Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life
proverbs 13:12
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The resurrection of Jesus reminds us that
the worst day is not the last day.
Jennifer Rothschild
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True worship
is believing what God says about you on your worst day
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She is a gift. She is a promise. A promise that was given a long eighteen months ago. Before she was ever conceived or thought of in my own mind. Before I ever saw those two lines or lost two more babies. Before I knew what 2015 would hold; he spoke her name and she was mine.
And now, She is here. She exists. She is real.
I may not know her face, or her sounds, or her smile just yet,
but she is alive. Her heart is beating away and her delicate hands are tracing the inside of me, learning me, even now.
I had no initial thought that motherhood would, for a time, be so full of grief for me. I never foresaw my future as being clouded with so much heartache; motherhood as being so demanding of an experience to the core of who I am.
No, I never saw it coming. And I would not wish it on anyone.
But what I have allowed within myself to be broken and mended and learned and relearned, I would not trade for gold.
Not the pain. Not the suffering. Not the tears or the sighing or confusion or questions… no, i’m not talking about those things..
We are called to let those things go.
The treasures that I have uncovered…
are those found only in Jesus.
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Only someone who has experienced this kind of loss can truly understand the kind of things that come up and are exposed in the heart in the process of grief and healing. Not only in those around you, but within yourself. Every hidden insecurity, every weakness, every anxiety that you thought you had conquered suddenly reappears. Early on in this pregnancy (when every day was really hard and full of panic attacks) I had a dream. And In that dream, I was preaching in my spirit and I said this:
“True worship
is believing what God says about you
on your worst day.”
At that point, my “worship” consisted of just crying and letting tears fall down my face. Just presenting myself to God was hard, because of the intense shame that seems to come with the loss of a child. My body failed. I failed. not one time, but three times. My anger and guilt and doubt and fear only increased that shame, because I wanted to believe. I knew that God had not failed me, and that he had made me a promise, but the waiting and the not-knowing was enough to suffocate me most days.
But he said….
Real worship is to know that I love you.
Real worship is not you giving me something..
It is you receiving my love,
when all of hell is whispering that you are not enough and that you will never be. When every voice tells you that this pain is who you are.
Real worship is believing
That the cross and all that he has done is more than enough
for my shame, for my loss, for my doubt and anxiety, for my future, for my past, in every circumstance. That he knows me and my true identity.
If we can truly learn and know that all the things that we have experienced do not define us, but that only His love defines us..
If we can know within ourselves that our experience, no matter how tragic or unfair or unfortunate, is not our identity.. we will be free.
And nothing can ever take that security away from us.
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Today, I am thankful. Thankful to my beautiful daughter inside of me for teaching me. For giving me a reason to believe when there was no reason to believe. To hope against all hope in a world that tells you that you are powerless. No, I have learned that our lives are a reflection of the hope that we carry. I have her, because I did not give up. Because I carried within me something much greater than fear. Something more real than every medical fact and every “what if”. Because I believed that his promises are true and I refused to accept anything else other than the redemption he purchased for me.. The abundant life that he purchased for me.
We conceived her just two weeks after our third loss in October.
Because…. All things are possible to those who [continually] believe.
Love Hopes 