Submit to the One

This is a picture of my journal from 2015. On November 9th, I was praying the words found in Ephesians 1: 15-19 for the baby that was growing inside of me. The entry on the next page was written after November 16th, the day we went to the hospital and found out that our baby was sleeping.

Below, I will type the words I wrote days after we lost our daughter, Hope Elizabeth. I have also added some details that I didn’t write in my journal at that time.

Our sweet daughter, Hope, will only ever know love. She was conceived in love, carried in love, held in love, and given to Jesus in love. She only ever knew love. Praise God!

I remember walking into the hospital thinking we would be walking out shortly after having peace that our sweet baby was healthy and growing, with a strong heartbeat. We went to the hospital because I was cramping and experiencing a few other alarming symptoms. Still, my mind never went to the worst. I was hoping and believing everything was OK. I remember the nurse pulling a sonogram machine into the room and as she was moving the wand over my belly, she didn’t say anything except that she didn’t have a good picture. She told us we needed to go upstairs. It was then that I began to feel uncertain of what was about to happen. I remember asking Josh, would if everything is not OK? He said we will go there when we need to, giving me as much assurance as he felt he could. So, they wheeled me upstairs and into another room for a sonogram. It was in there that I heard the words I never thought I would hear. The sonographer (somewhat abruptly) said, “there is no heartbeat.” I remember immediately asking, “what do you mean? What does that mean? How did that happen?” And I began to weep uncontrollably. I was looking into Josh’s eyes with so many questions.

We held each other as we learned the saddest news about our baby. I eventually asked if it was a boy or a girl…a girl! The next 12 hours were a bit of a blur. We were making decisions about how we wanted to deliver the baby and whether or not we wanted to have a service at a funeral home. At this point, you just go through the motions because you have to. It was just moments ago that we thought everything we were about to experience was with great joy and anticipation. Those emotions were taken away and this time there was a heaviness and an emptiness that cannot be described.

I walked into the delivery room and my water broke. My body had responded to what was happening inside of me and I was quickly put into a bed. The cramping that had been happening all that day were the contractions that led to this point. I got an epidural, not really knowing what to do. I delivered Hope at some point in the middle of the night.

After I delivered sweet Hope, she was a lot tinier than we thought she would be. They believe she had passed a few weeks prior. She was absolutely beautiful. She was our girl. I knew when I delivered Daly that she was a miracle, but when I saw Hope, I was even more struck at the development of our tiny girl at such a young age and how only God could’ve designed life to form in this way. Her little hands and feet, her belly button, her tiny nose and lips. Unbelievable! The only way to describe the process of growing a baby is miraculous.

We held our girl shortly after we delivered her. We wept over her, we prayed a lot, and we trusted that she was meant for Heaven.

I had to wait for a time to see if the placenta would come out on its own and it didn’t. This meant I had to be wheeled into surgery. I was put to sleep. As I woke up when it was all over, I remember hearing someone sobbing. After a short period of time, I realized it was me. The nurse said that Josh was on his way over. Josh held me close as the reality of what just happened was beginning to sink in.

It was now 6am or so. My mom and sister were there all night with us. When Sara heard of what happened, her friend, Caroline, drove her from Harrisonburg, VA to Baltimore right away. The nurses were so generous and allowed them to sleep in the room right next to mine, so they were with us through the delivery and surgery.

Pat, Betsy, Mom, Dad, Sara, Josh and I spent the morning with Hope. We prayed, we sang, we shared, we cried, we even laughed, and we let her go. It was holy time that we will never forget.

Daly was with my dad, after he had picked her up from our sweet friend’s, the Abells, and brought her to his house the night before. We asked him to bring her to the hospital, again not sure what to do, but it ended up being such a beautiful time. Daly walked into the room and said Hope’s name a few times. Before handing Hope to the nurse, Daly pointed at her and said, “Hope!” After we said a prayer, Daly then said, “Amen and Hallelujah!”

Weeks before Hope passed, Daly had been saying, Ah-bee-doo-dah, all the time. Little did we know that she was trying to say, Hallelujah. The first time she said it the right way was in the hospital room with Hope. It was such a gift to us as our 18 month old was able to remind us of praising God even in the midst of the most painful time in our life.

