Learning To Move On

Grace by U2

Grace
She takes the blame
She covers the shame
Removes the stain
It could be her name

She carries a pearl
In perfect condition
What once was hurt
What once was friction
What left a mark
No longer stings

Because grace makes beauty
Out of ugly things

Grace finds beauty
In everything

Grace finds goodness
In everything 

It has been a while since we posted anything. One becuase it has been very difficult, and two because there are not words to speak what we truly went through. Last Thursday was more painful physically and emotionally than we ever imagined. We found peace with our decision and really felt like God was confirming our decision, but that never meant we were not going to feel the sting and weight of it. The days that followed we felt a lot of shame, a lot of sorrow, and a lot of sadness in what we had to do. The hardest part was the spiritual attacks that followed. They were in our thoughts and were in our dreams. One night we played Scrabble and half way in the game I just felt really sad. I started to tell Matt how ashamed I was and we just sat and felt the pain again. That night I kept having nightmares of playing Scrabble and the words Abortion and Termination kept going on the board over and over. I was haunted by those words. I hate those words. I hate what they mean.

But something really amazing has come out of all of this. Not only are we stronger in our marriage, and so much closer to God than we ever have been, but we also have experience true Grace and really understand the meaning. I took a couple of verses from the song Grace by U2 that have really spoke to us. This song was playing in our car as we left the hospital last Thursday. The only thing that has gotten us through the pain is the grace of God. We have had grace when we read the Bible, when friends come visit us, when we receive amazing emails and phone calls, when friends bring us food, when family support us with gifts and trips, when people have sent us verses, songs and poems to reflect on, when we have felt so much love and support through all of this, and absolutely no judgement. We understand what Jesus felt on the cross and what He truly bore for us. He carried this weight and He wants us to find freedom and victory that He promised to us.

So each day we move on. Each day we remember our baby that is now with Jesus. We also look forward to what will come of this and what God has planned for our future. We know however it is right for us, we will have a family some day. We hope to keep this blog going to share our lives with you, and one day open it up to those who do not know what we went through. Thank you again for all your love and support!

Let Your Mercies Fall From Heaven

This song is simple, it is powerful, it is very real to me. Here are the Lyrics to Sweet Mercies by David Ruis  

It's our confession Lord, that we are weak 
So very weak, but You are strong 
And though we've nothing Lord, to lay at your feet 
We come to Your feet and say, Help us along. 
A broken heart and a contrite spirit You have yet to deny 
Your heart of mercy beats with love's strong current 
Let the river flow by your Spirit now, Lord we cry 
Let Your mercies fall from heaven 
Sweet mercies flow from heaven 
New mercies for today 
Shower them down Lord as we pray 
Let Your mercies fall from heaven 
Sweet mercies flow from heaven 
New mercies for today 
Shower them down Lord as we pray

We are so weak right now, but The Lord's strength is all that get's us through. We are on our knees every day asking the Lord to guide us, to give us strength and comfort, to make this easier on us. I don't think there is anyway we would be able to be at work without His strength. The Holy Spirit is living in us and guiding us every day. We cannot deny that. I have this image of The Lord's mercies falling from heaven. I have this image that myself and Matt are on a rock in the middle of a raging ocean and the rock is all there is to keep us from drowning. It is sunny and warm and we are just standing there with our arms lifted to the sky praising Jesus for keeping us on His solid rock.

My Cardiologist emailed me today and said she was impressed by my strength. It is not my strength. It is not our strength. We do not have strength. The only strength we have to even wake up each day is from Jesus and no one else. This is the most painful thing we have ever faced. This is the one thing that we do not want anyone we know to ever have to go through. We cannot sit here and ask God why He is allowing this because we truly recognize what an awful, fallen world we live in, and in this world there will be great pain and we will have broken bodies.

But we know that one day we will meet Jesus and have no more pain and meet our baby. We felt that in the resurrection weekend that Jesus truly bore our pain, he endured our burden, and he carried this for us. We also know that He rose again with great victory and that no matter what happens, no matter what we decide, He has won the battle for us. We have seen some amazing things come out of this, whether it is recognized by others or not. We have seen people in our lives come closer to God, we have seen people pray that don't, we have seen people seek God that did not before. And we have never been so close to God before.

So with that we endure and we are grateful. 

Just a Copy of that One Tough Update

Hello all, Hopefully I will be able to do justice in this email to let you know what is happening and what we are currently facing. Thank you for the amazing phone calls, emails, and texts. For those of you that are truly supportive, we really appreciate it. Hopefully I won't get too mumbled in this email, since it is difficult, but we want all of you to know what we are truly going through. We did get to see our baby yesterday. 7.5 weeks old with a heartbeat, which was truly amazing. Then we had to go in for the most difficult, horrible news of our lives. I will start with the baby. There is a great chance this baby will not survive the pregnancy, a great chance. As the baby grows it will be trying to take from my reserves, that will get less and less as time goes on. If the baby does survive, it can be born very, very early causing great complications, be born with very major birth defects, or die at birth. So unfortunately there is no real life for the baby. Then there comes me. What most of you don't understand is that I have a very detailed heart condition, with 3 surgeries through my life to keep me alive. Due to all this I am compensating so much just in my own life that as I go on with the pregnancy my body will begin to try and compensate more. The risk with that is the amount of work that will put on my heart and the chance for heart failure is great. Every week I get more and more into the pregnancy the weaker I will become and the harder my heart will have to work. If I go full term with the baby then the actual birth will take a grave toll on me, which can actually cause damage to my heart, making my survival rate for me after that very slim. So basically if myself and the baby survive I may not get to the baby's 5th birthday, etc.... This is so hard. There is very, very serious risk. All the doctors know our moral and ethical beliefs and they will support this, but they flat out asked me that I understand that this can result in my and the baby's death. Our Cardiologist actually has the same beliefs as us and she even said that she is very torn because she is soooo worried about me. She actually used all her resources to call around and email the best Cardiologists in the world and got no other view. So now we get to the hard part. If we were completely honest with you we can say with no reservation that we wish we were not pregnant. We never knew the risks before. We sit here and know what great danger two lives are in right now. We know that with what we believe we cannot take our baby's life, but we also are sitting here knowing the baby will not have a life here, only with Jesus. We are asking Jesus to take the baby home. Not to make it easier, but selfishly so that we don't have to make a tough decision. I am sitting here feeling that if we do choose abortion that we will be greatly judged by our friends and family. We know deep in our hearts that God already knows what we are thinking. We know we are forgiven, even though we would have to live with that decision the rest of our lives and stand in front of God to account for it. But what is our choice? 1 life or 2? Seriously what would you do? What we don't want right now is judgement. What we want is support. Thank you to our families for their amazing support and prayers right now. We would love to hear your thoughts, your prayers, your feelings, etc. Everyone is BCC'd on this email, so you can just reply all to Matt and I so we can both read it. I don't think there was a way to create any shorter of an email, so thank you for reading. Love, Alli & Matt