Ben's story

Ah, what a precious 24 hours it has been with Ben.

I can't even count all the ways the Lord has paved the way and provided and given peace these past days and weeks and months, all accumulating the past few hours.

I was up Wednesday night at 11:30 pm with Nora for a few minutes, the heat making it hard for her to sleep, singing her Nothing but the Blood of Jesus, and my water broke.  I figured I'd get some good sleep and have the baby tomorrow, but by12:30 am, I started having contractions.  By 1:30, they were WAY stronger than I expected and I woke up Matt, who went next door and woke up the doctor, and woke up Sharon.  By the time Dr. Jen got to our house a few minutes later, I was 9 cm.

There would be no trip to the hospital, no calling of the  Haitian midwife a few minutes down the road, no insane, unwavering heat of the day, no figuring out what Sharon could do with the girls.  The girls slept in their bedroom across the hall all night, Sharon ended up midwifing instead of girl-sitting, which I ended up greatly needing and am SO thankful for, our bedroom ended up being the hospital, and with Matt and Jen and Sharon and Jesus we somehow had a 9+ lb. baby with no complications and no scares and no medicine and no screaming.

The timing, the situation, the help...God was IN it.  And then I got to take a shower in my shower and Matt got to weigh the baby like we weigh our suitcases, on the scale, off the scale, hold the baby, subtract the weight.  Ben got his shots on our bathroom sink, the vaccines having just arrived on Missionary Flights International on Tuesday, and the sweetest part was having the girls wake up same as normal, come in to see me first thing as usual, and find baby Ben curled up next to me.

Lily couldn't stop crying, Sofie and Nora were mesmerized, Matt's been such a smitten dad, and my heart has been so full.  We truly do serve a faithful God who has reminded me over and over and over again these past 9 months that He offers His perfect peace, that trust has no room for fear, that He is a God of the details, and that He MOVES them.  

He has given us a son, a healthy one.  He gave us a godly, calm, loving and HERE IN HAITI doctor who has helped stretch and affirm my faith so much and given us her FRIENDSHIP, too...what a gift I've never experienced to have a godly doctor praying and helping me and holding my hand and my baby and including my children and sharing her life with ours.

He sent me a mother when I didn't have one, spending A MONTH in the country everyone is trying to get OUT of in the HOTTEST time of the year, loving my girls and washing my dishes and cooking us dinner and then holding my hand and praying for me through labor and helping Jen and washing up blood and...WHO DOES THAT?  

The only answer possible is the Lord our God, not only providing for me, but loving me WELL above and beyond through His daughter.

Some people have said we might be strong or that we might be crazy, that we are awfully brave and others, that we are terribly foolish, but the reality is that our lives and our jobs and our countries and our babies, our strength and our foolishness and our weaknesses and our leaps of faith, our years and our days and even our children, none of them are actually about US, are they.  

Even our strength is actually His, even our weaknesses, through them has He been strong.  All of our lacking, He has filled and made abundant, even our faith, small, He is stretching and growing and giving GRACE in.  

Every sweet moment and every excruciating one, He is in and there and able and worthy, and I'm so thankful for all the reminders wrapped up in Ben that from our dreams and desires to our heartbreaks and our devastations, even to our most precious children, He is able to be trusted, able to do far more than I can dream, and is strong where we are weak.

He is able to be trusted with the rich and the poor, with the politics of the world, with the good and the evil, with the countries and kings of the earth, with the devastations of our days, with the agony of our nights and the concerns of our days, with our marriages, with our relationships, with our children, for we are HIS children, and He's a good Father.  always.  

Even when it sure doesn't seem like it, we can trust that our perception, not our God, is wrong.  

  

Lily's cat is having some jealousy issues :)

Anyway, I'm talking too much and have too many pictures to share (or that anyone could possibly want to see :), but it's been so overwhelming clear that God's grace has been more than enough, and I wanted to share that today.  

I am so grateful for the many many of you who have been praying...how greatly your prayers have been a part of that grace, how greatly your words of encouragement and prayers over us have fed our faith.  Keep BEING those people, affirming faith in one another instead of fear. Thank you, family.