Insignificant Significance

No matter how hard I try, I can't remember one single significant story to tell about family Easters. The reason? Because they weren't (by definition) significant. Year after year, there were no surprises, just simple sameness.

We went to church and celebrated our risen Savior. Most of the time we hunted Easter eggs after church with the church folks and then we were off to my grandparents' house for Easter dinner. Granny was in the kitchen in her housecoat by the time we got there. Papa was lost in whatever he was doing in his bedroom.

While Granny cooked, my cousins and I would dye eggs with food coloring that Granny put in coffee mugs for us. As a child, it seemed to take forever to get those eggs just the right color, and it took even longer for Granny to get finished with dinner.  The house filled with aunts, uncles and cousins. Granny was never rattled by how many people came or how anxious we were to eat. She made us wait until she got the food just the way she wanted it.

Once Papa blessed the food, we made a line for the buffet. Ham, macaroni and cheese, potato salad, bread, vegetables, chocolate cake, cheesecake, banana pudding....on and on.  There were so many of us that we had to sit scattered throughout the house. Even though I sat two rooms away from the dining room sometimes, I could always hear the uproarious laughter from my aunts and uncles. We talked and laughed and ate...boy did we eat. And to me, Easter was always Granny's best meal.

After lunch, someone would hide the eggs for us and we'd set out on a hunt in Granny and Papa's giant backyard. Sometimes we'd find all the eggs and hide them again and again. When we got tired of hiding and hunting we'd bring them in, crack the shell, slice, salt and eat.  Later, we would disburse to the front porch, back porch, living room, bedroom or to the backyard swing. We'd meet up again for late afternoon dessert and then again for supper.

This is how it was every single year for as long as I can remember. There was nothing special about it. It was the same. And yet, the sameness of it all is why it became so significant. It was our constant. It was our reminder that some things like Granny's cooking or Papa's smile never changed.

I truly hope that one day my sons can look back and have some same ol', same ol' memories of their own. I hope they can recall fantastic meals, beautiful blessings, laughter and the love of family. Because after all, that's the kind of insignificant significance that helps make us all who we are.

Being Thankful....Regardless!

Both of my pregnancies with my boys were challenging, not to mention impossibilities that God saw fit to make possible. I dealt with a great deal of physical problems throughout my first pregnancy. I was nervous about being a first time mom, but not overly so. I was more in awe of what God had done for me and Rob. After all, it had only been a few months before that our specialist doctor told us we would never have a child without serious medical intervention. (The kind that normal insurance doesn't cover). However, God had other plans.

After an extremely difficult pregnancy, on February 4, 2006, I delivered the 6 lb Aaron twenty days early. He spent the night in the special care nursery because they were finding it difficult to stabilize his temperature. He developed jaundice and there was talk of sending us home without him. Luckily, that didn't happen. We were able to take our baby home two days later. About a week after we returned home, we received a call that something abnormal turned up on his newborn blood screen. I just knew that this would somehow be my punishment. Why had I thought I deserved a perfectly healthy child anyway?

Fortunately, we found out that newborn screenings often comes back with false positives. A second round of tests showed there to be no abnormalities. My little guy got over his jaundice but continued to struggle with severe stomach trouble and allergies. We pressed through and Aaron began to flourish.

Not long after Aaron's fourth birthday in 2010, I found out I was pregnant again. We were again in awe of what God had given us. However, my first round of blood work came back abnormal signaling that something could be wrong with our child. Knowing from experience that blood work and tests are often wrong, we tried not to worry too much about it. But bad news just kept coming. The morning before I went in for my first ultrasound, I locked myself in my bedroom, knelt down until my face was pressed to the floor. I begged God, like I had never begged for anything in my life, to please heal this life and prove the doctors wrong.

For reasons I still don't understand, God saw fit to take my unborn baby to heaven. Rob and I grieved for months because we simply could not understand why something like this could have happened. When I was alone, I expressed my anger to God. I just could not understand. Throughout that grieving process, my heart slowly began to heal. I still thought about it and it still hurt, but little did I know God was healing me bit by bit day by day.

Fast forward to June 2011. Pregnant for the third time and fear immediately gripped me. It was unshakable. I couldn't allow myself to be happy or thankful, I was just a ball of frazzled nerves knowing that something disastrous was about to happen. My first set of blood work showed some hormone levels below average and my first ultrasound showed the baby with a beating heart but an abnormally shaped embryo. The abnormal shape indicated a miscarriage could occur. So, the hand of fear gripped my heart a little tighter.

I did what the doctor said to do to bring up my hormone levels, but with every blood test the news was never any better. So, Rob and I did the only thing we had the power to do. We prayed. It was the first time in nine years that he had ever laid hands on me and prayed for me out loud. We asked everyone to pray for us, even people that didn't know we were expecting. And in turn, those people asked their friends to pray for us too. People were praying from right in our own town to halfway across the country. And one Sunday morning as I stood in the prayer line at church, there was a lady who whispered to me "just as our kids have to remind us of what we have promised them, keep reminding God of His promises. He is faithful!" The senior pastor, who didn't know anything about my situation, prayed over me and asked God to give me a miracle.

