Love cannot from its post withdraw

The doctrine of perseverance has been such a comfort to me over this past year and a half. There were and still are times that I fear my faith will fail depending on what God's sovereign hand deals us. However, the fact that my faith is great not because of the amount of it but because of the Object of it, has been something I've had to remind myself over and over. The obejct of my faith is Christ and He is too great and too powerful to lose any that the Father has given Him (John 6:39). This old hymn text (recently recorded in an updated format) has comforted me and given my soul inexpressible joy on more occasions than I can count!

The Love of Christ Is Rich and Free

1. The love of Christ is rich and free, fixed on His own eternally; Nor earth, nor hell, can it remove, long as He lives, His own He’ll love.

2. His loving heart engaged to be, their everlasting Surety; ’Twas love that took their cause in hand, and love maintains it to the end.

Chorus: Love cannot from its post withdraw! Nor death, nor hell, nor sin, nor law, can turn the Surety’s heart away; He’ll love His own to endless day.

3. Love has redeemed His sheep with blood, and love will bring them safe to God; Love calls them all from death to life, and love will finish all their strife.

4. He loves through every changing scene, nor aught from Him can Zion wean; Not all the wanderings of her heart, can make His love for her depart.

5. At death, beyond the grave, He’ll love; In endless bliss, His own shall prove the blazing glory of that love, which never could from them remove.

-William Gadsby (1773-1844)

It is quite a stretch (to say the least) to transition from God's love for us in Christ to my love for Matthew and Stelly, but although imperfect and a mere reflection of that amazing love, my love for them is deep, nonetheless! Here are some fun Valentine's pics:

Pucker up, Ammy! This smooch is for you!

My two loves!

Opening valentine packages from both sets of grandparents.

A special delivery from Mommy and Daddy!

"A Sovereign Bullet"

That was a line from a sermon I listened to when I was expecting Stella. It was a John Piper sermon on motherhood. I was so excited about expecting our first baby and one Monday night while Matt was in class I decided it would be good for me to listen to a Piper sermon on parenting. I couldn't find any sermon titles that caught my eye. Actually I only came across one, "To Be a Mother is a Call to Suffer". It was not exactly the type of title to match the warm, fuzzy feelings of maternal anticipation I had, but I knew how good Piper was so I listened to it anyway. Of course, it was just what I needed to hear. Not really then, but God in His wisdom had me listen to that message knowing that the bibilcal truths of it would bolster my soul in the stormy times He was going to allow us in His sovereignty.


As most of you know from a post on our blog back in Nov of 2006, we lost our 2nd baby. We found out about the loss around 18 weeks. There were no apparent reasons that we lost the baby - the baby had no chromosome abnormalities or any other glaring problems that we were aware of. Our Dr. told us to wait a certain amount of time and we could try again to conceive. She chalked the loss up to the fact that miscarriages are really common. We didn't have any reason to think otherwise, although the fact of it being a later miscarriage made me a little uneasy since I had heard that the later the loss the more likely it is that it indicates a problem w/ the mother. God allowed us to conceive again and we were so thankful, but hesitant b/c there were still uncertainties. I had an ultrasound at 10ish weeks and everything looked good. I went in at about 13 1/2 weeks for my routine appt and there was no heartbeat. The Dr. had the Ultrasound Tech check immediately for viability and sure enough we had lost again. This loss was extremely discouraging b/c we weren't sure we would be able to have any more children and were puzzled as to what the problem was since I had a textbook pregnancy with Stelly. Again, there were no abnormalities w/ the baby so the Dr. ran a plethora of tests on me to check for any autoimmune diseases that I might have that could be causing these complications. Everything came back fine.

I decided to see a Perinatalogist, Dr. Mason, after hearing a dear friend who has known her own griefs in childbirth, speak so highly of him. It was in his office that I found out that God had given us (and taken from us for His own good purposes) a little girl with my 2nd pregnancy and a little boy with my 3rd. That news was hard to hear. Our meeting with him though was so encouraging. He ran an amazing amount of bloodwork on me (and even did some tests on Matt) to see if his original thoughts were right. And they were. Basically, I have a blood-clotting disorder called Thrombophilia that only effects me when I'm pregnant. Dr. Mason said my blood vessels had all they could take in my pregnancy w/ Stelly which is why I've had subsequent problems but none w/ her. He said that they have had great success treating these cases but could not guarantee anything. If I could conceive again, the treatment would involve daily shots in my abdomen of a blood thinner and an oral supplement of folate in addition to my prenatal vitamin. He said after a certain amount of time we could try to conceive again and once the pregnancy was confirmed we would start the treatments.

God once again allowed us to conceive. I am almost 19 weeks pregnant with our 4th child and we just got very encouraging news on Wednesday afternoon that our baby girl looks healthy and the treatments seem to be working so far. Our hearts are so full with thanks to the Lord for this good news! We are trying not to run before Him b/c there is still a lot of time left. We literally are just taking it one appointment at a time and seeing what God does. We have learned so much about Him through this and His good purposes in joy and sorrow. We want to be faithful to praise Him when He gives and when He takes and we are so dependent on Him for strength to do that.

If you think of it, we would appreciate your prayers that over the next months we will persevere in God's good purposes for us, whatever they may be. Of course, we would love to hold a healthy baby in our arms again, but are learning that is not the most important thing. We want to treasure Christ more than His gifts. So easy to say, but as many of you know from your own trials, hard to do when your heart is longing for those gifts.