Life is always a gift.

 There are many thoughts rumbling around in my mind today. What do I say? Where do I begin? How do I adequately state what is in my heart?
  We lost a baby this week. I had a miscarriage. That's as good place as any to start. Finding out we were expecting again was a big surprise but a wonderful one! The first thing I said to God was "I hadn't even ask you for a baby yet!" He begin to speak to me about how He gives gifts simply because He loves to.
 The day after finding out I begin to feel like things were not quite right but continued to pray and ask God to protect this new life. Saturday we were with a group of friends at the Boiler Room and having a testimony time from a 3 week training course we had just completed. I was in no way planning to share the pregnancy news but kept feeling a prompting to do so. I was scared, bottom line. I was suspecting a miscarriage and was afraid to be vulnerable in that place but I shared anyway. We told Hope and we told our family and closest friends and then ask them to pray. God began to speak right to my heart through many people and I heard exactly what I needed to hear. My loving Father was preparing my heart for what was coming.
 I went to see the doctor on Monday and had a negative pregnancy test and she saw nothing on the sonogram. The thing I feared was true. Our baby was gone. We had that little life for 4 days. God how could this be a good gift???
  God is good. God is love. Do I really believe what I say I believe? God is good. God is loving. I know that I know that I know those words are true. God is good and God is love.
  My heart was/is in pain but I feel no resentment or anger. I feel at peace. Crazy right? Yes of course I wish I had that baby still. My arms ache to hold my child but I am at peace. Peace that passes all understanding.
  What I have realized and keep hearing from so many others is that any life is worth celebrating. No matter how short, life is to be celebrated. Our family and friends deserved to know about this life because it is a life! It was our baby, a member of our family. We won't get to hold that little one until we enter eternity but we will celebrate it now.
  I don't know why. My human mind can't understand why. God sees the whole of my life unfolded and understands things I cannot even fathom. So I can ask why but I don't think there is an answer. At least not in this life. I feel at rest in that.
  The Father does give good gifts. I've seen that over and over again in my life so how could I doubt that. The Father comes so close in painful circumstances if we'll allow Him to. He grieves with us.
 
 I am so very grateful for my family. We got to spend the weekend with them, the whole clan! They all sat around the kitchen table with us and prayed over us and spoke into our lives. How many people get to do that with their parents and sibling??? Amazing! My sister Hannah wanted to sing a song together, one that I had actually written shortly after my sister Grace died. She died only a few hours after being born. So, I sat at my parents table surrounded by my family who loves me deeply as they sang. Here are the words to the song, they are simple but truth often is.

 I will bless you name forever, I will bless your name forever because you are good
 I will sing to you forever, I will sing to you forever because you are good


 In pain and in joy, my praise belongs to you
 My lips will sing the things that my heart knows are true


 You are God and you are good, never changing always faithful
 You are God and you are good, forever I will sing forever I will sing


 I will bless your name forever, I will bless you name forever because you are good
 I will sing to you forever, I will sing to you forever because you are good


 In life and in death, my praise belongs to you
 You give and take away and still my heart believes in you


 You are God and you are good, never changing always faithful
 You are God and you are good, forever I will sing forever I will sing

It struck me as a little ironic that the song God would use was one I wrote myself! He took me back to that previous place of pain to remind me of what I found was true then. The same is still true now.
God is good. God is love. How wonderful also that is would be family that was singing those words back to me, family that was there to remind me of truth, of goodness, of faithfulness. Ah! It's striking me even as I am writing this what a beautiful picture that is. Family. God loves family, God is a family!!
  Don't be afraid to celebrate life however short it may be.

Psalm 139:14-16

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; 

your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

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.

Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book

before one of them came to be.

Life is precious. Life is always a gift. Babies are a beautiful beautiful gift. 

We appreciate your continued support and prayers as we continue to walk out this painful process.

Thank you family and friends! I love you all!

Jana

Vegetarian? Maybe.

