Unto Us a Son is Given

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end. Isaiah 9:6-7a

I have been struck this Christmas season with the wonder of God coming to us as a helpless baby boy. Being pregnant during this time of year, especially with a baby boy, has been especially sweet. It has made me contemplate the incarnation of Christ in a different way. I am in my third trimester now (!). I can feel this little guy moving around inside of me and the time of his arrival is quickly arriving. 

I can't help but think about Mary, the ordinary, humble, teenage, virgin girl chosen to be the mother of the Lord. She graciously accepted the plan God had for her, even though it interrupted her plans and probably squashed some of her dreams. Her reputation would forever be in question regarding her faithfulness to her fiance Joseph. I pray for her humble acceptance of God's plans. I often cling tightly to my plans for the future and don't trust His ways over mine (even though I know that His ways are higher and better). Before becoming pregnant with our first baby, I struggled with the idea of letting go of my independence to embrace motherhood. I could sense God leading me towards motherhood but wasn't sure if it would make me happy. Shamefully, I sometimes still wonder if this whole motherhood thing is for me. It's hard to die to myself - to die to my plans, my independence, my vision of ministry...

Mary was in her third trimester when it came time for her and Joseph to make their way to Bethlehem to register for Caesar's census. I can't imagine how uncomfortable she was riding on a donkey, on bumpy roads, for many miles. I was uncomfortable driving down to Nashville for Christmas and my ride was way more luxurious than hers. And I will be making an even longer journey in a week from Pittsburgh to Tuscaloosa when we move. It won't be comfortable, but the same God who sustained her on the back of a donkey will sustain me on the road in our Honda.

And even though I can relate to Mary in these different ways, my son will be much different than hers. Her Baby was no ordinary child. He is God in the flesh (John 1:1, 14). He has always existed and He came to dwell with His people and to save them. And even though He is the king of Kings, He came in the humblest of ways, While my son will be born in a nice hospital, with relatives semi-nearby, and with the modern conveniences of life, God's Son was born in a stable, far from relatives, and wrapped in old rags. While my son will have a cozy crib, God's Son had a dirty feeding trough for his bed. Jesus came in way that no one would have ever expected and His life and death were just as mind blowing as His birth.

Jesus came with one purpose: to die for the sins of the world. Isaiah 9 says that He came as light to people who were walking in deep darkness (v.2). Jesus Christ has conquered that darkness by paying the penalty for our sins. The Son given to us at Christmas came to give eternal life to the world - including this little child within me. Because of the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus we can know God. God gave His Son over to death so that we could become His sons and daughters. I have been praying more consistently for my son's salvation and future, that God would use him in great ways for His kingdom. I pray God opens the eyes and mind of our baby boy to see and understand this Jesus at an early age. And I pray that I continue to grow in my understanding of who He is and what He has done.

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. Galatians 4:4-5

From Pride to Praise

Yesterday I turned 33. I know that's not really considered a milestone age, but I couldn't help thinking that this was the age that Jesus Christ died. He lived a short life and it was a hard life in the sense of being misunderstood and rejected and carrying the weight and sorrows of the world. His life ended abruptly by betrayal, an unjust trial, severe beatings and humiliation, and crucifixion. He died that we might live. His life purchased my life and restored me to God. I can live because of Him.

I have to admit my life is not what I imagined it would be at this point. That's been hard for me to accept in many ways, which shows my arrogance in thinking that I know better than God what is best for me. I was hit with this truth during last Sunday's sermon at Renaissance. We had a guest preacher who preached from James 4:13-17, about boasting about the future. He did not sugar coat what Jesus through James is condemning us Christians for: we arrogantly think we can make our plans without regard to God and when things don't go our way, we get bent out of shape. The preacher said that God, in His grace, sometimes painfully chips away at our plans to expose and crush this arrogance so that the arrogance doesn't crush us. Ultimately, Jesus Christ died for our arrogance on the cross.

I can see this arrogance in my own life. I had a particular vision of what I wanted my life and ministry to look like. And when God started messing with my plans, then I struggled. I became confused and grumbled against the Lord's leading, and sometimes I fell into despair. I was more sold out to my own vision of the future than I was to following Jesus wherever He may lead. I had my hands clenched tightly around my plans and over these past couple of years, Jesus has been prying my fingers off those plans. And it hurt. I felt like a failure. I felt like I was missing God's will, that I had gone down the wrong path. But the truth is that I was balking against God's work in my life because it didn't fit nicely into the path I had designed for myself. There is nothing inherently wrong with the dreams I had, but there was in my heart attitude towards them. In my zeal to serve God overseas and in dreaming about ministry, I had begun to idolize and worship them instead of continually seeking God and His guidance and allowing Him to guide and shape my heart.

