Three little rays of sunshine in my every day: how thankful I am for their miraculous lives and joyful presence.
Time rolls on
Time is an ever rolling stream.
How true. Isaac Watts, in beautiful hymnody, hit the nail on the head.
Here and here are his pertinent, poetic reminders.
I am so thankful that God is giving me grace to truly, fully enjoy my three miraculous children right now, even as I so long and pray and work toward adding to that number.
It was a year ago now that we began to seek adding to our quiver ~ really? an entire year already?! yep, it is so.
May God grant me the grace and joy to continue following where He leads with cheerful obedience, regardless of what His time limits or age gaps may be. May I have eyes to see what He sees, to believe what He knows, to embrace what He planned.
Gabriel suddenly seems more grownup all the time at 6 now. I blinked, and suddenly find myself allowing him to do big kid things: stay up later than the littles, ride his bike to Grandmama’s house by himself, play on the computers unattended at the library, go by himself in a men’s public restroom (depending on the place, mind you! small library or church, yes! public mall? probably not…).
Asher is moving completely out of the toddler stage, even though he is just 2 1/2 years old. I blinked, and suddenly he can carry conversations with anyone (mostly being understood, too), can follow directions (even if given more than one at a time), can dress/undress himself, holds a pencil/crayon correctly and can trace decently, and fully embraces his big brotherhood and dotes upon his little sister.
Evangeline, in like speed, has now moved completely from baby to nearly 17 month old toddler ~ somehow I blinked, and it suddenly happened. She never walks if she can run (don’t even mention crawling, hah), she tries hard to communicate (and doesn’t do a stellar job yet, but certainly lets you know if you didn’t catch her drift!), likes to be right in the thick of it with her big brothers, is tough and stubborn and opinionated, can identify all kinds of things (from baby doll to ball to book to belly button to blankie to shoes to outside to cow…), and is finally really catching on to routines in various venues (library, worship service, even praying before meals now finally isn’t a fight to get her to hold hands & be still).
These children are an incredible gift. Nobody could be more humbled by it or thankful for it than I am.
So as the stream continues to roll, may the Lord give me grace to jump in and splash around, body and heart and mind and soul, trusting in Him as my hope, my help, my guard, and my home. May He grant me contentment with where He has me, but never complacency; may He give me passion to keep pushing forward, but restrain me from asking for the reins. Amen.
This is where I live
I feel like this picture captures so much of my life at the moment.
Of course this is actually my yard/view so this is truly where I spend my life.
And much of it is spent in my husband’s arms.
Some of it is spent smiling, some of it is spent trying to smile.
And while so much of it is spent in the storms right now, there are rainbows, and I seek to bask in that reflected glory.
He’s the Daddy of Twelve
One thing I adore about my husband is how much he loves his children. All twelve of them. I love how being father of 12 is one of the top things he would describe about himself (for instance, in his Twitter intro), in true Psalm 127:5 form. And it was basically seven years ago that he became a father for the first time… although it would be a couple more weeks until we knew about it.
Today, you can read at Mommies With Hope, about the heart of my husband as I see it, and as I see him, in his fatherhood and his imitation of his Father in Heaven.
This Father’s Day, I want to honor my husband for the father that he is—the father of twelve. I want to praise the Lord for His compassion toward us, for His provision, for remembering our frame. I want to bless my husband and bless our Father in Heaven for their love and their servanthood. I want to tell the world about the heart of a daddy—one that rejoices fully, grieves deeply, loves steadfastly, shows compassion, gives abundantly—the heart of God Himself, also reflected in the human form of my husband, thanks to God’s grace and God’s gifts. The Lord is King and rules over all things from His throne in Heaven, and whether your arms are full or empty (or both…) this Father’s Day, it is my prayer that the fatherly heart of God would extent His compassion and love toward you—that you too would know His Kingship both in the valleys and on the mountaintops.
