strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord....

it is a weird place to be. stuck in the middle of fear and peace.

sounds like an oxymoron. sounds like hypocrisy to some believers i am sure.

but it's where ian and i sit for the next 6 or so months.

it's where we reside each week as wait for the next ultrasound. every four weeks.

"you just have to faith, dear."

i was recently told that comment and i think i probably reacted inside rather smugly, not proud about it, but i just kind of looked at this person and wanted to say "you just don't get it. i have faith." i had faith. look what happened. if you truly believe God is in control, than you know anything can happen, even the bad stuff. it doesn't mean you didn't have faith, it doesn't mean you didn't trust enough or God doesn't love you...it just means God ways are not our ways...hard lesson. i wondered if this person had not learned that yet....

i have been to the darkest places of my faith. i have been refined by the ashes there. i see my Savior with new eyes and a humbled heart...

but i have seen and experienced things by a sovereign God that show me, "having faith" doesn't mean it will always be ok, at least while here on earth. we live in a fallen world where suffering abounds and will continue to do so until Jesus comes back to take us Home....to a place that is REstored and REdeemed...

having faith, it does means God will always be there no matter what the circumstance. it does mean God will never let me go, even in the pits of hell that is grief. it means because of my faith i have hope. that no matter what unfolds, God's will ultimately will prevail and my faith is in the cross...not circumstances turning out ok. not things going my way or according to my plan. if it were up to me, i would have never left that dark haired little girl at the hospital alone, so still. i would have brought her home and now, 1 1/2 yrs later, would love to be chasing after her now as she is learning to walk....no, our ways our not Gods ways.

so for me and ian. we DO trust in a sovereign God who can do ALL things and who is ABLE. we just know from the scars we wear proudly in our daughter's memory, that just because God is able doesn't mean your wish is His command. we know that we had faith during our pregnancy with sydney. we went to each ultrasound with ease and blissful ignorance. we prayed over our little girl and trusted God with her life. since we do the same with this little one, we know our prayers and our trust in our God can be fruitful but we also know God's plan for our life can take a different turn than we would like....no matter how many prayers we utter...

the last pregnancy in the fall was an echo of past hurt..."there is no heartbeat. i am sorry.." after getting back up from losing syd, to try again, only to get knocked back down again, it was another blow and a reminding lesson of God's will verses ours...some say we are brave for trying this again..i like to think we are blindly trusting what we think the Lord has told us to do....in the midst of crazy odds...sounds more like crazy than brave...

with statistics like ours, why wouldn't we be scared to keep reliving that news? why wouldn't we just expect to keep getting disappointed? i want to Hope in a God of miracles and possibility, a God that is bigger than statistics and that honors and blesses those who continue to trust and persevere in the face of trials and suffering....

so, each night before the next ultrasound, ian and i have found ourselves quite silent...until we speak to each other the words we know the other needs to hear...."we will be ok, no matter what we find tomorrow. God is still the same God. He is sovereign and His love for us in not measured in test results, it is measured at the cross....we will be ok, we will be ok..."...enter peace.

i walked slowly into this last ultrasound...yesterday. ian was to meet me there, he was running late. i told them i needed him there for support and asked if we could wait just a few more minutes for him. they obliged. they are so sweet there with us. they felt the loss of our sweet sydney with us. they were saddened with us over the last loss. they know what's on the line for us now. it's our last chance....ian walked in those doors, i took my place on the chair/table, i grabbed for his hand and it seemed so silent. we sat there listening to the typing of the keyboard by the tech as she entered my information and we stared at the big screen above us on the wall...we waited. we waited....i think we both waited to hear the bad news right away..we knew a lot can happen between 8 weeks and 12 weeks..not only have we experienced loss then, but we know many others who have had the same fate....yes, we believe. yes, we have hope and faith. but we were scared. we are still scared. we are broken and wounded, half waiting to be destroyed again with that single sentence.....enter fear.

we sat there, squeezing hands, holding our breath....and saw it. that tiny heartbeat. that tiny pulsing wonderful thing that has come to capture our held breath each time and throws us into gasps each time we see it. "can i exhale now?" i asked....i was told the heartbeat was great....the stats were great and our little one passed all the first trimester screening that was needed to be done....i sat there in amazement. waiting to hear bad news still as she looked and measured more but it didn't come. i felt myself relax a little bit until i looked at ian and he looked like he was about to throw up from the anxiety. "we are totally insane, aren't we?" i asked. "for going down this road again?".....