Although the Lord has been teaching me to surrender to Him in all areas of life, this especially hit home while listening to this sermon. My problem was not only idolizing my plans, but my problem is arrogance. I thought I was wiser than God when it came to knowing how to best use my life. I wanted Him to bow down to my plans and make them successful like He was some genie who was at my bidding. This realization was hard and heavy. But God is so very kind to reveal these heart attitudes to me, so that I could repent and begin living in the freedom He has called me to in Christ.

I have continued to think about these things over the past few days. And yesterday it hit me: although my life isn't what I envisioned, God has blessed me with so many good things. I do like what He is doing in my life. I am thankful I am where I am. And with that realization comes so much freedom. I don't have to worry or wonder whether my life looks a certain way. Jesus only requires me to be faithful to Him and that means heeding His Word and following Him. He is not as concerned about the destination (career, ministry, etc) as I am; He is more concerned with the process of me getting there (knowing Him deeper, growing in Christlikeness and in community, being faithful, dying to myself). So, yes, I am not in Asia; I am not in full-time ministry; I have no idea if the dreams I am surrendering to God will ever be fulfilled; BUT God has blessed me with everything I need in Christ Jesus. He has been teaching me about living in His grace and living life in community. He has blessed me with a very sweet marriage to a godly man and we have a baby boy on the way. He gives me constant opportunities to minister to others in a variety of ways. He is good and does good (Psalm 119:68). I have so much to be thankful for.

Life After Loss

Things change when you lose a loved one. They change in a thousand different ways.

Today marks the third year since my dad passed away. It’s hard to believe he’s been gone that long, and sometimes the pain seems just as fresh as when it first happened. People always say that the first year is the hardest, and I can see how in many ways that is true. But I actually found that year two was harder. Maybe it’s because I had false expectations of what long-term loss looked like. I expected year one to be hard and then after that for things to immediately get easier. But they didn’t. Instead, the new reality set in: my dad is gone. No more phone calls. No more laughs. No more sharing life together. Life is still going on for sure…but without him.

This past year has been easier comparatively. But, grief can be a tricky thing. The pain sneaks up on when you least expect it and seems to be absent when you most expect it. And for everyone it seems to be different. And I guess one of the things I have noticed most is how I (and others close to my dad) still feel the loss, but how others have moved on. It doesn’t affect them regularly or cause the same void in their life. There’s nothing wrong with this. We can’t all feel every loss so keenly (how overwhelming that would be!). But for those suffering from loss, for those to whom the absence is noticeable, it seems like we are at times stuck in the pain or have regressed to an earlier stage of grief. The world carries on, but we experience the loss in some way every day. Time does heal the wound, albeit not completely, and we do adjust to the new way of living that God has ordained, but the loss becomes an integral part of our story. It doesn’t define us (or at least shouldn’t), but it does further shape us and what we believe. For Christians, it should sober their view of life and drive them to dependence upon Christ. That is one of the good intentions that God has in grief: to grow our faith and make us more like Christ. And we can only do that if we lean into Him and let others into our grief. 

God created us for community not just for fellowship and to share our joys, but to also share our sorrows and struggles. The local church should be the safest and best place to do this. We are called to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep (Romans 12:15). We are to encourage the fainthearted (1 Thessalonians 5:14) and comfort others with the same comfort that Christ gives us (2 Corinthians 1:3-7). If the one who died is a believer, we are to remind each other of their and our future hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13-15). And, most of all, we should be encouraging one another and building one another up in the truth and knowledge of the Lord (1 Thessalonians 5:11; Ephesians 4:15-16). But we can only live out these commands within our church families if we are open and honest and vulnerable with one another. We have to let others into our lives and be intentional in entering the lives of others. This is not easy to do, especially in our individualistic, self-reliant, put-on-a-good-face society. But this is what Jesus calls us to, and the local church is where I believe you will find true healing from loss and people to walk alongside of you during the bouts of reoccurring grief. This is where I believe God chooses to meet us in unexpected ways as He reveals Himself to us through His people. Can you find healing from grief outside of the local church? Yes. But I believe it will be a longer, more lonely road, and a definitely less grace-centered and gospel-centered healing process. I am thankful that the Lord has pretty much forced me to share my grief with my brothers and sisters in Christ. He has used them to confront my doubts and unbelief in God's goodness and to encourage me when I am hurting and discouraged. They may not feel the loss regularly like I do (or may not have even been there to experience the loss in the first place), but they are more than willing to patiently enter the pain with me and comfort me through it. Life after loss may look different for everyone, but the true source of Hope and Comfort is universal. His name is Jesus Christ and He often channels His hope and comfort through His people in the local church context.

