Faith Like a Child

1 At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” 2 He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. 3 And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5 And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.Matthew 18:1-5

I don't know about you, but I live with three very active children. Their imaginations are large, and energy levels are high. Sometimes I wish I could catch a little of their energy for myself. I think a great deal of their ability to be so free comes from their total reliance on adults to meet their needs, which enables them to just be kids. I find that I get a taste of their creative and freeing mindset when I turn my issues over to my heavenly father. 

God is not a distant deity who we only have access to on the day we die-if you are a Christian you have access to him 24/7. He wants us to come to him like children with our issues of the day. When I'm up late because of another nightmare (the main way I relive Gideon's death or all the other potential tragic scenarios) I can pray to God for his peace. When I'm tired and ready to quit as a mother I can pray for His help to carry me through the day. When I'm facing another disappointment I can pray for clarity and perspective.

My children (mostly Will and Olivia) are still struggling to wrap their heads around a loving God and not having their baby brother at home - where they feel he should be. Olivia woke up the other morning crying because "our baby is not here." Will has been concerned about what he needs to do in order to go to Heaven so he will get to see Gideon there. They live in the present which makes the concept of Eternity hard to grasp. However, I know there was a reason Jesus instructed us to become like children.

Their innocence is so apparent...there is a real honesty...my 5 year old daughter will walk up to a complete stranger, tell them her brother was sick, and exactly what kind of illness he had. My oldest son is not shy about telling his siblings (or others for that matter) exactly how he thinks something should or shouldn't be. My youngest son is not at all bashful about correcting you if you guess incorrectly as to what he's pretending to be. They tell it like it is- that's refreshing when most of us are trying to put up a front about how we feel or what we think. God asks us to be honest with ourselves and with others, not in a mean way, but in a real and genuine way. In our honesty we find that we lack the ability to save ourselves or others.

I have to remind myself that I couldn't have done a thing to save Gideon. No amount of prenatal vitamins or bed rest was going to correct his issues. The induction date we decided on did not decide his fate-God was the only one in control. God knew how it was all going to go down, only He knew and we have to trust that God's going to make something beautiful out of it. I have no idea what all is going to come-but like a good parent God knows what the plan is for my days, weeks, months, and years. 

My kids wake up bright and early each day and their first question for the day is "what are we going to do today?" (quickly followed by "what's for dinner?"). Fortunately for them I usually have a rough plan for the day and for dinner ahead of time. But isn't that how we should begin each day? Talking to our Heavenly Father, asking him excitedly "What do you have in store for me today?" and then joyfully go forward doing what he calls us to do!

My favorite verses from when I was a child, going through chemotherapy for Leukemia, is found in Matthew 19:13-14:

13 Then people brought little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked them.14 Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” 15 When he had placed his hands on them, he went on from there.

My daily prayer is that I will not hinder my children but draw them close to Jesus daily through our talks. Nothing makes me happier than seeing them really understand Biblical truths. And when times are hard there is no room for sugar coating, all that's left is honest truth. I was able to comfort my crying daughter by talking about where Gideon is. I can picture Gideon among the children that must be gathering around Jesus in Heaven. 

My husband and I have stepped up our pouring of God's word into our kids throughout our situation. I had started morning Bible time, long before we knew what was going on with Gideon, with my oldest leading it with reading aloud and quizzing his siblings. This was a wonderful use for the extra time my children have in the morning. It also became a safe place to talk about what we were going through at the time. We also have recently added weekly bible memory work and a fun "edible" devotion. It brings joy to my heart to hear my children repeat back verses they have learned. My daughter doesn't pronounce her "r"s very clearly so it was sweet to hear her repeat her John 1:1 verse "In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God." While learning this week's verse from Mark 12:30-"Love the Lord Your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength"- my 21/2 year old mustered up his strongest facial expression and little boy strong arms. My oldest son practices his verses in the car on his way to school, it's the last thing he does before stepping into his school. I hope to keep soaking them with truth, hoping it calms their fears and helps heal their hearts! 

I would say my current rainbow is watching my children learn about God, and know that their futures are in his hand no matter what! Furthermore, their pure trust reminds me to daily hand over my ambitions and desires to God and delight that he sees me as his child!

1 See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

John 3:1-2

Dedication

So I've been thinking a lot about how last weekend was our church's child dedication weekend.  The concept of child dedication goes back to the Old Testament story of Hannah and Samuel in 1 Samuel chapter 1. Hannah was unable to have a child and cried out to God and promised Him that if He would grant her a son that she would dedicate him to the Lord. She in fact does have a son and names him Samuel. When her son is old enough she returns to the Lord's house and Samuel goes to live there for the rest of his life. This story takes on new meaning to me in regards to our Gideon.

We found out we were pregnant on Father's Day 2014 and were very excited about our next little family member. From the first moments I began praying for this next little one and hoping God would give me the strength to make it through my pregnancy-and balance being a mom to 3 other very active kids. My pregnancies are usually fairly painful and filled with preterm contractions. I received my normal stomach pain fairly quickly in the pregnancy-and I started getting my typical preterm contractions around 17 weeks into pregnancy-was put on "modified bed rest"-in our world modified bed rest means mommy sits down a lot-there is very little bed involved and it should really be called couch rest since my days are spent as a stay at home mom- I found a daily need to surrender it to God in order to make it through the day. When we found out all of Gideon's issues I began praying for a miracle but at the same time surrendering him and my situation over, once again, to God. 

It's easy to recognize God's sovereignty when all is well but when life seems to crash it's much harder. I believe God is good even on my worst days-God doesn't change-there is no moving and turning with Him-His ways are always beyond our limited understanding. Each and every day of my pregnancy it was a choice between faith and fear-God granted me extra faith on the bleak days when I prayed to him in the middle of the night. 

