Life Set Apart

For a few years, I wondered which year I would be called to write my testimony for my MomCo group. Last year I chickened out, was filled with anxiety, and passed the torch to someone else. This year, I never signed up. The daunting task that would linger for months if I had signed up last summer seemed just too much to bear with a newborn and all I try to accomplish for my art business around the Holidays. Well, last week, I had the nudge to ask if the spots were full, a willing heart to prepare my testimony if no one else stepped in the last remaining spot. The pressure was off. Still praying someone else would step in, I prepared mine anyways. No anxiety, no fear. Peace, and the right amount of time to write while the boys napped.

It’s time I share My Testimony with you.

A Maine girl born in the 90’s, with low-middle class working parents, raised as a christian at a baptist church then went off to college in Kansas to pursue a career as an artist, make friends, find a husband, and get a little more sunshine in my day. Raised as a christian, I knew God was with me all along, and in my lowest moments, I knew how to pray to Him, but it wasn’t until the lowest of the lows for me in college did Jesus capture my heart and make my decision to give my life over to him & follow Him with all my being. I had many friends, acquaintances, and leaders around me leading me into this decision, but the greatest mentor of all was my future husband. Through him, I grew to a greater understanding of who Jesus is, and I found a love that was far greater than any love any family member, friend, or boyfriend could give me. Looking back, Jesus was always there. He was in my room as a child as I pulled my bible off the shelf when I was lonely. He was guiding my heart to Kansas where I could learn about Him. And ever since those lowest points in college, I haven’t turned back. He has led my heart to know His Word & His Truth at its core and has been sanctifying me, encouraging me, providing for me, teaching me, and making me more into His image every day since. 

He came with me when I followed Garrett to Tennessee after we graduated college. Where I didn’t have a job for a month, where they wouldn’t let me have a car because I was jobless and had oh so much debt… Where I told the cars salesmen I would have a job the next day and he didn’t believe me when I walked in the next day with a job and he had to call my new workplace to confirm it was true so I could have a car to get to work the next day… God provided and gave me confidence & faith. But even though that worked out, I could only go so far with that job, the place I found to live had bed bugs… and everything was falling apart again. Things in life do this when God is at work, especially when he is making a change and putting things together again. On my birthday of that year, my boss from Maine called me to wish me a happy birthday and catch up. 3o minutes after, we both called each other with the same thoughts – what if I came to work for her? And 2 weeks later, one packed carload, we were on our way to Maine… and the place I said I would never go back to – my parents house. Then engaged, waiting a year and a half to get married (per my parents request), hundreds of prayers, a difficult relationship with my Mom…. finally the wedding day was here. Everything was good. Garrett was now in Maine. My understanding of Christ grew when my husband and I married and joined a local church, held leadership positions, grew in our careers and started the growth of our family. But it wasn’t until pregnancy did I learn the next stage in my walk with Jesus… 

From pregnancy through the birth of your first child, you begin to realize just how much your body is not your own. Now, everything you consume, do, and prepare for is for someone else. Maybe you were someone who put others first before you had your first child, served your husband before yourself, could grasp the concept that your body hosts the Holy Spirit, and living for others & for Jesus was already your life. For me, it wasn’t until motherhood that I willingly and admit-tingly, shockingly had to die to myself moment by moment, day by day, for my new baby and ultimately for my Lord & Savior. Leading up to the moment of becoming a Mom, my desire to be a Mom was placed in my heart. The prayers grew in number, and my longing grew stronger as I went months waiting for God to send me my first babe. Well, the day arrived and all the foods I had been consuming, all the caffeine I was consuming, the late nights, the extra working hours, the three jobs, the unsafe well-watered, mice-infested cottage we were living in, the location away from family, all we had built, all the desire I had, you see where this is going… Jump ahead 12 weeks – 3 jobs quit, an art business packed up to collect dust in the basement of my in-laws house, and a tough goodbye to our community later, we were now in Kansas. Alone, but with family. Plans to buy a home, but no job or money. Debt, and baby bills piling up. Was this what I had prayed for? Yup. But that wasn’t all… we had peace. While living suppressed, while dying to my every selfish desire, now living for a tiny human, God was at work. And not in this white picket fence story I had in my head. He was pruning and cleaning out my heart. He knew this was ultimately my heart’s desire too. Before my babe came along, I may have had 3 jobs, but man was I lonely. And although the 3 jobs filled my time, it was mostly self-serving, and really, exactly what the world said I should be doing in my 20’s. And my home… ya that was a mess too. So flip forward past my really boring lonely pregnancy and there I am, nursing my baby boy. He needed nothing else in this whole world, but his Mama. Oh, motherhood. If he cried, he needed his Mama. He woke and needed only me. He needed me to sleep, to learn, to play, to teach him, to carry him, to keep him warm, to regulate his body temperature, keep him from illness, to grow him, to love him, to hear him, to be there all the time. All Day. All night. I no longer got to choose my bed time, the time I ate, what I did that day (for the most part) or rest in my own selfish desires – yes, I am aware of free will, and on the flip side Mom guilt, but have you ever completely surrendered every moment of your day over to God, understood that even your baby cries that is God’s promptings to you? Alongside that small voice inside your head, when you wonder about a need they have and that willingness to serve your child at any given moment? 