Yesterday, we celebrated Hope. We shared with Daly and Elly that November 16th is the day that we said goodbye to Hope. She is with Jesus in Heaven, along with their brother, James. We talked about how one day, we would all be reunited and that they would be able to meet their sister and brother. We talked about how we are so sad that they can’t be here with us now, but that we are called to trust God and His ways even when it doesn’t make sense to us. We finished the time by remembering our verse that inspired us to name our girl, Hope.

May the God of Hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15:13

About two weeks ago, I began a pregnancy loss Bible study. I was ready for it. The small shifts that are happening in my healing have led me to a place where doing this Bible study has brought me hope and not despair.

One of the questions asked in the first couple of chapters was, “where does life come from?” It referenced many verses, but two in particular caused me to pause. I have read Psalm 139 many times, but I read it with new eyes this time.

¹³ For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made in the secret place,
    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed body;
    all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.

The second verse was Jeremiah 1:5.

⁵ “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
    before you were born I set you apart;
    I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”

It was a beautiful gift for me to think of these verses for Hope and James. I found myself with tears streaming down my face that these verses are just as much true for them as they are for Daly and Elly. God knew about both of them before they were in my womb. They were both knit together, fearfully and wonderfully made, and set apart. Their tiny lives matter. They matter so much to God. And they matter so much to me (us).

Josh planned a weekend for us to be away and it was one of the most significant times of my life. We spent one dinner weeping over losing our son and all of the losses that come with that. We spent time with the Lord and shared our hearts with each other. We listened and we prayed. We talked about our four children and the gifts that all of them are to us.

This morning, we were sitting in chairs facing the bay. As we were sharing how grateful we were for the weekend and how important this time was for our healing, our ability to keep moving forward, and ultimately for our marriage and family, the Lord gave us ducklings. Four ducklings swam up from the middle of the bay. They hung out for a bit, huddled together, and then swam away. In the Lord’s kindness, this was symbolizing for us that we have four children to be grateful for, that each one of them are a gift from God.

We want to keep noticing God and all that He has for us in this season of life. We are choosing to go home from here a different way than we came. The next chapter in the Bible study had me read 1 Peter 1:6-11. The first part of the section gives six commands and it ends with four promises. We are going home desiring to follow these commands and to fully experience His promises.

The commands say to humble yourselves under God’s mighty hand. Let him have all of your worries and cares, for he is always thinking about you and watching everything that concerns you. Be careful- watch out for the attacks of Satan. Stand firm. Trust the Lord.

His promises are that He will give us His eternal glory. He will personally come and pick us up. He will set us firmly in place and make us stronger than ever.

A few weeks ago, Josh spoke on a Young Life weekend to a room full of college students about God’s love and desire for all to know him. Throughout the weekend, he shared the truth of the Gospel in a way that students could understand and gave them an opportunity to respond.

After Josh spoke on this weekend, Josh’s dad (Goodie), spoke at a fundraising event in Philadelphia. At one point during the night, a young man, who was a Young Life leader, approached Goodie. He proceeded to tell him that he was on the college weekend with students from Temple when Josh spoke. He told him how one of the guys he was with was deeply moved by Josh sharing about James.

During his final talk, Josh shared about the resurrection, how Jesus defeated death, and how death does not have the last word in our lives. He went on to share about the loss of our son James and how we are able to walk through this pain with genuine hope because we are trusting in Jesus, who is fully alive. Josh shared about how the Lord is now holding our son in his arms, and the truth that we will see him again. After hearing this, the young man told his leader that if Jesus Christ is truly our only hope through this time, then he wanted to follow Jesus.

This young man committed his life to the Lord that day. He decided to follow Jesus and a piece of his decision was related to our son, James.

As I have thought about this, I have been moved to tears many times. Throughout this time, my biggest question for God has been, for what purpose has this happened to us (again)? I believe that this young man choosing to follow Jesus is no small thing. God is using our James to impact lives. I know that this young man’s trajectory has now changed forever. He is now living with a hope and a love like no other.

I am grateful that the Lord let us in on this story because, while my heart is still broken over our losses, I have a glimpse into God’s bigger story. This young man may not have chosen to follow Jesus unless Josh had spoken of our deep pain and how we are clinging to Jesus through it. I pray that he will be a man after God’s heart and share His love with so many others. I pray that he will choose Jesus through the joys and sorrows of his life. Where else would we go?

