to this one loud.



We believe in the one true God
We believe in Father Spirit Son
We believe that good has won

And all of the people of God sang along

Amen
Amen
Amen
Amen

We are free He died and lives again
We will be a people free from sin
We'll be free a kingdom with no end

And all of the people of God sang along

Amen
Amen
Amen
Amen
Amen
Amen


Our father who art in Heaven, hallowed by thy name
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses
As we forgive those who have trespassed against us
Lord lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil
For thine is the kingdom, power and the glory forever

We’re singing –
Amen
Amen, yeah
Amen
Amen, yeah
Amen
Amen, yeah, yeah.

attacking womanhood

Please read this post at Held by my dear friend Thelma from Life as Two.

Thelma puts into words what most of us suffering from infertility can not. It attacks our womanhood, the very core of what it means to be female. If making babies is what separates women from men, where does that leave the women who can't?

to love

 
"To love and to be loved is to feel the sun from both sides." - David Viscott

the body of christ

Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.  Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.  - 1 Corinthians 12:12-14

But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.  And God has placed in the church first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, of helping, of guidance, and of different kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret?  Now eagerly desire the greater gifts. - 1 Corinthians 12:18-31


Jesus.
He knows my pain.
He knows my hurt.
He knows my longing.
He knows my desire.

He loves me, unconditionally. (Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. - 1 John 4:8)

He is my rock, my salvation. (My soul finds rest in God alone; my salvation comes from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken. - Psalm 62:1-2)

He intercedes for me. (Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. - Romans 8:34)

He died so that I might have life. (The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.- John 10:10)

Which is why he isn't here on earth today.
It's why he can't physically hug me and tell me that everything will be ok. 

It's also why during our time of grief, he has sent people into our lives that have done above and beyond what friends should do. I know what the body of Christ should look like now. I know how it should function. I know because I have experienced it, day in and day out since we found out our little one wouldn't make it.

I now know that the body of Christ is just that, brothers and sisters who become the hands and feet of Jesus. They have become the arms that hold us tight, so that we don't fall apart.

My friends and family have lifted us in prayer. They have sent cards. They have sent flowers. They have been a shoulder to cry on. They have allowed us to vent our anger and air out our grief. They have not judged us. They have not offered platitudes. They have wept with us. They have assured us our feelings are normal. They have promised not to let go of us.

They have been Jesus to us, in our greatest time of need.

I can not thank these friends and family enough. I feel terrible for not having more of myself to give right now. I know it is biblical to bear one another's burdens, but I am so used to being the strong one, the encourager. It's hard and humbling to allow others to come along side us like this, but I wouldn't trade one of them for the world. Whether these people are a two minute drive from us or one thousand miles away, each one has touched Eric and I. Each one has lifted us one foot closer to the top of the pit.

I never want anyone to experience the intense pain and loneliness that is loss, but it is my prayer that people understand the importance of the church. Church isn't a building with pews. Church is disciples of Jesus gathering together to worship the Creator and to do life together. Is that life always easy? No, of course not. But I believe that when life starts getting messy and ugly, the people who most understand what Christ did for them on the cross are the ones who are not going to walk away. They will stay and pray and get messy right along with their church family.

Most of the people in my life now know about our baby. The statement that I most often hear is "you are so strong to be handling this with such grace." I want to say, gently, no friend, I am not. I am not strong. I am very, very weak. The strength I have is what I draw from my Savior.

And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness " Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong. - 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

beloved



Love of my life
Look deep in my eyes
There you will find what you need
Give me your life
The lust and the lies
The past you're afraid I might see
You've been running away from me (yeah)

You're my beloved
Lover I'm yours
Death shall not part us
It's you I died for
For better or worse
Forever we'll be
Our Love it unites us
And it binds you to me
It's a mystery

Love of my life
Look deep in my eyes
There you will find what you need
I'm the giver of life
I'll clothe you in white
My immaculate bride you will be
Oh come running home to me yeah now

You're my beloved
Lover I'm yours
and Death shall not part us
It's you I died for
For better or worse
Forever we'll be
Find More lyrics at www.sweetslyrics.com
Our Love it unites us
and it binds you to me yeah now, now

Well you've been a mistress, my wife
Chasin' lovers it won't satisfy
Won't you let me make you my bride
You will drink of my lips
And you'll taste new life

You're my beloved
Lover I'm yours
Death shall not part us
It's you I died for
For better or worse
Forever we'll be (forever we'll be)
Our Love it unites us
And it binds you to me
It's a mystery

when the rules are broken

Sometimes I forget that I started this blog as my own personal journal, a way to document mine and Eric's life and all the lovely little adventures along the way. I start writing to "captivate my audience" or "appease the masses" forgetting that the masses are a minimal 71 followers, many of whom are friends and family. Not that it's a bad thing to write this way, I rather enjoy it. It gives me focus.

