hope

Wave After Wave

/ karenstenberg / 1 Comment

Some days you feel like you are standing in the sun and all is right with the world. You feel gratitude while joy and confidence surround you. And then there are some days you feel yourself being plunged under the waves only to come up for a breath before being sucked under again. Fear is consuming, gratitude tastes bitter and relief seems nowhere in sight. 

2019 left me broken. Just as relief seemed to come, another wave sent me reeling back into grief and fear. 

When Ava passed in the cold of January 2019, I found myself, fantasizing about being at the beach. About feeling warm under the sun, toes tucked in the sand and the weight of grief lessening. I longed for the warmth of summer and steady beat of the crashing waves.  Eventually I got my wish. That July Daniel and I headed down to the Jersey shore, just the two of us, for a week. It was the first time we had gotten away together with no kids in over 10 years. It was absolutely wonderful. We were also treasuring some new joy in our hearts. I had found out I was pregnant again just a little bit before our trip. We had lost our Ava and while grief was still fresh, the sting had deadened just a bit and we were excited to hold this one in our arms come February of 2020. 

I sat with my toes in the sand writing in my journal feeling some of the clouds of life clearing. 

We got home from a refreshing trip and the next week I had a doctor’s appointment to see baby at the 9-week marker. It was hard to walk back into that room at the doctor’s office. There are so many feelings and memories left there for me. I remember being incredibly nervous and my blood pressure read sky high. But I was hoping for my nerves to settle a bit upon hearing some good news. I laid on the table as the doctor did the ultrasound, she asked me if I was sure I had my dates right. “Yes” I answered. However, what we saw on the screen didn’t match up. There was no heartbeat and I still only looked to be about 5 weeks. This news was crushing. She made a follow up appointment for the next week to check again. But that weekend I started bleeding and my follow up appointment confirmed my miscarriage. 

I stood at the kitchen sink washing dishes feeling crushed and a mess. Where was my redemption story? Where was the victory? I couldn’t talk about it. I felt like my mess was too much for people now. They had just heard me pour my heart out about feeling broken over Ava, I didn’t want to talk about another loss. These thoughts seemed to scream through my head “I am too much of a mess for those around me! …I am too much of a mess for myself!” 

But, as with each crushing blow our world delivers us…  eventually you carry on, you wash dishes. You take care of your children. You go to work. You make dinner. You live life. Obviously, there is a lot more to it than this! But for the sake of not writing a book right now I will leave it at that. I read the psalms, the laments and praises that mingled together. They washed over my soul as a balm. 

And then it was fall. Fall is beautiful here. The leaves on fire with their color, the air isn’t suffocating any longer, but there is still warmth in it. I was catching more of those deep breaths of air, the storms of life calmer.  

At the end of October I had another positive pregnancy test. We were excited, but cautious. Suddenly having children wasn’t as simple as it once was, and the pain was still looming. The next few days went on as usual. Daniel’s youngest sister was getting married in the beginning of November, we were getting ready to head out to the wedding the following weekend. Just the two of us were going, since airfare is quite expensive when you are flying 7! 

“June, 2020 that is when this little one would be here,” I thought. But a few days later I started bleeding again. In fact, if I hadn’t taken a pregnancy test, I would have just thought it was a late period. But I had taken one and I “knew”. Into how many pieces can one heart shatter? I felt so broken and so numb all at the same time. Daniel and I sat in turbulent stillness. My emotions seemed to have given up their functions. The wave had hit us again. Would there be an opportunity to grasp breath this time? I looked at my husband and said to him “I can’t even cry anymore… my tears feel as if they’ve been all used up.” He sighed and nodded his head in understanding and then he responded, “I think Jesus is crying the tears for us.” 

“I think Jesus is crying the tears for us.” That statement hit home. 

