Because we ALL deserve a FAMILY!

I keep watching the story unfold and the debate and outrage over the actions over Planned Parenthood, and my broken heart keeps looking for an answer. The truth is, there is no easy answer.

We are called to defend life; we stand as Christians upholding the sanctity of life, because life is worth protecting! Normally here, I write about just our family, our struggles, our journey, so I have debated for weeks about whether to join in this discussion.  In all the discussions I have seen flying around, there is a whole issue that seems to be being missed, and my Mama heart is dying, watching us totally miss it!

So I am going to step out and tell you what is heavy on my heart. I am going to talk to you, THE CHURCH, you who say you believe in Jesus, you who believe in the sanctity of life, you who are pro-life and willing to take a stand for that. 

Anytime the issue of abortion is debated, It is easy to point fingers and say "choose life". It’s not just women facing an unwanted or unplanned pregnancy’s, but US, THE CHURCH ... 

WE need to choose life too!

If we are going to look at women and ask that they take the bold, courageous step of choosing life, flipping their whole lives upside down, and making the selfless choice to give their baby life instead of death, then we better be willing to do the same! 

The thing is Church, we need to be willing to choose, but not only life, but choose FAMILY!

Did you know that today there are over 400,000 kids in the foster care system in the U.S. and over 100,000 are waiting to be adopted! 

PLEASE, read that again!

Over 100,000 sweet babies WAITING for someone to call Mom, to know that someone cares where they are, that anyone has their back.  

Over 100,000 kids hoping against all odds, that someone will choose them before they turn 18 and end up on the street alone, with nothing & no one. 

Over 100,000 little human beings, waiting for a day when they can lay their heads down at night and know that they are SAFE and LOVED. 

That kills me!  We are not perfect parents, but I do know this, that despite our bad days and the times we mess it all up, there has never been a day our kids have laid their heads down to sleep and wondered if someone LOVES them.  I know our world is broken and hurting and messed up, but if we who believe in Jesus, walk with His very spirit IN US, then Love should not ever be a privilege of childhood, it should be a guarantee!

Did you know that if ONE family out of every 3 churches in America would adopt, every child needing a family in the U.S. would have one!

Did you know that over 30% of Christian families consider adoption and only 1% actually ever do it?

You guys, I’m not trying to climb up on some huge soapbox. I have this sweet baby lying on my chest, spit up all over everything, oxygen tanks that need to be refilled, a medication log I need to fill out and our WHOLE life has flipped upside down.  It is hard and I'm exhausted, and it's messy, SO very, very messy ... and then yesterday she started smiling! One day this amazing, beautiful, miracle child,born to another woman, will call ME Mom! It is broken and beautiful, difficult and amazing all at the same time.

We can say we follow Jesus , and we can outrage over the atrocities of Planned Parenthood, because we SHOULD be outraged at the lack of respect for life! But then we need to take a deep breath and actually listen to what God tells us:

James 1:27

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

Do you see it? If we fight for a child's right to life and they ARE born, then what logically follows is that they are born INTO a family. That SHOULD be a given, but it's NOT!  Sometimes family just isn't possible. And when it isn’t, then The Church, we the people who believe life is sacred, NEED to be the solution.

The sad reality, is that women go to Planned Parenthood, because they offer help and a solution, to broken, hurting, scared, hopeless women. But it should be US, The Church; the followers of Jesus, who are there to offer HOPE in the form of ACTUAL help. If we are going to look at broken, hopeless, scared women, and ask them to make a selfless choice, then we better be willing to make a selfless choice and stand WITH them! We better be READY with open arms, and open hearts, and open bedrooms,and open cribs, to welcome these babies and toddlers and kids and teenagers that not only deserve the right to live, but to be LOVED, to have a FAMILY!

Because this is about SO much more than which side of a political or religious issue we stand on. The reality of the world we live in, is that the broken, fallen, sinful, world is all around us. We are eager to point at the darkness and call it evil, because it IS EVIL! 

But pointing at the darkness, isn't the same as BEING the light, it's just NOT. I know by voicing this opinion I will make some people angry, because it's hard, and it's the narrow road, it's inconvenient, and not "what God has called your family to". But, if you take the population of the U.S. and divide it in half, that's how many orphans there are in the world today!

Before James penned that verse about pure religion, the verses before it say this:

James 1:22-26

²² Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. ²³ Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror ²⁴ and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. ²⁵ But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.

²⁶ Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless.

For a mom considering and abortion, choosing life, is about being self-less. Choosing to love a child not flesh of your flesh or bone of your bone, is about being self-less.

I know that not every Christian, or every family has been called to adoption!

 I do however know this: what God said in James is CLEAR, and if there are 153 MILLION orphans in the world today, God is certainly calling more that 1% of us to do something about it!