Heavenly Father, thank you for your love and for your Spirit that I know is at work within me. I know and believe that You are guiding me through this season that has felt quite heartrending. I can’t understand all that you are doing, but I know that you are working even through the unknowns. Lord, I know that so far in my life, the two most tragic and difficult experiences I have walked through have been losing Hope and James. It is something that I know I will never get answers for, something that will forever grieve my heart. However, Lord willing, it will feel less and less raw as the days go by. I am realizing that I never properly grieved Hope. I was sad, do not get me wrong, but in getting pregnant three months after she passed, I didn’t have time to fully grieve and was distracted by a new pregnancy and eventually a newborn baby.

So, here I am four years later, thinking about my girl as I grieve the loss of my boy. I have been feeling deeply about Hope. I remember right after James passed saying many times that this go around in my grief was going to be more intense, more sad, and likely last longer. I now know my perception of what was to come was You preparing me for a difficult season. I also think that You knew I wasn’t going to only be grieving James, but I was going to finally grieve Hope too.

Grieving has a mind of its own. I have been reading about grief with a desire to understand myself and all that I have been feeling a bit better. Recently, I picked up a book that friends gave to us after Hope had passed. It was one that I never picked up to read, until now. It is called, “Praying Through Our Losses.” It has opened my eyes to grief and has helped me to see myself more clearly. It has freed me to engage in the process even more and allow myself to feel the depth of the pain.

This book defines grief in these words. “Grief is the painful process of adjusting to a loss. No matter how much inner strength we may have or how strong our faith may be, we are destined to grieve. Even though God delivered the people of Exodus from slavery, they grieved and had to face the hardship of the wilderness before they found the promised land. They experienced brokenness before realizing that God traveled with them every step of the way. Grieving is a kind of exodus. We get lost in the desert of our suffering and want to turn back. Nevertheless, the God who journeys with us can lead the way out of the desert and into a fertile land.” I am grateful that God is with me every step of the way. I am also grateful that He promises to lead me out of the desert of my suffering and into fertile land.

The book goes on to say, “grief is not a hurdle that we can jump over at will or a barrier that we can avoid if we are careful…On our way toward the light, healthy grieving leads us through the darkness and transforms us. Whether our loss is great or small, we must grieve if we are to move on to new life.”

It has been a little over 5 months that we said goodbye to James. While to some that may seem like a long time, to me it feels like a blur. God, I trust that You are taking me through my process and that healing is happening. I am certain that healing is taking place because I am in a different space than I was a month ago. Two things I know for sure about grief is that there is no right way to walk through it and there is no timeline. Lord, I know that You will heal me in time.

Father, I trust You for the way that Hope and James died. I trust you with the timing. I trust that you will heal the hurt. I trust that you will restore joy to my life.

Amen.

This past spring, the girls and I planted the flowers you see on the left. Over the summer, the flowers blossomed and still currently look like the picture on the right. A couple of weeks ago, I walked outside and really noticed these flowers and the Lord reminded me of His word.

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than we could ever ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” Ephesians 3:20-21

Please understand that plants don’t stay alive under my watch, so this to me is a timely gift from God. Every time I see these flowers (which is multiple times a day), I think of the words in Ephesians. I trust that God is doing immeasurably more than I could ever ask or think in this season of loss.

I walked with a friend the other day and was telling her about this important moment for me and she gently reminded me of all that has to happen for those flowers to blossom and look so beautiful. She reminded me of what happens underneath, in the dark. It is hard work and it is important work. It is the hard, important work that happens underneath that allows the beauty to show above ground.

Right now, that is where I am. I am underneath. I am seeking the Lord. I am healing. I am taking steps. I am taking care of myself in the best ways I know how so that I can notice that God is doing more than I could ask.

I know that there are important things the Lord wants to teach me in this season. I am already aware of a few ways that he is growing me and I am likely not aware of all that He has in store. This same friend reminded me of Hosea 10:12. It says, “sow righteousness for yourselves, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the Lord, until he comes and showers his righteousness on you.”

I know that God is using our pain to change us. James and Hope’s stories are part of who we are and who we are becoming. I desire for their story to be shared and known. I desire that the legacy that they are leaving is one filled with love, hope, and joy. I will keep walking through the healing so that I can love God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, love my husband, my daughters, my family, and the people God places in my life.