Darling Steven, I love you, and am so thankful that God chose you to be the father of my dozen little darling olive branches. I love seeing God in you. I love seeing you in my babies. I love that you walk with me just as tenderly in grief as you do in joy. This Father’s Day will not be all about “happy” ~ but it will definitely be all about thankfulness and honor for the journey God has given you in your fatherhood. It’s been glorious: in the valleys and on the mountaintops, each in their own ways. Cheers to you, my Steven, and may God grant you more arrows in your quiver and more Father’s Days for God’s glory.
Eulogy for Fidelis Se’arah, by Daddy
Guest-posting on my blog today is my sweet husband, the faithful daddy of my twelve children. Here he shares his heart, his faith, his God, and his youngest child with you.
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Dear friends and family,
Once again, we must bring hard news. Once more, we mourn in the dust, and our sorrow is great. Grieve with us for our child who now joins 8 siblings in the heavenlies. Though we here on earth mourn, the church triumphant welcomes a new member. God is true, and He is good. Gabriel’s prayers have been reminding us of God’s sovereignty and goodness in taking this baby to His bosom into life forevermore.
We have named this little saint Fidelis Se’arah. Fidelis means faithful. Se’arah means whirlwind or tempest. As God has brought us along this path, these two themes have been coming closer and closer together in our experience and understanding.
God is faithful – completely, absolutely, to the uttermost – even through life’s strongest storms. He will never leave us or forsake us. Likewise, we are called to faithfulness in the face of the whirlwind. Like Job, who was a faithful son of God in the midst of trials and tribulations, we are to face such times with sorrow, heartache, trust, and worship.
And finally, in many senses, God is a faithful whirlwind. At the end of Job, God speaks to Job from out of the tempest. Literally, the form God took to speak to Job was a whirlwind. He is the One who authors hardships and spins sorrow, all to shape vessels of clay into sons for glory, lumps of iron into crowns of gold. Though the fire burns, it is meant to burn off the dross that we might shine as gold. God is faithful and true even as the whirlwind.
And so now, we rejoice through bitter tears of lamentation. We worship through broken dreams. We know that our child now partakes in fullness to overflowing of the bounty of the richness of God’s grace. And we here look ahead in hope to the resurrection, to the death of death, and to life after the storm.
“Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love Him and keep His commandments, to a thousand generations.” (Deuteronomy 7:9)
May our God continue to pour out His comfort, love, and peace. And may we be faithful to stare into the storm unflinching, ready to be changed by it.
To God be the glory.
Steven, Melissa, Gabriel, Asher, Evangeline ~ and our nine saints triumphant
My twelfth little arrow, my sweet Fidelis Se’arah
On Monday, I delivered our twelfth baby, Fidelis Se’arah.
It still leaves me feeling rather speechless in many ways.
We had expected and hoped to be holding this baby in our arms during the season of Advent, when we always raise our voices loudly singing the song Adeste Fidelis (“O Come All Ye Faithful”).
In Job, the Lord speaks to Job from the whirlwind (see Job 38:1, for example); and Job is a book that my husband and I have been reading, listening to sermons on, and going through a book study on recently/currently.
We have seen God’s great faithfulness to us in past storms, and now we are calling on Him again to once again prove His faithfulness to us in the midst of this tempest.
Here are some Scriptures that are blessing me this week as I grieve the death of my sweet Fidelis Se’arah, as I meditate upon my faithful King, as I long to be released from the whirlwind of sorrow in this life, as I toil for the Kingdom and anticipate reuniting with my children someday when I see my Jesus face to face and touch His pierced side with my own hands.
Deuteronomy 7:9 “Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations.”
Deuteronomy 32:4 “The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he.”
1 Samuel 12:24 “Only fear the Lord and serve him faithfully with all your heart. For consider what great things he has done for you.”
Psalm 25:10 “All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness, for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies.”
Psalm 36:5 “Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds.”
