my testimony for our mission trip to Brazil

Ren, this is for you. For my healing. . .but ultimately for God's glory. I want to share the following with you so that you may know my heart and my struggle. I had a very hard time doing this and had to, needed to but really didn't want to write it. I received the assignment over a month ago in preparation for our mission trip to Brazil in August and the not wanting to move forward and delve into what does God mean to me and how He has worked in my life is once again proven in my stubborn putting off the work that God wanted me to do. Last night, I just relived some of our time together, my son and I with my sister, Marie. She just listened as I sobbed and talked. This was so helpful to unload and clear out "me" and then I was able to focus on God and how best to share the story of His everlasting love and steadfast faithfulness in my life and for His glory. Because this life is not about me and Renner's life was not about Renner. I do just miss him and love him so deeply that I ache. Next assignment for myself is to get Under the Tree and share with my other dead baby mommas. I have really been wanting to do this but time and emotion and muself get in the way. I also need to get to work on my children's pictures and subsequently work on fixing my blog, I need pictures and a playlist and so much more bling that it is missing but for now, I'm so exhausted from getting this done last night and it is enough. I thank God that He continues to sustain me and to supply the grace that I need to keep moving forward. Thank-you in advance for reading and for your tremendous support. It means so much to me.

I have been very blessed. God’s steadfast love and faithfulness holds me and carries me in ways throughout my life that I could not have imagined. He desires me for Himself. He called me and He equips me.
I was raised in a Christian home but did not come to fully understand that Christ was my all until I was 26. In the Lutheran church, babies are baptized and then we are taught that we are saved through this baptism. So, I was covered. I had all the head knowledge, Christian schools, family devotions and church every Sunday but I did not have Jesus as Lord of my life. When I think of my life before I was saved, there was not much difference between myself, a so called “Christian” and the sinful world. I did not have a personal relationship with my God. I was never sure of my salvation because of my ongoing sin.
One of the areas of my ongoing sin that this became glaringly obvious was my alcohol consumption. Alcohol had power over me and I did not want to give it up for God because then I would not be or have the “fun.” I was living for myself and was very worldly.
One night, with my husband, a couple from church and a box of Kleenex, Jesus revealed Himself to me by showing me that alcohol would never give me eternal salvation and that it is only through the blood of Jesus on the cross that God would ever look at me and see righteousness. Because God sent His son to be the wrath barer for my sins, Jesus died once for all, including me and all my sin, past, present and future. Because of Christ death on the cross, my Holy, Just and Perfect Almighty Father in heaven accepts me.
That night, I was changed and while previously having doubted my salvation, now I was sure. Because of this change in my heart and the putting to death of my sinful actions, I stopped drinking completely and repented and was baptized as an adult believer. I was made new and there was hope, forgiveness and a renewal of relationship with my Lord, my husband, my family and my life. There was a freedom that I now experienced because of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross and that freedom was so comforting. It is not that I totally stopped sinning, because I didn’t. I even had a relapse into my drinking less than six months later which God used to once again show His faithfulness and love toward me. I had tried to control it. A little here, a little there. Sin, my sinful nature is so insidious. God allowed me to get so sick one time out that I had severe alcohol poisoning. What I remember from that time is that God loves me and has already forgiven me. Christ died once for all. I was so grateful for this reassurance of my salvation and that, because it is not of my own, not that I’m doing good enough but because God looks at Christ and see me through His clean, pure white, righteousness.
All was going according to plan, mine or God’s, until about a year ago, my world flipped upside down. I was expecting my second child. My beautiful daughter was almost 2 years old. I was gracefully, and four years soberly, turning thirty. I was married to my best friend and very loving husband for almost a decade, totally not because of anything that I had brought to the relationship but again because God blessed me. I was plugged in, reading God’s Word daily, growing or so I thought. Living in and under God’s will for my life. Then the rains came and the floods. . . My healthy and handsome son was born on my thirtieth birthday and I was overjoyed. I remember that night thanking God for my blessed life. I had everything. Four days later, my son, Renner was diagnosed with hydrocephalus. He had brain surgery to help drain the excess fluid off and then just had to work on eating and growing. His prognosis was good. 50% normal, 30-40% some learning disabilities, 8-10% mental retardation. Being a nurse and a believer, I just knew that we would and could do anything and everything possible to help our son. But, at thirteen days of life, my son had his first seizure. Still, medications, therapies, doctors, we would do whatever he needed. Then at his two month check, we were told that his brain was not functioning the way that it should and that his brain pattern was not consistent with life. Six days later, he died in my arms at home surrounded by love.