My counselor told me that she sees God’s investment in me. Our loss of James and Hope is God’s investment. There will be abundant beauty that comes from this, even though right now it mostly just hurts. These are the promises I will hold onto and I will do the hard, important work underneath so that, Lord willing, I can, one day, see all that the Lord was doing and all that he has for me. Pain is never wasted. He will do abundantly more.

I love the words that come before God’s promise of doing more than we could ask or imagine. “For this reason, I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches, he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the Lord’s holy people to grasp how wide, and long, and high, and deep is the love of Christ and to know this love surpasses knowledge- that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

I will praise and pray. I will praise Him that his love for me is high, long, wide, and deep. I will pray that I will know this love more fully while it is the Love that is carrying me and will carry me through.

Amen.

This week feels like an important week for me in the process of healing that I am seeking after so intentionally. There have been emotions that I have been holding tightly to for different reasons. I am learning that when faced with trauma and grief, it can be very hard to separate from the emotions that can be all consuming. It is true that in those emotional spaces we can experience God’s nearness to us but it can also be a place that leads us to more pain, as the lies come in making us stay in an unhealthy frame of mind.

For me, I needed to be reminded of what is true. The truth that holding onto anger as it relates to losing James will only paralyze me from being able to move forward fully. Was it appropriate for me to feel anger? Yes. I needed to feel it. Does it mean I won’t feel angry again, no, but it does mean that I am more prepared to choose how I respond to it. I am ready to now make the choice to be sad and not angry. I believe that if I can now focus solely on my sadness, I will be able to focus on James and missing him and what the purpose of his tiny life means for me and for my family.

I am choosing James. When I think about James, I think about Heaven. I think about what Heaven is like for him. I think about Hope and James together. I think about the fullness of God that they are experiencing. I think about what it will be like when we are reunited. I think about their little bodies being fully restored. I think about being with them and loving them and playing with them.

Every day it will be a choice for me to surrender. I am praying that I will begin each day surrendered to the One, Jesus, in order for the healing to continue to take place.

Continuing in the path of gratitude, we had a wonderful first full week of the new normal. Here are a few highlights…

We have a lot of new happening this September. A lot of exciting first time things and it has kept all of us on our toes over the last couple of weeks. As for me, I am back in the classroom. It was a mid to end of summer decision and I am feeling thrilled (and a little overwhelmed) about it. I will be teaching a 2’s class at Central Preschool two mornings a week. After taking the last five years off from teaching in a classroom, this feels like a nice way to re-enter.

Daly is in Kindergarten. Kindergarten. I knew this was a milestone and would feel like a milestone. But, holy cow. This was a big week. She is attending Cambridge School, a classical Christian school, and we are beside ourselves. We recognize the privilege that this is for D (really, for all of us) and we are all in. Daly will also be on a soccer team this fall for the first time with a few of her best buddies.

Elly is starting preschool. She will be attending Central (where I am now going to teach) and be in my mom’s 2’s class. Yes, my mom will be her teacher and my co-worker. We are blessed. Elly and I will go to school on the same days and will have the other days of the week to be together. Elly asked for Daly multiple times this week and I anticipate the lack of her presence will hit us even harder next week.

Josh is beginning another year of ministry in Baltimore city and will be continuing to lead and love students, leaders, and adults. He will focus a lot of his time at Morgan State University and Frederick Douglass High School. There is no one like Josh. If you know him, you know what I mean. He puts his entire self into everything he does and knows how to make people feel important and loved. He is fully committed and he does it all so well. I am excited to see how God will bless him and the ministry this year. I will be easing into a leader role again and am excited to do this alongside Josh and a lot of amazing people God has provided to be on the team.

While there are so many new and very exciting things happening for the Goodman’s this September, it would be remiss if we didn’t mention that at the core of ourselves, we are sad. September has a whole new dynamic that we will forever work through every time it comes back around. This was the month that we would’ve been meeting James (if he had come on time). My due date was late September.

A lot of the new for me this fall feels a bit like I am filling a void. A void of not having a newborn baby. I had the fall looking a whole lot different just a few short months ago. However, in God’s perfect way, he has given me new things to be excited about and give my energy toward. I met all of my precious students on Thursday. I have a room full of girls (maybe God’s way of protecting my heart) and I am delighted. Teaching is a gift and I am eager to share God’s love with these dear ones.