Today I am not writing for my 71 loyal followers (even though I do love you guys) or the other family and friends that read posts via facebook or just have me bookmarked. Today I am writing for me. Today I have things that I need to say, that I need to get off my mind, and I am not going to censor my writing to be more blogger-friendly.

I guess you can consider that a warning for the things you are about to read. It was hard for me to write. It was harder knowing my husband needed to read it first. Pushing "publish post" was the hardest, though, knowing how many people it just might reach.

For the last three years the book of my life has been colored with many adjectives. The most dominant one being infertile. I have been careful not to let this word define me, although I admit sometimes it has. But after this long, the word infertility and I have come to an understanding...an agreement of sorts. We have a set of rules that we play by now: I can not get pregnant, and that's ok. God brought me to a place where I was honestly and truly comfortable with being the girl who can not get pregnant.

"'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,' declares the LORD. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." - Isaiah 55:8-9

That meant I was able to rejoice with friends who announced their blessings.
I could go to the hospital and visit my friends who had just stepped into their new roles as Mom.
I could participate in and even throw baby showers, all the while quoting "rejoice with those who rejoice..." (Romans 12:15)
I could do life with minimal interruption from my adjective and adversary.

Then infertility threw me a curve ball, and broke the rules. You see, the definition of infertility is multi-faceted. According to Resolve:


"Infertility is defined as the inability to conceive or carry a pregnancy to term after 12 months of trying to conceive."

On March 16, 2011 I woke up and took my temperature as I did every morning (to track my cycles). It was unusually high. I knew I must be getting sick and I wanted to be able to take some medicine in order to function at work that day. Thanks to my lovely PCOS diagnosis, I never really knew where I was in my cycle so I had to bite the bullet and take a pregnancy test. The first one in over a year. I had long since discovered that a pregnancy test wasn't like school tests, I always passed those with flying colors. I got up, dug out an expired dollar store test, took it, and promptly went back to bed confident of the one line that would be showing up in a few minutes.

Except two lines showed up.

I started shaking and decided I needed to bring out the big guns - a digital test. So I took it and no sooner had I gone to the kitchen to pour my coffee did I see the word we had been longing to see for three years.

"pregnant."

I was pregnant. Me, the girl who had become completely complacent with never seeing that word. I fell on my face and cried out to God, thanking him over and over again for his grace and his mercy.

"Your love, O LORD, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies." - Psalm 26:5

You don't realize how much you want something until that thing becomes tangible again. I finally pulled myself together, called my doctors office and told them the news. The precious nurse cried on the phone with me  and offered me an appointment that day. I went, it was confirmed, it wasn't all a dream.

That evening I told my husband. My precious husband who had waited in heartache just as long as I had to become a father, it was the sweetest moment of my life to tell him he was one.

We told a few very close family members and friends, confident they would be praying for us and our baby. We decided to tell the world after the heartbeat was seen, which would be at 8 weeks. We lived two blissful weeks with the knowledge that God had blessed us with a pregnancy. We allowed ourselves to dream, a little.

Life as we knew it changed the day I called my doctor with the news that I had had some cramping a just a tiny bit of spotting. They wanted me to come in immediately. I was 6 weeks and 3 days. I was whisked into the ultrasound room, completely alone and unaware that anything but my baby would be on that screen.


After the longest two minutes of my life, I knew. I could tell by the nurse's expression and my doctor's resistance to saying anything that our baby was gone. On the screen was a beautifully formed gestational sac in exactly the right place...but it was empty.

Words were finally coming out of my doctors mouth about "...blighted ovum..." and "...beta doubling..." and "...could be too early..." but I knew. I had blood work done that day. And two days later it was repeated. And the day after that my doctor called to inform me that my beta had indeed doubled. In layman's terms - my hormones indicated everything was fine. The ultrasound was scheduled on Monday, exactly one week from the last one.

Monday comes, Eric is there this time, the ultrasound begins, our world collapses.

On the screen is an even larger, perfectly formed gestational sac, still void of our baby.

It's official. And now I have to learn how to live the multi-faceted definition of infertility. I am no longer the girl who couldn't get pregnant. I am the girl who couldn't get pregnant, miraculously did, and is now the mother of a heaven-born baby.


I don't know how to be that girl.

"The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD."- Job 1:21b

(to be continued...)

what had happened was

So I am a little out of blog world lately.
I hate it.
I love to blog.
And read other's blogs.
And fill these pages with random thoughts and ramblings from my mind.

However...
I still have to cook.
Clean.
Do laundry.
Spend time with Jesus.
Work.
Spend time with Eric.
Youth.
Small group.

In no particular order. The list goes on...and frankly I am overbooked right now. So we will be back to our regularly scheduled programming asaicgatjd (as soon as i can get all this junk done, I'm not patenting this, so it's free for the taking).

Miss you all! Be back soon!

it's my party

Well, it's my birthday. I thought I'd let you all celebrate with me with this video. My dad sings this to me every.single.year. since I was born. You're welcome.