Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Glory Baby Song

I heard this song sometime after our 2nd loss. The lyrics brought tears to my eyes, but were also healing to my hurting heart. I am attaching the lyrics for you as well. You might want to grab a box of tissues before you hit "play". Love to you ladies.




Glory Baby - Watermark

Glory baby you slipped away as fast as we could say baby…baby..
You were growing, what happened dear?
You disappeared on us baby…baby..
Heaven will hold you before we do
Heaven will keep you safe until we’re home with you…
Until we’re home with you…

Miss you everyday
Miss you in every way
But we know there’s a
day when we will hold you
We will hold you
You’ll kiss our tears away
When we’re home to stay
Can’t wait for the day when we will see you
We will see you
But baby let sweet Jesus hold you
‘till mom and dad can hold you…
You’ll just have heaven before we do
You’ll just have heaven before we do

Sweet little babies, it’s hard to
understand it ‘cause we’re hurting
We are hurting
But there is healing
And we know we’re stronger people through the growing
And in knowing-
That all things work together for our good
And God works His purposes just like He said He would…
Just like He said He would…

BRIDGE:
I can’t imagine heaven’s lullabies
and what they must sound like
But I will rest in knowing, heaven is your home
And it’s all you’ll ever know…all you’ll ever know…

New Every Morning

Lamentations 3:22-26

22 Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.

23 They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.

24 I say to myself, "The LORD is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him."

25 The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him,
to the one who seeks him;

26 it is good to wait quietly
for the salvation of the LORD.

I love the feeling of an early spring morning– my heart just streams full of hope. It’s one of those days that I rejoice in getting out of bed and readying myself for the day – spring is full of such hope. Do you know that you can have that hope today, regardless of the weather – regardless of what’s happening to you or around you?

Are you finding your heart gloomy today? Is worry creeping into your thought life? Have you gone through yet another box of tissues? I encourage you today to take those thoughts captive and look to the Lord and His Word for encouragement today. God is a compassionate God – He is there to encourage you and direct you in His Word.

We are looking at Lamentations today. It is widely believed that Jeremiah wrote the book of Lamentations. Jeremiah had been called to speak for God before he was even born.

"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations."

Jeremiah 1:5

Isn’t it amazing that God has plans for each of us before we are even born? God has great plans for you - yes, He has allowed you to lose a baby - yes, that is VERY hard. Yes, God has a plan to bring this tragedy of your life and to create beauty in time - but be patient - grief takes time. God's Word says He will

comfort all who mourn,
and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness
instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
a planting of the LORD
for the display of his splendor.

Isaiah 61: 2-3

It takes time - but I have seen over time how God does this. I encourage you to look in your life to see how God is comforting you - being involved in the details of your life. He is growing you for a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.

Now let’s learn a bit more about Jeremiah. God had a difficult job planned for Jeremiah. Jeremiah’s job was to call Israel, God’s people, to repent and turn away from their idol worshiping lifestyle. He called them to repent and place their faith and trust in the one, true God. Well, Israel half heartedly tried at first, but no true repentance came, and Jeremiah’s message was hated in Israel. Jeremiah saw the destruction of Jerusalem and saw Israel be turned over to Babylon in captivity.

Jeremiah is often called the weeping prophet. He had a great deal to weep and mourn over. Yet, here in Lamentations 3, we see Jeremiah looking to the Lord even though Jeremiah had seen very dire circumstances. Jeremiah took his eyes off of himself and the circumstances of God’s people and put his eyes on the Lord. He saw God’s compassion, God's mercy, and God’s plan. God's mercies were new every morning for Jeremiah.

Does this mean it's wrong to grieve? Is it wrong to cry? No, this is not wrong - God tenderly cares about your pain and your grief. His Word says

You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle.
You have recorded each one in your book. Psalm 56:8 (New Living Translation)

God cares so much for you that He collects your tears in His bottle. He is a compassionate, comforting Father God.

Let's continue in this Lamentations passage:


I say to myself, "The LORD is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him." Lamentation 3: 24

My NIV Study Bible says that the Hebrew phrase for “therefore I will wait” is the same as “therefore I have hope.” Let’s change the words to that phrase:

I say to myself, "The LORD is my portion;
therefore I have hope in him." Lamentation 3: 24

This is the anchored hope we have – we have the hope of the Lord – that He has a master plan and that plan is good. Today is a day He has called to ask us to rejoice in Him and in His plan. We are to hope in His plan for us and for our children. God is good – yes, he allows hard times and hard circumstances, but he works those circumstances for His glory and for the good of His people. God used that time of Babylonian exile to work out His plan for His glory. God is working through your past and present circumstances to bring a future of glory for Him and of molding you to be the Christian woman He desires you to be. I pray that you look to Him today.

Hope in the Lord today. Remember that God has a plan – He is a God of hope. I pray you cling to that hope today, no matter what your circumstances.


Dear God,

I thank you for the Bible, Your Word. Thank you that it is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path (Psalm 119:105). Thank you for Jeremiah and the book of Lamentations. God, Jeremiah saw such hardship, yet he could still hope in You and find his rest in You. God, help me today to rest in You, to hope in You. Help me when I am sad and grieving the loss of my child. I praise You that You have a plan for all of my life - a plan that began before I was born. I praise You that You work all things for your glory. I ask you today to give me that fresh spring-like feeling of joy and hope today. When I find grief and anxiety, bring Your Word to my mind and fill me with the joy of Your presence in my life. Lord, help me to be reminded that You will bring beauty out of the ashes of this time of grief. I pray these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.


