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Experience is a Powerful Teacher

This blog has been about sharing my journey.  Being vulnerable.  There was a time when I needed to scream my pain to the world.  Not so much now.  I tend to find myself wanting to wait to write about things until they are resolved.  Perfect.  Or at least not so messy.  But the truth is we all wade through messy in one way or another.  And sometimes we might need to know we are not alone in our uncertainty.

So here is a peek at my messiness… and the reason why I have been tired and nauseated and slower to blog than I should be!

There is only one color that every pregnant woman dreads, even if secretly.  And one  Tuesday night a few weeks ago it showed up out of no where.  We were eight weeks pregnant and had just seen the newbie (yes, baby number 5!!)  on ultrasound for the first time a few days before.  Every thing had seemed perfect.  But now it seemed almost certain I was miscarrying.  I called the doctor, and he said to come in for an ultrasound in the morning.   The long night of waiting began. 

And wrestling.  I was so disappointed.  I wanted to hope but how do you pray for life when you have lost a precious life before?  The words just seemed to be blown away by the painful wind of past memories.  Experience is a powerful teacher.  Prayers of great faith have not been my strong point since that October when she was taken from us.  Three years, three weeks, and three days ago.  God didn't save my Makiah.  
Most of the night I could not muster even the smallest seed of faith.  Somewhere in the dark of the morning my mind landed on pieces of a verse… God gives life to the dead and calls those things that are not as though they were.  And the smallest knowing started growing in my heart of how I needed to pray.

The next morning on the way to the doctor’s office Cameron told me he had gotten a text message from an old friend of his at about 3:00 am that day.  This man didn’t know anything about our situation or even that we were expecting a baby.  Here is what he sent Cameron…

“I think this  is for you. “Disappointment is not just a sad, emotional state of mind; it actually can sever our hearts from faith. It is the enemy’s work. Demonically manipulated disappointment can actually “dis-appoint” a person from God’s destiny for their lives.  When someone is disappointed, he or she is cut off from a scheduled appointment with destiny. The appointment remains in the heart of God, but the individual cannot connect with it because the offense filled his or her soul with unbelief. As a result, the person becomes dis-appointed.   Beloved, are you carrying disappointment in your heart? Renounce it. Forgive those who have disappointed you. Pluck out of your spirit the paralyzing sting of disappointment! Today the Spirit of God has come to release you from the effect of this attack. He sent me to tell you, “Your appointment with your destiny is still set.”

Holy Spirit, I confess that disappointment has crept into my soul. I forgive those who have disappointed me, and I release them back to You. I also forgive myself for accepting disappointment. I renounce unbelief and submit again to Your call on my life. Lord, prepare me again to move into the future You have appointed for my life. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Excerpt From: Frangipane, Francis. “This Day We Fight!.” Baker Publishing Group, 2010-06-28. iBooks.”

When I read this on his phone, the hot tears wouldn’t stop.  This was for us! For me!  I sat amazed that God would use this man that I have never met to speak so clearly to my heart.  This was my battle.   Faith welled up.  Not so much of the outcome, but that God still loves me no matter what the ultrasound would show.  We cried and prayed that even if this resulted in more disappointment, that we would not let it “dis-appoint” us from what God has designed us for.

As I sit here typing tonight, I am now twelve weeks pregnant!  You can just imagine how I cried with joy when that ultrasound showed a little heart beating still.  And the ultrasound I had yesterday showed a wiggly baby with limbs moving and rolling and even little fingers already!  The complication, a sub chorionic bleed adjacent to the placenta, is beginning to show signs of resolving.  I was hoping by now it would be perfectly healed, but I guess I need to be stretched a bit more.  I am setting my faith on meeting this little one next summer and choosing to say; “the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us… but even if he does not, we want you to know… that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”
(from Daniel 3: 17-18 when his three friends were about to be tossed into a fiery furnace for not worshiping the king’s idol). 

Experience is a powerful teacher.  But it is not always truth.  The word is Truth.   Jesus is Truth.   And the truth card must beat the experience card every time.  God is faithful.  Period.  And He is more powerful than my experience.


Well, now this is Happy New Year...


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