Some thoughts on where I am with vegetarianism....

   I have been a "vegetarian" for the last several years and it has been great. Many of our eating habits changed, we have adopted a much healthier lifestyle in general but in the last 6 months this has begun to feel restrictive. I always feel bad when I am at someones house and they are struggling or scrambling to find something the vegetarians can eat. I appreciate this for sure but I don't mind eating meat and occasion and do when I choose to. So it doesn't seem that the term vegetarian fully fits our family.
  Some of the irony of our life is that my husband works for a deli meat company! He is more and more frequently bringing meat home as a part of his job. New flavors or styles they just got in and need to sample etc. I cannot in good conscious turn down free food. It certainly helps out the grocery budget.
 We never became vegetarians because we were "against meat eating", we wanted to be healthier and in all the reading and research we did eating more vegetarian made sense to us. On a smaller scale there was consideration of the treatment of animals and the practices of big companies providing our meat to us. These are good things to be aware of. We have a God given mandate to care for the earth and this includes animals. We need to be aware of where our food comes from and how it was grown whether meat or vegetable.
  All that to say I don't want to call myself vegetarian anymore. It's not accurate and I find myself feeling guilty when I eat a bite of turkey that Mark brought home and feel like it is something I need to hid because I am supposed to be a vegetarian.  I want to feel free in all areas of my life and this includes how I choose to eat.
  It sounds a bit like I am justifying myself and maybe I am to an extent. Mostly, I want my friends and family around us to know that we are okay eating meat. If you serve us some chicken or BBQ (yum) we will eat it and gladly. We don't eat it very often and are not becoming raging carnivores. :) We will never be big meat eaters and are very satisfied without it. I love the challenge of cooking vegetarian and even vegan. It's fun!

  So what are we? I don't know, your guess is as good as mine. Vegetarian, Flexitarian, Nutritarian, or just meat snobs as my husband would say. Ha!
  Who knows... all I can say is that we want to be healthy, conscious eaters whatever the choice. (just don't judge me when I eat the occasional hot dog!)

Well, there you have it. My pride hurts a little just writing this if I'm completely honest. That is part of why I decided to put it all down here. I needed to. I don't want to be a closet meat eater when everyone thinks I am a strict vegetarian. Pride puffs you up and tries to make you appear to be something you are not. I don't want to be prideful about my eating choices and I definitely don't want to appear to be someone I am not. Know me and see me for who I really am. Isn't that the cry of everyone's heart when it's all said and done.
For whatever reason vegetarianism has been linked to a certain amount of pride in my life and I was to be completely rid of that! I may choose to eat meat or I may not but I feel free to make that choice, and choose differently on any given day.

Let me know your thoughts and thanks for listening! :)

I'll hold you in the Light

                         

I have been stuck on this phrase, "I'll hold you in the Light", for the last few days. My Mom was reading an article about the significance of light in different religions/holiday celebrations. Like, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, and others. In the article they had talked to a woman who is a Quaker and she said that instead of saying "I'll pray for you" they say "I'll hold you in the Light"
 
How beautiful is that? To hold someone in the all consuming, dark banishing light of Jesus. I love it! I want to adopt this new way of saying I'll pray for someone. 
Holding up people, situations, concerns, needs, desires all in the Light.
The picture is so wonderful to me. The smallest ray of light can pierce so significantly through darkness. This saying seems to mean more then just praying for someone. It means carrying others when are weak, bearing each others burdens, standing in the light when others feel to weak to do so themselves.


I know there have been many times where I needed to be held in the light. It is a blessing to have people around you who can do this for you and it is as big a blessing to be able to do this for someone else. Darkness may try to overtake us but light will penetrate the darkness.
Walk in the light as He is in the light as it says in 1 John. He is in the light.

Ecc 2:13 says,  "I saw that wisdom is better then folly just as light is better then darkness."

1 Peter 2:9 "But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light."

We are people of light so let us hold one another IN the light.