When we flew to the wedding, I felt like a walking open wound. I felt completely empty of myself, there was no strength left to muster. The one emotion I seemed capable of was anxiety about meeting my beautiful new nieces. I love my nephews and nieces dearly (that’s one of the hard parts about living on the other side of the country from them). But after having 11 straight boys on Daniel’s side of the family the girls had started to come, and Ava would have been one of them. I knew I would be feeling the raw edges of the hole where she would have been with girls for the first time. 

I had an intense conversation with God on the airplane, yelling in my head “You better show up this weekend! You better be my strength because I have NONE left! You’ve emptied me and you are all I have left to keep me going with any semblance of composure!” It was an honest prayer but also an angry one. 

He did show up. It didn’t mean the weekend was easy, or that I didn’t struggle with my emotions. But He did bring some healing to my heart. He did show me that when I am completely empty and I feel like I just can’t put one foot in front of the other, he can fill me for each moment. He can tend to the hurt with people that love me as well.

Deep down, after Ava passed, I was hoping for some victory in the aftermath. For a healthy baby. For another little girl. For a smoother road. Daniel and I did not feel like God had released us from having more children. We did not believe God was done growing our family yet. But, God, I was remaining faithful! Why wasn’t he? We had three devastating pregnancies! Why was he allowing wave after wave to crash over me? Why couldn’t I feel the joy of standing in the sun again, feeling that all was right with the world? 

God didn’t meet me in a place of “victory” that year. He met me in all my places of suffering. He met me in my weakness. He met me with grace for each day. 

The place of Jesus’ suffering, when he was nailed on the cross, was also a place of the greatest victory. 

When I think of His nail scared hands and feet, when I think of the crowd “shouting crucify Him!” I know Jesus knows suffering and rejection. He remained faithful to the world, to me, in suffering and dying for my sins. When I suffer, when I feel empty, I am reminded of how Christ emptied Himself first. He is a God who empathies with my suffering. 

He is a God who “Cry’s tears for me when I have none left.” 

His greatest suffering brought us all victory! Christ’s triumph spans the chasm that separated us from God.

He brought me victory in suffering. Not because of anything I have done, or any strength I could muster. He remained, and remains faithful, when I am faithless. When I am angry at Him or in despair, he is still there. He sustains me through each year, week, day and step. He had me, and He holds me, through wave after wave. 

Even today as I write this it still hurts. In fact, it seemed I could find no words to write in 2020. I needed time. But it’s a story that needs to be told. Far too many of us suffer in silence feeling alone. But you are not alone. Each of us has our own unique stories of suffering and hurt.

As those stories play out, let us remember that God does not abandon us in our suffering. He meets us in our suffering.

Pslam 34:18

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted
    and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

First Birthdays

/ karenstenberg / 1 Comment

When “normal” doesn’t look the way we thought it would.

First Birthdays. They are most often marked with baby smashing cake into his or her mouth which then turns into an utterly adorable mess. Who could forget the toys that make way too much noise!?! And how inevitably the highs of all the excitement and attention eventually turning into the lows of a sobbing, overly tired baby, signaling the end of the party! All in all, I love those first birthdays.

I have been fortunate to experience many first birthdays with my boys. Each child unique with their own personalities. Every one of my boys at some point would have a favorite toy that got toted around everywhere. It went in the car seat, the diaper bag, the crib, and if/when it went missing, then mom and dad would be on the hunt for that special, coveted, toy. The toy that would sooth the crying toddler and calm the moment down. Our children turning one, it’s a challenging yet beautiful time. Often full of laughter… and tears… mostly from baby… but also from me! 

I am so aware of what “normal” looks like around the first birthday. 

And this is why the month of May held some hard moments for me. On the 23rd of May, 2019 was Ava’s due date. 

As that day came and went last month, my mind would often trail back to remembering her. I’ll never know which date she would have actually been born on. But I know she would have had her birthday around then… Truthfully it still hurts. I wish I was planning a socially distanced birthday over zoom with her grandparents. I wish there was cake and presents. I wish there was worry over making sure the stairs are gated off for her. I wish I had to be extra cautious making sure all the Legos were not within reach of her little hands. I wish there were chubby cheeks and smiles.  And… oh how I wish I could feel the warmth of her in my arms. 

