My Story

Let's not focus on me, but on what God's love has done for me.  Raised in church most of my life, I was saved when I was twelve, but I always felt as if I was not good enough and could never quite be enough to make God happy. I did not understand grace.  I spent most of my days discouraged and feeling like a disappointment, which resulted in a heart that was bitter toward the world, my family, even my husband.  It was not until I learned how deep His love is for me, that my heart began to be healed.  Where I lack, He fills in the gaps, He never meant for me to do it all alone.

In March of 2002, I was expecting our second daughter, Brenna, who was due in about six weeks when I found out that she would be born with a cleft lip on the same day that I went into premature labor.  Needless to say, my husband and I both spent a lot of time crying out to God for her healing.  I believed with all the faith I had that He would heal her and so did Todd. 

He didn't.

He healed us instead. 

We had been running to and fro and even though we were very involved in our church, we were not very involved in each other's lives. We had drifted  far from each other and I was almost to the point of giving up.  God always knows exactly what He's doing and He used this trying, uncertain time in our lives to help us rebuild our relationship with each other.  The doctors our daughter would need were not close to our home, they were four hours away.  We immediately began the road trips that would go on for more than 6 years.  Those road trips forced us to talk to and listen to each other.  With every surgery our daughter underwent, we had no one but each other while we waited in the waiting rooms.  We had no one but each other that completely understood how much having a child that is born with a birth defect breaks your heart.

God revealed something beautiful to me over the few years of doctors appointments and surgeries.  Brenna's mouth had to be repaired in layers.  Layer by layer, stitch by stich.  It was a process.  I was in the middle of a Bible study by Beth Moore entitled "Believing God" when God gave me one of the most significant treasures of my spiritual life through Psalms 103.

Bless the Lord, O my soul,

and forget none of His benefits;

Who pardons all your iniquities;

Who heals all your diseases

Psalms 103:2-3

The treasure came in what I learned about the meaning of that word "heal" in verse 3, which was "to mend by stitching".    Beth Moore went on to say that "a seamstress cannot mend a fabric she does not hold in her hands. Likewise, God, cradles us in His careful hands as He stitches our broken pieces back together again, forming a new and far more beautiful garment....Almost all the healing works God has accomplished in my life have been processes, stitch-by-stitch so that I would learn to appreciate being continually in His hands."

(Believing God Study Guide, p 65)

Not only did He stitch Brenna back together, He stitched Todd and I back together too. He had us in His hands the whole time. If I could go back and have her be born perfectly, I wouldn't.  That's how marvelous His work has been.

There has been no turning back, our life is very different now. God has been chasing after my heart ever since!