31 May 2011

Letting Go of Dreams

That women's retreat rocked my world on many different levels.  My dreams of what my family was going to be... the mother I would be, had just been crushed and now I was being told some very hard things.  Things that seem as if they would be easier to hear when the wound has yet to come or has at least begun to scab over.  My wound was still wide open.  I was feeling these things at full force.  God was meeting me right where I was... in the midst of pain and giving me the truth of what His Word says about things we hope we will never have to face.  The truths that we gloss over when things aren't so bad.  The truths that we can tend to take for granted.  I had to search the Word and instead of just read it, I had to let the truths seep into my soul, take root, grow, and become my very life line.  Would you be willing to do that today?  Let His Word reach your inmost heart and change you, mold you, heal you?  The truth I found in 2 Peter told me that I had everything I needed for life AND for godliness.  Not just what I needed to survive, but to have godliness too.  Wow!  What a promise we have.  What does it mean about how we will suffer?  Will we just get through or will we have godliness?  Will we simply survive, or does God have something more than that for us?  My friends, I believe God has something much more for us!  But, first we must be willing to let go of OUR dreams.
4/16/07

2 peter 1: 3 “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.”

If this is true, which I believe it is, then I have all I need to get through trials of all kinds. Even the trial of Jack’s death. God is not finished with me. He has more work to do. He has not finished pouring out the blessings that will come from Jack’s death. I have so much more to learn about God’s dreams for my life. BUT first I must learn to let go of my dreams and trust that God’s dreams for my life are not only bigger but also better than mine.

--God, teach me your ways. Lead me into a greater understanding of you. Use my holy imagination to SEE you better.

Job 42: 5 “My ears had heard of you, but now my eyes have SEEN you .”

Lord, please also work in Daniel and Luke’s lives- replenish them. Help them see what you have done and will do through Jack’s life. Give them perseverance!

I praise you for who you are… for your grace and abundance of compassion and love for me. Thank you for not giving up on me and, most of all, for dieing rather than being without me!

1 month today

23 May 2011

The first Step Towards God

My church was having a women's retreat about 4 weeks after Jack had died.  It was on fear (I know... how perfect, right?).  I wasn't planning on going, but one day the man who did finances for my church was mowing my lawn with his son (okay... pause there... let's talk about how awesome our church was.  I couldn't have cared less about my lawn, but here was this man taking care of us in ways we never would have thought to ask and he was showing his son to do the same.  Amazing.) and he asked me if I was going.  Umm... no.  He gently encouraged me to go squashing all of my excuses.  No money... here's a scholarship, sign up is over... he could get me in, I couldn't leave my husband... they would hang out with him.  Okay, I guess I'm going.  I thank God he did that.  I mean, come on, fear... really... I definitely needed to hear on that subject.  I was so blessed by that retreat and I won't forget how it ministered to my heart at just the right time.  I could have stayed home and no one would have blamed me, but God had something to say to me and I needed to be away in the mountains to hear from Him.  I needed to be available and fully present.  After that very first talk I grabbed the notes from the speaker and I began to write.  I couldn't stop and I wouldn't stop for about 6 months.  Here's my first entry.
4/15/07 
John Piper concerning Romans 8:28: 
"Nothing will ever enter your experience as God’s child that, by God’s sovereign grace, will not turn out to benefit you. You must believe this or you will not thrive, or perhaps even survive as a Christian, in the pressures and temptations of modern life…. God is taking every setback and every discouragement and every pleasure and every pain and striping it of its destructive power and making it work for the enlargement of MY JOY in God."
Mindy Williams: 
"Poor in spirit really does mean that you are poverty stricken, destitute on your own. Dependency can feel like total helplessness and, with respect to your need for God, you are. You are helpless on your own. Weak feels very vulnerable. I am in need of rescue—help me God! If you don’t show up, I’m lost!"
It is ok for me to feel vulnerable, weak, helpless, and on the edge. Without God I will fall victim to what Satan wants—me to be lost. With God I am strong and hopeful. I am not lost. God has found me and I have found Him. He will make me strong, able and stable. 
God would rather die than be without me!! 
Romans 8: 38 
“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels or demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, not anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

16 May 2011

Comfort Each Other

1 Thessalonians 5: 11 "Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing."

Have you ever been to the funeral of a child? Well, I hadn't and I certainly didn't know how to plan one. It isn't in any of the parenting books. All I knew is that I wanted everyone who loved us there. I wanted to see their faces and hug their necks. I know all grieving mothers don't feel that way, but I can't explain the desperation in me to see my loved ones... to hold them... to cry with them... to share my son's little life with them. I wanted to hear my pastor speak truth to the people who would come. To tell them (and me) that my son was being held in the arms of his Savior, King, Father, Abba. I wanted to hear my husband sing "Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus" to everyone there so they could share that sweet memory with us. I wanted everyone to know that I knew exactly what was happening and yet I still chose to look to God and receive the hope He was so graciously extending to me. And that is exactly what we did.