Pushing Past the Seen

Things that are seen. These are the things that command our attention, that fight for our joy. And once again, I found myself fixated on what is tangible. I am in my second pregnancy. The first one ended in a miscarriage 8 weeks in. When I came to the seventh and eighth weeks in this pregnancy, I fought hard to trust the Lord and not give into anxiety. Yet, I was looking to the things I can see or feel to determine how well this pregnancy was going. Was I nauseous? Did I have food aversions? Yes. Good; the pregnancy must be going well. But I experienced spotting for over a week. What did that mean? Was that a sign of a miscarriage? If only my first appointment would come and I could hear the heartbeat...if there is a heartbeat…

Then the Lord brought me to this timely verse one morning:

¹⁶ So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. ¹⁷ For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, ¹⁸ as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18

I am well acquainted with this verse, but I needed a fresh reminder. I had been focusing on the visible; trusting in what I can sense or see or feel, instead of trusting in the promises of God. I was trusting in feeling nauseous and food aversions and the absence spotting to reassure myself that everything was okay. But the Word of God is more true that the tangible things around me, and He holds out beautiful promises of future grace to those who trust in Him – promises that never fail.

Yet, even though God brought this lack of trust to my attention, I continued to struggle. I knew I needed to focus on the unseen things, but visible things were what continued to consume my attention and fuel my fears. I needed specific unseen things to focus on. I needed specific promises besides the broader truths that God was sovereign and was working for my good.

Once again, God in His grace met me in my struggles and unbelief. That weekend the sermon at church was from Psalm 139. I studied it beforehand to prepare for the sermon and God used that psalm to remind me of His constant care and presence. He has been with this child from the beginning – before I even knew this little life existed – and He was the One fashioning him or her together. More than that, God has a plan for this child, regardless of how this pregnancy ends. Just like He has numbered and planned my days, He has numbered and planned the days of this little one, no matter how many or few. Furthermore, God promises not to withhold good from His children (Psalm 84:11). Therefore, if the birth and life of this child is good for my husband and me, God will not withhold him or her from us. The same was true with our first pregnancy. Even though we went through a valley of darkness and pain in miscarriage, we watched God work in our marriage and through our lives to strengthen relationships, minister to those suffering in similar circumstances, and draw us closer to Christ. It was good for us to be afflicted in that way (Psalm 119:71), so that we may grow in faith and love and the knowledge of Christ. 

So I am still waiting for my first appointment* and I still have the thought of miscarriage hovering in the back of my mind, but I have a renewed confidence in God’s wise care and plans. His abundant grace is available each day and His mercies are new every morning. They never run dry. And nothing catches Him by surprise. He knows how our first doctor’s appointment will go. He knows how this pregnancy will end. And I can lean into Him and trust what He has in store. Because He is not only working for mine and my husband’s good, but He is working for the good of this baby and of His church and for the glory of His name. I cannot control what is going on inside of me, but I can trust the One who is in control. He is working in the unseen places and in unseen ways, and what cannot be seen now will one day reveal His omnipotent wisdom and goodness and glory to all.

*This post has been in the works for several weeks. Daniel and I had our first appointment last Tuesday. And the Lord in His kindness met us in our doubts and fears and allowed us to hear the heartbeat. :) We are thankful for such a gift!

Our Second Year :: In Pictures

One year anniversary trip :: Niagra Falls and Toronto

Impromptu trip to MO :: Mom in hospital :: October 2015

Halloween 2015 :: Let the pumpkin-carving tradition continue!

Duquesne Graduate Symposium :: November 2015

Daniel's Birthday at Noodlehead :: a surprise party was waiting for him at home :)

Thanksgiving in TN :: Skeet shooting

Christmas in MO :: the five of us all together for the first time since our weddings!

