Through the Muck and Mire there is Mercy and More

These waters we are treading in are deep. Almost head deep. May I even say it is costly? The condition of our minds and hearts consume and demand all our attention and efforts.

Beck was diagnosed with a Staff Infection. The GBS strand. It, Praise Jesus, did not travel and get to his spinal fluid. God knows what we need before we even need it. Last Wednesday Beck started acting abnormal. We struggled to keep him breathing while maintaining his heart rate and O2 sats.  We struggled for about 14 hours before on Thursday morning, our primary nurse came in! Mikaela, our primary(the one nurse that has laid claim to Beck, every time she is here, she is with Beck all day) came in early Thursday morning wondering what was happening. It only took her a few minutes before calling all docs in to start investigating what was happening. Because of her, they found the infection in his blood and urine but found it VERY early. Babies who get this usually get VERY sick. It takes a while to present itself and travels too fast in the body. Praise the Lord, Mikaela was here and fought for him! We now are stable again and are on day 6 of 10 for antibiotics.  He still is on 1 liter of low flow with 23% oxygen. Last Thursday we went all the way back to  high flow 3 liters with 64% oxygen at times. But, we are on the mend, thanks be to God for Mikaela's diligent work and for knowing Beck so well.

Jake and I have had to do some hard soul work lately. If you were to see us, I think you could tell our souls lie in the deep, dark waters. We are still plagued with memories from Hailey. It is a struggle for us to think that Beck will come home with us some day. We probably won't believe it until we walk through the front door of our home. Every new baby that comes in, Jake and I start the process of worrying for them. The babies that don't make it, send us into a spiral of memories that cut deep. We walk around in a fog those days. The fog that was Hailey is okay to have, but it is clouding our vision and walk with Beckland. We aren't suggesting that we need to get rid of the memory of Hailey, but we found that we needed to start some serious soul work.

A friend wrote us an email(I wish I could just copy and paste the whole thing on here, because it is packed full of God's mercy, grace, truth and abounding love) that helped in opening our wounded souls. I have had such a hard time praying this time around. We know that God is sovereign, and we still fully believe it. If God wants Beck to be with us, it will be. If God wants Beck to be with Hailey, it will be. We are oddly at so much peace in knowing this. However, we also know that God wants to know the desires of our hearts. And that is where I have a hard time. I don't want to pray the desires of my heart when a huge plead went seemingly went unanswered last year with Hailey. I would rather sit in the head knowledge of knowing "God is God and I am not" than opening Pandora's box of wants and desires before our Lord.   Jake has a harder time giving fully his worry to our Lord. He feels like there is so little that he already can do for Beck, so worry is the one thing he can do. Couple that with how much we know about this situation because of what happened to Hailey and he is found in a soul crushing environment.

We know it is ok to sit in this state. It is okay to feel all that we are feeling. It is okay to not want to talk with God. It is okay to yearn for Hailey in our arms every time we pick up Beckland. It is okay to feel the weight of all of this and want to cry "My God, My God...why have you forsaken me".  But just as Jesus cried that on the cross as he hung there for ME, He died and then OVERCAME death. Let me say that again, HE OVERCAME.  We just celebrated with all authority and joy on Easter, Resurrection Sunday, His conquering over death. All through Revelations we see how, because Christ overcame we will as well.  Overcome, He has; overcome, we will is a great article about it.  So,  although we know it is okay to sit in this muck and mire we find that wading through and working towards Christ is far more rewarding. Even if it one tiny sanctifying step a day. His mercies greet us, new every dawn break! He is willing to fight for us, build us up, supply strength, give ample amounts of grace and hold us through if we continue to acknowledge Him as our Lord and Savior and seek first and foremost His glory. Let me repeat that part again because it is part of the real hard soul work; we need to seek first and foremost His glory. Not ours. We seek his glory instead of ours in being parents. We seek His plan instead of ours in what we think our family should look like. We seek His timing instead of ours for when things should happen. We seek His heart instead of ours.

This friend, in the email,  pointed us to Hebrews 13:15. It says "Therefore, let us offer through Jesus a continual sacrifice of praise to God, proclaiming our allegiance to his name".  She wrote :
"I have often pondered the meaning of Hebrews 13:15 which talks about offering a sacrifice of praise.  Using sacrifice and praise together seems like an odd pairing.  Praise is positive thanks, right?  It seems to me that the words "sacrifice of praise" was referring to praise of a different kind.  One of the things the Lord shared with me one day is that there is easy praise, the kind that just falls from our lips like thankfulness for a sunny day.  And then there is the kind which is a sacrifice, it is costly to offer this kind of praise.  Sacrificial praise (in my understanding) goes against my ability to make sense of things and requires that I give thanks for the places of pain, hurt, confusion, and suffering.  This is certainly not my disposition naturally... It is very costly to thank God for the pain and suffering - a true sacrifice of praise which will allow me to mostly be at rest with those things which are senseless, and with an inability to pray. "
Jake and I have entered the costly work of offering a sacrificial praise to God for our pain, hurt, confusion and suffering. We are no where being close to saying we are fully there and able to. But we are on the journey of starting to do that because Jesus became the full sacrifice for us. Many people say "I will ask God ____(fill in the blank) when I get to heaven". Although  Jake and I have so many questions we wish to ask, we find ourselves asking them now. Because frankly, when we get to heaven I don't think those questions will matter anymore. We will be face to face with our creator and will want nothing more to do than to fall on our knees, worship and praise Him. A full sacrificial act of praise.
For now, we rest in this "Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God's glory. We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love. When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners...So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God."