Excited

         It is amazing to me how clearly I can see God moving in my life in the midst of this storm.  I began a bible study at church this week with Jamie.  We are completing the Beth Moore study on David.  As soon as the church announced the study, I knew it was meant for me to attend.  I began looking foward to the study.  "Life" has always prevented Jamie and I from completing the other Beth Moore studies we started.  This is going to be the one we finished.  I know it is in God's plans for Jamie and I to be completing this study and this time in our lives.
        In studying, I see how God is using this to prepare mine and Jamie's heart for our ministry.  God lifted His hand and allowed Satan to move in our lives when He did and how He did because He knew it would NOT tear us from Him.  As a youth, I remember hearing the story of Job.  I thought, how, after everything that God has allowed to happen can he still love and praise God.  I tell you from personal experience of having your world ripped from beneath you, it was easier than I thought. (Please understand that I by no means am saying I have been a happy, cheerful person through my storms.)
        In Beth's study, she asks the question, are you allowing God to live smack in the middle of your life?  She then state's that she bets if you are, you have crossed a few Red Seas, tumbled down a few walls, and escaped a few lions.  The point she is trying to get across is that we serve a LIVING God.  He is alive, active, and He wants to make us living proof.  There are no words that can explain the feeling that goes through me when I read those words.  God wants to make me living proof.  This is why He allowed my rape. 
        When we trust and believe in God, when know that He can take what Satan means for bad and use it for good.  My life and what I had planned disappeared that night in July.  It has taken two years for me to understand that it was never my life to begin with.  When I set out my goals, I never once asked God if it was his timing for me to start a family right after college.  His plan has been, from before I was concieved in my mother's womb, for me to minster to women who have suffered like I have and walked where I have walked.
        Never, when I was growing up would I have thought God would lead me to where I am.  I hated having to speak in front of people, much less carry on a converstion with someone I did not know.  In full discloser, I was the child that cried at my sixth grade open house because it was a new school full of people I did not know.  Now, I am hearing God tell me that Jamie and I are meant for so much more.  We are to share what we have been through; the good, the bad, and the ugliness of it all.  I know this means that I will have to talk to women I do not know, sometimes even to groups of women I do not know.  However, I have no doubt that God will give me the strength and the words to speak to these unknown women. 
        I close tonight simply with this verse for thought.
     In our greatest weakness, He is strong.
              2 Cor. 2:14

Welcome 2011

Well here it is, 2011.  I have wondered what this year will

bring for my family. Will we finally get a year of peace and

restoration?  This weekend, I worked in 

the front room of our house.  At the time we were

cleaning it out, I thought of it as my room in waiting. 

We did not know if it was going to get to be my husbands 

office or if it was going to become my

sister-in-law and brother-in-law's room. 

amazed me how much I could relate to that room. 

This year is a waiting year for me.  I am waiting to see

what God has in store.  I am trying to be at peace in 

this wait. I feel like the past I have been just

trying to keep my head above the pounding waves of the

storm.  I saw a sign today that talked about learning to 

dance in the rain of life's storms.  I wonder how one does that.

How do you dance when your world is caving in?  It took every

ounce of my strength just to make it through the day. But, 

this year is different.  I feel that I have reached a new 

phase.  Coming full circle back to my room in waiting, I am 

a woman in waiting.  Waiting to find out, will I get pregnant? 

Will I have to go into early menopause?  What do the months 

ahead hold for my walk with the Lord?  When will I be able

to start my women's ministry with Jamie? Mostly, I wonder

will my wait be long or short?  My room was only a room

in waiting for a short time.  It is now my husband's office.

How long will my wait be?  Only God knows and I will find

peace in knowing that everything is going according to

His plan. 

I found a song on one of my old CD's that really sums up

how I feel about my past and what my future holds.  It is my

theme song for 2011.  I have listed the lyrics below.   

Sunrise by Nichole Nordeman 

If I had the chance
To go back again
Take a different road, bear a lighter load
Tell an easy story 

I would walk away
With my yesterdays
And I would not trade what is broken for beauty only

Every valley
Every bitter chill
Made me ready to climb back up the hill
And find that . . .  

You are sunrise
You are blue skies
How would I know the morning
If I knew not midnight? 

You're my horizon
You're the light of a new dawn
So thank You, thank You
That after the long night, You are sunrise 

There's a moment when
Faith caves in
There's a time when every soul is certain God is gone 

But every shadow is evidence of sun
And every tomorrow holds out hope for us
For every one of us 

You are sunrise
You are blue skies
How would I know the morning
If I knew not midnight? 

You're my horizon
You're the light of a new dawn
So thank You, thank You
That after the long night, You are sunrise 

You alone will shine
You alone can resurrect this heart of mine 

You are sunrise
You are blue skies
How would I know the morning
If I knew not midnight? 