Instead, here I sit in the quiet of the evening, thinking about what might have been, and hoping for what someday will be. 

We all have an idea of what “normal” should look like. We usually have expectations on how life will go. We have things we look forward to, and things we take for granted. And then something happens that changes what “should” or “might have been.” Often, we wish we could go back, have a do over, hope that it could be avoided or fixed. But instead we have to walk forward in what the reality of this situation is. And it does not look like the “normal” we pictured. 

I think it’s safe to say unanimously that none of us thought 2020 would go like this. We wish we could go back to what “normal” felt like, or maybe we wish we could jump forward to our “new normal”. We wish to be with our friends and family again. To take our trips and to honor our graduates in the usual way. We think of those who are sick, those who have lost loved ones during this time. Not even just to Covid-19, but just period, the inability to gather and have a funeral and mourn together is a huge loss in itself. I think of those who are not safe at home, and those who are struggling to feed their families. And now we have the cultural unrest and the hurts of generations of our black community bubbling to the surface and overflowing into our streets. It doesn’t take very long to look around and see the massive amounts of frustration, the huge divide for us as humans, between what life “should” look like and what it “actually” looks like. 

There are no quick fixes here. 

I believe someday when we look back on this time there will be beauty to be found, as well as times of joy and there are probably going to be things that we look back at that have changed for the better. However, right now this is still the reality, it’s definitely not what we had pictured and it’s hard. 

So, we sit, we sit in the broken pieces of what life looks like right now. 

However, we also look forward in hope. We hope there is a vaccine that is successful. We hope that social distancing and the warmer weather will make the numbers continue to drop. We hope for that “new normal” people keep talking about, and we hope that we will enjoy it. We hope to listen and to love our neighboring black communities as Christ loves. 

We hope for a better tomorrow. 

This will get better, someday we will have more answers. Some day we will enjoy the places and people we love again. But even when that day comes, it will not change the truth that we still live in a broken world. The effects of this brokenness that are so evident all around us right now will not go away. There is no vaccine for pain, sadness, sickness and death. They have been here since the beginning, since the fall of Adam and Eve, and will be here until the Lord makes a new heaven and earth. 

I’ve known since I was a little girl that our future hope is ultimately not found here in this life. But it hasn’t hit home as hard for me as it has this last year and a half. I’ve been staring my brokenness in the face. I’ve felt the effects of a fallen world deeply. 

The Lord has brought joy and thankfulness to my heart and much healing to my hurting soul. And I know He will continue to heal me. But I also know that there are some things that just won’t be fully healed until heaven. 

So, in the quiet I sit and mourn the loss of a first birthday. I grieve having to live in a world that experiences the effects of sin and the pain it brings. I grieve my “normal” being shattered with the loss her.

But I also look out in hope. Yes, the world will still bring fresh hurt and difficulties over and over.  But there is hope, for I know that my Redeemer lives. And because He lives, there is healing taking place, joy that bubbles up and strength for each day. The Lord has and will continue to meet me and my needs day after day. He meets my needs on the mountains, in the valley’s and through all the journey in between. 

Hope in the Lord never fails. While we struggle with the brokenness here in the world. As we come face to face with it. God doesn’t just leave us there to figure it out. That is why Christ came, to offer an eternal hope. To make things new, to heal the broken and reconcile all people to God. When we look around and see things that are absolutely not right and break our hearts, may we see Christ and His love for us. Christ became broken so that we can be whole. He took our hot mess and clothed us in His perfection, so that each one of us can know the full acceptance and love of God our Father. 

I look forward in hope to the day I will sit and eat cake with Ava and laugh together and dwell in the gracious, loving presence of our Lord, in a place untouched by sin. To enjoy to the fullest what a better tomorrow actual looks like. I know it will be better than anything I could ever dream up. 

Emotions… So many layers

/ karenstenberg / Leave a comment

 

Spring is coming. I can feel it. There’s an anticipation deep in my bones.