I have received the sweetest notes in the mail over the last couple of weeks from friends who knew this month was going to bring another level of pain and grief. The notes remind me that we are not the only ones who are missing James, that our sorrow is shared. Thank you for sharing in our sorrow. Know that we are grateful for your prayers, texts, notes, and love. It is a comfort.

In the rush of what the first week of September has been for us, we have cried, we have remembered, we have celebrated, we have mourned, we have laughed, we have held one another, and we have chosen gratitude.

Gratitude is the way forward. And we have so much to be grateful for this September.

Our sweet Elly girl has been averaging a major meltdown about once a day over the last few weeks or so and has been so emotionally needy of me. It has mostly been at bedtime (of course). Josh and I have had many conversations about what it could be about and we have come up with quite a list. We have tried multiple ways of discipline, reasoning (which we all know 2 year olds can’t reason), bribing, etc. Last night it happened again and we were at a loss.

It ended when I took Elly into our guest room, sat in the chair and held her. I rubbed her back and prayed over her. She fell asleep all snuggled up in my arms. As I was holding her I felt the Lord say to me, you aren’t the only one going through this pain. I wrote in another post about how I felt like Elly has been attentive to me and in a sweet way has given me great nourishment in her ways of acknowledging James.

Recently, she will just run into my arms and hug me around my neck so hard and not let go. She has needed a lot more attention. I’m not trying to over dramatize anything, maybe it is just because she is two and maybe her new big bed has been a hard transition, but I want to pay attention to her and let her feel sad when it seems like she is just feeling sad (with me).

I saw more clearly last night how my emotional turmoil is deeply affecting my little girl. As much as I want to protect my girls (and Josh) it is very difficult to do right now. I know that I am experiencing a myriad of emotions and I know that they have noticed.

So for now, I will hold Elly. She just wants to be held.

And isn’t that so true for me too. I just want to be held. I just want the comfort and affection that go along with being held. My mom texted me and said, “during these moments picture Jesus holding you.” That is exactly what I will do.

Held- Natalie Grant

I had the incredible privilege of teaching second grade at Baltimore Christian School in East Baltimore City for three and a half years almost a decade ago. This was one of the most life-changing and perspective shifting times in my life. I adored my students. I loved them so deeply and felt so honored to be a small part of their lives.

I had a student my second year of teaching whose name was Keyon. Keyon was quiet, kind, and emotional. There was a heaviness to him that is difficult to describe but when he smiled he lit up a room. We were buds. There were days that I felt all the feels with him, even when I didn’t know why he was so down.

One day we were out on the playground and he got so angry to the point of needing to be taken inside and away from the situation. I can’t remember the details of what triggered his anger in the moment, but I will never forget what happened when we went inside. We walked to the classroom and sat for a long time in silence. I just sat beside him and allowed him time to cool down.

Finally, I asked Keyon if there was anything he wanted to talk to me about. I told him that it is completely acceptable to feel angry and that God actually created our emotions that we often feel. I gave him permission to feel what he needed to feel. I went on to say that it is what we do with our anger that matters. I told him that God can handle it. That he can ask God to be with him in those places. After I talked for probably too long, Keyon looked up at me with tears in his eyes and said, “I miss my dad.” He went on to tell me that his dad was a truck driver and he hadn’t seen him in a very long time. I listened to him process where the anger he was taking out on a fellow student was really coming from deep down inside.

I listened for awhile and then we sat for awhile. Eventually, I explained to Keyon that I was sad with him that he hadn’t seen his dad in a long time. I told him that he has a Heavenly Father who loves him so much and who is always with him. I told him that I knew this was really hard and I was sorry. I asked him if we could pray that he could see his dad soon and that they could have time together. I remember thinking to myself, this likely won’t happen. I had no idea if there was more to the story and I definitely didn’t know if Keyon’s dad would show up (ever).

The very next morning, we were in the middle of a lesson when I heard a knock on the door. I went to the door and there was a strange man standing there. I stepped outside and asked how I could help him. He said that he was here to see his son. I asked him who his son was and he said, Keyon. My heart began to race and I was over the moon at how God answered our prayers. I responded with the biggest smile on my face and tears in my eyes (he may have thought I was crazy) and said I would have Keyon come in the hallyway. I opened the classroom door and asked Keyon to come out. I wanted to say to his dad, take him out to lunch, go have some time with him. Instead, Keyon’s dad embraced his son, told him he loved him and said he just wanted to stop by before he headed back out of town.