We chose life when doctors offered death-I still remember a doctor telling me "No one would blame you if you chose to terminate since you have very hard pregnancies and you cannot be guaranteed to even meet him alive"-termination was not an option in our minds and I craved as much time as I could with him-even towards the end of my pregnancy when every moment was a battle against pain and contractions I still cried out to God that I would stay pregnant forever if it meant we got to keep feeling Gideon kicking around in there-

We chose hope even when doctors offered skepticism. Each doctor visit my doctor nervously got out the monitor at each appointment hoping to hear his little heart beat-When we had our last in office visit with her-she had been distracted the weekend before considering our situation-she was on call at our hospital of choice the next weekend and stressed that if we wanted a chance at taking Gideon home for any period of time that January 31st was our best option (as opposed to waiting until the following Thursday-Feb 5th-That day became the day we had our celebration of life service)-She was there for the whole event and was the one to speak for us when we had no voice-even though he did not get to come home with us-Gideon made it farther than my doctor had ever seen a baby of his condition go. 

No I didn't get to stand on stage with Gideon in his handsome little outfit while pictures of him played on a big screen in the background-like we have with our other 3 children. However, I can rest in the reality that just as Hannah handed Samuel back to God-we handed our Gideon to God. We may not have gotten to teach Gideon about God-but He is getting first hand experience of God's goodness-Gideon is living in the house of the Lord forever!

One thing I ask from the Lord,
    this only do I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
    all the days of my life,
to gaze on the beauty of the Lord
    and to seek him in his temple.
Psalm 27:4

One good that has already come out of the situation with Gideon is all the teaching moments we have had with our oldest son. We have had many discussions on why God can't just come down and make everything perfect here on Earth-That Gideon is healed in Heaven-The concepts of salvation and baptism (we believe in letting our children decide to make faith their own-to understand all that Jesus did for them- and then be baptized once they have made that decision in their hearts to follow him)-We have talked about the new life after one has asked Jesus into your heart-We are answering in as much detail as our son can handle-if God is able to use Gideon to reach into our other children's hearts-to turn them toward him even more-we will welcome that good. 

Another wonderful Bible passage that is usually incorporated in our child dedication services comes from Deuteronomy 6:6-9

 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

We will continue to teach our children in any situation whether it be bed time, car rides, family walks, activities, holidays, or any time a question arises in our little ones' minds-As we walked through the situation with Gideon we have tried to pull on God's promises and I pray that we are setting an example that our kids will carry with them into their own lives no matter how small or big the trial-God remains good through it all!

God in the storm

My family and I have just been through one of the hardest storms of our lives. Last October (2014) we learned that the child, a boy, I was pregnant with had a diagnosis of Trisomy 18 or Edwards Syndrome. This is a chromosomal problem that causes many developmental issues-one possible complication is major heart defects-he had 3 very major issues with his little heart-and we were warned that we could expect him to pass any day or if he makes it to birth he may have minutes, hours, days, or in the best case scenario weeks before passing away. We have 3 older children who had to weather the storm with us as well-our 2 older children Will and Olivia were impacted more than our toddler, Luke. We named our little one Gideon after the Old Testament Judge-meaning Valiant Warrior. Gideon considered himself the weakest- we knew our little one was weak-but we also know we serve a big God-We prayed our Gideon would fight-we prayed God would fight for him. On January 31st, at 38 weeks exactly-or 2 weeks earlier than his Valentine's Day due date, our little boy was born and after 32 minutes quiet minutes with us- left our arms for the arms of Jesus. We are thankful for all the weeks we had with our little boy, but we still miss him- and miss all the dreams we had for him in those months prior to finding out all that was going on. 

When we first heard his due date of mid February my husband Mark got excited to watch KU basketball with a little baby snuggling on his chest with a little baby bottom in the air-one of his favorite things- and our little one would arrive right before March madness so even more snuggling KU time! We also had to let go of not getting to bring him along to family gatherings, church activities, or extra curricular events. We will not get birthdays or holidays with him. I will not get those middle of the night wake ups-which I actually do miss-or all the diapers or outfit changes. I didn't get to reconfigure beds or set up special decorations for his theme-his theme was to be animals-maybe a Noah's Ark type theme-I had no idea how appropriate that theme would be for us.

I chose the title of this blog because it reminds me that even in awful storms, God is still present and in control. God set the rainbow in the sky after Noah and his family had withstood 40 days of the great flood. God promised that he would never flood the Earth like he had. The rainbow reminds me that even when I feel the downpour of a storm-that there is always a rainbow even if sometimes it is hard to spot.

In our storm we had those brief rainbow encounters thanks to all of our family and friends. We felt it through cards, hugs, prayers, emails, gifts, meals, and so many tangible and intangible ways. I feel that we are still wading through some waters of grief even though the storm is letting up. However, there are always rainbows to find and I look forward to chasing those promises God has for me and my family. 

One of my favorite passages actually appears twice in the Bible-once spoken by the prophet Isaiah and also spoken by Jesus

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
    because the Lord has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
    to proclaim freedom for the captives
    and release from darkness for the prisoners,[a]
2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
    and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
3     and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
    instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
    instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
    instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
    a planting of the Lord
    for the display of his splendor.

Isaiah 61:1-3

14 Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. 15 He was teaching in their synagogues,and everyone praised him.

16 He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read,17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
    and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
19     to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”[f]

20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21 He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

Luke 4:14-20

Thanks to Jesus we know we will find healing for our hearts and that God will watch over our little boy! We know true comfort and peace that only God can provide. It's never about our ability to hold on-but it's about the one who can calm the storm-He can calm the storm in our hearts even when we keep feeling the falling rain! I hope you'll join me in looking out for the rainbows!