On Trusting Well

Last week, I talked about waiting well this Advent season. But Advent is not just about waiting well, it's also about trusting well. Nowhere do we see this more clearly than in the story of Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Imagine being a teenage girl, a virgin at that, and suddenly being told (by an angel) that you are going to become pregnant. And not just pregnant, but pregnant by God. And not just pregnant by God, but pregnant with God incarnate. I remember being a teenager and I don't know how I would have handled that news. Most likely way worse than Mary did.

In a few short moments, Mary's entire world was turned upside down. She was betrothed to a man. She was suddenly pregnant with a baby that did not come from this man. And in her culture this was a literal death sentence. In an instant, she was faced with the possibility of sudden death or lifelong banishment from society.

Yet, how does she respond?

"Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word" (Luke 1:38).

Here, in these short verses, Mary is exhibiting great trust in God and his word. She is not questioning God or his plan. She is not fretting over what could happen to her. She is not talking back or trying to control the situation. She is simply trusting God and taking him at his word.

Wherever you are this Christmas season, you most likely are in a time of having to trust God. The same God who was worthy of Mary's trust is worthy of yours as well. The God who came to earth and fulfilled all of his promises through his own birth, death, and resurrection still speaks today.

Mary, like Zechariah and Elizabeth, was waiting on this promised Messiah. When her circumstances looked at best uncertain, and at worst very dire, she trusted in the God who fulfills all of his promises. May we have faith to do the same.

10 Months: A Twin Update

 

 

It is so hard to believe they are 10 months already. Getting into the double digits with them makes me feel like this baby stage is quickly leaving us. And while I'm excited about the future with them, there is something about the cuddliness and sweetness of the baby stage that I will most certainly miss. It has been a while since I updated on these little twinsies, so I figured it was about time.

 

They are growing every day and busy as can be. They are all boy. They like to crawl, climb, pull up, and get into anything they can get their little hands on. Zach is a "swiper", as we like to call him. If you aren't careful, he will swipe anything, things like knives off the table, food off your plate, or the paper that seems out of reach. Luke is our bouncer. He likes to bounce all of the time. He also likes to stand, which can prove challenging at times. They are very happy little guys. And social. I am pretty sure they have never met a stranger. This is very comforting for me when I leave them in the nursery at church or have a babysitter for them.

 

Luke is still in physical therapy and helmet therapy, but doing better every week. We are so pleased with his progress. Zach is still bigger than Luke. He even likes to exert his physical dominance by stealing toys from Luke regularly. Poor Lukey doesn't mind, but Zach minds a lot when Luke takes his toys! They are learning how to babble and say things like "ma-ma" and "da-da" and even can wave and say "ba-ba"! Zach can't say it much yet, but Luke is getting there!

 

They absolutely love each other. It is such a joy to watch. They are never far away from each other, and if they are, they quickly come back together. Zach makes Luke laugh all of the time and I only wish I knew what he was doing that was so funny to him!

 

It's hard to believe that a mere 10 months ago they were my little NICU babies. God has done so much in growing them, changing them, and protecting them. They are the sweetest blessing to us and we are so very thankful for them. When I think of the Christmases without a baby, and how my heart longed for full arms, I never imagined both of my arms would be full. And full they are! We are truly celebrating God's kindness to us this Christmas. His kindness in sustaining us in the years of miscarriage and infertility. And his kindness in giving us these little miracles. We love them so!

Here are some more pictures of them in action!

On Waiting Well

I mentioned last week that I am going to be writing a brief series on the wonder of Christmas. The Gospel accounts of Christ's birth never cease to amaze me. Every year I find myself overwhelmed by all that God reveals to us through these short verses in the Bible.

One such story that moves me is the one of Zechariah and Elizabeth. During our period of infertility (brief by their standards!) this story ministered to me in so many ways. In that time period, to be barren was a cultural death sentence. To be unable to bring a child into the world meant you were viewed as cursed. Yet, they remained faithful. Luke 1:6 tells us:

"And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statues of the Lord."

I can only imagine what years of infertility would do to a person and their trust in God. It can go two ways, can't it? You can either renounce God for his perceived failure to give you what you've asked for, or you can trust him for his good plan for your life. Zechariah and Elizabeth did the latter. And  God remembered them.

And isn't that just like God--to wait until the man-made attempts at anything are completely out of the question? There was no physical way possible for Elizabeth to conceive, and yet she did. God keeps his promises.

So what does it look like to wait well this Advent season, and every season? Luke goes on to say that Zechariah continued to serve in his role as priest (vs. 8). And he continued to pray. In all of his years of longing and waiting for God to open his wife's womb, in his old age he remained faithful. Faithfulness is measured by the daily obedience's. It is seen over the long haul, when hope seems gone and circumstances are overwhelming. Faithfulness is seen in trusting in the One who keeps us faithful to the end. That is what Zechariah and Elizabeth did. Every year, when God seemed to be forgetting them yet again, they continued to trust him.

