Our God is greater

It's not the world that we expected to welcome our first child into.

A world of quarantine, minor panic, unknowns --- there's a page in the baby book that has the prompt "Major world events" to write about. Well, I know what that one's going to say --- coronavirus, COVID-19.

It goes moment by moment, day by day, how I react to getting ready to have a baby at a time that COVID-19 cases are probably going to peak in the U.S. I float between worry and faith.

When I have moments, or longer than moments, of doubt, I have a few things that I've been able to tell myself.

1. God loves this child more than I do. We haven't met our daughter yet, but we love her. Yet, as much as we love her, we have to realize that God loves her even more. I think that I have created her in my body, but I haven't. He has. He has stitched her together in my womb, and he created her intentionally, perfectly, exactly the way that he wanted.

2. God knows this girl already and has every day of her life mapped out already. That's so much more than I can say. I will spend the rest of my life getting to know this little girl, but God already knows what her personality will be and what each moment of her life will entail. He is so much bigger than me.

3. I never had control anyway. I think we like to think that when things are going smoothly, that we have control. In reality though, we didn't have control. Just because COVID-19 is spreading and making us feel out of control, it's really no different. We have always just been human, and God has always been the great God that is in control of everything. We just have to face it a bit more at the moment.

4. God knew this was going to happen. Although Nate and I didn't expect this would be the world that our daughter would be born into, and eight months ago we couldn't have seen it, God knew what was up ahead. He knew exactly what the world would be like.

I'm not saying things are going to be perfect. In fact, I think it's wrong to tell each other that everything will be fine and God will protect us all. This world is sinful, it's evil, it's sick. It's not what God wanted when he created it, but it's what the fall of humanity brought upon us. He could put a stop to all illness, to all disease, to all death --- but that would be the end of the world. If that's not where we're at, then it's not. That means that we trust God, no matter what happens. It means that if someone gets sick, that we pray for healing. However, if someone isn't healed, we pray that will be used for the good of God's kingdom.

Trusting God doesn't mean that we trust our lives will be perfect. That's not trust. That's using God like a genie. Trusting God means that we trust that good or bad, we can rely on him to get us through, for his grace to save us, for his grace to get through today and look positively at tomorrow, for the next world to be better than this one.

"I'm no longer a slave to fear; I am a child of God." That's what we sang at online church this morning, amid social distancing. We don't have to fear. We don't have to be anxious. Not because everything will be perfect, but because we know God will work things out perfectly...even if we don't see it or understand it.

The other song that keeps going through my head when I wake up at night is "Our God is greater. Our God is stronger. God, you are higher than any other. Our God is healer, awesome in power, our God, our God."

10 years ago I started this blog

I started this blog 10 years ago.

I had a different job. I wasn't married. I wasn't pregnant. I didn't know where life was going to take me.

I still don't know where life is going to take me.

My husband and I are planners, but there is only so much in life that you can plan for. You don't know what career opportunities may arise. You don't know where God may lead. You don't know what great things and what hardships may fall before you.

Maybe we should change "planners" to "preparers."

We're prepared for what we expect, but we're also prepared for the unexpected. We're prepared that life may change in ways that we can't anticipate.

I was reading Psalm 139 this morning, and I could read it two-fold. "For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them." (Psalm 139:13-16)

I praise God that I don't know where life will lead, but that he has everything under control and already knows where we will go and how we can make a difference.

Yet, I also read that for our daughter. Even now, God is knitting her together. She is fearfully and wonderfully made. I can't see her, but he can. Beyond that, he knows what her life will be. He knows her every day. None of them are yet to be outside the womb, but he knows exactly what each of them holds.

When I think of those days, I don't know what to expect. However, I am prepared to cherish every one of them. There is a finite amount of days that I have, and a finite amount of days that we will have with her. May I always remember that I only have that day once. May I not get caught up in the tiredness but realize that she will only be an infant for a matter of months, a baby for months, a toddler for but a few years, a kid for a limited amount of time.