"maybe," he said to me as he was trying to compose himself. "i really feel like i am going to throw up and we have a lot more of these to go," he said...i looked at him sweetly and asked him the question that had been playing in my mind over and over the last 5 minutes..."are you as afraid as me to fall in love with this little one?" ......enter fear again.

"yes...i am so scared. i am scared to feel that hurt again..." he said softly. i knew what he meant. i didn't want to go back to that place either....but i told him later "but this baby deserves just as much love and excitement and joy as liam and syd got from us when we were expecting them..this baby deserves for us to be awaiting it's arrival into our family with so much anticipation and love..not fear. satan wants to steal our joy like that....no matter the outcome, this baby deserves two parents who are absolutely in love with it from the start, dreaming up names and nursery ideas....no matter what. we can't let fear of the past and what might be take that from us...God has given us a blessing and we need to Praise Him for it and be satisfied for now and grateful for this little life" .....enter peace once again.

much easier said than done. it is very easy to have faith that God will protect you and keep you safe. but once that faith has been tested...and on the other side, you find your faith still in tact and standing before a God who loves you immensely, you hopefully learn and realize that He protects you in His way, not yours. and His ways are really impossible to understand most times. so yes, i trust my God, but in a way now where i am grown up and know He knows what is best for me, the way a kid grows up and sees what his/her parent's fussing over them with rules and such was about all those years back...they knew best. you didn't. you were just a child.

so, i sit in honest confession right now and tell you that i struggle with the fear and peace place. often. i know i have a joy and a hope that awaits me with Heaven, the redeemed world and future that God has promised me and bought for me with His son...but life here- well, it is still a battle of the flesh. i pray with all my heart that my words and the meditations of my heart show my God that i trust Him in all things, but i know a lot of days i fail at that...i pray that He sees my trusting heart as i trust Him with yet another child that He in fact first entrusted me with, that's His to begin with. i hope and pray that my heart is resting in a place of peace that God grants me for times of fear and doubt. i know each month we are tested as we walk through the doctor's doors....we know God is able. we know this baby could be the miracle we pray for, born healthy, for God to bless us with another child to praise Him for...but we also know anything can happen and we MUST also praise Him for this child every single second NOW and praise Him even if the outcome is not what we want.....because if we can do that, THAT is where our peace will come from..even in the dark times, He will be that peace that we need.

as i was driving to our appointment yesterday, matt redman's "let my words be few" came on...a sweet song i love, one that i not heard in a while......

"You are God in Heaven...and here am i on earth...so i'll let my words be few..."

i took the last turn and drove down the familiar neighborhood road that i had driven over and over the last 3 years to go see my babies on a big screen...the road that was leading me to my scary unknown place, a place that might echo those same hurting words in the last two years..i am prepared, i know it's possible. i wanted to pray and beg and plead and reassure God i was ok no matter what but to tell him how much we wanted this baby....i wanted to tell Him all i was needing to say...and then i smiled as i heard the words of that song.....almost teasing me about my ability to forget so often..reminding me that my God is in Heaven, in total control...i am here on earth, walking blindly and stumbling sometimes, trying to control the things i can't and shouldn't......no matter what, He has it all under control...so i needed to rest in that...and instead of arranging fancy words and prayers...i needed to let my words be few......

man, i am constantly learning in all of this....i am constantly called back to a place of grace...there at the foot of the Cross...where He meets me each time, i come running back after i have retreated in fear and selfish doubt....

i am still scared. not that God will let me go. i know He will never let me go. i know He is still a good God no matter what. i am just scared of what i might have to let go of again...another child i might have to say goodbye to, that is when fear enters my heart once again....but when i think of the idea of meeting this little one, face to face, skin to skin, heartbeat to heartbeat, open eye to open eye....liam meeting his baby brother or sister for the first time..the idea of ian dancing and singing in the hallways of the hospital proudly with a live baby in hand and the hugest underdog grin on his face...well, i know and trust that God can deliver that too and He then blesses me with Peace.....

man, it's just the waiting. it's so dang hard. it seems so long and painful to wait in the unknown..BUT it's in the waiting, right?that we can grow in strength in Him? that He teaches us things that we would not have seen otherwise because we weren't on our faces like we are, we are listening so very closely to the Holy Spirit for every whisper and so aware of our weakness that we are humbled by His strength and how much we need it to survive in this worldly world?

STRENGTH WILL RISE AS WE WAIT UPON THE LORD..........