I can see spring is coming by the way people start driving. The way kids suddenly have more fidgety energy, and declare they NEED to get out. The way teenage boys and girls playfully yell at each other from their cars or across the street. And little purple and white flowers have started peeking out from the ground.

I’m looking forward to spring. I’m looking forward to taking the kids to the park, going on long walks, going to the zoo. Watching the boys play baseball. I’m looking forward to opening the windows and feeling the breeze through the house.

There is a busyness that comes with this season. I love to be busy. I love to go out and do “all the things”. I love people, activities and the sunshine. Daniel often has to remind me to slow down.

Don’t get me wrong I need down time, and I love cuddling up on the couch with a cup of coffee for a quiet afternoon. I love sitting in the back yard with a good book or just watching the kids and dog run freely, while they squeal…eh… screech around the yard.

For a while here I have craved the distraction of spring.

We watched the Pixar movie ‘Inside Out’ the other day. We hadn’t seen it in a while. But man… that movie… all the adults were crying!! The next day Daniel and I were talking about the movie and how it really hits a lot of deep issues regarding our feelings, and how we deal with them. As I was introspectively thinking about my own feelings, I looked over at Daniel and said “Man… I think I just like to have ‘Joy’ running my console all the time…” He just looked back at me, laughed and nodded in agreement.

Nothing makes you realize you can’t have ‘Joy’ running the console all the time like experiencing loss. Experiencing loss has made me feel many layers of emotions. Sometimes these layers of emotions have made it incredibly hard to pick out how I’m actually doing, or what I’m actually feeling.

I’ve had so many conversations with friends in the past year about how important it is to feel your emotions and work through them. Taking the time to do this is a good thing! We have an emotional God. We are made in his image. We are going to experience the full range of emotions. He doesn’t expect us to be ‘happy’ all the time. That’s just not how He made us!

And here I am facing my own advice. Isn’t that just how it works!?! I really just want to stuff it down, burry it and ignore it…but I know I need let all the painful, and complicated emotions roll in and wash over me.

The bright sun and warm winds of Spring are carrying me away from the Winter of loss.

Honestly it’s a really good thing for me that this all happened in the winter. There is so much less distraction, especially in January and February. It’s given me more time to face the rolling emptions.  More time to sit with God. More time to talk with family and friends. More time to talk with the kids. More time to talk with my husband. More time to face my thoughts.

The rain, the sleet and gray days of winter have reflected my mood. It’s a strange feeling, to look out your window and appreciate the weather and its reflection of your grief, the tears in the rain, like the tears in my heart.

As much as I love to encourage and be upbeat. I can’t have ‘joy’ running the ship all the time. I have experienced deep loss, and I need to feel that. Later in time when I am sitting with people in their loss, I want to remember how my heart felt. I need to remember the physical pain. The pit in my stomach and the looming fear of the unknown. I need to let God use all these things to make me look more like Jesus. To bring me close to Him. And also, so I can minister to others who are experiencing deep hurt. So that I can remember the pain and remember the healing on the other side. And allow the time it takes, for me and for others, to heal.

The time table of healing isn’t something we can hurry up and ‘get through’. As they say, “you can’t rush art!” And there is an art to grieving. It leaves a mark on your soul. It leaves a different reflection for each of us. It looks different for every person and experience. Our own expression, our own fingerprint, of loss.

Dealing with these rolling emotions during the cold months has allowed me more time to sit and process.

It’s a dance, to sit in the moments and feel the hurt, pain and sorrow, and then know when it needs to be time to get up and push through. It’s not a cut and dry process. It’s a back and forth  dance.

In the movie Inside Out the characters learn the importance of the range of emotions, and that experiences are often colored with multiple emotions. It’s not unusual to experience joy and sorrow simultaneously. Often our memories of different times bring up a range of feelings.

As things start to feel easier again, I’m learning to not feel guilty on the days when I feel joy and want to tackle the world. And I’m learning to have grace for myself on the days where the layers of feelings vary, and are complicated.