You're my horizon
You're the light of a new dawn
So thank You, thank You
That after the long night, You are sunrise  

You are sunrise

Fear

         Well, it's time I face my fear and fully aknowldge all the things I have been through in the past few years.  I feel that I talk about my rape and that I have done alright in the grieving process.  Not great, but alright.  However, there is another area that I have not dealt with well at all.  I told some of my family and close friends, but not many.  It was too painful.  Plus, if I told too many I would have to really accept that it did happen, that even after I survived being raped and sitting through my rapist's trial, that I was still allowed to suffer pain. 
            I didn't need to take a pregnancy test that month.  I just knew.  I knew before I was even late.  This was something I had wanted for so long.  I thought, finally, God is allowing this blessing in our life at this time to counter balance the pain and heartache of trial.  I was very excited.  I noticed small changes in my body.  I had a new love of corn.  And for those that now me, I did NOT like corn.  It tastes sweet and vegtables should not be sweet.  I even knew deep down that it was a girl. 
          Then I got sick.  It was the sickest I had been that year.  I was laying on the couch feeling exhausted when it started.  I called Wade and cried.   I spent the whole week one the couch.  I felt like I had let him down.  He wanted this just as much as I had.  I never went to the docotor.   I didn't feel the need to, I knew I wouldn't need a DNC.  I was still too early along.  Just a few weeks. 
           Just a few weeks.  That has been then phrase I use to justify my trying not to deal with the pain.  I will NEVER forget the first time I walked into a baby store after everything had happened.  I didn't expect the "what ifs" to hit me like they did.  I was fine until I got to the cribs and bedding.  I should have been picking out stuff for my baby.  I tried to hide my tears from my friend and quickly excused myself from that section of the store.  Even now, as I watch my sister go through the pain of loss and the realizations of all that will never get to be for her girls, I feel like an outsider.  I am so proud of her strength.  We have had the talks about how it doesn't help anyone to act like it never happned.  Why can't I take my own advice?  I couldn't even tell the doctors I had lost.  I know it sounds stupid, but I was so afraid they would blame me.  Why should they help me get pregnant now?  And I know it sounds horrible but I even tried to convince myself that I was wrong and that I just imagined things.  Thankfully, I have a wonderful mother, who tells me that it is not my fault and that she knows she has a grandaughter in heaven.  My husband told me that I was just too stressed from the trial and reliving my rape.  I know he was trying to help, but all I heard was you just couldn't handle it. 
                I fear the pain that comes with full acceptance, I fear the guilt that I have for feeling  pain from my loss when Daniel and Jamie's pain is soo much  more, and I fear that I will never get the chance to be pregnant long enough to feel my child grow and move inside of me. 

I Chose to Believe

               I will continue to put my faith in God.  I do not understand why my life has taken the path it has, however, I will believe.  At the beginning of 2008, I had such high expections for the years to come.  I was graduating in May, I was going to begin my teaching career, and I was planning on starting my family.
              All of that changed in one night with one event.  I came home from my friends house with every intention of just curling up in bed and going to sleep.  Instead, I couldn't unwind and I decided to clean a little.  Then, in the blink of an eye, there was a man in my house demanding I do certain things or lose my life.  The hours that followed were and still are a blur on most accounts.  What I do know and I do remember, is that during the entire ordeal I was NEVER alone.  God was holding in me in His hands protecting me.  I know some of you reading this are thinking how can you even feel that way, but when I called out to God that night He answered.  I do not have sense memories of my attack.  When I reached breaking point and I said, "God I can't do this anymore, I can't take it any longer"; it was over. 
               I thought for a long time that my rape and the trial would be the hardest things I would ever have to face.  After all, everything about my life had changed.  My relationship with my husband, my friends, and my family were completely different.  Life will never return to how it was before that night. 
                God has other plans, however, plans I do not understand no matter how hard I try.  This past Tuesday, I attended the memorial service for my twin nieces who died at birth.  Their mother, my sister-in-law/best friend, is a very important person in my life.  This is the woman who responded first the night of my rape.  She flagged down police and stayed with me until my husband could get home.  I cannot express the pain and heartbreak that I felt as I watched her deliver Ava and Mackenzie.  This experience by far is more heart wrenching that my attack and this gets me back to where I started.  I will chose to believe that God is in control at all times.  I am starting this blog to share His impact of my life. 
I will chose to believe.
I KNOW His ways are better than mine.
I know everything that passes through my life goes through His hands first.
I know He will not and does not give us anything we cannot handle.  (However, I really wonder how much can I handle?  Has my family not been through enough without this?)
More importantly, I know that my Loving Father takes care of His children when they cannot take care of themselves.