Hello sweet friends,

I want to start tonight by pausing to thank each and everyone of you who have prayed for us, who have blessed us financially and also to those of you who read my words each Sunday. Over the past 5 years we have been to hundreds of fertility related appointments but over the past couple months we have truly felt like after years of being in a place of waiting that we are finally to a place of action! I want to give y’all an update so that you can continue to believe along side of us, I also want to keep you updated in case someone who is reading this finds themselves in a place of unbelief.

I have been there and I am sure of one thing.. God used testimonies as a way to soften my heart to the idea that He is still in the miracle business.

When we miscarried our first miracle in 2016 I prayed daily for God to use my heartache in some form to bless others. At first it was a selfish prayer.. I didn’t want my broken heart to be without purpose and then it changed when friends began drawing near with “me too” stories. I think so many people will think I am nuts for saying this but I wouldn’t take back that season of my life. Do I wish I had a sweet 1.5 year old here on Earth, yes. Do I feel grateful that for a short season of life I got to be on the receiving end of a miracle? also yes… and do I believe that if He did it once He can do it again (even when time has passed and He hasn’t yet?) You know it! 

This particular season of life has grown in me a joy that I can barely express in words. It didn’t show up over night and it certainly didn’t feel good while God was pruning the places in my heart that had been overgrown with anxiety, fear and unbelief. However, I think it is so important to draw attention to the fact that while I was privately healing I was choking the life out of my faith. It felt like if I could clean up this whole big mess before anyone noticed then I wouldn’t ever have to talk about it or feel how it made me feel. Can you relate? Maybe it’s not fertility for you.. it could be

Your marriage

Your weight

Your finances

Your parenting

Something you did that you wish you could undo.

The truth is we all have junk and although it’s not fun to talk about and it certainly doesn’t make for good pinterest boards setting your truth free will set you free.

My mom use to say this to me when I would come home crying because someone cut me deep with a word curse.. “No one can make you feel inferior without consent.” The first time I heard it I thought.. well that’s dumb.. but the more I heard it the more it resonated with me. Your story is your story and only you get to decide what you believe about yourself.  So whatever your junk is.. put it on display, strip it of its power. Don’t tuck it away for fear of what others will think if they know.. and then lug a big ugly box of your past from place to place.. season after season.

I’ll go first by saying, we started our first fertility treatment..that’s a little scary to put out there. For us, even the chance to try again is an answered prayer but the idea of it not working out and having to also face up to that hurt..publicly, not my favorite thought. It’s my personal hope that by allowing our story to unfold publicly not only our close friends and family but perfectly good strangers will get to witness a miracle (however God authors it.) We don’t want you to just share the success, we want you to see the messy middle so that you might understand that true joy is not rooted in having things your way but in believing in a heavenly father who is the author and FINISHER. We might be at the end of ourselves but that’s just the beginning of HIM.

I wonder how differently the world would be if we spent more time being honest and raw about our circumstances instead of neatly packaging up our exchanges with one another. That brings me to what I actually wanted to share with you guys tonight…

I met the sweetest old man in the Walmart checkout line last night. My items were being bagged and I felt the Lord nudge me to pay for his groceries.. at first I wanted to ignore the nudge because well honestly I didn’t feel like it.. but the nudge wouldn’t budge so I mentioned to the cashier that I would like to also pay for the gentlemen behind me.

He started to ring up the man’s food and before he caught on he asked the cashier to add in two cartons of cigarettes.. if you know me at all- I HATE SMOKING. sick. My first thought was well tell him you want to buy his groceries but not his cigarettes.. just then he realized I was paying for his groceries and said “oh my gosh, I can’t believe it. thank you but I don’t want you to buy my cigarettes.” I paused and said “I just want you to know that if you wanted to quit you could, I don’t want you to smoke but I do want you bless you.” His response surprised me he said “you know what’s pretty crazy? I really want to quit and I’ve been trying but I feel like I can’t.”

I asked for his name and if I could pray for him to have the strength to do what he didn’t think he could do. We walked out to the parking lot and his car was parked right by mine.. he commented on my vehicle and asked if I liked his new SUV, he had splurged and was very proud of how on trend he was. Just thinking about how excited he was to show me, you push a button to start it makes me smile.

The best part? When I pulled away and headed home I heard God say “Everyone desires to be seen.. I see you, I have not forgotten you.”

I wanted to share that sweet story with y’all to remind you that it’s the little things that are really the big things. You are fully known, fully loved right now, exactly as you are. Those thoughts that tell you that you’re not enough, or that you’re too far gone, they are LIARS. The story that is trapped up in you is the key to setting someone else free from the same prison. SET. IT. FREE and watch God move.

 

Blessings.

Cara