When Keyon came back into the classroom, the two of us looked at each other with tears streaming down our faces. We were both thinking the same thing. Wow! God answered our prayer. It was a moment in time for me to witness how big our God is and what He is capable of when we ask.

You might be wondering why I am sharing this story. I have felt all the emotions over the last month or so, one being anger. I am unfamiliar with this emotion as it is not one that I feel very often. It has been hard at times to allow myself to really feel it. But, God reminded me of Keyon today and this story of his anger that was real and deep and completely acceptable. I am recalling what I said to Keyon all those years ago about how it is OK to feel angry and how he needed permission to feel it fully. I also remember sharing with him that our response to our anger matters. Anger is real and we do feel it and we should feel it. But, in those places, we must know and trust that God is with us and that he cares. God answered our prayers for Keyon immediately. While I know that it didn’t take Keyon’s anger away fully over his dad, it did show him that God is real, is with him, for him and wants to be a part of his healing. I know that if I am willing to ask God, to share these more difficult places of my heart with him, that he will answer my prayers too. Maybe not in the same way he did for Keyon, but in His perfect way and His perfect timing.

It is a choice to not stay in our emotions and to not let our emotions get the best of us. But, it is also a choice to allow our emotions to draw us nearer to the only One who can sit with us, who can handle it, and who will respond when we ask for his help.

I am asking for His help. I am asking for Him to be near. I am asking that He would heal the places in my heart that need healing. If you find yourself feeling important emotions about a circumstance or situation in your life that is hard to understand, would you join me in giving yourselves permission to feel what you need to feel and also surrender them to the Lord, trusting that it is part of our process of becoming more like Christ.

Another in the Fire– Hillsong

We are not alone. He is standing in the fire with us. I hope this song will bring you comfort and hope and freedom today.

I just sat at the kitchen table with my mom for over an hour listening to her stories from being at Young Lives camp at Lake Champion. This is her 6th year going as a childcare worker to serve teen moms and their babies. If you know my mom, you know that she is the epitome of love. She loves all people with a selfless, kind, deep, and beautiful love. But she specializes in little people. Her way of nurturing a child is one of the most spectacular things she does and it is absolutely the way God designed her and gifted her in this world.

As I was sitting with her, I was feeling different emotions about her being around babies for a week and trying to gather how I could engage. I think I could’ve felt all kinds of things. But, for every story she told, I had tears in my eyes and chills all over my body.

God showed up in ways that only He can through these stories. It reminded me, as she was talking, that God sees us. It also reminded me that we all have a story. There are endless stories of people needing God’s love and kindness. Of people needing God to show up. Of people needing to be seen.

My mom’s stories are just that. They are stories of God entering in and seeing His people. In this case, His beautiful daughters and their beautiful babies.

One story she told was of a woman who participated in childcare at a Young Lives camp many summers ago and has now become known as the “quilt lady.” This woman, who started following the Lord after serving as a childcare worker, made it her mission to find a way for every mom at camp to go home with a beautiful quilt for their baby. She has done this now for 6 years. Last summer on her way to drop off the quilts at camp, she also had a car full of diapers that had been donated. She and her husband had to stop along the way to spend the night. There were hundreds of dollars worth of diapers in their car, so they took all of them into their hotel room. The next morning, the young woman cleaning their room asked her why she had so many diapers but no baby. The woman shared with her that she was headed to a Young Life camp, to give all of the diapers to teen moms. This young woman’s response was, “I went to that camp last summer with my baby and they made her a beautiful quilt! I cherish it!” Is that only the Lord!? God blessed the “quilt lady” by allowing her to meet a young mom who had been blessed by her ministry at a random hotel. Incredible.

Another story my mom shared was of a little boy who had just eaten a peach and had it all over his face. He chose her out of the crowd and ran up to her with his lips puckered. He must’ve known that she was a lip kisser! My mom said she kissed him right on the lips because what else was she supposed to do. Only my mom would do that!

God sees us. He knows. He meets us where we are and shows up. He often uses people, like my mom and the quilt lady, to reveal Himself and His love. And I am forever grateful for those that I can say are doing that for me. One of which is my mom.