Emma Grace... He chose us...

Do you ever wake in the middle of the night and feel like a light bulb experience has happened without even really coming fully concious?  I know that sounds silly, but it is truely somethng I do every now and then. I woke up at 4:30 as I do almost every morning and the name Emma Grace was running through my mind. The thoughts dainty, beautiful flowing soft brown hair, innocent and so darn cute, is how I remembered her. She was a patient of mine several years ago and I just fell in love with her and her family.  I remember the parents of this toddler as being the neatest couple. I had only been married several months and I always asked the couples that "looked" as if they had it together what their secret to happiness in their marriage was.  I remember Emma Grace sitting in the bed, with her daddy tenderly tending to her trach, which was impressive for any man to tackle, and describing their past decade of marraige.  He said, "get your traveling out of the way. Go wherever you want to go before you start having babies."  He shared with me the places they traveled and the incredible places they saw. Oh I could just dream of all the places in my mind right now.  He said "I am thankful we did all of the traveling then because now we have 3 little ones and it would be interesting to see us travel as a party of 5!.  I remember that Emma Grace's mother was picking the other 2 up from daycare and school and I thought about how crazy there life was now compared to 5 short years ago. I wish I could remember his name... oh well. I do remember him saying, "you just never know when God will give you an Emma Grace.  I wouldn't take nothing in this world for her though." as he changed her clothes. He said, "our marriage is stronger because of her."  This conversation really hit home this morning. No I don't have a child with multiple life limiting health problems, but I do have a situation that could either make or break a marriage.
 A good friend reminded me yesterday of the incredible marriage I have. You know I am reading the book So long, insecurities, and it really is pulling out all of them and one is the fear of all of this pulling our marriage apart.  It is a legitamate fear. I have seen marriages ruined from situations similar to ours. So I asked this friend to pray that Jonathan and I continue to grow closer. I will say over the past 4 months we have grown closer than we have been in the 11 years of loving one another. Just this morning I asked him if I could pray Psalms 91 over us today. {chuckle} His reply was, well Reagan will pee in the floor if you don't do it quick.  Yes, when that pup's paws hit the floor in the morning she is serious about her 1st pee-pee. So I scooped her up and held her and began reading the Psalm.  In the middle of reading it through my tears I realized that Jonathan was holding me and reading along. So there the 3 of us standing at the front door praying out to God that "He be our Lord, El Shaddai, the God Who is more than enough, Jehova Jireh, Jehova Rapha, Jehova Tisidkenu, Jehovah Shalom, Jehova Nissi, Jehovah Rapha, Jehovah Shammah, the possessor of heaven and earth, is our God. We trust in Him... He is our refuge and our fortress, our God, in Him do we trust... We shall not be afraid... Because we have made the Lord which is our refuge, even the Most High, our habitation, there shal no evil befall us, neither shall any plague come nigh our dwelling. For He shall give His angles charge over us, to keep us in all our ways.... We have set our love upon Him; therefore, He will deliver us. He will set us on high, because we have known His name. We shall call upon Him, and He {will answer us. He will be with us in trouble; He will deliver us and honor us. With long life will He satisfy us and show us His salvation."   I realize what an amazing God I serve and how blessed I am with my Husband Jonathan, but when you look at it in a different light you get a different perspective. {light bulb on now} God chose {us} to walk this difficult road together because He knew {our marriage} would withstand it.  He trust us with the {little things} so that He can trust us with the {larger things}. Get what I am saying? I am totally not tooting our horn hear I am simply explaining a mear fact. Jonathan and I are like a puzzle, we are miserable without one another {as our friends experienced the 7 years we dated} but when put together you can't pull us apart.   We just fit and it is obvious the strength we have together through Christ. I know that without Christ we would have divorced in our early twenties and spent the rest of our lives dreaming of being together again. We can be in the same room and just feel what the other is thinking. That is partly because when we were dating I asked God to make the process speed up so that I could know and read him like a book. Back to the point from my ADDness... God chose us, just as He chose the couple to raise Emma Grace.  I am humbled at the fact that He feels like we are strong enough to withstand this storm and come out victorious and that He trust us to use it for His Glory.  I told a friend last night, "I am not going through this hell for just myself".  I would love to have a resource from someone who has been through this same Christian walk that I could grab during these sleepless nights.  Sure I know several women who I can call, but come on, I can't call them 30 times out of the day, or night for their Godly advise!  And let's face it when your in the storm you pick up the Bible and it's like the pages all run together.
I will share with you one source that I have and it was written by Jackie Mize. She titled it Prayers and Promises for Supernatural Childbirth.The chapters include of course multitudes of scriptures and life experiences on how to deal with fear and thoughts before pregnancy and through out the entire "mothering process.  I highly recommend it to anyone that may come to your mind when reading this. A friend ordered it for me and I discussed in a previous post from BAM. You can get the full version and a pocket size too. I keep that one in my purse. Although it is good it doesn't go into detail of other things that come with this walk. 
I say all this not only to see the scripture once again, but to encourage all of you single ladies, married ladies and any one needing to trust God in a situation. I do not describe my morning or marraige boastfully, but to give you hope through Christ Jesus in your situation. Weather you are caring for your "Emma Grace", praying for a husband, praying for God's direction, praying for a baby, or any situation that you {need} to know if He hears you... He does! He gave us that promise in Psalms 91!  So walk today knowing that He hears your prayers and cries to Him.  This is truely something I have to remind myself daily through his Word.
Be blessed today and say a prayer for us as Jonathan is at his first OV at the REACH clinic in Charlotte. I am praying they give us a good report of the "best swimmies they have ever seen". He would kill me if He knew I put that out there. Oh well! At this point I don't care... I need people praying for us!
So maybe with my "Emma Grace" epiphany Jonathan will give up the name {Reese} for the name {Emma Grace} or even {Emma-Joy}.  We shall see!

In His Grip,
G

Abundance is... Having Psalms 91 hold onto today! Incredible friends and prayer worriors popping up all over the place.  I truely thank you for your many text, emails and most of all holding us up in prayer during this walk.  We truely could not have taken another step without you. We {will} cross over this Red Sea on dry land! Oh and...8 hour shifts where I don't have to work weekends!

Oh yeah I almost forgot to share with you Hebrews 10:24-25 "Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of His return is drawing near." {NLT}