I don’t have to be happy all the time!! Sigh of relief… There is freedom in letting go.

And you know, if I feel like dancing in my kitchen, I am going to kick aside those thoughts of “you shouldn’t be feeling happy yet”, and I am going to dance in my kitchen!

I am looking forward to the warmth of spring. I am having more good days. More joy coming out again.

In a lot of ways sitting in the warmth of the sun reminds me of basking in the warmth of God’s love. I think I’ve felt this way about it since I was a child. And in this season as the weather changes there is a new depth to this feeling.

I am thankful for the different creative ways God uses to wrap His arms around us.

 

Psalm 31:7-8
7 I will rejoice and be glad in your steadfast love,
because you have seen my affliction;
you have known the distress of my soul,
8 and you have not delivered me into the hand of the enemy;
you have set my feet in a broad place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Weak

/ karenstenberg / 1 Comment

Weak…

This is not a word that we like to use when describing ourselves. It’s not a word that lifts me up and brings me encouragement. It’s not a word that propels me forward through the day. In fact, if you really reach down to the bottom of how I would prefer to associate that word, I would rather use it to label other things, situations or sometimes even people.

Using the word weak to describe something outside myself, well, it can give me a false sense of feeling stronger in the face of my own weakness.

Weak…  I’ve felt weak a lot in the past months. I mean don’t get me wrong I’ve been aware of so many of my struggles and weaknesses forever. But the past months have just taken a big fat, squeaky, bright highlighter to them. The glare is blinding. They cannot be ignored.

When I found out about having our 6thbaby I felt weak. How am I going to be enough for all these children? How am I going to do this?

When I found out about Ava’s diagnosis. After the shock abated a little bit, and the reality of the situation started to settle in, I wanted nothing more than to get off this train. Get back to where I planned on having a healthy baby in the spring. I wanted to stop sitting in the unknowns.

“Can I go back in time? Can I just start this whole thing over and hope for a different outcome?”

Of course, the answer to this is no.

This is my precious baby girl. This is where I am. With her. Our weaknesses exposed together. I can do nothing on my own to fix this.

I felt so weak.

I felt weak as fear would creep in at unexpected times during the day and then also at expected times like when I went to the doctor’s appointments.

I felt weak in the face of one of my biggest fears…losing a baby, a child. And in turn preparing and attending Ava’s memorial.

I felt weak when I didn’t want to get out of bed some mornings, some afternoons….some days.

I felt weak at the thought of having to go through my normal routines, when I felt like my world had stopped. I felt weak when I needed my world to stop…at least for a while.

The reality of facing my weaknesses at such a raw and real level has been hard… gut wrenchingly hard…

and Beautiful

Here in my utter weakness and brokenness there is Good News. Here, there is gospel that shines bright and lifts me up.

As the simple, elementary, yet oh so true, children’s song ‘Jesus loves me’ says:

“When I am weak, He is strong.”

I am weak, but my God is Strong!

When I felt fear and inadequacy at having a 6thchild. When I knew I couldn’t be enough, I was reminded that God is enough. He is strong. And He will give me what I need for the days ahead. And often this doesn’t mean it all falls on me. I have an amazing husband who parents alongside me. And other people in our family’s life that also love on my children, encourage me as a mom and a wife.

When I struggled with fear and wanting to give up after Ava’s diagnosis, God reminded me that she is His child first and foremost. And he has entrusted me to carry and take care of her. And through that truth He gave me peace, a peace that doesn’t make sense.

And He gave me joy. Joy that I do get to carry her right now. And joy in being reminded that He carries me. It’s hard to convey how it feels to be ‘carried’ by the Lord in a place of such deep hardship. All I can say about that right now is, it is true.

As I expressed in my last post(Ava Hope), God was with me every step of my terrifying and hard trip to the doctor’s office and hospital. He was with me through her delivery and goodbye.

When faced with the reality of losing a baby, the phrase “hurts like hell” is accurate. However, with the Lord I am not filled with suffocating despair.

I grieve with hope.

