On Andrew's 11th Birthday


I’m going through the book Made for this: 40 Days to Living your Purpose by Jennie Allen and it has been incredible and challenging so far! It’s a 40 day devotional with questions at the end of each day to dig deeper into any obstacles in my relationship with God. It helps look at life in the big picture and examine where my purpose, time, energy, resources goes to. It helps me to refocus on what’s important and eternal, and not on what’s temporary and fleeting.
One of the questions this week is below and wanted to share on Andrew's 11th Birthday.

Recall a time when you were glad God trumped you in your life?
There have been three major times in my life when God interrupted the direction my life was going and he changed it to a different direction.
The first time is when I was 11 (and much to my disapproval) our family packed up our stuff and left for Florida- where I would live the rest of my life.
The second time is when I was 17 pursuing a wild party lifestyle as a freshman at FSU, and God brought my husband Steve into my life.
The third time I was 26 and we had welcomed our new baby boy Andrew. But we never got to bring him home.
The most painful of these was losing Andrew.  My life was going exactly as I had hoped. Everything was going according to plan- and then it felt as if someone came and broke into a million pieces the life that I was living.  And it be years before those pieces were put back together again.
This morning as I remembered Andrew, I thanked God for the pain he allowed us to go through. Although it was an incredibly painful time, I also remember it as a time when God was very real and felt close. It was during that time that he showed me so many incredible things. I wrote about some of them highlighted below. 





To be bold in sharing my faith

To rest in his sovereignty despite the pain of my circumstance

 The shortness of life

To not get so caught up on material things

among many other things.
I will never know the reason why Andrew passed away at 10 days old. While all of our friends at the time got to bring their newborns home, we grieved and cried every day for the year that followed At the time I felt forsaken and abandoned by God. I had cried out to him to heal Andrew and he certainly didn’t seem to come through.
Looking back I believe whole heartedly that God did come through for us. It was not his plan for Andrew to be healed and stay with us, but it was his plan to shower us with His comfort and love during that time of grief. We wrestled, questioned, doubted, and even rejoiced in a mix of emotions that ultimately led us closer to knowing God more deeply. For that I will always be grateful. God proved himself faithful in all his promises- His grace was enough for us, he has restored all of what was broken, he has redeemed our pain for good, he has shown us Himself in the darkness. Despite my emotions telling me otherwise depending in my circumstances, God has been true to what His word says overtime.
I waited patiently for the Lord
He turned to me and heard my cry
He lifted me out of the slimy pit
Out of the mud and mire
He set my feet upon a rock 
And gave me a firm place to stand
Many will see and fear the Lord
And put their trust in him
Psalm 40:1-3

 Happy 11th Birthday Andrew. Until we see you and hold you again.

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