But they didn't just trust him for their personal lives. They trusted him for the salvation of their own people as well. I don't think it is a coincidence that the waiting of Zechariah and Elizabeth for a child is placed within the greater story of the people of Israel waiting on their Messiah. They weren't just waiting for a baby. They were waiting for God to fulfill his promises to them through the long-awaited Christ. Their righteousness before God was evidenced by their faithfulness in waiting for both of these things when many around them would (and had) long given up.

We can learn a lot from them about waiting well. Whether we are waiting for God to answer a personal prayer or a collective prayer for his return, we are all waiting for something. Do we give up when it feels like it's never going to be realized in our lifetime? Or do we continue to entrust ourselves to the God who hears and answers every prayer in his time?

May we all learn to wait well this Advent season and in the years to come.

The Wonder of the Incarnation

Christmas is my favorite time of year. I love Christmas so much that I have been known to bust out the Christmas music in October. My husband loves Thanksgiving, so he makes sure we don't let his favorite holiday get eclipsed by the Christmas creep. If it were up to me, we would start spreading the Christmas cheer November 1. But alas.

As I've gotten older, Christmas has become more and more meaningful to me. Maybe it's the abundance of childhood memories I can draw upon every time I decorate the Christmas tree with thirty years worth of ornaments from my mom. Maybe it's the excitement of watching (and reciting) A Charlie Brown Christmas one more time. But I think it's something even more than that. Christmas continues to move me because I've grown in my love for the Savior we celebrate. Christmas moves me because, as our pastor said last Sunday, it's about the greatest miracle that ever happened--the eternal Word became flesh. God became a man. And not just a man, but a baby.

The wonder of Christmas for me is not in the traditions, decorating, presents, or even time with family (though these are all wonderful blessings I greatly enjoy). The wonder of Christmas is in the amazing reality of the incarnation. The God who made and sustains everything humbled himself by becoming a little baby so he could rescue us from our sins.

What good news!

So as I begin this Advent season, I want to take this in and treasure it for all it is worth. I want to marvel at the kindness of God to send his Son for us. I want to worship at the feet of this Christ, who made himself nothing so we could have everything. I want to sing the familiar Christmas tunes with greater zeal because my heart has been stirred to see Christ in greater measure. And I want to long for his return again.

Christmas is truly the most wonderful time of the year.

Because Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year (in my opinion!), this is the first in a series of posts about the wonder and anticipation of Christmas. Stay tuned for more!

So, You Had a Baby?

Whenever a celebrity has a baby the media immediately begins the dreaded waiting game before the poor woman has even checked out of the hospital. You know the game. Will she or won’t she lose all that baby wait—and in what length of time? While I wanted to buck the trend, I was just as delusional in the days leading up to the arrival of my twin boys. I wanted to look like I didn’t have twins. I wanted people to look at me and say “you don’t look like you had twins at all!”

How selfish of me!

In God’s kindness, and nature’s reality, that was hardly the case for me. Instead of basking in the praises of people who couldn’t believe I had just given birth to twins, not a day went by during our five week stint at the hospital that someone didn’t ask me when it would be my turn to come deliver my baby. And this lasted long after we brought them home.

I had twins. And I looked like it.

I shouldn’t have been surprised. If eating a Big Mac every Sunday after church kept me from throwing up on the way home, then you better believe Momma was going to eat a Big Mac. The last thing I was thinking about was my ridiculous goal of being the width of a stick post-pregnancy. I just wanted to keep down dinner. And eat what sounded good.

As I’ve worked through the emotions, and come back to reality, about this whole post-baby body thing, I have grown to love what these boys did to me. Right after they were born I dealt with some serious separation issues about the fact that they weren’t with me any longer. Of course, it was made worse by the fact that they physically weren’t with me for five weeks and medically speaking they should have still been inside of me. But now that they are growing, healthy, and amazing little boys the reality of my post-baby body is a story about how they came to be.

Here’s the deal. And it’s taken a while for me to come to this conclusion. I had babies. Why shouldn’t my body bear the marks of such a wonderful feat? We live in a culture that prizes perfection and hates children. We want them, we just don’t want the changes they bring. The fact is the change is part of life.

Our bodies are never going to be perfect this side of Eden. And our endless pursuit of a perfect body, especially post-pregnancy, is very much in vain.

Your stretch marks, extra skin and pudge around the middle, and bags under your eyes are all evidence of something beautiful—the life that grew inside of you. The life that bears the image of our God.

Our society’s obsession with the perfect body and looking like we never had kids is for naught. They are trying to get perfection without the perfect One. It’s not possible. They want to go back to the glory of Eden, but reject the Christ who himself makes us whole. We know another way. We know that this life is not all there is. One day we will have perfect bodies. But it won’t be here. And it won’t be by our own efforts. No amount of running or the 30 Day Shred can remove the fact that this old body of ours is decaying. It’s not the final story.