First Pregnancy :: Miscarriage :: January 2016 :(

I finally took a photography course :: new lens!

Completed our second puzzle together :: this one took longer than the first

New Board Game of Choice :: Monopoly

Daniel's parents came to visit :: March 2016

We became members of Renaissance :: April 2016

Trip to Belgium and Paris :: May 2016

My mom came to visit :: May 2016

Moe's! :: one of our go-to date night places

Summer in Pittsburgh :: so pretty!

Second Pregnancy :: June 2016 :: Due March 2017

OH-MO-TN-KY Trip :: July 2016

Second Year Anniversary :: Local Eats and Jason Bourne Movie

Here's to another year!

Comforted to Comfort

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort. 2 Corinthians 2:3-7

Sometimes in loss or difficult trials, the Lord allows His people to see His purposes behind why He allowed them. When it comes to our miscarriage earlier this year, Daniel and I still don't understand why God allowed us to lose our baby, but we can see how He is using our loss for His glory and kingdom. Nothing is ever lost in God's economy. It all serves us and others in some way.

During these last two months, we have had the opportunity of walking with two dear couples who suffered miscarriages. Because we had already walked down that road ourselves and had received God's comfort and healing, we were able to minister that same comfort to these two couples. Like the verse above describes, we were comforted to comfort others. Our circumstances weren't exactly the same. Our inner experience of losing our babies weren't the same either. But we have the same Father in heaven who loves us and because of that, we were able to identify with the loss and grief that suddenly came upon our friends. We were able to cry with them and pray with/for them and encourage them of God's goodness, grace, and mercy even in the midst of such bewildering circumstances.

This doesn't mean that knowing that we can help others gives us more of a sense of purpose in our loss; it just means that we can see how God is redeeming the loss in our life by allowing us to encourage and comfort others. Our joys and sorrows are never just for us. God does indeed use them to refine us and make us more like Christ and increase our faith, but He is also preparing us to serve others and witness to His goodness, greatness, and sufficiency in what seems like hopeless situations. If we keep our pain to ourselves and do not let others share in it so that they can either serve us or that we can serve them, we waste our pain. When Jesus was on earth, He allowed others to share in His sorrow (Matthew 26:36-38) and He comforted those who were hurting (Matthew 28:10; Mark 5:36; John 14:27). That's what love does. And we are called to love.


We will probably never understand the reasons behind any of these miscarriages on this side of heaven, but, as hard as it is sometimes, our hope and faith in Jesus does not rest upon understanding every circumstance He allows or prohibits. He calls us not to understand but to trust. His wisdom is much greater than ours and His purposes are much higher (Isaiah 55:8-9). God certainly had the power to prevent the loss of these babies, but in His mysteriously perfect wisdom He didn't. But in His sovereign power, God is using these evidences of our painful, broken, and sin-wrecked world to make beautiful things happen: strengthening marriages through loss, united brothers and sisters closer in Christ, making us all more dependent on Him - are a few that come to mind. This is our hope in the midst of suffering and affliction, that the God of the universe is working in all things for the good of His people and the fame of His name (Romans 8:28) and that every ounce of pain on this side of eternity will be more than repaid, and greatly overshadowed, by the glory that awaits us (Romans 8:18; 2 Corinthians 4:16-18). I long for that day and it is that hope that sustains me when circumstances are hard and my understanding is dark. Until then and with the Lord's help, I will continue to grow in sharing my pain with others so that I can be comforted and so that I can comfort those who need comforting.

A Special Friday

And when they came to the place that is called The Skull, there they crucified [Jesus], and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And they cast lots to divide his garments. And the people stood by, watching, but the rulers scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!”  Luke 23:33-35

Yesterday was Good Friday. It also marked the 15th year anniversary of when I became a Christian, of when God saved me from myself for Himself. I had every reason in the world to be joyful yesterday. But I wasn't. Instead, I was irritable, grumbling inwardly, and wanted to be alone. Instead of focusing on how much I had to be thankful for (I mean, literally, yesterday symbolized the very foundation of gratitude), I was focusing on how well I didn't sleep the night before, how upset my stomach felt, and how dreary and cold the weather was. The skies were very gray, which is not uncommon to Pittsburgh, much like my melancholy attitude.

