Continue to Trust

I feel like I have been through the wringer. I am definitely not through processing this whole thing, but I am in a better place to be able to sit down and write.

I am gonna share with you my honest heartache and how I walked through this, whether it was right or wrong… it is what it is.

As I look back and remember the raw heartache of loosing our daughter Nola I can sense God’s presence, I can remember how he met us, how he gave us grace (hence the name Nola ‘Grace’) through every single step. I can remember getting to know my Lord in a way I had never known him before. In the midst of suffering the time I had with my God was sweet. Little did I know that was the beginning of a hard and long journey.

If you have been reading you know we’ve been on a new journey since January. God was bringing me back to health, giving me answers, burdening educated people to help me with my health AND pay for Dr. visits and supplements. We were seeking him so desperately in this whole thing, and I can honestly say that we couldn’t have sought him more righteously. I don’t want you to misunderstand that, we are not perfect people I know that, but as we went to the Lord before everything, he guided us, he answered us and we felt so blessed to be lead so clearly, as he has really done for us for so many years now.

When we sat in the room ready to have our 8 week ultra sound I couldn’t wait to get some more connection with this baby, the reason we were doing an early ultra sound was so that we could be assured at an early age that the baby was fine. When the Dr. couldn’t see the heart beat, I didn’t believe it… I couldn’t believe this was happening, like literally couldn’t believe it. I looked at TJ and said “This can’t be right! I don’t understand! What is God doing?!”. We got in the car and I felt angry, really REALLY Angry. We stopped at a thrift store on the way home to look for baggage for Africa, TJ went in the store and I sat in the car waiting for him to come back. I began asking God legitimate questions, and using language that had never actually come out of my mouth before. I had felt like God walked me down this path, like he lead me like a sheep to it’s slaughter. I felt as though I had trusted him and he stabbed me in the back. I put it all out there and, and stepped out in major faith in who he was, only to get squashed like a bug. I felt like we were on to a new section in the journey, the section where we experience life. I felt like I had suffered enough, and it was time for a new kind of journey, I definitely felt like I knew what was best for myself! And within all of that I did not feel that God was with me, I did not feel like he met me there. I feel like he did this TO me.

Okay, so as I look back I wouldn’t have done anything differently and I don’t think there was anything that I could have done to not feel surprised to loose yet another baby. We asked God specifically if we should try for another child or more specifically “should we stop preventing?”, we prayed earnestly for a month and he gave us an answer, which was yes, a green light to ‘move forward in trusting him and his plan’, so we moved forward with that… I happened to get pregnant and the due date was Nola’s due date… we began to make assumptions that these were God’s confirmations. Well one should not always make assumptions… we should just take God at his word, but again could I have done it any differently? No… we were walking with him, talking with him. You know how I shared all those things about how upset I was with God and how I felt like He had done all these things to me? Well we are close, my God and I are close, we talk together, we walk together… we have a strong relationship. Can I be a little childish and selfish sometimes? Well, ya! I’m his kid, I throw fits, I get unhappy with his decisions, but that doesn’t change how much I love him, I still know how much he loves me, and how much he cares about me. Just because I get upset with him and not talk to him for a couple weeks doesn’t mean our relationship is over, that’s not how relationships work… you work them out!

My world was shaken, my worldview of him felt a little unsure. God asked us to trust him in moving forward, and so we did and this is what happened… I don’t know why, but I do know that God is trustworthy and faithful. That he has my best interest in mind. I know that he loves me and I know he loves my children. I know that he will use all of my experiences… all of THIS to bring himself glory and hopefully to bring other’s to himself. I am sad for those that do not know him, or do not walk with him. Even though this can be as hard as hell sometimes, it sure is EVERYTHING! I am experiencing pain now, but it is only for a time. What is the other side of no relationship with God? More pain than I ever want to know… I don’t want that, not for anyone! Some may feel free without God, but that’s only temporary, sin is fun and feels free, but it is all just a trap. Walking in the truth and in the light is a narrow and sometimes quite difficult road, but this is the road I want to be on.

We are on our way to Africa, we were supposed to make the first leg of our trip on Tuesday the 18th, but now we’re not leaving Florida until the 25th. It is hard to postpone leaving, but we know it is for the best, and will allow me more time to heal physically and in turn also heal a little more emotionally, although these things just take time. I have told a few people I am okay with moving overseas while being sad, but I’m not okay with it if I’m not in a good place with my heavenly father, because as we make this huge transition I want to be relying on God.

This anger I was describing, it was on and off for about 2 weeks. The 2nd week we were sure we were gonna loose the baby, and God was the last person I wanted to talk to! Last Sunday our Pastor, Tim Merwin preached. He just came home from his first mission’s trip, and to India! Before he left he had been going through Psalm 23, well he didn’t get to finish… so he preached that part last Sunday. “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me, your rod and your staff they comfort me.” Of course everything about it was applicable to our situation, TJ and I felt like he was speaking directly to us the entire time.

After the service, he asked for anyone who was struggling to see that God was their Shepard, to come up and receive prayer… well I had been quite stubborn, and I wasn’t about to go up and ask for prayer, I was still mad at God. I had not been praying nor was I reading my Bible, although I had asked him a few times to meet me where I was at. As I stubbornly stood at my seat, 2 women walked up to me and began praying for me, I just began sobbing, because I knew that God was meeting me in my seat, I didn’t have to walk up to the front to meet him, he met me. One friend was praying and said she didn’t even know what to say, she said “I’m sure that Lily has probably already prayed so much”, and I looked up and said “no I haven’t been praying at all” And as I was looking down, I noticed the woman next to me had alligator tears falling to the ground, she knew exactly what to pray for me, which really blessed me. Sunday was a turning point for TJ and I. By Monday morning we were able to process through a lot, and were beginning to trust the Lord again. If we blamelessly followed him before, we can blamelessly follow him now. Jesus gave his all for us, he knows suffering, he knows heartache, he knows betrayal… it’s not like he doesn’t get what we were going through. But the thing is that our God is trustworthy, he has us in the palm of his hand. So as we walk forward, and as we begin this new Journey in Africa, we will walk hand in hand. We can’t ignore what happened with loosing this baby, we must embrace that God had a purpose in it, and move forward trusting him to lead us just like we were before. It sounds simple, and complicated, but it is simple and we will trust Him.