In facing one of my biggest fears God has never been absent. Some days I didn’t do much but grieve in my bed. And that’s ok, it was healthy and needed. I may still have some of those days. But God has given me new strength and mercies each morning, to face the day in the capacity that was needed. Some days the pain wasn’t so much, and some days it felt like more than I could bare. But God gave me what I needed for each of them. This is still ongoing and true.

Now let me add a “Life is real in the Stenberg house” story here:

I finally had enough courage to sit down and rip off whatever band aid I had plastered on. I was ready to write Ava a letter. Obviously she is gone, but I needed it.

So here I am, I’m writing, I’m crying,… I look like a mess. Facing this hurts in a healthy way, it feels good to do this. In the middle of writing the letter, I hear a knock on the door. It’s an older man and a young guy. I peek out the window and see their truck. These guys have been working on getting our furnace fixed. Not too long ago they ordered a part and told us it wouldn’t be showing up for a couple more weeks….It came early.

I open the door say hello, and let them in. Those poor guys. They couldn’t have been more uncomfortable after taking a look at my face. They sheepishly explained that the part to the furnace came in faster than expected and they were here to replace it. “We will be done quickly” they said.  And they were, they ducked out of my house so fast after they were done! I thought about giving them a simple explanation, but really, I couldn’t come up with anything that would make things less awkward! I am just left to laugh about it now.

OK back to the letter and memorial.

While getting ready for the memorial we had so much help and support. We are so thankful for all the people that made a very hard day, as easy as it could be. It takes a village and ours loved on us that day and the days surrounding. It was a good day and good day in our process of healing.

Daniel sang and played a special song at the memorial and he also gave the message. I shared the letter I wrote to Ava.

We did not know if we were going to be able to make it through what we had planned. In fact, we had a backup plan in the event of an emotional meltdown! I didn’t know how I was going to get up there and share my letter without falling apart. I felt so very weak and afraid of facing that day.

But when I am weak, He is strong.

God’s peace and strength carried us up there, God’s peace and strength transcended all the difficulties, fears and the tears that threatened to take over. Because there were tears, but they didn’t take over. God’s peace and strength carried us through the service through the day.

I wish I could explain to you the feeling of being upheld by God that day, sharing about my girl and the hope we have in the midst of sorrow because of our Lord and Savior. But there are really no words to convey what it feels like when God is carrying you.

God’s message of His love shined that day.

And God’s peace and strength are still carrying us through.

I am no “super Christian”.

I have no “super faith”.

This process has been so hard and messy.

But God is rich in His mercy, grace and provision for all of His children that have faith in Jesus.

This is good news for all of us! Because He desires all of us to be His children.

He desires to carry all of us, and to be a stronghold in times of hardship, hurt and fear.

Whatever the situation now or to come. Take heart because God is enough.

 When we are weak, He is Strong.

 

2 Corinthians 12:9-10
9 And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. 10 Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.
 

 

Hope in the midst of Sorrow- News about our 6th Child

/ karenstenberg / 15 Comments

 

I am writing to share some hard and heavy news we received a couple of weeks ago now. It’s taken me a bit to even think about sitting down and writing this. Because my heart is grieving and sometimes it’s hard to get through even the simple daily tasks. 

 

Most of you know we are expecting our 6th child in May. And while it took some processing, “6 kids!!” We were excited. And as I entered the second trimester and started to feel better. That excitement just kept growing. 

 

But just as our excitement was growing, the wind has been knocked out of our sails. 

 

I went in some weeks ago now for my first ultra sound and blood test. And the results were that my little one has Trisomy 18. 

 

I had never heard of Trisomy 18 until now. Trisomy 18 is a genetic mutation, a chromosome abnormality, where a person has 3 chromosome 18s instead of only the two you’re supposed to have. And that slight imbalance, that one extra chromosome, affects almost everything with the baby’s development. It causes extreme birth defects, including, but not limited to, key organs, like the brain, heart and kidneys. 

 

It is very fatal. 

