Day 289 - Noel's Story

My Year of Faith and God's Faithfulness

David Wilkerson describes Faith as beginning with a total abandonment of oneself into God’s care, but our faith must be active, not passive. That is how my husband and I have tried to make the biggest decisions of our lives.

This last year has been rough. I've felt more isolated and alone then I ever thought I would; yet my faith has carried me through. Two years ago my husband’s project at work was coming to an end. There were a few possibilities of different things coming up; two of which meant moving away from our hometown. We began to pray! Asking God to place us where His will was, not ours. Each night I would ask for God’s will in my life knowing that leaving everything familiar to me was not something I was comfortable with. My children were young and I wanted to be near my support group of friends and family.

Towards the end of that summer my husband had to travel to San Jose for work. Once he came home he knew that if we wanted he could have his same position up there. We continued to pray! One month later on a Thursday afternoon my husband called home to say, "tomorrow they are going to offer me a job." And they did, it was 400 miles away from home, and a promotion, something unheard of during the recession. But we really made the decision to go based off of our faith in knowing we had been asking God for the past year what He wanted for us. We went and faced this challenge trusting in God's faithfulness.

We've been here for a year and it has brought us to our knees more then once. There were difficult times like finding a new church, making new friends, or learning where you want to go for a run and where you should stay away from, but the most painful part was facing trying times and not having your family and best friends nearby to comfort you. However, each time I get homesick or discouraged I can tell myself I know I am where God wants me to be! He placed us here.

Part two:

Our faith is not meant to get us out of a hard place or change our painful condition. Rather, it is meant to reveal God’s faithfulness to us in the midst of our dire situation. God does at times change our trying circumstances, but more often He doesn’t - because he wants us to change!

This last year has tested my trust in God’s faithfulness. Six months after moving our family based on our trust in God’s will for our lives I became pregnant. This is something that brings up raw emotions due to my recurring miscarriages.

I am a strong believer that each of us has a God given talent or purpose. I know mine is motherhood. I am a nurturer. I've wanted to be a mother for as long as I could remember.

My boys are currently 4 years old and 2 years old. Six years ago we started trying to have a baby, we had been married for two years and I had just finished college. I can remember standing in the bathroom telling my husband I was ready to start a family. That was the beginning of a journey I never saw coming. It has been a journey full of ups and downs. There has been more pain then I ever thought I could handle. Looking back at the girl in the bathroom longing for a baby, she at that time could not handle what she has been through, but through faith and God's grace she is stronger then ever.

My story is full of pain, loss, doubt, but most of all God’s faithfulness. I am learning that God is faithful but I have to preserver and be persistent. I've been through four miscarriages. Each one was a huge disappointment to say the least. Each time I walked away with a pain that I can't put in words and don't like to try. In church one Sunday I allowed myself to feel as if I was let down by God. I can remember feeling like God could have intervened and given me a healthy pregnancy and baby. He could of spared me from this pain. But in that moment of feeling as if I didn't deserve to feel this pain I also realized that Jesus felt this pain as much as I did, and He truly didn't deserve it, but as part of God's plan He felt all our pain so that we could experience the gift of forgiveness. So if He could feel the pain of each and every person who am I to complain or feel sorry for myself? However I did.

The first miscarriage was physically painful. The second was heartbreaking because it made me start to doubt if I would ever be able to stay pregnant. I can remember sitting on the floor in our hallway crying out to God asking Him to take that desire of motherhood off my heart. "God why did you create me with such a strong desire if this is something I can't have? Please take it off my heart if this is your will!" At the end of that long year I was pregnant with Cole. God did want me to be a mother, and boy did He have a sense of humor because He gave me a baby who screamed from sun up to sun down. It is as if He was saying, "you want a baby? Well here you go!" After Cole I had my third miscarriage and it hurt like all of the others but it was glossed over because I was pregnant with Sam a few weeks later. But my fourth miscarriage was a doosey!

We had recently moved and the pregnancy was not planned. I was not ready for another baby because Sam still felt like a baby to me. But, we had been praying about when to have more children and if it was God's plan then we were ready. I went to my first doctor’s appointment when I was 8 weeks pregnant and I did not have any of my usual signs of problems. I had never gone this long without spotting, miscarriage or not. Within minutes of the ultrasound I was told that it was a nonviable pregnancy and I would have to get a D&C as soon as possible. My husband was in meetings all day, my kids were with a new friend, all my friends and family were 400 miles away and no one knew I was pregnant. The next day in the hospital before the D&C they did another ultrasound and this time they found a heart beat. At that moment I felt like God was faithful. He gave me a miracle that I had not expected. I let down my guard and thought that this is what God wants for us. Four weeks later I went in for a third ultrasound and was told once again that there was no heartbeat. This time I could see with my own eyes a baby and NO beating heart. God why? Why give me a miracle at eight weeks when four weeks later there is no heartbeat?

It has been four months and I'm still not totally out of the funk. God is a faithful and a loving God but in moments like that it's hard to move on and see God’s love and grace being poured abundantly on you. However, each day I grow a little stronger and keep moving forward knowing God is walking alongside me.

In Romans 8:28 Paul reminded the Saints, “All things work together for good to them that love the Lord.” Our Heavenly Father, who loves us completely and perfectly, allows us to have experiences that will help us to develop the traits and attributes we need to become more Christ like. For me it is much easier to look back and see the faith that carried me through my trials then to feel that faith during those trying times.

God's faithfulness is what has brought me through. It is so clearly shown in Jeremiah 29:11, “I know the plans that I have for you, declares the LORD. They are plans for peace and not disaster, plans to give you a future filled with hope.” These words bring comfort and assurance, helping me recognize that the Lord is working in me.

I feel His love in the hymn, Come Thou Fount Of Every Blessing.

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee. 
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love; 
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it, 
Seal it for Thy courts above.

From loss there can be courage and life anew.