I was so cared for by God through that whole time. He used family, friends, cards, meals, encouragement, and good medical staff to support me. I was also so prepared to travel this road by God. He had called me to be a nurse, actually even being a hospice nurse, He had placed me in a strong marriage of almost ten years, we were planted in a gospel-centered church. God had been weaving this beautiful tapestry all along. There was such a sense of His presence and call on my life. He sustained me and He directed me. Whenever I turned to His Word during that time, it was as if He was speaking directly and only to me. His Word was so applicable. It became so real. He made the ugly, beautiful; the bitter, sweet; and the broken, whole. Our sorrow was also our victory! Without faith in the everlasting, ever powerful, and all knowing God, who loves me and cares for me so much that He willingly sent His Son to die on a cross, I never would have been able to do what He had ordained for me to do from the beginning of time. I realized even more now what a big sacrifice Jesus’ death on the cross was and for someone who didn’t even deserve it. I never would have willingly given my son up to die and especially not for a people who don’t deserve it.
The death of a child is a very difficult thing. But I am assured of his place in heaven with the Great Physician. God’s Word says that I will go to him and I can not wait for that day but in the meantime, God is continuing to work out His purposes in my life. I have had some very bad days since my son died. I felt dropped by God. I have been angry and grown bitter with God. I have tried to fill my God shaped grieving hole in my heart with everything possible but God. I have turned to alcohol, smoking, shopping, running, and even eating too much to try to stop my heart from hurting. I had refused to turn to God because He allowed this to happen.
But I am learning, once again, that He is faithful and He deeply loves me. God doesn’t want children to die but because of the devasting effects of sin, death is a reality that although is the natural end to all mankind, we want to believe that it doesn’t happen until we are old. Because of Renner’s death, I am learning that my very big and powerful God is accomplishing immeasurably more than I can ask or even imagine. I have since quit drinking again and with God’s help and the tools He gives us, I am healing. This will be my life long process but without Jesus it would be utterly impossible. One of the greatest lessons that I am more fully engaged in and God continues to reveal to me is the desire to know Jesus more as the One who holds my son, listen to Him, trust in Christ on a minute by minute basis, ask Him and let Him be Lord of my life. I am learning obedience and most importantly, my utter dependence on God. Out of this, follows rivers of living water, hope and joy and even peace. My God is ENOUGH! He is my refuge but I must avail myself of Him and go to Him as my refuge.
Suffering is a normal part of the Christian life. It is something that comes into our lives that we would not choose for ourselves but it is there because of sin in the world, our sinful nature and the devil. What I am learning is how I will respond. It is easy to be a Christian when all is good and I think I can try to live a basically respectable and decent life on my own but God has so much more for me and has called me to so much more. He wants me to be seeing the big picture. My son’s short life and death was used by God to bring others to believing and accepting the gospel in ways that I will not even fully know or grasp until I am in heaven. God’s plan is so encompassing that He desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of Him so that they might experience eternal life in heaven.
“God thunders wondrously with His voice; He does great things that we cannot comprehend.” Job 37: 5.
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” Hebrews 12: 1 & 2.
God’s timing is not my timing and His ways are not my ways and for this I am very thankful and feel blessed. I do not want a God that I can understand with my puny mind and I am so glad that He holds me in the palm of His hand and knows every hair on my head and every thought in my brain and the desires of my heart. He has blessed me with this opportunity to go to Brazil, to grow me and strengthen me in Him. I will close with a quote by Mother Teresa, “I’m a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is writing a love letter to the world.”