Having a baby changes everything??

You have probably heard this, but I have learned first handwhat people mean by when they say that having a baby and raising a childCHANGES so many things! From our schedule, to our finances, to what we reallycare about anymore, to what we think about (I worry about her constantly…I meanI worry about things I never even knew existed!). It changes so much! Having achild also has changed even what we do and or say. Things have changed so muchsince bringing home our little Miriam.

But among the changes some things unfortunately remain thesame. One of those being my struggle with an eating disorder.

Here I was thinking “man I’ve pretty much got this thing!” Imean after all being pregnant and having a child changed things.

 I got better on theoutside, but only because I had to! I changed outwardly for fear of losing herthru miscarriage (when I was pregnant) or now for fear of my milk supply going toofar down or her not getting enough high calorie milk from me. Outwardly I puton weight; I didn’t run anymore (during pregnancy). I looked like I was doingbetter.

 But God has showed methis past week that I am still struggling with this in my heart.

My devotions have been in Matthew lately, and God has beenreminding me of the importance of honoring Him with my heart (inward man), notjust my lips (outward man), He has been reminding me of the need to not justsay “I’m going to change” or even have the outward actions of change (eatingmore, exercising less, for the sake of the Baby and my milk supply). But ratherthat my desires need to change as well!

God brought all this to a head this past Sunday morning.Josh preached on the passage of the Israelites and Aaron building a calf andworshipping it, whilst Moses was on the mount worshiping the One True God. Whata stark contrast that is! And all of us are there! We are either on themountaintop worshipping the One true God or we are wallowing in the valleyworshipping a false god. I was convicted right there that I needed to let go ofmy god…my eating disorder.

I begged God to change my passions, to ruin me for any otherpassion than a passion for Him alone.

Little did I know that God would challenge that very prayer!Be careful that you mean what you pray when you pray it! Weigh the cost andmake sure you mean it, because chances are God will challenge your prayer andif you really meant it!

 Later that afternoonI went for a run. I’ve been running for two weeks now, it has been six weekssince Miriam’s birth. I had some pain after her birth, but it subsided and thusI started running again. But Sunday suddenly that very same pain came back. Iwent to the doctor for my six week check the next day and she had no clue as towhat my pain could be about.

Thus I was left with pain and no answers as to what or why.I have been forced to walk instead of run and even walking is painful and Istart limping after a while. At first I was like “well it should go awayeventually.” I tried to stay positive. But as with all ladies my mind went tothe worse case scenario…what if I can’t ever run again?!!!???! What if this ismy new normal??

 I CANT HAVE THIS! Butwhat if God said “You will have this Bethany!”I always wondered why God didn’t take away my god by paralyzing me so that Icouldn’t run or doing something to me that rendered me useless to running.Maybe He now has!

 I LOVE RUNNING A LOT!Running is not bad, it is a good exercise, a great stress reliever and a chanceto enjoy God’s creation, both nature and also how He designed the body to beable to do such a thing: RUN! But this has become my god.

Thru this pain returning God has forced me to see and choosethe more important things. He has showed me that being thin and fit is my god.Every “god” has commands. Things we must follow. In God’s case we really mustfollow those commands….in the case of our smaller case g gods we don’t have toactually follow those commands…we just tell ourselves that we have to. My godis staying fit and being thin, thus my gods commands are “you MUST run (orexercise someway somehow) EVERYDAY!”

I’m driven by that, and when I don’t fulfill that for anyreason I feel as though I have sinned. But that is just a feeling! We have beenreading a book in our ladies bible study at my church entitled “the lies womenbelieve.” In this book the author explains that just because we “feel”something doesn’t make it true. We all know this….believe this…but I struggleliving it! I feel something or don’t feel something and act on it. Sometimes weare required to do something or not do something even when we don’t “feel” likeit! Our feelings do not actually always follow the truth! Sometimes we have todo the truth going against out feelings and perhaps later on our feelings willeventually align to the truth…but even if they never do, we still are requiredto follow the truth no matter how we feel.

This is what Im having to do. I feel like I MUST run…I feellike if this pain lasts forever and I never am able to run again I will FALLAPART. That is ridiculous and selfish and prideful, that’s where I am atemotionally! But the truth is what Im choosing to go with!

I don’t have to run! If I GET to run than I thank God! If Idon’t, I still thank God and trust Him. If this pain does not ever go away, ISTILL THANK GOD! I still trust Him, and walk in obedience and change. Do I feelthese things?  Nope my feelings arescreaming something totally different…but I am striving not to listen!

Yesterday, I was allowing my feelings to get the better ofme…and I was ranting to Josh. Saying I don’t know what I will do if I never runagain. Josh turned to me and said, well you have Miriam. What would you have,running or Miriam?. That stopped me! Emotionally it didn’t stop me…emotionallyI was like “I want to run!” But the truth of that question, the truth of whatreally is more important, was what stopped me.