Until that day, our imperfect bodies are reminding us that another one is coming. But they are also reminding us that with these old, decaying bodies of ours God is bringing new life into the world, life that exists to bring glory to his name. When Adam named his wife Eve, he called her the mother of all living. Out of her life would come. And as women, we get to do the same thing.

So when I try to put on my old jeans and realize that there is a little extra skin that wasn’t there before, I don’t want to begrudge it. And I don’t want to pretend like it’s not a big deal either. Out of a decaying body God has brought forth life. He is making all things new.

How to Help Your Infertile Friend: Take Her to God

When I thought about the myriad of ways to best help an infertile person one thing kept running through my mind over and over.

Take her to God.

The pain of infertility, like the journey of the Christian life, can be so cyclical. One day you feel amazing and hopeful. The other you want to curl up in a ball on the floor and cry until there are no tears left.

But taking the infertile person to God can often be a tricky thing. What the infertile woman needs, like I have already said, is not more over-generalizations about her circumstances. And reciting theology to her can come across as that way--even though a healthy theology is necessary for dealing with the sorrow of infertility. But good theology must come before the trial, so you have a sure footing when everything else around you is shifting sand. In the midst of the trial it can sound like pithy one-liners to sensitive ears.

In my miscarriage series, I said that one of the best ways to help your friend in her loss is to know her--really know her. This will give you the opportunity to know when to speak and when to listen. This will give you insight into her soul and help you know what she needs in any given moment. Sometimes the infertile person needs to know that God loves them. Sounds simple, doesn't it? But when your womb is empty, the absence of a dearly longed for baby can feel like the very nature of hatred from God. Assure her that it isn't. Maybe she needs to know that God always keeps his promises. The Bible is full of examples of God keeping his promises to his weary saints. Remind her of that wonderful truth. Maybe she needs to know that infertility doesn't have the final word in her life. Yes, her body (or her husband's body) is broken. Yes, it feels like evil is prevailing over her right now. But it won't be that way forever. The cross is the promise that the evil that seems to be winning right now will one day be eradicated and we will be given new bodies in the new heavens and the new earth.

The reality is that none of these things will take the pain away ultimately. And these aren't concrete answers for every situation. They are merely examples of the varying ways a woman needs to know that God is for her, not against her in her infertility. But what I hope you take away from this short series on helping your infertile friend is that what suffering people need more than anything is God. They need to know that you love them and that God loves them. They need to know that you won't leave them and that God will never leave them. They need to know that you are with them for the long-haul. And so is God.

Infertility is full of complexities. And every case is different. As you seek to help your infertile friend in whatever stage of the trial she is in, ask God to give you the grace to love her well. As I already said, God delights in giving good things to his children. And by his grace, may you be that good thing for your suffering friend.

How To Help Your Infertile Friend: Treat Her Like a Normal Person

One of the most helpful things you can do for your infertile friend is to treat her like a normal person. Infertility has a way of making you feel like a freak of nature. What an infertile person needs to know is that infertility does not define them. They are not less than human because they cannot conceive. Their womanhood is not determined by a pregnant belly or a house full of children. They need to know that they are just as normal as the next woman.

When everyone around them is sharing news of another pregnancy, this truth can be hard to hold on to because the reality is that their body (or their husband's body) is not functioning like it was made to. They often feel this acutely. But what they need help seeing is that their biological failure is not a personhood failure. Their identity as God's child is not tied to what their broken body can or cannot do. This is why they need you to come along side them and treat them like their life is just as valuable and exciting even in the midst of a profound suffering.You can have a tremendous impact on our hurting friend by treating them like they are as human as you are.

So how do you do that?

Obviously, this varies from person to person, but one way I felt "normal" with my friends is that they expressed interest in the things that interested me. It might seem really small, but infertility can be an all consuming experience. From doctor's visits to charts and tests, it can often feel like your life is one big experiment. My friends helped me get outside of that experience by caring about the other things that I really loved.

Another thing is that they didn't shy away from was sharing their lives with me. It can be hard to share exciting baby news or the details of your potty training experiences with a friend who desperately wants a child of her own, but nothing makes an infertile person feel more abnormal than when he or she knows someone is intentionally holding back about their own children. Like I said in my last post, carefully composed words require knowing your friend, but so does knowing when to share your life with them. An infertile person can feel very alone at times and refraining from sharing your life with her for fear of making her pain worse can only make her feel more alone. Infertile people are very aware of the myriad of babies that are always seeming to pop up right in front of them, so you probably won't be sharing anything with her that she isn't already acutely aware of.

As you walk this road with your hurting friend she will be greatly served by you remembering that there is really very little that separates you from her. While you may be able to conceive with ease, you both bear the image of Christ and find your identity in him alone. Standing on this truth will help you see her as a normal person in need of eyes of faith to see her Savior in the midst of her pain.