My desperate prayer as I fumble through this messy life we choose, is that the culture around adoption would change. That we would stop seeing adoption as a nice idea, or a wonderful option for people who can’t have biological children, or something we just "think" about doing, but rather both a privilege and responsibility for those who already know how to be a parent! My prayer is that the church would wake up, and more than 1% of Christians today would be as willing to choose life in their homes as they are in verbal outrage on social media.

Sometimes I forget he has cancer!

Soooo many people have been asking lately about how Brian is doing and each time I act a little surprised and answer something really stupid like: "Oh he's great!"  

And then people look back at me with a look of confusion as if to say, "He does still have cancer right? How is he great?"  

The honest truth is that sometimes I all but forget, that he has a disease in his body that could kill him and devastate our lives.  Now before you go thinking I'm a terrible wife and wondering how in the world I could forget something like that, let me explain ....

 We are a full year out from Brian's latest diagnosis and a full year through his 2 year treatment!   He only goes to the cancer center every 2 months to get what I call "a miracle drug" to keep his cancer suppressed in his body.  

So far it is working great!  His scans are clean, his blood looks "perfect" the nurse told him yesterday (I reminded him that she said his "blood" is perfect, JUST his blood! ) and .... there are NO side effects! Well at least short term .... long term if he stays on it for more than 2 years it could cause brian damage ... yeah, lets not stay on it that long I say!!  

So every other month we have a conversation that goes like this:

Brian: "I have my treatment tomorrow."

"Ohh good!" I say! 

Because treatment days are kid of fun.  

On treatment days, I pick the kids up from school & we go to Chick-fil-A (which is right next to the hospital) to pick up lunch for Dad.  

In the car I remind them of "the rules"!  1. Be quiet like the library 2. DO NOT point at people 3. Any questions you have about anyone but Dad, keep to yourself until we leave. 

(Cancer is hard to explain to kids!)

Then we pop on into the chemo room & try our best to not totally annoy all the other very sick patients in the room.  We eat lunch with Daddy, check out his IV and try to yet again explain what "cancer" is and why Daddy has to keep doing this little song and dance.  Say goodbye, again trying not to annoy every other patient and head home. 

 Daddy finishes treatment and comes home to spend the rest of the afternoon and evening with us.  It's kind of like a mini, get out of our normal routine day, like a snow day ... it's our cancer day!  

Now before I go on, let me clarify for any of you who may be feeling like I might be taking this whole cancer thing very light-heartedly, or who may even be feeling angry or offended because cancer in your life doesn't feel like this.  For you it's heavy and terrible and sad and awful and I just made light of it.  

Just so you know, in the deepest part of my heart, I hate this disease!  On my darkest days, when fear creeps in to my soul, I am filled with sadness and fear and grief for what this could one day mean for me and for our kids and for Brian. 

I am fully aware that at its worst this disease means Brian may miss seeing his kids or grandkids grow up. That the kids could forever be changed if the most sacred thing in their lives: their amazing Daddy, is torn from them.  And that I will be left trying to stand somewhere in the gap between grieving wife and single mom of three grieving kids.

But, I also know this ... God is BIG!  Bigger than my fear and way bigger than this stupid disease!  He also tells us over and over and OVER again throughout His word: DO NOT FEAR!  So on the days when the darkness creeps in ... then we open the curtains and let in the light. 

We live in the light-hearted and we share (sometimes too much) with people around us.  Just so you all know there is no question too big, or too small, or to silly to ask.  We are an open book! With this journey we HAVE to be! Because for us, in this fight against this unseen, unfelt, mystery disease ... fear left in the dark grows and festers.  

At our wedding, we spoke this verse from Jeremiah 29:11 as a blessing over our lives and daily I cling to the promise that God has given us ... "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

Yes!  I choose THAT!  I choose to fully rely on God, cling to that promise, drive away fear, laugh in the face of cancer, and live this life that He has blessed us with ... cancer days and all!  

Sometimes we just need some grace!

I wrote this update a while back and forgot to post it.  For those of you who were curious about how the "experiment" with our loft went down, here you go!

In a nut shell, it did not work, it in fact backfired on us severely   You know the saying "If you give them enough rope..." yeah well, they hung someone all right, but it wasn't them, it was actually us! 

Ok for those of you who may not have forgotten the blog, here is the mess that started the ohh so fun experiment in: "It's your toy room, your responsibility and you can keep it the way you want it."   Now looking back on it, it's really NOT that big of a mess, at the time I was about ready to pull my hair out, so letting them have the freedom to do with their things what they pleased seemed like a good idea.  The theory was, that they would eventually get annoyed by thier own mess and decide to clean it up themselves ... yep, it's ok to go ahead and start laughing now!

After one, seriously ... ONE WEEK of being allowed to be in charge of their own toy room, this is how the loft looked...

