I am first and foremost a sinner saved by the grace of God. I am also a wife and a mom to five children - three on earth and two in heaven. I started blogging about a year after the birth of our second son as a way to recount God's faithfulness and steadfast love toward our family.
After receiving the news of our son Wesley's chromosomal abnormality, I began the fight for faith that I will continue to fight the rest of my life. The fight to trust that the Lord's plan for Wesley is perfect. The fight to believe that here, even in this, God is working for our good. He is working this for the good of Mike and I, He is working for the good of our family and our marriage, and He is even working this for Wesley's good. The Lord has been so kind to remind me again and again of the truth in Romans 8:32, which says “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” I continue to cling to this promise and the hope and peace it provides. Because God gave his own Son for me, providing for my greatest need, how can I not believe that He will provide for all of my other needs? How can I not believe that He will give me every good thing?
But yet, these past few years have been hard. And I know they are only the beginning of a long and difficult path that the Lord has called us to walk. I still grieve often for my son and the life he will never live. I often feel alone and feel that the road the Lord has called me to walk is too hard. Sometimes I just want to give up. But in those moments, God is always faithful to lift my eyes off of myself and point them back to Him. When I am looking at Him, all the cares of this world seem so small in comparison. When I am reminded that He will never leave me or forsake me, I no longer feel alone. When I am reminded that He will uphold me with his righteous right hand, the road no longer seems so hard to walk. And, when I am reminded that my God also had a Son who was despised and rejected by men, I know that the God to whom I cry out is intimately acquainted with my grief. And then I am comforted, for my God knows my grief because of His great love for me. While I did not choose this path for my son, He did choose this path for His. He chose to allow His Son to suffer and be rejected so that I might be saved. And so that Wesley might be saved.
My prayer at the beginning of 2009 was that if someone were to ask me what I was most thankful for, I would be able to answer “the gospel”. While I would not have chosen for the Lord to answer my prayers in this way, I am grateful that he has graciously used this trial to fill my heart with thankfulness to Him for giving His life for me and for saving me from my sin. He has filled me with a joy in the gospel that I did not have before Wesley was born. And I know that as I continue to walk down the road that He has laid before me, only He will be able to sustain me and give me the strength to go on. This gives me great joy, for I know that as I lean on Him for strength and cling to His promises, my love for my Savior will only grow deeper with each passing year. So, while I would not have chosen for Wesley to have a chromosomal abnormality, I also know that this is the way that the Lord has chosen to sanctify our family, to work in us for our good, and to bring Himself great glory.