I am praying for you dear ladies – praying that your day will be filled with the hope of the Lord.


Fernando Ortego is a favorite Christian artist of mine - here is a video which uses the song "Great is Thy Faithfulness" sung by Fernando. I pray the song reminds you of God's faithfulness and His new mercies each morning.


Our Story

Welcome to my new blog. I thought I'd start with telling you a bit of our story - the journey God has granted us as my husband and I sought God's will for our family.

We were married in 1996 after an 18 month courtship. God was starting to show me how when I'm content with where God has me, He will bless me with the desires of my heart. Meeting Warren and courting Warren was one way of showing me this. When I was content with where God had me in my singleness, God sent Warren.

After we married, we waited until I finished my master's degree to start the journey of adding children to our family. I taught full-time -- and then some -- I am a type A perfectionist who spent too many hours in her classroom and planning. Warren & I came to the conclusion that perhaps I should resign from my teaching job before we added children to our family. I resigned from my wonderful 6th grade teaching job in 1998, feeling strongly it was the Lord's will for us.

In August 1998, we got a positive - we were pregnant! We went on our dream vacation to Ireland, where I had extreme "morning" sickness - round the clock. Upon our return, I went to my doctor appointment, only to find that there was no heartbeat. In fact, it ended up that I had a partial molar pregnancy. The doctor explained that some women develop cancer from the moles traveling in the bloodstream, so we had to wait at least one year to try to conceive again. I was caught up in grief in our loss. I was grieved in the waiting a year or more. I was worried about cancer. How can this happen? How could this be God's plan?

That year of waiting was a VERY hard year. But GOD had a plan - a wonderful plan. You see, before the year of waiting, my summer was full of reading every book I could get hold of about pregnancy - and what God wanted me to do was to be learning about Him and how He desired my life to be. I was a Christian - I had professed belief - I even had a daily walk with Him. Yet, I hadn't learned the JOY in daily walking closely with Him and learning from His Word - the Bible - for YEARNING to take in His Word in my life. That year of waiting was water to my parched soul. I learned to be content as a child of God and to desire to study His Word so that I could know Him more closely.

We waited. I couldn't wait until we got the OK to start again. And God blessed us then with a pregnancy - in fact, we rang in the new century knowing there was a little life growing inside of me. And God blessed us with His will for us - our son, Will - on September 2, 2000. We praise God for our son Will.

In September 2001, we got another positive test. We were elated! Then a month later, we experienced a miscarriage. This was another difficult time. So thankful to have Will, yet also grieving that baby. God graciously granted us another pregnancy and in November we got a positive test. During that pregnancy, I looked for a devotional book for pregnancy that was specific to a woman who was nervous about her pregnancy due to loss in the past, but only found devotionals which seemed more whimsical than I needed. This little seed was planted to write a devotional which focussed on God and His Word - to give me encouragement and hope in the midst of an anxious pregnancy.

We were blessed to deliver Klara on August 12, 2002. What a joy to have a son and now a daughter. We felt so blessed.

Two years later, we brought home Adam on August 20, 2004. We celebrated God's abundant goodness to our family!

We felt content in our family size and opted for a vasectomy the next year. The week of the vasectomy, we got a positive pregnancy test. We were excited that God was surprising us with a number four and looked forward to being a family of six. The next month, we lost that little one to a miscarriage - we were heartbroken. We looked to the Lord and in His goodness, we knew He would use that loss in some way. I helped with a ministry for women going through infant loss, and I felt a renewed passion for those women. I knew God would somehow bring good out of this unexpected excitement, then unexpected loss.

Three months later - we got another positive pregnancy test - the vasectomy had healed. We were totally excited. God MUST SURELY want us to have four children. I was SO EXCITED! Yet, a month later, again, it ended in miscarriage. Why Lord? Why did You have to allow this AGAIN? WHY? It was a VERY difficult time. I learned to look to the Lord - to who HE is - to get my focus off of me - off of our family - and put it on God - to look at His attributes - His love - His plan - His will - His hope.

One of the gifts of our last two losses, is a sense that He is calling me to write. I think this desire is totally from the Lord for this season of my life since I've never felt this deep desire to write, nor have I ever felt that I've been very good at writing (especially as I remember my college freshman English class where I labored over and over papers which my professor critiqued over and over again). I firmly feel this calling is from the Lord. I coordinate a ministry which ministers to women who are suffering the grief of miscarriage, stillbirth, early infant death, and infertility. I long for these suffering women to feel the comfort of the Lord - His anchored hope. I pray that my writing in this blog will help grieving ladies to know the Lord - His Comfort - His hope, through the study of God's Word.

Thank you for taking time to read our story. I pray that my writing will reflect the Lord and His Word.

Here are words from the Bible which were very helpful to me in my healing from loss and in finding hope towards our future with children at home:

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart."
Jeremiah 29:11-13



A side note because I'm sure some of you may be curious about this - we are not currently pregnant nor are we seeking to be pregnant. Due to having four losses, already having three healthy children, and getting older, we opted for the second vasectomy - knowing God could surprise us one day or perhaps He would call us to adopt. For now, we feel content and blessed in our family of three children.