In case the picture doesn't really do it justice, let me elaborate ... literally every toy they have had been dumped into a huge pile!  The only things that survived the explosion were the stuffed animals on the top of the shelves and that is ONLY because they were too short to reach them!  The small walk-ways you see through the mess, I made with my feet so I could make it to the window to open and close the blinds each day! 

 Now, pause for a second, because I know all of you who DON'T have kids yet are starting to judge!  It's ok, I know... I would have too before I had kids!    I know you just made a silent pledge in your head that, "THIS WILL NEVER HAPPEN IN MY HOUSE"!  Just do me a favor and file this away somewhere in the back of your mind, so that one day if you so choose to bring a precous little being into the world, and you are standing in the midst of a mess like this one, you can take a breath and realize what all of us who have kids realize as they look at this picture ... it's just reality!

So, anyway, back to the explosion ... we let this go for about 2 weeks.  Two weeks filled with whining and crying and being sent to our rooms for gigantic fits that went something like this ....

Child1 : "Mom, I can't find my squinkies!" (FYI, squinkies are tiny little rubber balls in the shape of things like cinderella and spider man, that come in tiny little plastic easter-egg type balls, only about the size of a shooter marble ... SHOCKING you can't seem to find them!"

Me: In a very surprised and sympathetic tone, "Ohh, that's a bummer.  It is hard to find things when there is such a big mess."

Child 1: Standing there looking at me with a look of confusion, as if there was an answer they were looking for and THAT was NOT it!  

Moment of silence, followed by whining about how the loft is: " Toooo biiiiig of a messssss and weeeee caaaan't cleeeeean it upppppp!" 

Me: Still sounding sympathetic and controlled, "Ohh, that's a bummer!  Maybe you shouldn't have taken all the toys out at the same time. Maybe you should try to work together to clean it up so you can find your squinkies."

Child 1: Now visibly frustrated at my lack of help with their clearly dire situation, yells: "Mom, we can't clean it up!  If you won't help us, we're not going to ever play again!!!" Followed by crossing of the arms and stomping out of the room.

This is then followed by a reminder that:

1: I didn't actually make the mess, so it's not my responsibility to clean up 

&

 2:  We don't talk to each other like that in our house, so you can go to your room until you are ready to be loving to the people around you. 

Followed by more stomping up the stairs and a hysterical fit on their bed about being sent to their room.

5 Minutes later ....

Child 2: "Mom, I can't play with my train, their isn't any room on the floor."

You get the picture!  After 2 weeks of nicely and graciously trying to get them to see the predicament they had got themselves into and offering ample ideas as to how to rectify the situation, Brian and I finally sat down and realized that are ONLY 5! The mess had offically become too big for a 5 year old to handle. We realized we had made, and they understood, the point: that when we aren't responsible with our things, it's hard to every enjoy our things.  We also realized that it was now time to try to fix it.  We debated making them help us clean it up and ultimately decideded to use it as an opportunity to tangibly help them to understand and receive GRACE!  So one night, after they were tucked in bed, Brian and I tackled the largest sorting exercise I think I have ever done.

We placed all the empty bins and buckets around the outside of the room and dug in ... doll shoe, squinky, lego, potato head, book, doll clothes, book, block, lego, dress-up clothes, lego, squinkie, doll house furniture ... for FIVE HOURS!

The next morning when they came out to find their loft completely cleaned, organized and beautiful we  got the wonderful opportunity to talk to them about Grace.  How the mess they made was their own, they didn't diserve to have anyone clean it up for them, it was their responibility alone.  But, because we love them, we took the responibility that was theirs on ourselves and clean up their mess for them, just like Jesus took the mess we made out of our lives on himseelf and because he loves us, he took care of it!

Who knows if they really learned anything from it? It's not necessarily our best parenting ever, but at the end of the day sometimes we ALL need a little grace!

Live to Die another Day ...

 Some days being a parent feels a lot like living in a zoo!  Only the kind of zoo where they allow all the animals to roam free and destroy things and you have NO actual formal training as to how to run a zoo, or keep everyone from killing each other!  

Because of the lack of formal training, we are left at times to simply make it up as we go along.  The problem I have found with making it up as you go along, is that sometimes you get yourself into a situation where the animals turn on you, and then our natural fight or flight mode in our bodies is forced to take over.

I have a dear friend, who is a wonderful counselor, and she often asks me when venting about things: "Is this the hill you want to die on?"  

So, it's something I have come to start asking myself a lot!  

For example when the kids turned 4, one day I had the brilliant idea to go get extender bars for their closets, so now all of their clothes hang at their eye level and they can put them away (in theory) and take them down on their own.  

 The thing is that 4 year-olds have little concern for paying attention to things like outfits, or matching, or appropriate clothing for the current weather.  So daily it is a struggle for me to bite my tongue and not force them to go re-dress, after they come out of their rooms.   