I can't tell you everyone that was there or what exactly the pastor said, but what I can tell you is that being surrounded by that much love was like a soothing balm to my soul.  The doctor that delivered Jack was there, my ultrasound tech who we developed such a sweet relationship with and who gave us most of the pictures we have of our son... sneeking more to us than our allotted few was there, the friend who had lost a child and then gone on to have another was there, the friends that prayed over my swollen belly were there, the family that supported us and loved our little boy was there, the pastors who carried us when our legs couldn't were there... they were all there.  They choose to love us when it wasn't pretty.... like even when I had the ugly cry going on.  They choose to sit with us... to be with us.  There isn't anything more beautiful than the church of God being God to us when we need it so desperately.  So, here's my encouragement... be there.  Show up.  Jesus showed up on the day we needed Him most... the day of our salvation, so be there for each other.  Choose love.  Choose comfort.  Choose the hard path.  You will bless and be blessed.  You don't have to know what to say... there isn't anything you can say to make the pain stop or even to lessen the pain.  That's God's job.  Your job is to show up.

Three years before I lost Jack, God told me to write.  I know... "God told me..." what does that even mean?  It means I heard in my soul a calling.  I can't really describe it any other way.  But, what I do know is that I'm not a writer.  I don't like to write.  I can't write.  I don't even journal.  But, God told me to write and so I said ok... "about what, God"?  Silence.  Silence for 3 years.  That silence turned into an resounding compulsion to write about four weeks after Jack died.  I couldn't NOT write.  I had to write.  My soul and mind couldn't do anything but write.  In the following posts I will share what God laid on my heart.  

03 May 2011

The Day My Son Received His Inheritance

Matthew 11:28-30 "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

We had one ultrasound after the shunt was placed that showed a slow re-accumulation of fluid. Approximately one week later I had to give birth to my sweet, second child. Jack Michael. He was beautiful and BIG for 33 weeks. He looked healthy to me. Nothing on the outside indicated a problem on the inside. It makes me remember how I can be so unhealthy on the inside while looking fine on the outside too. My faith was about to be put to a serious test and I wasn't sure I would pass... how exactly was I doing on the inside? I'm not sure I did pass day to day, but God never left me. I never felt so overwhelmed by people who loved us. My sister in law woke up my eldest son at midnight to bring him to me because she knew how much I needed him right then. My pastor sat in my hospital room not but a few short hours later praying for me and my family, talking to us... just being there. Family, friends, loved ones came to us. Jesus came to us. He meet us right there in that hospital room. As we sang "Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus" to our son as he went to receive his inheritance with his Father, Jesus was with us. Weeping with us. We sometimes think if we are strong enough in our faith or strong enough in our prayers that weeping won't come, that the pain won't come, that the chest crunching grief won't come, but as the wise words of a dear friend show us, "prayer and knowledge of the scripture is not a spiritual anesthetic." Jesus wept, why would we think there was anything less for those of us conformed into His image? Jesus wept deeply in the garden of Gethsemane and He knew the good that was about to come... salvation of the world. Friends, don't be surprised by your grief (1Peter 1: 6-7 "In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed"). Take to the one who can comfort you. He wants to comfort you (Matthew 5:4 "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.." It's a promise.).

Final Update

As you know, we have been going twice each week for ultrasounds. On Thursday the 15th, our ultrasound revealed that Jeep's ascites was returning, so we were sent to the hospital to deliver.

Jack Michael Pendergrass was delivered via cesarean section at 8:31 AM on Friday, March 16th, 2007. He was 19 1/4" long and weighed 5 lbs 9 oz.

The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit doctors (neonatologists) worked on Jack for over 15 hours to try and establish a successful oxygen transfer in his lungs, but his hypoplastic lungs and pleural effusion had taken a great toll on him, and his tiny lungs were unable to support him. Jack was taken to be with Jesus at 11:59 PM that night. Carrie and I were able to sit with him some, and hold him some before his heart stopped, and grieve his loss greatly. But we are hopeful for the day that we see him again, as Jesus confirms in John 11, and we also know that " in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose" (Romans 8:28).


We feel greatly blessed and privileged to be the parents of Jack, and to have brought into this world a life that will last forever in the presence of the Almighty God.


 
John 11:21-27
"Lord," Martha said to Jesus, "if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask."

Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again."

Martha answered, "I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day."

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"

"Yes, Lord," she told him, "I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world."

Matthew 11:28-30
"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."