What sets us apart from the rest of the world?
I think the ability to live this verse sets us apart from
the world. When we’re hoping for something for ourselves we can still be
overjoyed when the same thing happens for someone else. When we’re in the
middle of a storm wondering when we’re going to see the sun again we can rest
and be patient and know that God will see us through any storm.
And when we pray, knowing that God will answer, but
sometimes the answer is what we need most not what we want, we keep our eyes
and heart on him and we are faithful.
I love that
Kacia keeps this up on her fridge. I love that
she’s reminding herself of God’s word and the little things we can do that set
us apart.
I wrote this post last summer as a guest post. 12 months
later we’re still living this verse.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Be joyful in hope
Patient
in affliction
Faithful
in prayer
Romans 12:12 NIV
This is
the one verse that describes what my husband and I have been living and
standing on for the last 12 months.
A year
ago my husband and I started our journey to becoming parents and we couldn’t
have been more excited. We were overjoyed with the possibilities for the future
and how our lives would change; as adverse to change as we are we were looking
forward to this one.
And then
we started down the road of bedrest.
As
someone who was raised to choose my attitude on a daily basis, I thank my dad
every day for teaching me to choose hope and joy every morning when I woke up
to spend my day in bed. To hope for my son’s life and the impact he would have
on the world. And to be joyful in the fact that we made it another day and he
has growing safely. I chose to be joyful in hope and not let the negative in,
at least not too much. I’m not claiming to be perfect; I had moments when it
all became overwhelming. I remember the first Friday morning of bedrest when
Brian brought me up the ultrasound pictures and I broke down. It was hard to
look at the pictures and not know what the future held and if babE Gray was
going to be okay. We were only 22 weeks along. We needed at least another 2
weeks before the doctors would really be able to do anything, and another 18
weeks until we were full term. After a few minutes of pity partying I
straightened my attitude and decided that I needed to be joyful in hope. I had
hope, and even in the moments when I didn’t, God was my hope. He lifted my eyes
and warmed my soul and told me it would be okay; I just had to focus on Him.
Patience
has never been my strong point. I am not a patient person; at least I was not
before bedrest. Bedrest is one of the biggest tests of patience a person
can be put through. I thought 3 minutes for a pregnancy test was too long, or
even the 9 months of pregnancy, but the thought of enduring 18 weeks on bedrest
seemed impossible. A lot of people wonder what bedrest is, or think it must be
like a vacation getting to spend every day in bed. Well after 4 days in bed you
get over the sparkle of no work, and relaxing and catching up on blogging or
emails or even just reading. After that it becomes work. I was lucky in the
fact that I could get out of bed to go to the washroom, or shower, or even come
downstairs to have dinner with my husband, at least for the first 8 weeks;
after that I was in bed on my back except for washroom breaks. I spent a lot of
time just watching the clock. I look at it every minute waiting for Brian to
come home from work, wondering if he was going to be late or not. Bedrest was
my affliction. It was a case of suffering for me, I suffered the physical side
effects of bedrest; my body ached all the time, I lost my flexibility, and I
lost a lot of strength. But more than the physical suffering was the emotional
and mental suffering. It was hard to know that the only way I could guarantee
another day of growing Grayson was to stay in bed, and there was no guarantee.
As if a pregnant woman isn’t emotional enough, I went from a normal pregnancy
to a high risk pregnancy, to a round of preterm labour at 29 weeks. But unlike
some ailments, I knew there was an end date. I had a due date, once we got
there the bedrest would be over, and I would be praying to get back all the
time I could spend in bed sleeping. I just had to be patient and focus on the
end date. I also had to be patient when , at 29 weeks, I went into preterm
labour and Grayson threatened to meet us 11 weeks before his due date. I had to
be patient and let my body realign itself, and be patient and know that God was
in control. The patience paid off, and we made it another 3 weeks before
Grayson decided to arrive.
Prayer
has been a part of my life from before I can remember. My dad would always say
bedtime prayers with us as children. I’m the youngest of 3, all of our names
starting with J, so at bed time it was always “Thank you Lord for Jennifer, no,
Jacob, no, thank you Lord for Jacqueline.” I tease my dad to this day
about that. He’s the one that decided against naming me Jessica, and knew that
I was a Jacqueline. I know that my parents prayed over my life before I was
born, and that’s part of the reason why we wanted to know if babE was going to
be a boy or a girl, and to have a name picked out. We had so many people in our
lives that we knew would be praying over Gray’s life before he was born, and we
wanted to be able to pray specifics; to pray for him as a future husband and
father, to pray for his future wife and her family. We never ceased praying for
him. When the diagnosis came down, and the prescription was bedrest, we prayed
harder. When we were headed for the hospital in preterm labour the first and
second time, we prayed even harder. And when my son was born 8 week premature
we spent hours at his bedside praying. Neither my husband nor I are doctors, but
we do know the great physician, and we knew that as long as we focused on Him,
that our son would be okay. During the hardest times, we prayed, and we tried
not to focus on the situation we were in, but the situation we wanted; we
wanted to be home with our son healthy, whole and thriving. The hardest night
of our lives so far was the night Grayson was put on a ventilator. We held each
other, and after we got our heads wrapped around what was happening to our son,
we prayed. I spent the night by his bedside and sang him worship songs, and
praying over him. I claimed healing for him. I had to be faithful in my prayer,
and not just faithful to pray and continue to pray but to speak my faith
through my prayers.
The last
12 months have been a true test of who I am, and where I stand. I am created
for a purpose by the one who is above all others, and I stand strong in my
faith and knowledge of Christ. As much as the last 12 months have been a test,
they have been such a great lesson and reminder. I have been reminded to be
joyful in the hope of tomorrow, to be patient through the suffering because joy
comes in the morning, and to speak my faith through my prayers and pray often.
Grayson
will be 6 months old next week. We left the NICU 33 days after he was born and
he has been thriving ever since. He broke 12lbs on the scale this week, and we
couldn’t be more excited to pack away the newborn clothes for good and break
out the 3 month clothes.
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