Look How God Has Answered

Our Answer from God slipped into our arms after a long wait, as gently and quietly as the thaw of ice this spring. Our Answer, our spring Promise baby, spring after the long winter of our waiting.

“It is good to wait quietly for God…” (Lamentations 3:26)

Only You Lord, and only in a book called Lamentations, would put the words “good” and “wait” together. Humans don’t tend to think of waiting in terms of “good.”

There was first the wait for healing, as my brain and our family and our marriage first rested and then grew strong again. Then the silent pain of unexplained years of infertility. Finally the expectant wait of gestation, with its joy and its impatience. Then two weeks of false labor. If waiting is good, then we have had our fill of good!

But when our Answer came, she came in a great gush of power and joy. Barely two and a half hours of intense contractions, ten or so minutes of willing my body to hold the baby a little longer and not to push in the car on the way to the hospital, and maybe two minutes of pushing while Daddy’s sure hands guided, and she was in Daddy’s arms and then mine, her warm slippery body finally pressed up close to my heart.

And then.... Look, look, look. Look at those wet, cupid’s bow lips. Look at those slate-grey eyes. Look at that perfect nose. Look at that copper hair. Look, look at how one ear is just a bit different than the other, look how every fingernail is perfectly formed, look how her toes spread and her legs cross and her elbows dimple when they bend and her skin goes quickly from grey to pink and she sneezes and looks and looks and looks back at us. Look, look, look how God has answered!

“The world seems so different when you look at a baby,” says her aunt one day.

Indeed it does. Her lips, how they flicker with emotions that change like light on water. Each one slips away and the moments slip on too, the precious moments I will never have again with this little being that has inexplicably been entrusted to me. And after all the waiting, I just want time to stop and wait for me to catch up and catch on to what a wonder it is to be holding this fresh new being, this Answer straight from God.

New ships to port

It’s been a long time since I’ve updated this blog. A lot has changed, a lot is changing, and I have lots more to say.

For now, as a bit of a teaser I’ll just post a very short update on the J family. The winds of 2019 are bringing several new ships to our port. After years of waiting and hoping and praying, we now expect our second child to arrive any day now. As soon as she comes (yes, a couple ultrasounds have confirmed we are expecting another girl), we will be planning several trips to visit friends in Edmonton, SK and BC.

The reason for those trips is another long-time dream come true: we are raising support for Wycliffe Bible Translators. Ever since high school I have had a burning desire to be involved in Bible translation. I know what it is like to read the Bible in a language I know well, but isn’t my heart language. I know the difference it makes to hear it in my heart language, and I want everyone to be able to experience that. This is the desire that brought my husband and I together. This is what we trained for and have prayed for. OCD, anxiety and depression put the dream on hold for a time, but no more.

I am so, so grateful for the healing I’ve had. I’ve been planning a series on recovery for a long time, and now finally feel somewhat qualified to go ahead with it, so you can look forward to that, as well as probably to some posts about life in the waiting, as the last few years have been, and what it’s like to finally now be moving on…. And of course, baby.

Thanks so much for reading. Thanks for being part of my journey.

Love, J

And On We March...

It has been over a year since I updated this blog. I've wanted to a few times, but the urge to write that was present during the height of my depression had waned. Like I said in one of my earliest posts, I'm not much of a writer, I don't write when the urge- the impulse- isn't there. I guess the urge is back, but this time I'm hoping my entries will be much different. Before, I wrote in an effort to make sense of my illness and to find peace and healing. This time I want to be able to share victories. Go back and read this post and while you do, listen to the lyrics of the song I transcribed in that post. Because, guess what?

I've reached the top of my mountain. I've gained a victory on this battleground because of God's grace

Perhaps it is presumptuous to say that. It's entirely possible that I'll struggle with PPMD again this time, but already I'm seeing differences, and "God, You are faithful."


... And in case you didn't hear, or didn't figure it out, I am now the mother of two beautiful girls...

"Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful" Hebrews 10:23