Thank God that he has a plan, and may we feel secure in being prepared but also not let our plans affect where his plan leads.

Who knows where we will be in the next 10 years?

He does. That's all that I need to know right now.

Take it and be grateful

When planning the 40th anniversary party for my parents, my mom kept offering to buy items.

"I can get some Chex Mix to put in bowls on the table," she said in a phone call.

"Why on earth would you buy something for your own party? No, you're not buying Chex Mix," I answered.

"We can at least pick up a couple of cases of water."

"No! It's your party that we're giving you, you're not buying anything for it."

I hung up the phone and told my husband that my parents were trying to buy stuff for their own party. Who does that?

Fast forward about four months, and a sweet girl from church is planning a baby shower for me.

I texted her and asked if I could provide some food or help set-up. She responded with, "It's a party for you, you're not allowed to help out in any financial way."

OK, so I get it, Mom. It's hard to let people do stuff for you.

I have another friend who is pregnant and really down for the count. Thankfully, I didn't have to deal with that, but pregnancy does make you tired and makes moving a bit more difficult. Both of our husbands have been pitching in, and as wives, we've struggled a bit trying to accept those gifts.

I know Nate would bring me a glass of water, but I'm not an invalid, so I can get it for myself. I don't want him to think that I'm lazy. Would I like it if I didn't have to get up? Yes. I'm certainly not going to ask for help though.

I think for a lot of women, and people in general, it's hard to accept help. It's even harder to ask for it. Yet, at some points in life, we need it.

What I told my friend was, I think that our husbands appreciate the opportunity to serve us. I think that they feel needed when they can take care of us when we're not at our best.

I like the saying, "Take it and be grateful."

Sometimes not accepting a gift is just as rude as asking for it. Sometimes arguing when someone wants to do something takes the joy out of it for them. Sometimes you just accept the gift, accept the help and show that you're thankful for it.

I have a feeling I'm going to have more of that to come when our baby's born. I'm going to have to just accept that I'm not a superhero and take help and be thankful.

Remind me of that if I forget, OK?

It's a....

I’ve thought since the beginning that we were going to have a baby boy.

It’s not that I wouldn’t be happy with a girl, but we have six nieces and we want a boy to carry on the family name — plus, I’m not a girly girl most of the time and I think we both just relate to boys better.

So, in my head, I called this baby a boy. I was quite convinced it was a boy, although I knew that my first-time mom’s intuition could be wrong.

It was a couple of days before our 20-week ultrasound that I caught myself saying something about the baby and saying, “she.” I kind of stopped myself and changed that to “it,” but I was a little surprised that “she” had even entered my mind. It hadn’t before, and here I was saying it out loud.

Then a day later, I called it a “she” in my head without thinking about it.

“Hmmm…is it a girl?” I thought.

We went in for an ultrasound, and the baby looked just perfect. There was the head, the four chambers of the heart, the black blob on the screen that was the stomach, the location of the kidneys — that I couldn’t see but the ultrasound tech said was there.

The ultrasound tech continued down the little body and asked, “Do you want to know the gender now?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have an idea?” she asked.

I looked at the screen.

“Well, I thought boy, but I’m not seeing anything,” I responded.

“It’s a girl!”

I looked at Nate with a smile. He was smiling too.

We saw that little girl’s healthy blood flow to her spine, her tiny, perfect ribs, her femur, tibia and ulna. We tried to get a glimpse of her beautiful face, but she hid it behind her arm as she tucked herself more comfortably in.

We left the ultrasound office with photos of our precious girl, and I said to Nate, “Well, that was kind of a surprise.”

“Was it?” He asked. “The odds were 50/50.”

I guess, yes, I was surprised. I had talked myself into our baby being a boy. I just assumed it was going to be a boy.