 Martha and Mary hadtwo very different choices. Martha chose the temporary, Mary the eternal. AndChrist said Mary had chosen the greater part. Daily I ask that God show me whatmy “better part” is for the day. I pray that and sometimes totally miss my“better part.” But God used Josh that day that I was ranting to help me to seethe better part.

Running is good, it does profit for this earth, butSpiritual things profit so much the more and that for here on earth andETERNITY! Some say that our children will be our greatest disciples. Thus thatwould be a spiritual thing that I need to work on. When I get to heaven Godisn’t going to be concerned with if I ran everyday and stayed fit and thin, Hewill care though how I raised my little girl and if I discipled her towardsHimself. My “better part” is NOT running, it is RAISING this little arrow Hegave to me so that she can later be used of Him!

Having Miriam is a gift beyond compare! I may never runagain because I bore a sweet little girl, but that is okay, because my lifeisn’t about me! It IS about Him! His will was that I bear Marybeth, and thatmight come at the cost of my running self, but that is what HE WANTED!

Again I say having a child CHANGES many things, but GODCHANGES EVERYTHING! Sure I should change in my eating disorder for Miriam, butI must change for GOD!

I do not want what Jesus said of the Pharisees to be true ofme:

“Hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied correctly of you when he said‘this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me, andthey worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.”Matthew 15:7-9

 It is NO coincidencethat God had me in this very passage for devotions the morning following Josh’spreaching on the golden calf. I cannot teach Miriam that running is moreimportant than God by the way I live my life. I cannot teach her that thedoctrine of  needing to run everyday is acommand to be followed. I also cannot just honor God with my lips, I cant justpray and say and ask that I will change, I actually have to step forward(forsaking feeling) and CHANGE!

You think God is trying to drive something home with me? I know HE IS! He wantsme totally devoted to Him, forsaking all else. It is high time for me tosurrender once again. I have a feeling that perhaps this will be a lifelongstruggle. This cant be a one time thing, it is a constant moment to momentsurrender!

 Sure I surrenderedfrom this sin many times (at camp, at home, at church…the list goes on). But ithas to be a daily thing! Christ knew the truth in this being a daily thing whenHe said that we must DAILY take up our cross, deny ourselves and choose tofollow God! He created us, so of course HE KNOWS us better than we know ourselves.He knows it has to be daily! So may I keep surrendering. May I live my life sothat I point Marybeth away from this sin that I never want her to fall into,may I point her to Christ the One Who sets us free!

Rose amongst the thorns

Shortly after coming home with Marybeth I was beginning toenjoy feeding her, even though it did take a lot of work to keep her awake andkeep her drinking and latched on. My alarm would go off in the wee hours of themorning. Though I was exhausted from doing one of the hardest things I’ve everdone (delivering a baby) I had to wake up, had to keep going. No more sleepingall night long, now I would sleep for two and a half hours at a time (herfeedings when we first brought her home took an hour) and then back up again todrag my tired self out of bed.

  My hubby would befound in deep slumber, I would be found lumbering out of my warm cozy bed, andwandering through my house to go and wake one sweet and warm little babe tofeed and nourish her. I was striving to keep two people awake! Not only thebaby but also MYSELF!

But somehow, even in the midst of difficulties, God makes itALL worth every minute!

I’m thoroughly convinced that every trial, every difficulty,God seasons with grace and mercy! Think about it….pain and difficulty in laboris a punishment for Eve’s disobedience and it has fallen upon every mothersince the first one. That is God’s justice, we deserve that. But PRAISE HIMthat He also has GRACE and MERCY!

His mercy: think about it…labor though hard, could be worse!After all we actually deserve worse!

His GRACE: think about it….WE GET A BABY OUT OF THE WHOLEDEAL! If that is not GRACE than what is??!!

I didn’t experience too bad of morning sickness whilepregnant but I have friends who do, and they all say it is worth every minute!Every minute is worth it because one day they know they will hold that preciousbabe that caused all that sickness and in that moment they won’t even rememberall that sickness anyway. Heaven will be like this for everyone! All our painand hardships will be but a blip on the radar compared to being with Godforever!

Pregnancy is not an easy thing, from morning sickness…toback pain or pinched nerve pain…to just carrying around all that extra weight…to swelling ankles… to stretch marks… to a totally changed figure…to just beingplain uncomfortable much of the time (towards the end of the pregnancy… It isjust plain difficult!

The same is true of labor, only I believe it is harder thanthe pregnancy itself lol!

 Oh man is it hard! I won’tlie about that, but it is all worth it when the doctor holds that crying babyup and hands her to you to snuggle and hold for the first time! Nothing cancompare! This is grace in the midst of His justice!