Psalm 69:13 “But as for me, my prayer is to you, O Lord. At an acceptable time, O God, in the abundance of your steadfast love answer me in your saving faithfulness.”
2 Timothy 2:10-13 “I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. The saying is trustworthy, for: If we have died with him, we will also live with him;if we endure, we will also reign with him;
if we deny him, he also will deny us;if we are faithless, he remains faithful— for he cannot deny himself.”
1 Peter 4:19 “Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.”
Revelation 2:10 “Do not fear what you are about to suffer. …Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.”
Job chapters 38 & 39 (40 & 41 as well, honestly), as I meditate upon the Lord holding all of these things in His faithful, true, loving hands.
Remembering His Faithfulness
“As we deal — as we all must do — with troubles, affliction, difficulties and so on, the toughest thing to remember is that God is handstitching these problems for us, and He is doing this so that they will fit us perfectly.” ~Pastor Wilson
What a perfectly timed blessing from God my gracious Father, to give me this post to read this morning as an encouragement to my trembling heart, as I seek to walk by faith through the various handstitched days and trials and joys He has prepared for me.
“Present temptations have a way of banishing past deliverances from our minds, and that is what Puritan theologians used to call “no good.” We pass through our trials, if we do pass through them, by faith (Heb. 11:29). This means, remember, that we cannot prove our seemingly “unwarranted” confidence beforehand. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Heb. 11:1). If we are to be faithful in our generation, this means that we are trusting God to deliver us from our particular circumstances.” ~Pastor Wilson
One of the biggest challenges I am facing these days is the simple act of remembering. (And a quick search in a Bible app shows me that in the ESV, the word “remember” shows up 234 times! That’s repetition…)
Psalm 77:11 I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your wonders of old.
Remembering God’s faithfulness in the past. To His people. Including my family. And little old me. His faithfulness has looked different at different times, but…
He
Has
Always
Been
Faithful
“the task before us is to remember that we have that proof in hand as we round the corner into our next trial.” ~ Pastor Wilson
The glory of limping
Sometimes I feel like I’m limping ~ one foot here, one foot in heaven.
This weekend is Mother’s Day around here, and honestly there is a lot of hype, especially in the circles of moms online where I glean a lot of sweet fellowship. Personally, I could take it or leave the hype with Mother’s Day: I’m like that with most Hallmark Holidays though… I’m more of a church calendar holiday type of girl. 
That being said, at the same time: I get it.
I am a mom.
I have a mom.
I have a mother in law.
I have a grandma.
I have sisters-in-law who are moms.
I have friends who are moms, who are more like sisters than friends.
So I understand the joy and privilege and beauty of a holiday like this.
I understand that we should rejoice in the reminder of honoring and tangibly loving these women who have (and do!) sacrificed so much. It reminds me of a quote in a frame on my daughter’s bedroom wall by Anne Bradstreet:
You had a Dame that lov’d you well,
That did what could be done for young
And nurst you up till you were strong
And ‘fore she once would let you fly
She shew’d you joy and misery,
Taught what was good, and what was ill,
What would save life, and what would kill.
Thus gone, amongst you I may live,
And dead, yet speak and counsel give.
Farewell, my birds, farewell, adieu,
I happy am, if well with you.
So I love that I not only get to honor the moms in my life, but that I also get the icing-on-the-cake joy of receiving some of that special honor for Mother’s Day. Mostly, though, I love the reminders that being a mom is an incredible joy and privilege. That it can so easily and quickly be taken away in less than the blink of an eye. Not only my own experiences with the frailty of life, but also things like reading here and here brings exhortation and encouragement to my heart to keep my balance on reality. To focus on Grace. To bask in the joys.
Most of my children are singing in the choirs of heaven.
Some of my children are singing here with me.
BOTH are a joy and privilege.