What I have come to realize is that the issue is not their ability (or lack-there-of) to create a sensible, matching outfit for the day, but my own selfish need to present not only myself, but them, to the world in a certain way.   

After months (and I’m not exaggerating) of being SO annoyed each time they dressed themselves, I have decided daily to remind myself this: Their self-esteem and their self-confidence matters WAY more than if their clothes match!!! 

A brown shirt, with navy pants and black shoes, tells the world, and more importantly them, that they have a Mommy who believes in them, no matter if we look “put-together” or not.  

 Really when I think about it, it’s probably better this way. Because there are very, VERY few days when we are put together AT ALL, so having our outsides, match are our insides is probably a much better way of being in the world ... much more honest anyway.   

Secretly, I am still trying to find ways to help them learn HOW to match, so that maybe one day they will at least have the ability to do it, if they so choose to try! 

For now though, I have decided that "Matching Clothes" is just is not the hill I want to die on.

~

However, it its place Brian and I found another equally annoying hill I like to call: "Putting Away Your Toys". 

We promptly marched ourselves up to the top of it, planted our flag and prepared for battle! 

Here is the battle I daily have in front of me ...

For those of you without kids, my guess is you are wondering 2 things: do kids really make that big of a mess and how long does it take for them to do that? 

The answer is EVERYDAY and it only takes about 1 afternoon of good solid playtime to accomplish this level of destruction!

I have tried the: "You can only take 1 toy out at a time" rule, which does work ... if you have time to watch them like a hawk!  

Heaven forbid you try to accomplish something in your day, like a load of laundry, or unloading the dishwasher or going to the bathroom by yourself  .......  TA DA ... CHAOS!

The problem is that even though we knowingly climbed up this hill for the battle, now we are dying!  I mean really DYYYYIIIINNNNGGG! 


It's a slow, horrible, painful battle every day to get them to clean up their mess!  The battle usually takes on some version of this:

Me: Go clean up the mess you made in the loft.

Child 1: (with attitude, to Child 2) You have to clean up YOUR toys and I will clean up MINE! 

 Child 2: (already angry) I ALREADY KNOW THAT!

Me: Both of you just worry about yourselves and go clean up.

... a few minutes pass...

 ... someone starts screaming ...

Child 2: (crying) Moooooom! She hit me!

Me: Why?

 Child 2: Because I wasn't cleaning up the toys. (At least they are honest!)

Child 1: (yelling from upstairs) He's not cleaning up, he's playing and it's not fair! I am doing it all myself!!!

Me: Have a seat in time out, you are not allowed to hurt each other, even if you're angry.

... time out for 5 minutes ...

Me: Please just be responsible for YOURSELF and go pick up your toys. I am setting the timer for 15 minutes, at the end whatever is left I am going to put into time out.

Both of them run to put away their toys...

... a few minutes pass...

... someone starts crying ....


... and ON and ON and ONNNN it goes ...

See what I mean ... DYYYIIINNNGGG!!!!!!!

So, today I talked with Brian when he came home and we decided to wave our white flag in surrender!  They have us cornered and today we are choosing flight rather than fight and are climbing down off the hill.  Because truthfully I don't want to die on this hill and their is a real possibility I might, if I have to fight for even one more day.

We sat them down to let them know that from now on the loft an their rooms are theirs to use as they like. Their toys are THEIR responsibility. This revelation was met with enormous smiles by both of them!  I'm not sure yet if that should make us feel relieved or REALLY scared.

It is, at it's core, a grand experiment in reverse -psychology and we are going to PRAY that one day the mess they make will annoy them enough that they will decide to pick it up all on their own ...

I will keep you posted, if that day EVER comes ...

If not, at least we will live to die another day!

FOR LOVE!

I have been meaning to write for a while now but ... life has been a bit chaotic around here. 

For the most part we are keeping our heads above the water and I finally found a few free movements, so ....

Many people have been asking and checking in about Brian, so I feel like I should let you know how he is doing first.  He finished his first 4 treatments just before Micah was born, which was wonderful timing for all of us! Thank you Jesus for that!

  The antibody drug they are using to treat the cancer has NO side effects, so other than going and sitting in a chair with an IV for 6 hours and waiting for it to all get into his body, it really has felt like a non-event.  

I don't say that lightly, because we know that this drug is a gift and a miracle, that if it works can keep his cancer suppressed in his body for years and give us time; but compared to the other life events going on at the moment, it really has been in the background of our everyday life.  

 He went in for another treatment a few weeks ago.  In a month or so they will do another scan to determine how effective the drug is on the size of his lymph nodes and determine if this is "working" or not.  The good thing is, the nodes he was able to feel in his neck (which made him go into the Dr. this time to get checked) he can't feel anymore!  So we are hopeful that means ALL of the lymph nodes are shrinking and the cancer is being suppressed for the time being. 

