Haiti

I just wanted to take a moment and talk about Haiti. It has been on my mind and my heart so much lately. When I first heard about the earthquake in Haiti, I thought oh another earthquake somewhere that doesn't affect me, sad but oh well..........shame on me.

Then I heard that the death toll was estimated to be 100,000 now and was going to be much larger due to sickness, lack of medical care and depression issues. That got my attention. Suddenly the news was on and I was listening to what had happened and what was going on. My heart was heavy for these people. "Lord, why so many and so violently?" I don't understand it.

I think that in this world of so much violence in movies, television, video games and even to some extent in every day real life we have become numb to the cry of the lost. So much so that God in his desperate love for his people, has started to go big so that we as Christians start to pay attention. I know there are many Christians who already do pay attention and I am humbled by their walk, but there are many more of us who are happy, even thankful, to be watching the disaster from afar. Where we can turn it off when it gets to be too much for us to watch. What I believe God has revealed to me is that the people of Haiti know they are living in a kind of "hell." They are crying out to God and He loves any of these people as much as he loves me. I was a lost sinner at one time too and God loves me and had compassion on me. He has the same compassion and love waiting for each and every one of these people.
I believe God sometimes allows things like this earthquake to happen so Christians everywhere can see what he sees. So we can hear the cries of his lost sheep. I think when the disasters are smaller many of us turn a deaf ear to what God is trying to show us. There is a song by Brandon Heath called, "Give Me Your Eyes"

Give Me Your Eyes lyrics
Songwriters: Heath, Brandon; Ingram, Jason David;

Looked down from a broken sky
Traced out by the city lights
My world from a mile high
Best seat in the house tonight

Touched down on the cold black tar
Hold on for the sudden stop
Breathe in the familiar shock
Of confusion and chaos

All those people going somewhere
Why have I never cared?

Give me Your eyes for just one second
Give me Your eyes so I can see
Everything that I keep missing
Give me Your love for humanity

Give me Your arms for the broken hearted
The ones that are far beyond my reach?
Give me Your heart for the one's forgotten
Give me Your eyes so I can see
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Step out on a busy street
See a girl and our eyes meet
Does her best to smile at me
To hide what?s underneath

There?s a man just to her right
Black suit and a bright red tie
Too ashamed to tell his wife
He's out of work, he's buying time

All those people going somewhere
Why have I never cared?

Give me Your eyes for just one second
Give me Your eyes so I can see
Everything that I keep missing
Give me Your love for humanity

Give me Your arms for the broken hearted
The ones that are far beyond my reach?
Give me Your heart for the one's forgotten
Give me Your eyes so I can see
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

I've been there a million times
A couple of million eyes just moving past me by
I swear I never thought that I was wrong

Well, I want a second glance
So give me a second chance
To see the way You see the people all alone

Give me Your eyes for just one second
Give me Your eyes so I can see
Everything that I keep missing
Give me Your love for humanity

Give me Your arms for the broken hearted
The ones that are far beyond my reach?
Give me Your heart for the one's forgotten
Give me Your eyes so I can see

Give me Your eyes for just one second
Give me Your eyes so I can see
Everything that I keep missing
That I keep missing

Give me Your arms for the broken hearted
The ones that are far beyond my reach?
Give me Your heart for the one's forgotten
Give me Your eyes so I can see
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah


© PEERTUNES LTD;

these lyrics are last corrected by Dusty

I think this song says so much. I can't count the number of times I have turned a deaf ear, closed my eyes or kept my arms at my side instead of hearing, seeing and reaching out to the ones who God wants to bring home to him. It is the Holy Spirit who does the work to draw a man to God but it is us who are called to spread the love of God. Sometimes that means using words, but I think so much more it means hearing, seeing and reaching!

O How He Loves Me...

Faith lived for three days. She was born July 3rd and the Lord took her into his arms on July 5th. To try and explain what it is like to hold someone in your arms as they breathe their last breath here on earth is impossible. I just know that during that moment I never felt so held by God. He was holding me so that I could hold my little girl. As I sit here writing this I am overwhelmed. There are so many things that I struggle with when I go deep into my heart and wrestle with this moment in my past. I think one of the biggest things is guilt.

Guilt that I had an unplanned premarital pregnancy.
Guilt that I didn't care what happened to this baby I just didn't want to be pregnant.
Guilt that I prayed to loose the pregnancy.
Guilt that I let those around me down.
Guilt that we were going to give this little girl up for adoption.
Guilt that I did not have the foresight to take more photographs of our daughter.
Guilt that I didn't love her enough.

I have struggled with this so often and I believe its one of the reasons why I finally felt led to share the story God gave me on this blog. With my guilt comes my shame. Shame for all the same reasons I have held onto my guilt. Two very heavy burdens to carry.

Yet Jesus tells us he wants to carry our burdens for us. So why is it so hard to give them to him?

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Matt. 11:28-30

I believe that God is trying to help me give him my burden. A few months ago I was blessed to hear Angie Smith speak at our women's retreat. Her story is another part of what inspired me to start this blog. I saw how she so lovingly honored her daughter's memory and I realized that I had not done that for my daughter and in turn not given voice to the story that God had written in my life. That for so long I just wanted to move past the "mistake" I made I forgot to honor the "gift" the Lord had given me.

