Claim His promises to gain comfort and strength when you need it the most

June 28^th

Stella Update: Doctors did rounds this afternoon and yesterday they had to stop feeding her because she was not digesting and they found blood in her stomach (Momma freaked out not gonna lie). They took X-rays and figured out her OG tube was rubbing the lining of her stomach so they fixed her tube and started feeding her again today. Thus far she has done well with her big girl meal of 8 ml given continuously over 3 hours. Yay!! The BESTEST news ever was when Dr. O told me they are going to start weaning her off of her CPAP machine tomorrow! She seems to be breathing better, more deep and less shallow breaths. She is more alert and one time last night I said her name when I was stroking her head (couldn't hold her last night) and she looked up at me and kinda smiled. It was a special moment.
Thank you all for your kind words and prayers. I was having a rough night last night. But through prayer and reading God's word I realized something. He is blessing me through this experience and refining me to be a better mom, wife, and most importantly... deepening my relationship with Him and understanding His love for us so much deeper than I ever have.
So keep praying for our sweet Stella and pray that she does well on feeding and weaning her off her machines. Lord willing, we can love on her and hold her together soon. I love you all and I'll update again tomorrow!!

So, friends, we can now—without hesitation—walk right up to God, into “the Holy Place.” Jesus has cleared the way by the blood of his sacrifice, acting as our priest before God. The “curtain” into God’s presence is his body.

So let’s do it—full of belief, confident that we’re presentable inside and out. Let’s keep a firm grip on the promises that keep us going. He always keeps his word. Let’s see how inventive we can be in encouraging love and helping out, not avoiding worshiping together as some do but spurring each other on, especially as we see the big Day approaching. (Hebrews 10:19-25 MSG)

I love the line that we must keep a firm grip on the promises that keep us going. So true! He knows how it feels to watch your child hang on. Our God is good and He's compassionate and in our struggles He truly understands. So my prayer for us all today is that we remember what He promises and trust in His unfailing love.

You will have many difficult days along the way. My journey was a roller coaster of ups and downs as most of you can understand. I would get my hopes up and feel optimistic about her progress and then we would have a setback or another complication would surface. I could feel the waves of doubt and despair crashing around me trying to knock me off my feet and drag me off the shore, so I had to keep a firm grip on His promises to keep me going.

Our journey will not be easy and we will meet our fair share of obstacles and trials along the way. I reminded myself often that God keeps His word and He has said and done everything He possibly can to prove His love for me at Calvary. I was not going to abandon Stella in her time of need, and my God will not abandon me, His child, in my time of need. I had to keep a firm grip and hold onto the promises that keep me going. 

Children of God, we must claim these promises to gain comfort and strength when we need it the most 

• We are loved by God and He claims us as His children.

Ephesians 1:4-6

For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—  to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. 

• Our God is always with us and He will never leave us

2 Corinthians 4:8-12

 If you only look at us, you might well miss the brightness. We carry this precious Message around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives. That’s to prevent anyone from confusing God’s incomparable power with us. As it is, there’s not much chance of that. You know for yourselves that we’re not much to look at. We’ve been surrounded and battered by troubles, but we’re not demoralized; we’re not sure what to do, but we know that God knows what to do; we’ve been spiritually terrorized, but God hasn’t left our side; we’ve been thrown down, but we haven’t broken. What they did to Jesus, they do to us—trial and torture, mockery and murder; what Jesus did among them, he does in us—he lives! Our lives are at constant risk for Jesus’ sake, which makes Jesus’ life all the more evident in us. While we’re going through the worst, you’re getting in on the best!

•       As children of God, we have His Spirit to guide and lead us through trials to forge us into virtuous children of God.

Romans 5: 3-5

 There’s more to come: We continue to shout our praise even when we’re hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. In alert expectancy such as this, we’re never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary—we can’t round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!

• Our struggles and trials will not overtake us.

1 Peter 1: 3-7

What a God we have! And how fortunate we are to have him, this Father of our Master Jesus! Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we’ve been given a brand-new life and have everything to live for, including a future in heaven—and the future starts now! God is keeping careful watch over us and the future. The Day is coming when you’ll have it all—life healed and whole.

I know how great this makes you feel, even though you have to put up with every kind of aggravation in the meantime. Pure gold put in the fire comes out of it proved pure; genuine faith put through this suffering comes out proved genuine. When Jesus wraps this all up, it’s your faith, not your gold, that God will have on display as evidence of his victory.

• Our God can emphasize in our suffering.

Philippians 2: 5-11

Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.

Because of that obedience, God lifted him high and honored him far beyond anyone or anything, ever, so that all created beings in heaven and on earth—even those long ago dead and buried—will bow in worship before this Jesus Christ, and call out in praise that he is the Master of all, to the glorious honor of God the Father.

• He will provide us with strength and courage in difficult times.

2 Corinthians 1: 7-11

When we suffer for Jesus, it works out for your healing and salvation. If we are treated well, given a helping hand and encouraging word, that also works to your benefit, spurring you on, face forward, unflinching. Your hard times are also our hard times. When we see that you’re just as willing to endure the hard times as to enjoy the good times, we know you’re going to make it, no doubt about it.

We don’t want you in the dark, friends, about how hard it was when all this came down on us in Asia province. It was so bad we didn’t think we were going to make it. We felt like we’d been sent to death row, that it was all over for us. As it turned out, it was the best thing that could have happened. Instead of trusting in our own strength or wits to get out of it, we were forced to trust God totally—not a bad idea since he’s the God who raises the dead! And he did it, rescued us from certain doom. And he’ll do it again, rescuing us as many times as we need rescuing. You and your prayers are part of the rescue operation—I don’t want you in the dark about that either. I can see your faces even now, lifted in praise for God’s deliverance of us, a rescue in which your prayers played such a crucial part.

• Our God is good

Psalm 145: 8-11

God is all mercy and grace—
    not quick to anger, is rich in love.

God is good to one and all;
    everything he does is suffused with grace.

Creation and creatures applaud you, God;
    your holy people bless you.

They talk about the glories of your rule,
    they exclaim over your splendor,

Our God loves us all so very much. With all the world religions and theistic beliefs for those of you that do not have a relationship with Christ, you may be confused, frustrated, and angry with God. I don’t blame you. Things are very difficult right now and you don’t know where to turn or what to do.

I want you to know that God feels your pain and suffering and He never intended it to happen. God doesn’t cause pain and death in the world, sin does. God gave us free will, the right to choose for ourselves what we want to do. This choice allows us to love how we want to love and be who we want to be. It sets us apart from all other creatures. This freedom doesn’t come without a cost and as mankind deals with sin in this world, we must also deal with what sin brings which is pain and death. It is not what God wanted, but it is what we chose. God does not allow bad things to happen, bad things happen because there is sin in the world.

If you do not have a relationship with Christ, He is waiting and ready to call you His child. He can and will be with you on this journey and teach you how to celebrate and find joy again. This blog is about my journey but you also have embarked upon a journey. Right now it might be difficult to see past your next meal, but later you too can look back and see how God moved and worked in your life. Your journey was given to you so that you may rely upon God and His strength and an amazing thing happens when we do this. People notice. They wonder how we got through our struggles and want us to tell them more about the journey we took. Our journey becomes a testimony of His goodness if we allow it to.