Tag: God

ADRIAN’S 1ST BIRHTDAY

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Today
Wednesday, March 26, 2025

as I reflect on my fourth child
my second son
my precious baby
turning one
I pause to remember.

I am brought back to a summer day in June 2023. In a prayerful and quiet moment, asking the Lord if it was His will for us to grow our family, God gave me the image of the tree with four branches. I drew this picture in my journal, then listed every fear I had about having a fourth child. Many of those fears included the physical surrender of my body: pregnancy, postpartum, and nursing. The nearly two-year physical undertaking of a new baby was one of the most dreaded parts that kept me from being open to the miracle of life that God would have for our family.

Shortly after, we rejoiced in the news of finding out we were pregnant. But the physical toll began (again). I remember nauseous days in the 100-degree summer heat and feeling sick as I brought Lydia to her first day of kindergarten. I remember paralyzing back pain while hosting Eliza’s 4-year-old birthday party. I remembering sprinting 38-weeks pregnant as CJ’s scooter headed full speed for a busy street. I remember the bonding with Adrian & commitment to health during the final months of pregnancy and his birth—leading up to Holy Week, 2024.

I remember the joy of showing up at Good Friday service with Adrian only 3 days old, and Easter Sunday, 5 days old. I remember countless times nursing him or trying to get him to sleep while anxiously praying that my other children who roamed freely in the house and yard were safe. I recount Adrian’s volume of spit up that lasted until 10 months old and led me to a purchase a little Green Machine vacuum for the carpet of our new house—the only house Adrian will remember. Countless nighttime feedings alone, while everyone else in the house was asleep. The dreaded sleep training and weaning. His first belly laugh. The first time he said mama. His first steps—followed by a dogpile by all three siblings and the most precious family hug.

All these little moments,
leading us to
today. 

In many ways, Adrian turning one feels like a fulfillment of that prayer I laid before the Lord on that summer day. A trust and a peace, amid many fears.

God carried both me and my family
from then
until
now.

Since that time, I see that God has both comforted me and changed me. I have so much delight as I look to the next milestones that come after Adrian’s first steps and the one-nap transition. I am so proud as I see him play with his siblings, dance every time he hears a beat, voice his opinions, and explore and discover the world around him.

When I think of Adrian now, I think of the way his deep brown eyes light up every time he sees me, how he drops his head to fast crawl from across the room and pull up on my legs, how he turns his palms face up to reach for me (reminding me of the open palms that is often my posture when I seek to worship the Lord). I think of singing “This Little Light of Mine” before many naps, but changing the lyrics:

This little light of mine,
I’m gonna let him shine.

I wondered why I was not more emotional about his turning of one, until yesterday when I sat with the Lord long enough to remember—not just the growth he’s had this year, but the growth of my own. The Lord has used Adrian to increase my endurance—physically, mentally, and spiritually—and my dependence on Him for each of my four children. 

Psalm 131:2 says, “Instead, I have calmed and quieted my soul like a weaned child with its mother; my soul is like a weaned child.”

Often, I think of our relationship with the Lord like a nursing infant, because we are utterly dependent on God for life. This verse in Psalm 131 then has me wonder, why does it say a weaned child? This week as we are weaning Adrian I have a precious picture: a weaned child comes to his mother, not because he needs milk. He just wants to rest in her presence and feel her comfort and warmth. As he cuddles on my chest now without nursing, he is calm and quiet. His soul is at rest.

Before the Lord, I come
for rest, comfort and strength—
and
even as
we don’t know the circumstances of life
or
as we ponder the regrets made
or
the fears of the future
I wonder at how the Lord invites us into His presence to
rest
our minds
rest
our bodies
rest
our souls
“like a weaned child comes to its mother.”

As your name means, Adrian Ray, you have brought a wealth of light into our life. This little light of mine, you point us to our Heavenly Father. You shine.

Happy Birthday, Adrain.

baby two.

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As I write, I’m sitting and looking out a window of our guest house on Table Rock Lake. To the west, I see a beautiful sunset, colors of pink, orange, yellow and blue painted across the sky, shadowing the Ozark Mountains. One glance to the east, and I see rain pouring onto the lake from a distance.

Such is life.

With one look you see the beautiful blessings that God provides, and in the next glance you see the brokenness of the world we live in.

I feel this tension every day, and especially in this moment as I sit down to write and process the fact that I am 14 weeks pregnant with my second child. I see the sunset. 14 weeks. Out of the first trimester. Out of the higher risk for miscarriage. Into the second trimester, just six weeks away from finding out the gender of our baby, and just 26 weeks away from meeting him or her face to face.

The next glance.

Since arriving at Young Life Camp three weeks ago for our summer assignment, two friends from my church community back home have lost babies through miscarriage. I see the rain. I feel the brokenness. I wish I could stop their storms. I wish I could trade places with them some days just to take away their hurt, their grief, their fear.

but
here
I
am

experiencing the beautiful sunset and merely glancing at the storm from a distance.

To be honest, I didn’t want to write this. I fought guilt in posting a photo of pregnancy. These two friends with recent losses aren’t the only ones I’m walking life with experiencing pregnancy loss or infertility. There are many more. The last thing I want is to be a trigger for others pain and grief. It makes me want to run and hide and pretend that I’m not experiencing the incredible blessing of having a second child that will be only 19 months apart from our first.

It’s hard to admit that I inflict shame on myself for experiencing this blessing when I have absolutely no control over my circumstances or those of others when it comes to fertility. But what I do know is this: In the midst of the broken world we live in, I have a God who redeems.

I have a God who sees the beginning and the end.
I have a God who is writing my story and their stories perfectly for His good and His glory.
While it may not seem good right now, I have a God that will see it through in His perfect timing.
He will calm their storms and bring them to the shelter of His presence and His peace.
He will redeem the hurt, the pain, the fear, and the grief, and they will rise redeemed.