I started thinking about it though, and since I expected it to be a boy but God gave us a girl, what did He know that I didn’t? He must have big plans for this baby girl that he specifically chose to give us a baby that I wasn’t expecting. He knows exactly what he’s doing, what we need, who this child will be.

I think it might make me even more excited to meet her. God specifically chose to give us her, not just a baby, but her, individually, this child.

I’m so excited to meet her, to hold her, to get to know her. There are now 14 weeks left, and I know I should appreciate this time that I have right now — when I can nap when I want — but I can’t wait to see who this little lady is that God has so generously decided to bless us with.

Thank God for little movements

It seems interesting that a little more than a week ago, I was so worried about your presence because you certainly are starting to make yourself known.

I don’t just mean by my belly popping out, but you’re wiggling away inside it too.

It was about halfway through 16 weeks that I started to feel what seemed like someone randomly tapping me from the inside. However, sometimes that turned into gas, so I wasn’t sure if I was feeling you move.

Then, I felt an odd rolling sensation that made me lean the opposite direction and furrow my eyebrow. It took me a second before I smiled and realized that was the first distinct feeling that I had of the little human living inside my womb.

The taps and popping bubble sensations continued randomly, getting more and more common around 18 weeks.

That’s when, on Dec. 2, I was sitting in work and felt a couple of solid thuds in the lower lefthand portion of my abdomen.

Like many times before, I placed my hand on the spot and pressed gently, wondering if I could feel anything from the outside. I wasn’t really expecting anything because I had tried this many times in the past two weeks and felt nothing.

However, after a second, a solid thud made my abdomen push out where my hand rested.

A big smile crossed my face.

I felt you! It was for sure.

I called your daddy just to tell him that I knew for certain I felt you there for the first time.

At the doctor appointment that afternoon, there you were, waving those arms around, and blocking the doppler signal that was trying to see how fast your heart was beating. It sounded like waves rushing on top of the steady “thud thud thud” of your little beating heart.

Thank you Lord for the blessing of feeling this baby move.

There's so little I can do

I guess I’m not very good at trusting what I can’t see.

It hasn’t been a gut-wrenching, freezing kind of fear. I haven’t even really thought of it as fear. It doesn’t even feel like the worry that I’ve experienced in the past.

However, I’ve been scared.

It was hard for me to believe that you were real. I couldn’t see you, couldn’t see any signs of you when I first found out. I actually went back and took two more pregnancy tests before my first appointment just to make sure that I actually was pregnant.

Then, at the six-week ultrasound, there you were. A tiny little blob that looked nothing like a baby, but more like a bean.

They couldn’t nail down the heartbeat very well, guessing that it just started beating. I held my breath so they could try to keep the cursor over the little flicker, and they guessed it was at 105.

That was a little lower than they wanted, but no one seemed concerned.

I still couldn’t exactly believe that it was that easy, that what we tried for had come true right away, that you were going to be healthy and thriving.

We sat on the news for a while, because we were both scared. We’ve seen it. We’ve seen couples get excited and then feel traumatic pain when a little life doesn’t make it to the outside world. I think I distanced myself from that. I didn’t want to hurt.

We saw what looked like a little gummy bear at our 12-week appointment, and then a full-blown baby, actually waving its perfectly formed hand at 16 weeks.

My belly has started to grow, but I haven’t felt anything yet. Of course, the doubts are still there. Why should we be so lucky to have a perfect pregnancy, a perfect baby, when others around us are going through traumatic times?

I think I keep waiting for something to happen. I don’t want to. But I’m scared that it will.

I can see it now though. I can see you in the crib. I can see myself picking you up and rocking you back to sleep. I can see you tottling around, and your handsome daddy picking you up in his arms.

I want you so badly. I want everything to be perfect, and I pray that it will.

My prayer constantly is for you to have a strong body, strong mind and a heart turned toward God.

Because, although I don’t understand why God takes some babies and lets other families keep theirs, I pray so strongly that He lets us have ours. I pray that my doubts are unfounded and that He doesn’t look down on me for worrying.