Sanctification was what God had in store for me in motherhood. This is where I am now. As my firstborn became my oldest, and my second born, my youngest, I realized I needed to go through this again.  I realized selfishness had sunk back in more than I would have liked in the age gap between my first & second (2 months shy of 3 years). God wasn’t done. God’s will for us is to be obedient to His will for us, so we can allow Him to cleanse our hearts from sin, purify us, and for me, motherhood is where I noticed it began and I never want it to end. 

Sanctification became evident the first year I had Gavin. Even more needed & evident when he became a toddler. And add a nice little kicker to daily ups and downs of motherhood… I had chronic pain at an all time high after having MRSA weeks after my first born. A year later, a Lupus diagnosis. A lupus diagnosis with an inability to treat with any medications due to a genetic component that doesn’t break down that specific type of drug. Several months of despair. A second opinion caused a Lupus diagnosis to turn into an autoimmune diagnosis. Which turned into a gut issue. Which then turned into a pregnancy. Through pregnancy, God healed some of this diagnosis & treatment plan. He gave me energy, purpose again, hope, and stepped in to more sanctification & removal of fears. It wasn’t until I needed to approach another birth, that I realized the crippling fears I carried from the first. He removed them all, right up through the actual delivery. He redeemed my mindset on birth. He gave me understanding on how he designed birth, how he designed women, he showed me how to trust him. He was so good to me. For 5 weeks following the birth, I thought I was healed. No chronic pain. It was gone. 5.5 weeks later… I started to feel it again. I was in denial, discouraged, frustrated, and wondering why… It was then God answered an ask I had… I asked him to teach me more of his grace. I wanted to understand that word more. If it was so important to him, then I wanted it to be for me. I was in a season that was slowed down… learned to love and cherish a slower pace of life, and as my ailments returned, I knew I was only going to get slower.. It was then that He said to me” my grace is sufficient for you.” I looked up his words, and was able to continue his whispers to me “my power is perfected in weakness”. He didn’t give me an answer to healing, and I wish I could stand here today to tell you that I know what is wrong with me. I wish I had a solution, a pill, a way to take it away each morning that I rise. But I don’t. All I have is his power. His grace. His mercy anew each morning. So when I fail to allow sanctification to work that day, and do the things I do not want to do, I have his mercy anew the next morning. When my anger is heightened because I feel physically pressed all around, I can sit and rest and rely on his grace. When I feel I won’t get anything done because a nap wasn’t successful that day, or my pain at waking was too much to bear, he carries me. He provides me with people, family, a back rub, and His power gets me through my day. This past fall and early winter I accomplished far more than I ever imagined I would with two boys. With an autoimmune disease. And I can stand here and tell you, it wasn’t me. It was God’s grace. And if you see any joy in me, any peace, any sense of perfection… that’s not me either. That is God at work, God’s sanctification. That is God Himself. I am His. He chose me, and I am a true testimony of God at work all the time. I have a long road ahead. I still don’t have answers. I now may not fear birth like I did, and now fear the road ahead, wondering if this is a longterm pain for His gain, a pain with numbered days, or if there are other things he has in store instead, but what I do know is He has given me the gift of faith. He has taught me how to pray. He is faithful to answer small prayers even when the big ones are still TBD. But what I can tell you is, if he hadn’t chosen me on teh bathroom flor in my dorm room, led me through that breakup, taken me to Tennessee, then to Maine again, given me those friends, that church, that job, that car, these little cute wild and crazy fun filled and hair pulling boys, I don’t know where I would be, and I really don’t want to know. He is all I need, all I want, and I want to grow closer to Him, surrendering to Him, loving Him, and learning to love others as long as I live because He is Good, even when I am not. He remains the same, even when I have lost my mind. He has a plan and is sovereign over all and I want to be a part of His story for all eternity and worship and glorify Him forever.