So as I limp through Mother’s Day, with one foot on earth and one foot in heaven… some of my olive branches here and some of them there… I will choose to rejoice. Because it’s not about me. It’s not about what I want or what I choose or what I control. It’s about gifts and grace and glorious humility ~ from God my Father.
I will wear my necklace that has all of my babies’ names on it. I will write all my babies’ names together. I will give pictures of my living children to their grandmas and great-grandma. I will praise God for giving me the incredible and undeserved gift of being a mom to living children. I will praise God for choosing me to be a humble vessel that held babies that went straight to His presence.
I know that many of you who read my blog also have one foot on earth and one in heaven (and some of you are moms to children in heaven without yet having children here in your arms). So what will you do as you limp through Mother’s Day this year?? How will you remember the joy and the privilege of being a mommy to whatever child(ren) the Lord has seen fit to give you? How will you honor and love the mothers in your life for the sacrificial blessings they have bestowed upon you (when you’ve seen them, and especially when you’ve been blind to them)?
And in the meantime, just know this: you will be in my prayers.
I’m praying that I would reflect on the glory of this limp. I don’t know what it’s like NOT to be a mommy of children in heaven. And I want to be thankful, praising God, for the glorious ways of His perfect plan even when I don’t understand all its details. I want to see the glory of having one foot here and one foot there. I want to embrace it and love it and bless His Name for it.
When Anticipating Mother’s Day is Bittersweet…
If you find yourself in a position of anticipating Mother’s Day this weekend with a bittersweetness in your heart and a catch in your throat, I’ve been there. And this morning I wanted to share from my heart with you something I wrote called Two Pearls, posted at Expecting With Hope, as I recall my very first Mother’s Day six years ago… and even as I anticipate this coming Mother’s Day. These days, I look like a mom. 🙂 You’ll see me babywearing or pushing a stroller, my purse is really a diaper bag, my kids’ outfits & hairstyles are much more put together than mine are, and a glance in my car at three carseats squished side-by-side in a single row would confirm that I totally drive a mom car.
And I embrace that with so much thankfulness and joy! But when someone sees me in the grocery store parking lot with my three little miracles and smiles with a comment like, “you’ve got your hands full, mama” they really have no idea. My hands may look full, but my heart is even more full.
This Mother’s Day, I am mommy to twelve: eight singing in heaven, three running around my ankles, and one fighting for life in my womb.
This Mother’s Day, I continue on the journey of knowing what the past held and wondering what God holds for our future.
This Mother’s Day, I fully embrace the gifts the Lord has given me, both here and in heaven, and pray for His grace to joyfully accept what His sovereign hand delivers into mine.
As I wrote in my journal, “it was my very first Mother’s Day—although I did not have either of my children in my arms, I fellowshipped with one in heaven and held the other in my belly…”
So as another Mother’s Day arrives, I remember those of you who are in similar shoes—who have loved and lost and now love anew, who know what the past held and wonder what the future holds, who have Mother’s Day fears and Mother’s Day hopes, who know you are a mom (perhaps of many!) even if you have “nothing” to show for it but memorabilia like my two pink pearls. Those pearls were my reminder of what God had done. Those pearls continue to be a reminder to me of God’s faithfulness. And I still get joy out of telling my son how one of the pearls was for him and one for his big sister he will meet in heaven where we will see the most beautiful pearls imaginable (Revelation 21:21).
Big News in the Workplace
Big news for my beloved hubby this week, as you can see in this official press release here. The Lord is good, and we continue to seek His face as my husband pursues His Kingdom, His glory, and the continued spread of His Word through his leadership at Olive Tree Bible Software. It is a blessing to have this pivotal step go public today, as it’s been in the works for a number of months, and we are excited to see what God continues to do through this wonderful product. And I’m excited to continue supporting and praying for my husband as he takes dominion and does good works in leading the team here locally as Vice President of Operations. I’m honored to be his wife, to make his home a haven, to nurture his children, to pray for his success in dominion-taking where the Lord plants him.