Thank you for all of your prayer and support, it has been amazing to feel the hand of God reach out to us, through the people who love Him! I will write and update about the results of his scan once he gets them back.

The bigger event is the new little life we welcomed into our home in March!  For those of you who have never done it, adjusting to a newborn for the first few weeks, is a little like daily flipping your whole life upside down, and then frantically trying to put it back together.  All while severely sleep deprived, incredibly sore, and trying to come down off of the hormone high you have been on for the last nine months! ... Fun!

I think in my head I thought that because we had done it before, and because we had twins, this would be "No big deal" and we would adjust right back into our routine.  

That was a silly thought!

Sleep deprivation with one, or two or ten is just plain brutal, and unlike last time where they stayed in the NICU for seven weeks while I recovered ... this time we came home with a very sweet, but very needy baby who I actually pushed out of my body only days before.  The thought of that may be a little much for some of you, but I am still a little in awe of what I did, because it literally was THE single hardest thing I have ever done in my life! 

I heave heard this comment made a lot when it comes to childbirth: "There are no awards or metals handed out to the person who does it the best."  The idea behind the statement is that there is no right or wrong way to have a baby, which I completely agree with!  The truth is, there is no award ceremony and you don't receive a metal or a trophy upon leaving the hospital, for courage or valor or bravery ... but YOU SHOULD!  

I have been thinking about this a lot lately and I have decided this:

I think that being pregnant, growing a life inside of you, carrying out the process for a full 40 weeks (or less as sometimes the case may be), planned or unplanned, means willingly giving up your body... for LOVE.  

It means, because I already loved my child more than myself, I allowed my body to stretch and to grow.  All my internal organs were compressed into whatever area of my body they could fit into.  I spent weeks feeling breathless as Micah's body took over the space where my lungs once operated without hindrance.  My bladder was compressed by my growing uterus until the point I think I could only tolerate about one sip of water at a time.  My body retained water, which meant my hands and face, my ankles and feet and legs were puffy and swollen and painfully uncomfortable.  

For nine months, my body was not mine, it didn't belong to me.  It belonged to Micah!  It was HIS, to use whatever resources needed for him to grow and thrive and ultimately have life!  

For a short time, we were one, and he was every bit as much a part of me as the heart that beats in my chest and kept us both alive.

 

And then after weeks of contractions ... it was time for him to come!

I labored by myself for hours until I couldn't stand the pain.  I fought my own fear down, as I breathed through what felt like 10 contractions, until they had my epidural in place.   I smiled and laughed with excitement with my Mom and Brian and Corrie, until the pitocin kicked in and hard labor took over.  I pushed for almost 2 hours with an epidural that didn't work, until I was pretty sure I was either going to die, or I wanted to.  And then they laid this PERFECT, beautiful baby up on my chest and I realized what every mom, everywhere, realizes:

IT WAS ALL WORTH IT!  

A few months before I had Micah, I had the wonderful privilege to stand at the door of a hospital delivery room when my nephew was born.  By allowing all of us to listen in, my sister-in-law gave us the gift of hearing both the last terrifying movements of her labor of love (without any drugs - YIKES!) and his first stunningly beautiful squeaky little cries!   

The gift of hearing his cries speaks for itself, but I say listening to her labor was a gift for this reason: After all was said and done; baby was born, she was all put back together (as much as you can be right after having a baby), the Doctor came out of the room and this was his one comment: 

"She is a very brave woman."  

To be witness to that kind of bravery in life is rare. To see (or hear) someone literally lay their own life on the line for another, for love ... it was a gift that I will cherish my whole life. And then a few short months later I did it again myself, and I am so very proud of myself and so humbly thankful to God  for getting me through it!

Motherhood, in whatever shape and form it comes is an act of bravery and courage and sacrifice: ALL for for LOVE!  Some Mom's will carry and grow a baby in their body for nine months, while others wait and pray unceasingly over adoption paperwork. Some moms labor for hours or days, some with drugs, some without.  Each pulling from every bit of strength they have to push for minutes or hours, or fight their own fears down as they trust a Doctor to use a vacuum, or forceps, or preform a major surgery while they are AWAKE! There are some Mom's who do all of that, knowing full well that the baby they are sacrificing for will never come home with them, either because their precious life will be cut short, or because they made the difficult choice to let their baby go into the arms of another mom; who is silently laboring in prayer for a child they already desperately love.

 As I thought about it this year, I realized that Mother's Day might just be the single most important day of the year (at least for me).  Beacuse, it IS the award ceremony for first GIVING them life and then for yet another year of KEEPING them alive!  