He made labor worth it! Worth every pain filled second!

It is worth it we say for those mother’s whose babies makeit, but what about those mothers who endure the morning sickness, and sometimeseven the labor, only to have a stillborn child or a miscarriage. Is it worth itthen? What about them?

I can’t imagine going through all that difficulty, all thehardship of pregnancy and labor only to lose that precious gift from heaven.But some friends of mine have had to walk through this. I don’t care if it wasa miscarriage or a still birth, losing a child (that is what they are!) losingthat precious life is never easy! My own mom lost her precious gift.

I recall the day. Mom told Krista and Joe and I that wecould come to the doctor’s visit and hear the heart beat. So that is what wedid. I was only like eight or nine or so. I was so excited; after all thiswould be my first time hearing a baby’s heart beat (I wasn’t old enough whenJoe was born).

  I remember we were listening andlistening….the nurse moved the Doppler along...my young ears strained to hearthat heart beat. But there was nothing. You could have heard a pin drop in thatroom.  Our little baby boy had gotten thecord wrapped around his neck and he had passed away sometime before that day.My mom would now have to deliver a dead son.  We named him Joshua. He was only sixteen weeksold. He would be seventeen now if he had lived. But that was not God’s will forJoshua. God wanted Joshua to live a short time in the womb, and then He wantedJoshua back in heaven with Him.

My mom went through the struggles of pregnancy…and thenlabored to deliver his little body, only to have nothing to hold. No baby tonourish… no baby to lay in the crib. Was it worth it?

YES! She would tell you this! EVERY hard thing GOD MAKES WORTHIT!

We all grew in that (still are!).

 And my mom has beenable to “comfort others also, with the comfort that she received from God.”(Emphasis added).

You see it is all in perspective! My mom has said time andagain that she is thankful! Thankful for losing Joshua? Why? HOW? Our feelingsscream that this is so false…so wrong…but the truth which sets us free says yesit is true!

She can be thankful because she has it in perspective! Shehas told me time and again that she will never have to worry about Joshua notaccepting Christ as his Savior, or of Joshua walking away from the Lord becauseJOSHUA is ALREADY WITH HIM! These are worries that she has about all her livingchildren, but she will never have for Joshua!

All in perspective! She found the rose in the thorns.

The Olympics have finally finished out, and perhaps youenjoyed them, perhaps you really do not care and are maybe tired of hearingabout it lol! Josh and I watched them pretty much every night! In fact I’mpretty sure Miriam is going to recognize the music scheme to the Olympics foryears to come lol!

This year they did some really cool things. One of which wasto allow us to hear from the Olympians parents. The sacrifices they have made,the love and encouragement that helped to bring the athlete to Olympicmaterial. I enjoyed those featurettes (or whatever you would call it). I likedwatching the home videos of the athletes, watching how their moms were behindthem and helped them.

But one mother in particular stood out to me. She is the momof skier ( don’t recall her last name, I believer her first name is Sarah??) wholost her life when she hit her head during a ski run. This mom had the rightperspective. She said something along the lines of “I was upset about losing mydaughter…but then I remembered how blessed I was for ever having known her!”Instead of getting angry over losing her, she instead was glad that she evergot to know her daughter! She chose to focus on what she had, versus what shehad lost! WHAT a perspective! What grace in the midst of trial and grief!

What a rose amongst the thorns of life!

I was feeding my dear Marybeth, rocking back and forth justfocused on the task at hand, lost in thought and prayers. I remember thinkingto myself many times that day “I wonder if Gina has had her little guy yet?” Imean after all she was technically due to have her little guy before even myMiriam was supposed to enter this world. Having no internet at home and havingjust had Miriam, I was kind of shut off from the world so to speak. I couldn’twait till a church day when I could finally check facebook and see if she hadhim yet or not! I was SO excited! Couldn’t wait to find out what his name was,how big he was, and to see pictures. You see Gina and I worked together at campin the kitchen. And when we figured out we were pregnant around the same timeit was a neat thing. I remember back to family camp five. Her baby bump wasalready developing and mine was just starting. We shared a hug and talked aboutwhat we thought we were having.

I also remember when she made her announcement on facebookthat she was pregnant. I at that time knew I was pregnant as well and so achedto tell her and everyone else, but we were waiting until after our firstdoctor’s appointment just to be sure.

I  also rememberbeginning to pray daily for my little one, and I would always include Gina’s aswell, seeing as we were due only about a month apart.

Whenever she would post something on facebook about amilestone in her pregnancy, I would always know that in a short while I wouldalso hit that milestone. It was neat to have her “go on before.”

But for the births of our little ones, God had differentplans. Miriam came early.

