Filled with Joy

Sometimes you look back at a certain event in your life, and you are reminded of how far God has brought you from.  Or when life throws you a busy and challenging time, you look at the precious gifts He has given you, and your weariness seems to fade. This happened a few months ago as we dedicated our fourth baby at church!  a day I never thought would come,  and I never thought I would experience.

I know that this is a common event, and many families do this.  You might be thinking why is it different for me.  Well,  this is (a shorter version) of my story ….

9 years ago, I was at the Doctor’s … again!   This was my third doctor I had been to, trying to figure out why I wasn’t getting pregnant and why I had been experiencing such pain in my abdomen for so long.   This was the doctor that had told me I might never have children,    and started explaining other ‘options’  for us.     At that moment, the devastation of not becoming a mom, was torture. Being a mother was my deepest desire,  and I was just told it probably won’t happen.  I can’t explain the feeling that stirred inside of me,  other than heart broken.

Soon after that,  I saw a specialist,  had two operations, and then after amazingly getting pregnant, I  unfortunately lost our first child.    I thought my chance of becoming a mom at that moment, had come….. and then gone.  Those of you who have had a miscarriage or lost a child, know what I am talking about.    But, I had to change my thinking,  and remember that my faith in God is bigger than anything we face in life.  He gave me  the scripture   Romans 4: 20 -24   “Abraham never wavered in believing God’s promise. In fact, his faith grew stronger, and in this he brought glory to God. ²¹ He was fully convinced that God is able to do whatever he promises. ²² And because of Abraham’s faith, God counted him as righteous. ²³ And when God counted him as righteous, it wasn’t just for Abraham’s benefit. It was recorded ²⁴ for our benefit, too, assuring us that God will also count us as righteous if we believe in him, the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.”   (NLT)   

I stood on His word and believed in great faith that I was NOT barren, and I would become a mother!   For one month my husband and I decided to declare and speak out God’s promises, and that included   us calling each other  ‘mother’ and ‘father’  instead of our given names!    It was incredible,   every time we called each other ‘mother’ or  ‘father’  it was like it was already done, we knew in our hearts His promise would soon come to pass!.

Sheer JOY flooded over us the next month when we found out we were pregnant again with our daughter Emma – a beautiful baby girl!!

Two years later,  God surprised us with another precious little girl, Sophia.   Two more years later a positive pregnancy test showed we would have our third child,  an amazing little boy Harrison.   And why stop there? …….  another two years went by, and I gave birth to our fourth baby, our promised child Isaac!

God NEVER ceases to knock our socks off!   He seems to go above and  beyond what we could ever hope or ask for  (Eph 3 :20).   We’ve chosen to not limit God, but declare His promises for us in all areas of our life.  Needless to say that day, I was filled with joy!

So, if life has thrown you a challenging turn,  keep standing on His promises without wavering!! and don’t take for granted the precious gifts He has already given you….. keep looking back at the joy He’s already filled you with!.