My first year as a Mom, my sweet husband gave me a set of pearls for Mother's Day and whenever I wear them I feel like I am wearing my purple heart for the day!  Not because I am in love with jewelry, (if you know me at all you know I rarely wear it), but because they were given to me on Mother's Day, they feel like a badge of honor for my bravery and courage to daily take on the hardest job I have ever done. They are my reminder that although I will never again look good in a bikini because my body will never, ever be the same; my heart never will be either.

That makes every sleepless night, every poopy diaper, every snotty attitude and rolled eye worth it.  Because when I look at the three little miracles that God allowed me to bring into this world,  I realize that they are a gift! A gift sent by God to teach me that life isn't actually about looking good in a bikini ... it's about what Christ showed us on the cross, when he willingly gave up His body and sacrificed everything for LOVE!



I want to say a HUGE Thank You to my dear friend Corrie who gave us the precious gift of capturing this process in such a deeply beautiful way!  You are a wonderful photographer and an even better friend, thank you for sharing this with me!!! You all need to check her out, she is amazing!
http://www.clb-photography.com/

Backstory (for those of who didn't get to experience it first hand)

May 16, 2004

   I have been trying to figure out, how to adequately put words to a miracle I still stand in awe of.  I have been thinking about and reading through the miracles of Jesus for a while, trying to understand.  How did the blind man explain to people the change in him, how did the woman who had been bleeding for years get anyone to really understand what she had been through, what Jesus had really healed her from?   I don’t know if there is a way to really get someone to understand … here is my best attempt to be transparent with my life and tell how Great and Good God really is!

            In May of 2004, Brian and I got married right out of college.  In July of 2004, he was diagnosed with stage 4, Hodgkins and Non-Hodgkins lymphoma.  Before starting chemo our Oncologist made us aware that a likely side effect of the drugs is sterility. He suggested if we ever wanted to have kids, that we bank sperm.

             “If we ever want to have kids? Of course we want to have kids!  All I have ever wanted to be is a Mom!  …. What if we never get to have kids?” all raced through my thoughts!  With one day before he had to start chemo treatments, we entered the wonderfully uncomfortable world of fertility clinics and banked sperm!

1st of 6 rounds of Chemotherapy

ICU after his Bone Marrow Transplant

Recieving his Stem Cells back after High Dose Chemo. "Transplant!"

            With that taken care of (for another worry on another day), Brian started his first of what would be six rounds of chemotherapy, taken every 3 weeks, to get him into remission.  Then at the recommendation of a board of oncologists who looked at his case, in January of 2005, he underwent a bone marrow transplant.  Or first year of marriage was consumed with questions to God: wondering why him, why us, trying to make sense of something that in our reality, just didn’t!  It took almost a full year, to finally realize that God didn’t actually owe us anything! Brian, and I for that matter, had ALREADY been saved!  He gave HIS Son up, so WE could have life! If he chose to save Bri from the disease that was killing his body, then it was for His Glory alone! If he chose to take Brian, then we would grieve with The Father who loves him more than we could possibly understand. Looking back now, where really we finally came, was to the place of surrender.  Surrender to God’s perfect will for our lives, and for those of us who understand it: the odd place where we LOOSE our life … so we can GAIN it!

            Brian did amazing with the treatment!  God used some amazing doctors, nurses and medical advances, to both save him and minister to our hearts.  We began the process of wrapping our hearts and minds around what God had really done. Even knowing what He had done for Brian, in the back of my mind was the nagging, sometimes paralyzing question: “What if we can never have kids?”

Profile of Ayla (front) and Ashton (back)

            In January of 2007, we started the very long, very painful, very uncomfortable, VERY EXPENSIVE process of In Vitro Fertilization.   The details of which could be a whole different testimony, but to keep it short: by day 5, we had only 2 healthy embryos that were still growing, which they implanted … and we waited.  I wish I could say it was in faith and trust that God would take care of it.  In reality, in the deepest part of my heart I was terrified of the idea that it may not work.  I was almost paralyzed in fear at the idea that I may never get to be a Mom!  At our first ultrasound, we got to hear 2 perfect, strong little heartbeats! Again, I am almost embarrassed to admit, that faith was not where I was dwelling.  Instead I set up a little camp right in-between fear and worry, making myself miserable and sick, over the “responsibility” I felt I had, to “make sure” they were OK. (As if that really had anything to do with me.)

1st Day of Preschool. I should have taken this from the back!

            Then one night, in one of the most significant miracles I had yet to experience, God gave me, a perfectly timed gift! One I neither had earned nor deserved.  I had a dream of a little blond boy and girl, wearing backpacks, holding hands, walking up a hill to their first day of school.  It was from behind, and at the time I had no idea, but at 12 weeks pregnant, before we even knew if we were having a boy or a girl, I dreamt in perfect detail about Ashton and Ayla.  For the first time, in 3 years I started to allow God in, to break my hard heart of control and get to really EXPERIENCE what I had “known” Him to be, my whole life. 

