Posted on 03/08/2011 5:58:40 AM PST by MintyHippo1980
Sometimes God is hilarious!
If you read my post about Gracie, you already know how we struggled with infertility before we finally got pregnant with her. So, it's not like we were at all against making a run at a younger sibling for her--maybe even a boy for our estrogen-heavy household!--but we certainly weren't concerned about ending up in the obstetrician's office anytime soon.
Like I said...sometimes God is hilarious!
Grace was less than six months old when the school year started, and I was back in front of a classroom of students who were just dying to learn everything they could about great literature and the English language. (Sure they weren't.) I spent my short lunch break every day running home to nurse baby Grace. Jim's dad passed away that September. It was no wonder I felt sort of run down and blah.
One day I mentioned this to my good teaching buddy and next-classroom neighbor, and she winked and suggested that maybe I was pregnant! Well...I don't recall whether I laughed first or punched her first, but I know I did both. Obviously, sometimes she was hilarious too!
Then I sat at my desk and looked at my calendar...and I felt the blood drain from my face when I realized that I needed to stop at the pharmacy on my way home and pick up a pregnancy test.
Well...um...whoa!
Now, just in case you're mathematically challenged, this baby would bring our total to five. Five! And with the youngest two only 15 months apart!
There is a brief period of my early pregnancy that I really don't remember. I think I was in shock.
But, in fairly short order, excitement won out over panic; we broke the news to a lot of people who mentally (though quite visibly) counted the months between babies; and we generally went about the business of trying to figure out how we were going to fit as many as seven people into a little three-bedroom house. (Funny...it had seemed plenty big when Krystal and I bought it two months before we met Sweet Jimmy B!)
Here's what you need to know about Jamie's infancy: He NEVER slept. The boy never slept! But do you know what God did with that? He used those long, long night-time hours to draw me ever closer to Him...and our family was growing more and more centered around Him.
In fact, during the second half of Jamie's long first year, Jim and I became increasingly convinced that God was calling us into vocational ministry. That is sort of a funny story all by itself...and the punch line was Blue Earth, Minnesota. Six hours away from anyone we knew.
For an old Marine, that wasn't such a stretch, but I had grown up, attended college, gotten a teaching job, and bought a house all in the same rural county in Illinois. I was fully prepared to follow God where He led us...but the enormity of it all was a little (lot) intimidating. I mean, I was very new to this!
But when Jim was called to Blue Earth for his second interview, we went together as a family and got a room at the AmericInn! And while we were goofing off in the pool, relaxing after the interview (because I was interviewed too!), Jamie fell asleep in my arms.
I would like to refer to my earlier statement that the boy never slept...so that, in and of itself, was remarkable. But the truly amazing part of the story was the picture God showed me while my little guy snoozed away. There he was, completely surrounded by water...and at eleven months, he couldn't swim! But he was on his momma, utterly unaware of the danger. And in that moment, God showed me that, when I'm in the circle of His embrace, I am in the safest place possible--regardless of the perceived dangers and the unknown that surround me.
I spent almost four years as a Minnesotan. Lefse, lutefisk, tater tot hot-dish...the whole nine yards! In many ways, those were the most important, foundational years of my Christian life. We'll end up talking about that quite a little bit, I imagine.
But as it so often happens, God called us back to the very place we left. I mean, really back! We moved into the house next door to my parents on the family farm...into the house I had lived in as a child...the house my dad had lived in as a child.
We began attending the church we had left before we moved to Minnesota, but my dad also pastors a church nearby...so when their vacation Bible school week fell at a different time than ours, Grace and Jamie (who were six and five at the time) saw the opportunity for double the fun! And every morning, they went to Bible school with Grandma.
One morning, after I saw them off, nursed baby Daniel (whom you will meet in a few days), and finally got around to finding some breakfast for myself, the phone rang. It's strange that when a phone call is about to change your life, it sounds just the same as it does at any other time. The kind voice on the other end of the line said, "Missy, this is Nancy from church. Linda asked me to call you. Jamie was hit by a car."
In that moment, I wasn't sure she was speaking English. I didn't recognize this Nancy. It didn't register that Linda is my mother's name. I couldn't even piece together who Jamie was. Then it fell on me like the roof caving in...and I lost it.
Somewhere in the midst of my shock, I asked the voice on the phone if Jamie was OK, and she told me she didn't know...she only knew that he was talking to his grandma.
In the swirl of events that followed, I somehow had the presence of mind to tell Kayla to put my still-nursing Daniel into his car-seat, and I dialed Jim's work number but handed the phone off to Krystal when I saw that Daniel was ready to go.
Even though the drive to my dad's church took me considerably less time than it normally would, it was the longest drive of my life. But probably the most important...
Because as I cried aloud to the Lord, pleading for the life of my son, I heard that still, small voice of the Holy Spirit, speaking to my heart, asking me the hardest question I'd ever had to face: If I take Jamie, am I still good?
God is good all the time; and all the time, God is good...God is sovereign, and He knows what He's doing...the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord (Job 1:21)...
These are truths I had come to understand and believe within the safe, comfortable confines of Bible studies and conversations with other Believers...but could I embrace God's loving sovereignty if I was about to find myself in that dreadful sorority of mothers who have lost a child?
Don't get me wrong...I never for a moment of that drive stopped screaming out to God to spare Jamie's life, but by the time Daniel and I got to the church, the Lord and I had answered that question. I didn't know what I was about to face, but I had come to terms with my own personal trust in God's absolute trustworthiness. He was still good, no matter what happened.
What happened was a very trying day: a ride in an ambulance to one hospital...then a drive to a second hospital to meet the helicopter that flew Jamie to Peoria (to the same hospital that had taken such good care of Grace six years before). At the end of the day, Jamie had undergone surgery to pin a broken femur...but he had no other significant injuries. And two days later he was home, refusing pain meds and trying to climb down out of his wheelchair.
I think God has a very special calling on Jamie's life.
From the tenderest age, Jamie has been concerned that people know who Jesus is. When he was younger, sometimes we had to rein him in a bit. (Perhaps asking a fellow six-year-old, "What?! Do you want to go to hell?!" isn't exactly what is meant by friendship evangelism.) Fortunately, as he is growing up, his technique is improving, but his passion for the Lord is just as strong as ever. Jamie is deeply concerned about the state of people's souls.
He sure helped me figure out the true state of my own.
Blessings! Missy
He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it. Matthew 10:37-39
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