I pray that you don’t follow after me in those footsteps, that you are like your dad and take life as it comes, dealing with one moment and one day at a time with the grace of God. I pray that worry and fear doesn’t steal moments of joy from you.

I love you little one. I can’t wait to meet you. And in the meantime, I pray that God’s hand is constantly around you, protecting you from every unforeseen ailment and issue. I pray that you grow big and strong so that you can make a difference in His kingdom someday in a way that I can’t even imagine.

Because, it seems like I’m not very good at imagining.

---

Nate and I had a conversation after I wrote this, about how little control I have over this pregnancy process, about how little control we will truly have over the life of our child. We can do our best, teach our little one the best that we can, give them a foundation, but we will never have full control.

We will never be able to protect our child completely from harm, or illness. We will never be able to completely shape the way that our child acts, because it will have free will.

Nate said, this is actually probably the time that we have the most control, because free will doesn't quite start in the womb.

It was a day that I needed to process, to realize that I don't have control, but I do have a big God who looks over everything and everyone. Daily, for the rest of my life, I will have to put this little life in his hands.

Because there's only so much I can do, but He can do anything.

Spreading the news: Part II

I had been excited to tell my brother too. His shrieked reaction to our engagement was by far the best and most excited, and I knew he’d be excited about this news as well.

When we were decorating for the anniversary party, I kept waiting for an opening. It didn’t come quickly, but I didn’t want to force anything so I just went about the business of helping to smooth out the plastic ruby tablecloths and setting up the albums and photos on the memory table.

My brother walked across the room, “Did I tell you what food I got from the caterer?”

This was my opening.

“Your wife did,” I said, and my heart started pounding again. “I was glad to see it was barbecue, because I thought you might get lunchmeat.”

I rolled up some garbage and started walking across the room to the garbage can.

“And I couldn’t eat it since I’m pregnant,” I finished, nonchalantly.

His head shook as he processed and looked at me. I smiled at him and watched it sink in.

“You’re **** me,” he said as he and his wife ran at me to hug me.

_____________

We had to wait to tell Nate’s family, because the first night we were in town his mom had to work and then both his parents headed out to a party.

Nate's mom had come in from work to ask everyone what’s new, and Nate waited until she asked him, but all she said was, “Hi.” 

We figured it wasn’t the right time as people were sprinting out the door.

That meant that my family knew while Nate’s didn’t, and it made for some comical circumstances at the anniversary party. Nate’s sister’s husband called Nate some names and laughed at him for not having kids yet while talking to my dad, and my dad just laughed along with him. Then Nate’s mom kept telling my dad how great it was to have a grandchild born on her birthday that year, and all the while my dad was thinking that his third grandchild was due only a day after his birthday. Maybe he would get to share a birthday with a grandbaby as well.

But he kept a stone face.

So Nate and I spent the evening with his family, waiting for an opening. We waited for someone to offer me a beer, so that he could say, “She can’t. She’s pregnant.”

No one offered.

Unusual.

We waited for someone to ask us what was new in our lives.

No one asked.

It was hours later, and Nate’s and my eyes met across the room.

There hasn’t been an opening, his eyes said.

I know, mine responded.

“What was that?” His sister asked about our eye conversation.

“Nothing,” I said, smiling and shrugging my shoulders.

It was another hour or so, and Nate’s sister, Erin, finally went upstairs to put her children to bed. Her husband went to grab something from the refrigerator in the basement, so Nate just went for it.

“We’ve been waiting for an opening,” he said to his parents, “but there hasn’t been one, so Kiley’s 10 weeks pregnant.”

Nate’s mom flew to me and hugged me with tears flowing.

I heard our brother-in-law come upstairs and see Nadine hugging me, “Is she pregnant?” he asked.

Nate's sister and our nieces appeared back by the table to hear the news.

It was quite the whirlwind of a weekend telling our immediate families. It made it just a bit more real.