 

95% of babies that are born with this pass away within the 1styear of life. And most babies do not even make it full term, passing away in utero. A lot of babies that are conceived with this chromosome abnormality are often miscarried in the first trimester.

 

We’ve been informed it’s totally random. It’s not something that is hereditary. There is no one to blame. I didn’t eat bad romaine lettuce and Daniel didn’t eat too much raw cookie dough. Its super unlikely to have this happen.

 

It’s like winning the bad lottery. 

 

We hoped that this would be a mistake, a false positive. But when the blood test was compared to the ultrasound findings the diagnosis was confirmed. This past week we went in for a second ultrasound, and the doctor said they could see the cysts forming in the brain of our little baby.

 

Receiving the news that unless God starts knitting differently in my womb we are going to have to say goodbye to this little one has been heartbreaking. This is never a road I anticipated walking. The unknowns and the questions, mixed with the reality of the diagnosis can make the walk overwhelming, scary and debilitating.

 

How do you prepare for a birth and a funeral at the same time?

 

News like this clouds most thoughts through the day. And some moments I’m grieving, and some moments I am filled with God’s peace, and some moments I have no choice but to laugh at my boys and their silliness or funny comments, and then I’m back to crying. 

 

I am grieving, but I am not grieving without hope. 

 

Weather the Lord decides to make this little one whole and healed in heaven or decides to heal this one for life here on earth, I know with certainty that this little one is in the Lords hands. And for that matter so am I and my family. 

 

Processing through this has just highlighted so much to me the brokenness of the world we live in. This is not punishment for Daniel and I or this baby. This is not “fair” or how things are supposed to be. 

 

This happened because you and I live in a world that is broken. Broken by sin.

 

Ever since sin entered the world at the time of the fall with Adam and Eve, the world has had a sin condition which has resulted in separation from God, and things falling apart. God created the world, He said it was good, and then we got involved and corrupted the whole thing with our sin.

 

Sin is trisomy 18. Sin corrupts this world with defects, just as Trisomy 18 is corrupting my beautiful little baby with defects.

 

And so, this world is broken and filled with hurt and I am reeling from the consequences of that right now. 

 

However, as Christmas approaches and we think of this season that is, or should be, filled with joy, I can’t help but be reminded of why we are filled with joy. It’s not the food, or the presents or even spending time with family and friends. All of that is wonderful and joyful. But the real reason we can have joy in this season is because Christ came. 

 

Christ came and walked the hard road to the cross and took our sin, shame and brokenness so that we can have forgiveness and reconciliation in Christ. So that He can restore and make things new. 

 

Christ came to make things right, Christ came to restore our relationship with Him and the Heavenly Father. Christ came to heal our brokenness and hurts, and to make us whole. Christ came so that we don’t have to bear the weight of our burdens and sin. Christ came so that some day we will live with Him, where there is no more death and no more sorrow, no more trisomy 18, and He will wipe away the tears from our eyes. And things will be as they should be. 

 

Christ came and walked the hard road to the cross, so that I can walk this hard road now with hope and His peace. 

 

Because of the gospel I can praise the Lord in my grief. Because of the gospel I can say that God is good. Because of the gospel I have hope and assurance in my sorrow. Because of the gospel I can have peace in the storm. 

 

John 14
 
14 “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. 4 And you know the way to where I am going.” 5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

 

We have shared with the kids about the baby and the situation. They are sad. Silas’s response to the news “But Mommy, I wanted to play with this baby!” Me too Silas, me too.  But they are doing well. And looking forward to Christmas. 

 

I will try to be open about this hard journey we are walking right now. I’m not sure how long or short it will be. 

 

When I feel like it and when I don’t feel like it, God is right here with me. 

 

We covet your prayers through this time. And are thankful for all your encouragement.

 

What If?

/ karenstenberg / 1 Comment

Over the past months I have often drifted back in thought to the day Elijah was born and the events that surrounded his birth.

(Daniel wrote a blog post talking about those events Here.)

I have played the “what if?” game. What if we had both died? What would that have meant for the family left behind?

