Constantly Sowing Seeds

After speaking to a MOPS group of about 200 women a couple weeks ago I've been thinking about sharing openly the way our journey has impacted us as a whole family. I want to share because I think that others are navigating through impossible right now too and might need somewhere to turn. Not for advice but so that you don't feel alone. We are all trying to figure this life out.

It was weeks and weeks after my diagnosis that I was even able to look at my littles in the eyes. I was pained, every ounce of me when I looked at them. I was sorry for bringing hard into their lives, I was angry that I was going to have to let others take care of them and it wouldn't be as good as me, I was mourning that I may not live forever and they would be those kids who lost their mommy. Irrational right? But real. I was scared. I had no idea of what was coming, but I knew it wasn't going to just impact me. I wanted books to read about moms fighting cancer with their babies. I wanted someone to tell me how to do this impossible life...

But then...Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. Psalm 126:5. 

I felt God telling me over and over that this journey wasn't just for me. 

Now a little removed and able to to see God's purpose more clear.  I can look back and see the way that this has impacted our family in so many good ways. I also know that we have years and years of reaping coming as parents, so by no means have we conquered by any measure. I want to open up and share a few, be gracious to us still, we are not even one bit perfect but instead trying to trust God as we use this in our lives and the lives of our babies for his good. Also, to share for those parenting in hard circumstances or seasons,  so that they too can experience the freedom in loving and letting go of the control we always wanted but never really had. 

I had to give up certain things I had always done my way, the best way.

I had to trust that God would protect them when they were out of my control.

I had to be thankful and cherish the moments and the days that I did have instead of planing the next ones to come. 

This woman: I like to think she literally knew what was best for her son so much that God's plans out stood her own and it was only by her letting go and letting God that this boy, Moses, would change the future. Not by what he would do, but by what God would use him to do. Because of the faith of his mother.... Friends, "for we walk by faith not by sight."(2Cor. 5:7)

God spoke to me more than once in my tears and my questioning and said, "They are mine, they are a gift to you. I have entrusted them to you, picked you out for them. It's not your job to dictate their whole life but simple just to show them love so they can grow to be more like Christ." 

So again we had a choice to make. This hard and this suffering won't be wasted. There is purpose in this pain, even for my babies. 

And we started to trust God, ask him to take them in his hands and for us to do with them what he wanted for them. We started to build around them:

A community surrounding them with more purpose

A heart for the gift of life and the real purpose of their time here, not just ours

A discipline of Joy over sadness and thankfulness over despair

"love the Lord your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul"...."You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise" Heb 11

I know there are others, but as we started to water the seeds God was planting things started to grow. I knew that I was not their savior nor would I ever be, but that God called me to care for them and shepard their hearts by:

Bringing them up in discipline and instruction of the Lord

Teach them diligently in every conversation when we sit, lie down, or rise

Draw them near to the throne of Grace and there is where we will find help in any time of need

To cast all our anxiety and fears on him because he cares for Mommy and he cares for them

This took tears and hard work. It took trying to lay aside my selfish ambition and consider my story to be for a purpose even in our family.  

"Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others." Phil. 2:3-4

It's not an easy or fun thing but now what I see as an essential thing to realize how little control we had over them anyway. Part of my fully surrendering was loving my kids enough to know that Jesus is always going to be better for them than Mommy ever will be. 

There are many examples now of the fruit that has grown from this season. My prayer is that the perspective change I have had gets poured into my babies over and over every single day. 

I went in to the girls bedroom about a week ago and they were playing legos. They had erected a little town with houses, shops, a neighborhood pool. Then I looked at what Rose was doing. She had made a whole little "wig" shop. She said "Mom, look! This is the store that anyone can come visit and get a wig for their head if they have cancer." I told her how beautiful of an idea that was and that maybe she can be a wig shop owner when she grows up. But friends you see, I stopped for a moment and thanked God, because that heart of compassion would not have been there building a wig shop if her mom never had cancer. And at night I find notes in her bed like this one on the right =>

Our life experiences, where we come from, and who we grow to be. So much is different for each one of us. Our stories are chosen for us, we are perfectly placed in this life, whether the circumstances are what we want them to be or not. Some days my selfishness gets the best of me, and I look at my own life and see all that God is doing. Again, I need to stop and look around for God isn't just doing a work in me, or you, but in all those around you. 

And then my oldest prays one night. For a little boy in her class. His brave momma donated her kidney yesterday to save someones life. It's a beautiful story. But my daughter, she doesn't just pray.. She prays for God to guide the doctors hands, for the nurses to know what equipment to hand the doctor, she prays that her body would be healed and that God would be present on the surgery day. Seriously? And I stop and think... She would NEVER know any of this if it wasn't for the prayers she heard prayed on her own mommas behalf. And then I'm thankful again for this journey and not only the closeness it has brought us together, and with our Jesus, but for the real knowledge of life that its brought to light in my babies lives. 

This is to encourage you who are in the midst of the storm. I cannot say that I know what I am doing, but we do one day at a time. Even yesterday I had to kneel before my babies and ask for their forgiveness in how I messed up again. God is doing something beautiful in you, and in them. That is one promise that I do know and hold tight to. Pray Pray and Pray some more. He will use you, and them, to do his mighty work. Friends, It started with a seed....

Do I question why this is our life? No. There is more to this life story that what is for me. Maybe it's what God has called them to also.