Angie Smith's husband is Todd Smith, he is part of Selah, the christian singing group. At the retreat I bought a Selah CD for my husband. The title was, You Deliver Me. On that CD was a song called, "I Will Carry You(Audrey's Song)." Angie and her husband wrote this song to their daughter whom they lost. I love this song, but there is one line in particular that I grasped onto,

"And I will praise the One Who's Chosen me to carry you."

In the midst of the guilt and the shame that I carry with me, I had to be reminded that it was God who chose me to carry this little girl. I think that one of the enemy's greatest weapons is to blind us to what God is doing for His greater good in our lives. I have walked around so long with the burden of shame and guilt that I have put upon myself that it's a struggle each day to find my way out from under it. So, I sit here before you knowing that the Lord loves me so much that he is willing to carry my heavy burden and working to let go so He can carry it for me. I love Faith more and more each day. When I think about the time that I did not love her enough, the only thing that brings me comfort is that the Lord loved and loves her more than I did and still do. And that he loves me despite how tight I hold onto my burdens.

Be still, and know....

In my original post there was a statement that I would like to address. I said, "I can tell you right now abortion was out of the question because even though I believe everyone has the right to choose, that was not the choice for me." Initially I left this statement in because that is who I was when I wrote the original paper. It is not who I am now. I believe that life fully begins at the moment of conception.

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. Psalm 139:13

Before I was saved I truly believed it was a personal choice whether or not to have an abortion. To be frank, there was a time(long before I actually got pregnant)when I thought if I had gotten pregnant that I would have had one myself. Then I came to know the Lord and what he did for me. I came to realize that my life is not my own and that He is the creator of all. That it is God who gives life and God who determines the time to take it away.

After our sons were born and during the time we were trying to get pregnant again I was strongly reminded of this. When we got pregnant with our sons it all happened so fast that I was sure it would be no problem for me to get pregnant again. So when we were ready I thought OK here we go. Well getting pregnant took about a year. When we finally were pregnant, we were so very excited. The boys were going to be 4 1/2 when the baby would be born, I thought perfect.

Then God so painfully reminded me of His sovereign hand. I had my first miscarriage. We went for an ultrasound to see if it would be twins again. It was not twins, it was not even one baby anymore. The doctor said just wait and see maybe our dates are off, but somehow I just knew, I knew because my heart ached so much. I knew because that morning I woke up and had forgotten that I was pregnant. I simply brushed it off as nothing at the time but then when I saw the empty amniotic sac, I knew.
The following year would carry with it three more early but all consuming miscarriages. I had four positive blood tests through that year but no baby at the end of that year. I don't think I could ever put into words the heartache that I felt. I felt it in every fiber of my being. I just wanted the world to stop, just for a moment. I wanted another baby so badly but God seemed to have different plans. I knew every time that it was God's will and kept telling myself that I wanted God's will over my will. Be still, and KNOW that I am God Psalm 46:10(emphasis mine) That scripture just kept coming to me over and over. Still my life felt like something was missing.

After the fourth miscarriage I was at a point where I said OK God it does not seem to be in your plans for us to have another child. We had not completely stopped trying but we were talking about it. We had two amazing little boys who were such a blessing to us, and the thought of another miscarriage was just overwhelming.

Then I found out that I was pregnant again. I didn't even bother with a home pregnancy test this time. It had only been a month since my last miscarriage and I was sure it going to happen again. I simply called my doctor and asked for them to send me for a blood test. I figured this way at least I knew when it was coming. Then the doctors office called me.......the blood test numbers were good. They wanted me to come in for an ultrasound. I said OK but I was afraid, afraid to hope, afraid to feel the pain of loss again.

With each passing day hope rose up inside me. Then an ultrasound where I saw a little bean shaped baby. My heart leaped with guarded joy. I knew we had a long way to go yet but this time a baby was still there.

The doctor had me come back in a week to have another ultrasound just to make sure the baby was growing...she was and she did.

When we found out we were having a little girl emotions came from places I didn't even know were still there. I remember crying after we walked out of the ultrasound office and one of the technicians running over to me with a tissue and a look of compassion on her face. I said its OK these are happy tears. She was relieved and even got a little teary eyed herself as I told her why I was crying.

The rest of my pregnancy went well. I, of course, had worries along the way even though God tells us not to. Then our daughter was born and my heart was filled. It felt like our family was whole.

Our family was whole, but every time I looked at my daughter I thought wait a minute why does she not look like Faith. I had so pictured in my head a little girl with strawberry-blond hair, fair skin and dimples. A child that looked like her sister and like me. You have to understand that our very handsome boys look like clones of my husband, so I was sure that this little girl was going to look like her sister and like me. After all, we girls have to stick together. Instead she had dark brown hair and no dimples. Her skin was more of a medium tone. Clint and I looked at each other and said where did she come from? During the next few months she looked more and more like my husband. I loved my daughter more than life, but I did not feel completely connected with her until quite some time later when I talked with a very wise woman who said that God knew to make her look different than Faith so that I would love her for who she is and not who I wanted her to be or who I wanted her to replace.

God reminded me in a very tangible way that a life can NEVER be replaced. Each life is God's unique creation. So, more than ever I know that life begins at conception. And, every time I look at my daughter I can hear God saying to me, "Be still and know...." It is a wonderful reminder and believe me I need to be reminded often!!!!!!!