This morning Paul and I went to church for the first time in several weeks. I’ve been finding excuses to miss for the past few weeks so I made a point of us going to the earliest service this morning so that I would have less time to talk myself out of it.
As always, I was so glad that we went because it was a message I know God meant for me to hear, now, when I need it the most.
It was the second week of a new series called confidere: Advancing with Faith and today’s message in particular was about embracing the joy of life and how this was illustrated in Jesus’ first miracle (turning water into wine at a wedding feast).
Ever since I saw that faint second line last Monday, I have been wondering, how much joy should I allow myself to feel? How happy can I be about this? I have been doing a lot of hedging, never wanting to talk about “when” we have a baby, but still “if.” My friend EndoJourney actually wrote an amazing post about this recently which really hit home with me even though her road so far has been a million times harder than mine (luckily she is also one of the strongest people I know).
When you have had things go wrong, when the road to joy has been difficult and when you are well aware of exactly how quickly it can all be taken away from you sometimes it seems impossible to celebrate the moment.
But after this morning, I’m convinced that that is exactly what God wants me to do.
Here are the notes I took:
- It [the miracle] happened at a wedding feast (a celebration). The way of Jesus was a happy way. Jesus was comfortable with celebration. Jesus models for us an essential joy and a way to celebrate. People feel comfortable around him and he had a love of life that was contagious.
- It was the result of a request that could be viewed as frivolous. It reminds us that we cannot put Jesus into a box. Jesus embraced all aspects of life even as he came to give his life. As long as we live our life with humility and for God, we should seek to enjoy the gifts of life. Jesus did not see the unfairness of life as a justification for pulling away from celebrating the gifts of life.
- It was an answer to a request from someone He loved that was made for the benefit of another. We’re given permission to ask for blessing even when it is not an earth-shattering request.
To me the message was clear, no matter what happens tomorrow, God is asking me to celebrate today and each day I am blessed with this little life that grows inside me.
And if that wasn’t clear enough, as we sang the final song “Our God” by Chris Tomlin, I received a phone call followed by a voicemail which I checked as we walked down the street to our car. It was my high-risk OB calling with the results of my second beta on Friday.
552 (doubling time of ~26 hrs, “normal” is 48hrs)
I admit, despite the sermon I had just taken in, my first reaction was mixed (so what’s new?), because I know I’ve read that betas that rises too fast can be bad in rare cases. Luckily I called the doctor’s office and the answering service paged him and he called me right back to let me know in his mind this was an absolutely great number and he didn’t think there was anything to worry about it.
So today, I am celebrating the fact that I am four weeks and two days pregnant and that so far things appear to be going about as smoothly as I could have ever hoped.
Our God is greater
Our God is stronger
God You are higher than any other
Our God is healer
Awesome in power
Our God, our God