 I had thought that mywater was leaking, and so they tested me. Two tests came positive, and onenegative. The doctor decided to induce, because if my water was truly leakingand if they did nothing we would have lost Miriam (bacteria would get into thesac and would get to her). But if they induced me and she was 3 weeks early,they said she would probably have to go to the NICU. Fear struck my heart, butit was our only option. It was either sure death (going home without doinganything) or being induced and possibly having her in the NICU. So we followedthe best option we could and decided to induce.

They induced me at 7:10pmon January the 14^th, she was born a short time later at 8:43. When they induced I was dilated only at a3…I jumped to 10 that fast! I kept telling the nurses that I felt I had topush…and they said everyone feels like that and I was supposed to just breathe.They were waiting for my contractions to get more consistent. So I was like“okay, Ill just breathe.”

I stayed as quiet as I could, but shortly it got to thepoint where I felt I couldn’t hold it anymore. Then all the sudden without anyeffort on my part, my body began to push Miriam out on its own accord. Ifreaked of course and was like “You nurses may want to check this out.”

They checked and to their shock and mine, they saw her headalready! They told me to hold on for the doctor (why they say to do that…it’sNOT possible to hold on when you are at this point!lol!). I watched themfrantically set the room up for delivery. People swirling all around I justclosed my eyes. Two pushes later and she was born.

Later I spoke to the nurse, asking why in the world ithappened so fast like that. She told me that I was most likely in labor for thepast few days (would explain the back pain that I woke up with two nights in arow). I had been waiting for the really bad pain and the consistentcontractions (to tell you the truth my contractions were never consistent, thatis why the nurses didn’t believe me when at first I told them I felt it wastime. They were also waiting for the contractions to get consistent. But theynever did.).

The Nurse also told me if I had not come in about mypossible water leak, I would have ended up having Miriam at home! CRAZY! Godwas watching out for us! And despite the doctor’s worries, she didn’t need theNICU. She was fine. That was God’s plan for Miriam.

Josh had been talking to his father on the phone.  Still on the phone he came to Miriam’s roomwhere I was rocking and feeding, and dropped the bomb. “Bethany, Gina has losther baby.”

My world stopped for a second. This has happened only a fewtimes, at the announcement of various people in my life’s deaths. I swallowed.“What? How? How could this have happened?” He was still on the phone and walkedaway still talking. He had to finish his conversation with his dad and then hecame back to me. But while he was gone tears came like a torrent. Through tearsI looked at my little one drinking her meal. “How could this happen…why? Why doI still get my little Marybeth? I don’t deserve her! But Gina, Gina deservedher little guy!”

 In fact as I havesaid in previous notes because of my sin of an eating disorder I reallydeserved infertility and had thought that is what I would reap…I mean that waslogical considering what I had sown! But that is not what God had for me, notwhat He had for Gina.

She is a strong woman! I look up to her! As I sat thererocking my little one, crying like there was no tomorrow, I prayed. I prayedfor Gina, for Peter. For the pain they would be walking through.  I just couldn’t believe this had happened. Ifully expected Gina to not write anything on facebook. To just be a recluse fora while (that is what I would be tempted to do in her shoes). But she reachedout! She shared her grief, and through that God worked! He used Simon’s shortlife and Gina’s Christ-like response to speak to me and countless others! Thiswas God’s will for Simon Wesley.

Gina has it in perspective! She focuses not on the loss ofher son, but rather on the chance she had to know him for that time in herwomb!  She chooses to focus on what shehad, versus what she lost. She knows that though her son is not here in herarms; is not here to snuggle, not here to reflect God’s glory on earth. Simon isin the arms of Jesus. Simon is reflecting His radiant glory in a way he nevercould on this earth.  

I remember reaching out to her and just telling her that Iwas praying for her, hoping that she would be encouraged to know she was beingprayed for. And you know what?? She encouraged me! Here I was trying toencourage her and she encouraged me!

Gina has found the rose amongst the thorns! And she haschosen to share them with us here on facebook and I’m so thankful she has! Ionly pray that I can find the rose amongst the thorns of this life, like shehas, like my mom has, and like that lady who lost her Olympic daughter.

  It is so easy to see God’s grace in the good.

We easily see God’s grace in Miriam’s birth, the fact thatshe survived and is healthy in spite of being born early, but it is in Simon’sdeath as well. God’s grace is there, may He continue to open our eyes to findand see His grace and allow that to govern us! Our feelings scream that thiscan’t be, but truth and feelings almost never coincide, and when it comes downto it we always must choose truth over feelings. Eventually perhaps ourfeelings will align with the truth, but even if it doesn’t we still cling totruth because that is solid. Our feelings are fleeting, they change, truthdoesn’t! And so I say let’s find the roses amongst the thorns of this life!