With eyes wide open to the blessings of my circumstances, here’s my story.

 

F I N D I N G . O U T .

Kevin and I have always dreamed of having kids close in age. I grew up with three siblings within four years of each other, including having a twin. I have wonderful memories of childhood and still love how close the four of us are to this day. Around the time that Lydia was 9 months old, I remember feeling disappointed that I wasn’t pregnant yet, but also wanting to trust my body and trust God’s timing. I remember taking a pregnancy test, that was negative, right before I got the stomach flu. It was the first time I experienced disappointment from a pregnancy test, and I realized that it was time to start praying intentionally for God to provide another child. However, I lowered my expectations and set my mind on the present season.

A few weeks later, around the time that Lydia was 10 months old and shortly after my best friend Keely’s gender reveal party, I had a dream. In the dream, I was having a conversation with Keely and said, “You’re pregnant with a girl… I’m also pregnant with a girl!” I told Keely about it the next morning at church but shook it off as just a dream, again masking my hopes that it was reality.

About five days later and a few days after my missed period, I had another dream that I was pregnant. The next morning, I asked Kevin to pick up a pregnancy test at the store simply for “peace of mind.” When he got excited, I quickly quieted his emotions because I told him that I didn’t want him to feel let down if we weren’t pregnant, insisting that I didn’t “feel” pregnant.

The busy day began and turned out to be quite chaotic. Lydia was biting me while nursing throughout the day and having quite a few toddler moments. Even during happy hour with a few friends, I made a joke about it being my last drink but continuing to doubt that I was actually pregnant. “My cycle has been off since breastfeeding….” I claimed, among other excuses. That night I had yet another rough feeding attempt before putting Lydia to sleep and actually had to pump after. (PS, I found out later that hormones could change the taste of breastmilk for her? I’m going with that, or else, a strange coincidence that it was all on this day.) Finally, after a long day, I sat down to pump. As I was pumping, I felt a wave of nausea and extreme thirst. And that’s when it hit me. Oh my God, I feel pregnant.

Taking the pregnancy test was no longer casual after that because I knew in that moment that I was pregnant. After cleaning up my pumping supplies and confirming that Lydia was sound asleep, I grabbed the pregnancy test and started shaking as I took it, my mind racing as the pieces of how I felt the last few days were coming together. I left the test in the bathroom and after a minute or two, insisted that Kevin go in to grab the test and confirm. Around 9pm that Friday evening, I saw the look on Kevin’s face as he read it out loud and smiled. “You’re pregnant.”

Immediately we embraced in joy and excitement and—me being me—I quickly downloaded my old pregnancy app and pulled up my calendar to calculate our due date and plan out the next 9 months of our life.

 

F I R S T . T R I M E S T E R .

About one week into finding out I was pregnant, I got the stomach flu, really bad. I look back now and laugh that I thought it was pregnancy symptoms at first, so I tried to push through my work day. I remember the relief I felt when I realized I was sick and that this pregnancy shouldn’t feel that miserable all the time! Those few days forced me to slow down and just remember my dependence on the Lord throughout this chaotic season. I wrote more about what those two months looked like in my recent two entries, “finished.” and “work ahead.”

About a month later, I had my first doctor’s appointment. After my sonogram, they pushed my due date one week later to December 13. My cycle was indeed off since I was still breastfeeding. It was a small reminder that regardless of Kevin and my attempts at “trying” to get pregnant, I ovulated a week later than normal, and we happened to get lucky. The timing made it feel even less of something we could have controlled and made me even more grateful for the way God orchestrated it all. Truly it was He that created this little life and spoke his or her name into existence.

It didn’t take long for me to start showing way earlier this time around. My stretched out skin and belly button quickly popped back out, and around 7 weeks, I realized that I needed to start telling friends before they could look at me and see for themselves! Nausea and aversions were in full swing, so I slowly starting weaning Lydia in hopes that would help. Lydia was fully weaned around the time I was 10 weeks pregnant, and nausea ceased shortly after that. I was also wrapping up my Master’s degree at that time, leaving behind a lot of stress that I’m sure wasn’t helping. It was a tough few months not feeling well and working really hard with a lot of late nights. I had little time to process the fact that I was pregnant and merely just trying to survive!

 

R E A D Y . F O R . T W O .

We publicly announced our pregnancy right before leaving for our month-long summer camp assignment for Young Life. Being at camp has allowed me time to rest and time to spend one-on-one time with Lydia in this sweet season before Baby #2 comes. It has allowed me time to process the previous two months as well as physically, emotionally, and spiritually recover.

As I hit the 14-week milestone and am headed into our final week away from home, I feel peace and a readiness to look forward to December and begin making preparations. I’ve started to process the fact that I am going to love another tiny human as much as I love Lydia. That he or she will be like Lydia… but different. Their own person.

Sometimes I get scared. Will I really love baby two as much as I love my first? It seems hard to fathom. I also have feared: will God provide the finances for us to support a family of four on a ministry salary? Will we be able to afford sending them both to college? In all these fears, He has comforted us and provided people to speak truth and encouragement to us.

Still, I am scared. Aren’t we all scared for the unknown? Will I be able to do it all? Will I be able to be a working momma of two? Will I be able to care for a newborn while having a toddler? Will God really provide the finances? Will our marriage continue to strengthen as life only seems to get more messy?

In the midst of the unknowns and the fears, I am thankful for a God who sustains me through it all and gives me peace, assurance, and confidence. He hasn’t failed me yet, and I choose to trust in His promise, that He never, ever will.

Baby two, we’re ready for you.