I was born into a family deeply rooted
in the Catholic faith. In fact, when I was younger one of my
favorite stories was about my father’s parents. They met in
Cleveland when they were young and fell in love, but my Grandpa was a
Catholic and my Grandma was a Protestant, and her parents disowned
her on the day of her wedding. She walked to the church to be married
in her white wedding gown all by herself, and I was entranced by the
story as I pictured her, young and scared and all alone, running off
to marry my Grandpa. My parents followed suit and were good Catholics. My sisters and
I were baptized as infants, went to Catholic school, made our first
Confession, our first Communion, and were confirmed. My parents led
Marriage Encounter weekends, and our church life was the center of our
world. I wasn’t taught the truth of scripture the way my children
are being taught it, but I knew God loved me. I knew Jesus had died
for me. I felt safe and secure, and had a wonderful childhood.
When we moved to Pittsburgh, things
changed. Life seemed to go from slow to fast. My sisters and I were
taken from our safe little Catholic school and put into a public
school where none of us fit in. As the years progressed, my parents
became disillusioned with the Catholic church and at some point we
all just stopped going. Weekends were busy with activities, and none
of us seemed to notice that we were no longer a churchgoing family. I
was a teenager, consumed with my social life, boyfriends, and sports.
I didn’t know anything about the Bible. God was irrelevant to me. At the same time, my mom began to watch a church across the street from
our house as it was built piece by piece. She heard it was a
Christian church and went to check it out one Sunday morning not long
after it opened its doors. God found her there and pulled her back to
Him in an amazing way. My dad and younger sister soon followed, and
have been devoted Christ followers and spiritual role models to me
ever since.
At the time, though, I was too far
gone. I hadn’t learned much beyond religion as a set of rules when
I was a child, and had spent my teenage years living life on my own
terms. I went away to college and was very much a student of the
world. I went to a liberal university and spent time abroad, learning
that living a life of self-involvement was my right, and “sewing my
oats” was a good way to spend my time. By God’s grace alone, as I
graduated and met my husband Greg, who was also not a church goer, He pulled us back to Him. Greg
and I started attending my parents’ church together, became
members, and bought Bibles. We weathered a few ups and downs, but
mostly enjoyed a pretty easy life that kept those Bibles closed on a
bookshelf gathering dust.
God used our firstborn, our sweet
Chloe, to shake us from our spiritual trance. Getting pregnant was
not as easy for me as I had anticipated it would be, and when I
finally saw two faint pink lines on the pregnancy test my heart
soared. Greg and I rejoiced with our good news, but the joy quickly
turned to fear. I had a series of problems throughout my first and
second trimesters, and on the morning of my 23rd week, I
went into labor. The ride to the hospital was a blur, but one moment
is crystal clear: the doctor on call explained to me that if he
couldn’t stop my labor, he couldn’t save my baby. At just 23
weeks she would be too small, too fragile. I remember that the doctor
was from another country and had a really thick accent. "Do you
understand?" He asked me several times, trying to shake me from my
stupor. "Your baby might not live."
How can any mother understand that?
Hebrews 11:1 says “Now faith is the
assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
Over the course of the next few months, God used this trial to teach
me about His faithfulness. After eight long days in the hospital I was
stable enough to be allowed to go home, but I was put on strict bedrest
– they even told me how many times I could walk the ten feet to the
bathroom. I was gripped with fear, terrified that one false move on
my part would cost my baby her life. God took every safety net but
His Word away from me. There were no guarantees. I knew of wonderful
Godly people who had been in similar situations and had not been
given their miracle. For the first time in my life, there was nothing
I could do but pray, trust God, and know that He was good no matter
what happened. I spent hours and hours immersed in His Word, and in
those 13 weeks of bedrest God changed my heart. His kindness to me
was so undeserved. He ministered to my smallest needs. Here’s one
example that will forever be etched in my memory: I was having
horrible nightmares that kept me up at night, terrified, and I
finally cried out to Him, asking Him to help me. The next morning, someone called me and said that
she’d felt prompted to pray Psalm 91 over me, and that she would be
doing that every day - she just wanted to let me know. I hung up the phone, opened my Bible, and turned to Psalm 91:
“He will cover you with his feathers,
and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be
your shield and rampart. You will not fear the terror of the night,
nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in
the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday…”
I couldn’t believe that the God of
the universe cared so much about my smallest needs. Our little Chloe
came into the world four weeks early, small and mighty. Most
importantly, Greg and I both developed a true thirst to know and
serve this great God of ours and have never turned back. I pray we
never will.
By God’s providence I was asked several weeks ago to share my testimony, and I agreed without
giving it too much thought. Nothing is accidental with God though, is it? A
week before Thanksgiving my husband walked into work and was told he
didn’t have a job any more. We didn’t know it was coming, but God
did. And He knew I would need to be reminded of His faithfulness. The
past few days as I’ve pored over old prayer journals and thought
about my testimony, I have rejoiced at the faithfulness of Jehovah-Jireh, the God who provides, and marveled at His kindness in preparing me so well for the
journey that lies ahead.
I don’t know what will happen, or where
we’ll end up. But I know that God is good, and the gospel is true, and that is enough for me. As Beth Moore often says, “Onward
together to the finish line. Jesus is is so worthy.”