I even had a very fruitful time reading a couple of meditations yesterday morning about Good Friday, which was in the Holy Week devotional I have been reading this week. Through those readings, God allowed me to sense some of the weight and burden of what Jesus went through on the cross; more than just the physical agony, but the isolation and emptiness of Him being separated from His heavenly Father. And as much as this reading gripped me and drew me near to the throne of God's grace, I still couldn't shake the way I was feeling. I was struggling to fight for joy.

But then evening came, which brought with it the Good Friday service at Renaissance Church. It was just what I needed to refocus and reset, to remember what Christ had done for me. During the service, we raised our voices in praise to Jesus, who paid the penalty for our sins by dying on the cross, and we focused on the seven statements He made as He hung there in agony. The final words of a dying man. A man who was more than a man; this was the Creator of the universe sacrificing Himself for His rebellious and helpless creatures.

During the service, the Lord convicted me of my sinful attitude: of my grumbling heart and loveless disposition. I did have every reason to rejoice. When I was 17, God saved me. It wasn't because He saw anything good in me. I thought I was good. I thought He would be lucky to have me. But I wasn't good enough to warrant His attention and affection and rescue. It wasn't that I didn't believe in His existence, that was instilled in me in childhood; it's that I was apathetic to Him. When I heard the truth of my need for Him, I didn't react. I pondered, I considered, but I did nothing. So, in essence, I was rejecting Jesus and the work He did for me on the cross. I thought my good deeds were good enough and that I didn't need a sinless substitute to take God's away anger toward my sin. In fact, I didn't think God was angry with me at all, and if He was, I was the one to do something about it, not Jesus.

Like everyone else, I wanted to live life my own way. I was living for the approval of others and for my own esteem and benefit. But it was in the midst of this selfish pursuit that God began chasing after me. The words from the sermons at church started to grab my heart. I didn't totally understand why I needed Jesus in my life, but I couldn't get away from the idea that I did. The thought kept infringing itself upon my mind until I couldn't resist anymore. I needed Jesus. So, on Saturday evening when I got home from work on March 25, 2001, I told my dad I wanted to become a Christian, not even knowing what that really meant. He led me in a prayer of repentance for my sins and of asking Jesus to be the Savoir and Lord of my life. The words weren't magical. I didn't feel any tingling sensations or anything, but I did feel peace and purpose. I had this newfound resolve (strength from God) to follow Jesus and learn more about Him. In some sense, I realized that I belonged to another. Someone else would be calling the shots in my life.

As I read the meditations about Good Friday and sung the lyrics to the songs at the service and listened to the sermonette on Jesus being forsaken by God on the cross as He bore the sins of all His people, I couldn't help but think about how on this day 2000-plus years ago, Jesus died to set me free from sin and death and to bring me into a relationship with God, and how 15 years ago, Jesus cashed in that payment, so to speak, to make His sacrifice a reality in my life, to gain the prize for which He died. He not only became sin while on the cross (2 Corinthians 5:21), He became my sin. He not only faced the full wrath of God against sin, He faced the full wrath of God against my sin. It was the punishment that I deserved. Jesus never did or thought or said anything wrong. He wasn't apathetic to the things of God. He didn't grumble when things didn't go His way. He wasn't irritable or antisocial. Yet He paid for penalty as if He did. In fact, He became the very ugliness that lies in the crevices of my heart: the thoughts and motives and attitudes I wouldn't want anyone to see (and they wouldn't want to see them either). But Jesus sees them and instead of leaving me in disgust and sending me to hell (which would have been just), He took on flesh and then died, becoming those very things, in order that He could defeat sin and death and set me free and make me new.

One of the things Jesus said from the cross before He died was, "It is finished." The purpose for which He was born had been accomplished. He in some mysterious way took on the sins of the world and drunk the symbolic cup of God's fury against sin and unrighteousness while He was on the cross. And so those three words from Jesus continue to ring true for every one who trusts in Him. "It is finished." He speaks those words over every believer, including me.

And so last night, I recommitted myself to the Lord, giving Him the blank check of my life. Whatever He wants for me, I want it. Wherever He wants me to go, I'll go. That's what following Him means and that's what trusting Him looks like. He gave everything for me; the least I can do is live completely for Him. And by His grace and strength, I won't grumble about whatever He has in store, but will rejoice in all that God is for me and has done for me in Christ.