A few days later, an ultrasound showed a baby whose growth that had been three days behind was now three days ahead. A heart rate that had been slow was well above average. And the abnormal shape of the embryo seemed to be becoming more rounded. As I lay on the table listening to the these reports, I couldn't help but say "God, You are so good!"

So, all my fear vanished, right? Not by a long shot. See, even though God had given me the miracle everyone had prayed for, my mind became convinced that even though the baby would live, it would be born with something wrong. The enemy held this over my head every single day. So many days I would drop to the floor, faced pressed against the carpet begging God for my baby to be OK. One morning while I was doing laundry I cried so hard that I was bent over with my head in the washing machine. I would get in the tub at night and lay in the water praying and feeling the ever subtle kicks of my baby boy inside of me. Yet, the fear was unshakable. I am ashamed to admit that I prayed for God to take my baby to heaven if something was wrong. I just couldn't bear the thought of having a sick child.

God kept speaking to me in different ways throughout my fear-struggle. He spoke to me through encouraging sermons at church, powerful moments of worship, through friends and even in my own spirit. God reassured me that he had healed me 100%. He let me know that when he healed the blind man, he didn't heal just one eye or he didn't just give him sight for one day. It was complete restoration! And still, fear overshadowed my happiness and this miracle growing inside of me.

Despite the emotional toll the pregnancy had on me, I did extremely well physically. My sweet Connor was born on February 3, 2012. He had no problems with his temperature or jaundice as Aaron had. He didn't spend an hour in the nursery. There was no mishap with his newborn screen. He was completely healthy in every single way. He was what faith had made reality.

A year later, I find myself working from time to time at Aaron's school. I have had the opportunity to work a couple of times in special education.  At first, working with these children made me so thankful that I had two perfect little boys. But then I thought: why should my thanksgiving be based on the circumstances of others? Was I so shallow to think that God thought I was more worthy than someone else? 

I don't pretend to understand God's reasoning for anything. I can't understand why some babies are never given a chance or why some face health challenges they will deal with for the rest of their life. After all, God has the power to change it all. So, why doesn't he? I guess it can be explained in a story my pastor tells about holding his son's hand in a crowded mall. When his little boy saw a toy store, he dropped his hand and took off running into the store. When we get comfortable and we think we don't need Him, we tend to drop God's hand and find our own way. God's desire is for us to walk with Him, hand in hand. Sometimes it takes difficult circumstances to assure our hand will remain in His. Throughout my struggle, fear had gripped my heart,  but God had gripped my hand even tighter and never let me take off running to do it my way.

I am doing my best to be thankful for my blessings without having to be reminded of the unfortunate circumstances of others. Why must I only be thankful for the house I live in whenever I see someone who is homeless? Or why must I only be reminded of the miracle of my children when I see someone who can't have children or see children who are living with lifetime struggles? I am blessed every time I put my key in my backdoor and walk inside a house that is warm in the winter and cool in the summer. I am blessed every time I hear the giggle of my sons and watch them play. And most importantly, I am blessed because I belong to the One Most High God who agreed to give me grace...a favor I didn't deserve. Two favors, actually, born 5 years and 364 days apart.

Substance+Evidence= Essential Proof = Faith

When I was in college I took a philosophy class that made me question my faith. Everything that I had just taken at face value, went out the window of that classroom. I would leave class everyday in tears because there was nothing I could say that could prove the existence of God. Faith was as good as an argument as a cracked pot trying to hold water. It came up short every time.

The Bible says that faith is a SUBSTANCE (of things hoped for) and it is EVIDENCE (of things not seen). Merriam-Webster defines substance as "essential nature" and evidence is defined as "something that furnishes proof." So, faith is not simply believing or some abstract thought. To those who have it, it's tangible...it's evidence or to be even clearer; it's proof.

So here's just a little of my proof:
1. I am from a single parent home. When my father worked late or left early, my grandparents took care of me and loved me as if I was their own.

2. I fell in love with my best friend. We've been married 10 years this past July.

3. The doctors told us that it was unlikely that we would ever have children of our own. I gave birth to William Aaron in 2006 and 5 years and 364 days later Connor James was born.

Do I think I could have convinced a classroom full of atheists and agnostics with a simple definition of faith? No, probably not. But for me, knowing the kind of life I could have had makes me realize the immense blessings of the one I do have. If it wasn't for God, where would I be? I know for sure there would not be a husband as kind and generous as Rob. And there most certainly would never have been an Aaron and a Connor. See, when the world told me no, faith said "hang on", and God said "yes, of course you can."

The craziness, the tears,  and the laughter of this house is all the proof I need. Case closed.