The week leading up to his birth J-Term was going on. J-Term is a week where they bring in special speakers to the seminary and many of the Lutheran Brethren pastors, as well as some lay people and of course the students from the school attend, and receive further training. I was able to attend this past one because my mother and father-in-law were staying with us and my mother-in-law was able to watch the kids.

It was really nice to go and sit and just listen and soak up the training and speakers. Mostly it was wonderful to not have a child hanging on me begging for more gummies while I try and listen to the sermon. Ha!

At J-Term I had so many people come up to me and tell me that they would be praying for me and my baby and the delivery. In fact, so many people came up to me to tell me they were praying, I said “Daniel I’m starting to get worried that something is wrong or going to go wrong! Everyone is praying for me!” Then I proceeded to laugh my worry off and go about my day.

But God was at work long before Elijah’s delivery day.

Shortly after I found out I was pregnant I had a dream. And in my dream, I knew that something bad was going to happen to Silas so I was doing everything in my power to protect him. He still fell and got a nasty cut on his head. But I was relieved, I thought to myself. Ok that was it! I saved it from being worse. But then I realized that event was an illusion and what was actually happening was Silas was in the bathtub by himself and it was filling up with water. And I watched as if from a distance helpless to do anything about it. Then I saw Daniel go in pick him up out of the bath and “save him”.  When I thought on the dream the next day I knew God was just telling me to entrust my children to Him. He knows all, He loves them more than I possibly can and He is in control, not me.

Flash forward to Elijah’s birth. As I was bleeding and they were prepping me for surgery I knew something was very wrong. Before I knew it, I was on oxygen and they were running, literally running at points to the operating room. Panic was overtaking me. But there was nothing within my power that I could do about my situation. As I felt the blood leaving my body and the panic overtaking, it wasn’t an audible voice but it felt audible in my head. “Do not fear, I am with you.” And then there was an overwhelming peace that descended on me. Whether I lived or died I had nothing to fear. God has me. I am His child.

God reached down His hand of intervention and saved Elijah and I that day. There was nothing I could do to save me, or him.

Pondering these events this afternoon brought me to think about our state as human beings. We think we have it under control. We have the illusion that we can save ourselves. There are so many religions that say you can earn your spot in heaven. Or that the path to peace is through ourselves or that we simply just need to be good. As long as we are a decent human being we are in the clear. We think that our view of the world dictates how the world actually is. We think we got it. I have it under control.

But the fact is, we don’t have it under control and our view of who we are doesn’t change reality. The illusion is just that: an illusion, a mirage in the distance that never comes.

The reality is, I am a helpless human being that has no ability to save myself. I am bleeding out in my sin, and there is nothing I can do about it. I can try to staunch the blood, but that is not fixing my inner problem. I’m still dying.

But God in His ever-loving mercy reached down His hand of grace and divinely saved me. Jesus came and did what I could not do. He did only what He can do. He lived a perfect life, and then He died on that cross, He shed his blood on my behalf, He covered me in is grace so that God the Father no longer sees my black heart, but sees His Son. He healed my inner problem. It is finished.

Now I still deal with sin. I won’t be perfected until God actually does call me home.

But I am right before the Father. There is no longer sin that separates us. Because of my faith in Jesus I am now a child of God.

I can’t explain the inner spiritual workings of how God makes this all possible. Just like I can’t explain the inner workings God did to physically save me and my son. Elijah was the most physically healthy baby that I have ever delivered. The doctor pronounced him a 10 and said, “I can’t find anything wrong with this baby.”

God has made me whole and complete in Jesus.

But Jesus didn’t just die for me, He died for all of humanity. And He longs for all to come to Him.

God brought glory to Himself that day. God showed His mercy and love to us. Just like He showed the world when He sent His son.

I will just share one last thing.

A few days before Elijah was born we finally settled on his name.

Elijah – Meaning: My God is YAHWEH

God brings Glory to Himself throughout all of it.

Praise be to God.

John 3:16-17

 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.