Ayla Joy

Ashton Tru

           

On August 2, 2007, at only 29 weeks, Ashton and Ayla made their early debut into the world at a whopping 2 lbs, 12 oz. and 3 lbs. 4 oz! Gripped by crushing guilt over them being so premature and drowning in sheer desperation, I clung to the God who saves, with everything I had.  I knew then, the same thing I knew when Brian was sick:  God didn’t owe us anything!  They were His and His alone! If he had wanted them, he could have taken them home. And yet, in the midst of one of the scariest times of our life, God again showed us who He really is: He is a God of hope, of healing and of mercy!  More than that, He is a Father who loved us and showed us HIS love for OUR kids, when we were desperate for a miracle!  They just turned 4 years old this month, with not a single complication from being 11 weeks premature! Every time I look at them, I am in awe of how amazing God really is! (Well, almost every time … Let’s just be honest, 4 year olds can be really trying sometimes!)

Ayla at 1 week old

            After all of that, we still are not to the miracle that has me standing in total awe of how amazing God really is …

             I don’t know exactly when I started wanting another baby.  Long before I said it out-loud to anyone, my heart started longing for a child I feel like was missing from our family.  This is such a hard thing to describe to anyone who has not experienced it, but I would look at pictures of the 4 of us, and have this deep, nagging feeling that someone was missing. With the first IVF cycle we had spend every bit of money we could and worked really hard trying to pay it all off.  In February of 2011, we went in to talk to the fertility Dr. about other options.  Turns out, there are NO OTHER OPTIONS.  We could spend $20,000 out of pocket (well really out of thin air – because let’s face it, between raising twins and real life, we don’t have that much in any pocket, ever!) to “try” IVF again, or we could look into adoption. 

            We started looking into adopting an infant; and tried to wrap our heads around the fact that it is even more expensive than IVF. I also realized quickly when we looked deeper into adoption, that I had to first find a way to grieve the loss of not having another child of our own, before we could try to move forward. To be honest, I had NO idea how to even begin to do that.  How do you grieve something you don’t have, that you will never have? My heart and my mind were sad beyond belief.  With every announcement by someone we know who was pregnant or every well-meaning person who reminded us: “You should just be thankful for the kids you do have!”, my despair and grief grew.           

            I spent way more time that I would like to admit, racking my brain to come up with some solution, some way to MAKE the miraculous happen.  All the while we were telling people: “If we want another child, our only options are to try IVF again, or adopt.” And then we would add: “Or God could just do a miracle and heal Brian.”  The last part said in much the same way you would say: “Or God could just let us win the lottery!”  And it’s because of THAT attitude right there, more than anything else, I am blown away by the mercy and the grace of what God has done!

            Not long after we started looking into IVF and adoption, trying to figure out which way to go, where God was leading us, I had another dream.  I was in a delivery room standing next to a woman helping coach her as she pushed.  Right before the baby was born I realized I was actually the one in labor and pushing, and they laid this perfect baby up on my chest.  The next scene I remember from the dream, Brian and I were standing in the hall of the hospital.  I was holding a baby boy, wrapped in a blue blanket and I kept saying, “I can’t believe he is ours.”  I woke up and remember thinking it was really un-clear if the baby was ours biologically, or if we had adopted him. 

            What was really clear though, was that just like the dream of Ashton and Ayla: God had given me a promise.  If we wanted to adopt, He would bless that! If we wanted to have a baby of our own, He would bless that as well. This sounds dumb saying, but the problem was: even with a promise from God, neither Brian nor I still had any idea how we could afford either one.

            After being in Castle Rock for not quite a year, we decided it was probably time to pick a church somewhere near our home. In 2011 started attending a church we have come to really enjoy.  As we attended, we started hearing the talk of healing services and how much this church stands on the belief that God both IS a healer and WANTS to heal.  The idea of it was not a foreign concept to us, since we had grown up in the church, hearing the miracles of Jesus and knowing He “can” heal.  Not only did we know it, we had experienced it, when He healed Brian from cancer, and then healed our babies perfectly in the NICU! You would think we would have learned something by now!?

            The problem was we had spent a long time in a church that was on fire for Jesus and bringing people into relationship with Him, but spent very little time talking about the supernatural part of who God is.  Going to a healing service just felt weird to me! With kind of an attitude, I think I even said to Brian one day, “Why do we have to go to a healing service to pray? If God hears our every prayer, every thought; if He wants to heal, and we are seeking Him, asking for healing, why can’t he answer our prayers from here? Why only if we go there?”  To which my wise and much more levelheaded husband answered: “Maybe so other people can see and experience His Glory too.” 

