Philipians 4:4-8
Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable-if anything is excellent or praiseworthy-think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me-put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.
It is not always easy to rejoice in the Lord, when hard times come. In fact, sometimes it seems near impossible!
However, it can be done. It's not easy, but it can be done. To show you what I mean, I'll share something with you that I've shared with only a very few people in depth. I've glanced over the surface in places like my blog, but I've never really gone into detail about how I was feeling through the situation - so, over a year later, you now have the opportunity to hear the details.
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A bit over a year ago, I was pregnant. I was due on September 15, 2009, and I was absolutely thrilled. My first pregnancy had gone perfectly, except for a few minor things, and so I just knew this one would go just fine. We had names picked out - my husband wanted a girl named Anjelica Rose, and I wanted a boy named Michael David. Both of us would have been happy no matter which we actually got.
An exciting sonogram was coming. I was getting very close to my twentieth week, so we would soon be able to find out the sex of the baby! I actually had my appointment earlier than that, but we had our hopes up.
I walked in to the doctor's office my seventeenth week, and just as I did, my doctor received the results from my last blood test. She was not in a very good mood after glancing over those papers, and I soon found out why.
I tested high for something that might just cause a malformation called Trisomy 18 in my baby. Only 5% of children who have it make it to full term alive, and only 10% of those who aren't stillborn make it past ten days - those were the statistics I was told. It terrified me. My husband was not with me at that appointment. She asked for me to come back a week later, as she was going to have further blood tests done, and check me very closely from then on. Up until this point, the pregnancy was going amazingly well - no complications. As you can probably understand, this news came as quite a shock to both myself and those tending to me.
My eighteeth week, my husband joined me at my appointment. We were still terrified, but we'd done a lot of praying. I could feel movement, so I was determined that my baby was still alive. We'd decided when the pregnancy had suddenly taken the turn from perfectly healthy to possibly fatal, that we would not pray for our baby's survival. We decided that we would pray for God's Will. If God wanted this baby - we would freely give it to him. But that didn't mean that we didn't hope for otherwise.
This particular appointment was devistating. The baby was very far behind in development - only classifying as fifteen and a half weeks old. It was dying, and there was little to no way around it. The subject of abortion was breeched by the doctor (albeit gently), and we promptly turned it down - we would let God decide if the baby lived or died. That would not be our choice. An Amnio was scheduled for a week later to see if it really was the Trisomy - risky, but at this point in the pregnancy, everything was risky. Doing nothing was more risky than doing something.
By the time we made it to the Amnio appointment, our baby was dead. I didn't believe it at first. I'd felt it moving just a few minutes before we went in. I'd even shown my husband, and he felt the movement as well... but on the screen, there was none. I didn't completely fall apart, then, though I cried a little. There was a lot to do. We needed to induce labor before a more bloody and painful miscarriage came. There were plans to make, relatives to call, clothes to pack, bosses to get in contact with... there was simply a lot to do.
My husband and I promised one another that, through this time, we would make sure we centered our focus on God. This sort of situation can rip marriages apart, and we were not going to allow it to touch ours.
When our little son was born, we named him Angel Davis. Davis is my father's middle name, and because of work and needing to take care of an elderly relative, he could not come. Angel... well, I imagine you can realize that one for yourselves. His head was three centemeters in diameter, and he weighed an ounce and a half. He had all of his fingers and toes, and his legs were very, very long.
We didn't find out until nearly two months later what actually happened. I had two doctors, at this point, and the specialist decided to test me for something that usually goes untested until a second miscarriage. But after the Trisomy 18 scare was proven false, he was curious. He discovered that I have something called antiphospholipid antibodies in my blood - and it attacks the placenta in a pregnancy. My baby suffocated to death. He could not breathe. To make it through a full pregnancy, I'd need to take a shot every day after the first trimester. And still, there wasn't a guarantee the child would live.
I can't have any more children.
I won't lie to you - this wasn't an easy turn of events. I'd felt like I had my heart ripped out of me. However, GOD IS GOOD! Despite everything, I still had things to rejoice over.
 My marriage grew stronger than it has ever been because of the shared pain, prayer, and support.
I felt LIFE within me. God allowed me to feel life within my stomach even just moments before I realized it was really gone.
The realization of what is in my blood made my two precious babies that I already have even more of a miracle to me. How had I been able to have them, but not this one? It could be nothing less than a miracle.
I, personally, am a stronger person. What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger - how true! And God will never, ever give you more than you can handle. Trust. You have to trust.
I have a new family member that I will someday get to meet. Even though he was in my life for such a short time, I think of him often, and I smile. Sometimes I cry - but sometimes I smile, too.
I clung to what was good, and rejoiced in everything I could find my heart able to rejoice in. And you know what? It healed.
Rejoice in the Lord. No matter what is going wrong... there are so many things that are going RIGHT at the same time. Look for them. Pray that you can find them. They are there, likely staring you right in the face. |
Spiritual: August 04, 2010 Issue [#3890]
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