            I figured that was probably right, and even though I fully believed God COULD heal, I was still not ready to open up my heart and believe that he WOULD heal Brian.  The problem that I had was this: if I let myself believe with everything I am, that God WILL heal Brian and we can have a baby on our own without IVF or Dr.s or drugs or adoption, and He chooses not to, then I will be devastated!  The paralyzing fear I felt way back before I had the twins, I hadn’t let go, I just buried it.  As clearly as I have maybe ever “heard” something from God, I felt Him say, “Can you trust me enough to take care of you, if you are devastated?”  While I was working on my little plan to not fall completely apart, if we never got to hold the child I so strongly felt is supposed to be in our family, God was trying to teach me that He alone is actually Big enough to handle the hard parts of life!  We serve a God who is compassionate and comforting, who will grieve with us in our sorrow and lift us up, if only I would be willing to let Him in to do it.

            It was the Saturday before this perfectly timed sermon on Hope vs. Wishing, I finally admitted to myself and then out-loud to Brian. “For years I think I have been praying that God would heal you, so we can have a baby, but really I have only been “wishing” God would do it.” I know the dream was a promise that God gave me and yet I was living like it was nothing.  For the first time since we got married and started this long, crazy road, I was ready to be like the woman who touched the hem of Jesus’s robe.  In my desperate need, in my deepest desire, I finally let what I have always “known” about God seep into my heart, and started praying in Hope for God to heal Brian and allow us to have a baby on our own.  We decided we would go to the next healing service at Jubilee, (even if it still felt weird) and talked about how after we got home from our vacation at the end of July we would start “trying” to have a baby, the way everyone else “tries”.

We got back from vacation on Saturday, July 30th. I told Brian I thought I should take a pregnancy test. To which he responded: “we are not spending money on that, you’re not pregnant.”  To be fair, his response was warranted, as quite often I tend to overreact to ANY slight symptom that may even vaguely be related to pregnancy and insist I need to take a test.  After 6 years of him being medically sterile and me insisting on buying ridiculously expensive tests (for something that you pee on), he shook his head, put his foot down and moved on.  I however, was still feeling like our whole house was on rockers and decided to text my neighbor to see if she had any extra tests (as I knew she was pregnant herself, not because I assume people just keep them on hand).   

 2 Min. later I was sitting on the bathroom floor, looking at 2 strong blue lines and waffling back and froth between elation and utter confusion.  I came out to tell Brian and with a very suspicious look, he insisted the test must be wrong.  I then texted my neighbor and we had another little pow-wow over the back fence, this time to compare our positive pee sticks, at which point she said, “Did you ever think when we moved in here we would be comparing pee sticks over the fence.” Nope, can’t say I ever thought this would happen!  But, for the record, mine looked just like hers, so clearly jumping up and down and screaming with our pee sticks was the right thing to do!   

Brian at this point was still insistent that there was something wrong with the test and then insisted that I go buy a “good one” from the store (which I find ironic, given the proceeding part of the story.)  5 positive pregnancy tests later, we did what any normal people would do, I lined them up and took a picture, then started an internet search on what exactly can cause a false positive on a pregnancy test.  That proved not to be the greatest idea we have ever had, as the answer involves things like tumors and cancer. Since we have already been there and done that in our short marriage, we weren’t so excited to start down that road again and decided to wait until we talked to a Doctor before we officially freaked out. We are just weeks from welcoming a new life into our family and we are still standing in total disbelief of the biggest miracle I think I have ever experienced (which I feel like is saying a lot, given the story of our life.) 

            More than anything though I am humbled and broken and so unbelievably grateful that God works and moves, despite my feeble attempts at faith.  God both can and DOES heal, and not just when we have perfect steadfast faith!  He has mercy on those who struggle, He gives hope to those who stumble and fall, over and over again! He renews His promises to us even in our desperation, and I am so thankful!

            To top it all off, we went to church to hear the pastor talk about the year of Jubilee.  In Biblical times, the year of Jubilee was every 7 years, a time to rest and celebrate and reap the harvest God had given.  It didn’t really sink in until we were worshiping at the end and I turned to Brian and said: “It can’t really be a coincidence that this was our 7th year wedding anniversary!”  Then after going to the Dr. and trying to figure out how far along we are, we realized that (although we can’t know for sure) this baby was conceived exactly 7 years to the month and possibly to the very day, from the day Brian was diagnosed in 2004!

Coming soon: Micah Rain Cowdrey

            So, maybe you already love the Lord, maybe you are on the fence, or maybe you want nothing to do with a God that may seem big and scary and mean.  I can’t reconcile for anyone the really hard, really legitimate, questions about God.  

All I can say is this: 

Where there was only sadness and grief and loss before, now there is life!  

I have literally NO explanation for that, other than we love and serve a God who is Big and who is really Good! Soon we will welcome our new baby BOY into our family …

 for His Glory alone!