Our Promise of God

With each pregnancy I get a horrible case of hyperemesis the first trimester. With Chapel it thankfully wasn't as intense, but still pretty bad! When I was 9 1/2 weeks pregnant I had a dream I was in a small church praying at the altar. A bright light was shining on the altar & I heard God say, 

"Her name is Chapel Elise."

I immediately woke up & told Brad. He gave me a simple smile & said, "We'll see." Pretty sure he didn't want me to get my hopes up. :) That morning we decide to go to church & had planned to ask a prayer warrior I know to pray over me for my sickness. When I asked, she told me she felt like our pastor had a word for us. 

He prayed over me & for the baby & then he looked right at me & said he had a stirring in his spirit that this child would fulfill a promise of God.

Of course just hearing that made me bawl my eyes out! I knew deep inside this baby was a girl! When we sat down to eat lunch I decided to look up the name Elise to see what it meant. The first definition I found said, 

"Our God is a vow, a promise of God." 

Again tears filled my eyes! I had no doubt she was a she! God was giving me the daughter He promised me years earlier.

For years I had longed for a mother-daughter relationship like my friends had, like my sister-in-laws had with their moms. They'd go shopping together, have lunch, their moms were always there for them to talk to, to watch or help with their kids, their moms were now their friends, their closest confidants. I don't have any of that with my own mom.  Not just because she lives far away, but because she's not that kind of mom anyway. 

Around Mother's Day 2009 I was driving around listening to K-Love & all week long they were asking people to call in & tell happy, exciting stories about their mothers. Mother's Day was already hard for me. One reason because of my past abortion & the other was because I felt like I couldn't celebrate my mom because I still had a lot of issues with her. So when I heard this on K-Love for the thousandth time I lost it. I screamed at the radio & then burst into tears! Then as clear as a bell I heard God speak,

"Am I not enough for you?"

I told Him that YES! Of course He was! Then He said,

"Let Me be your Father & your Mother. You will have a daughter someday & you will be the mother to her you've longed for your mother to be to you. Let Me mother you & you be that kind of mother to your daughter."

I wept the rest of the way home, but was completely comforted. I knew I could trust Him. The next year I got pregnant with Keller, but felt no remorse about having a 3rd son. I knew in time I would have a daughter like God promised. Until then, I was going to fully enjoy the precious fellas I had been blessed with.

Fast forward back to December 2012 where this story began & you can see why I had no doubt this baby was a girl! Another cool thing God did to show me this child was a girl before the sonogram was when we got her baby furniture. I had never had a matching set & showed Brad a picture of a beautiful bed, changing table & armoire I wanted if this baby was a girl. Well some friends from church gave us their daughter's set & said they believed The Lord was calling them to give it to us. Well wouldn't you know it was the EXACT set I wanted!!! I love how The Lord lavishes His children with gifts & blessings!

I pray that He will bless us with more children, maybe a sister for Chapel to play with :) Ha! Only time will tell! Until then, I'm soaking every moment up with my promise of God & her brothers, my lil warriors, my beauty from ashes! Being these kiddos' momma is the best job in the whole world!

God Said October

In November 2011 we were celebrating Keller turning 1, God had just called us out to share about my abortion, it was a whirlwind of a time! Yet with all that was going on Brad & I had a longing to have another child. We knew it was crazy to even think about knowing we just had a baby a year ago, finances were very tight, our house was already feeling too small, but the longing was there. 

So we prayed. 

The Lord told us to wait until the following October. Anytime we doubted we would ask God again & He always gave us October. When October finally came around I had been tracking my cycle on an app for months to make sure everything was normal. It wasn't necessary really because thankfully my cycle is normal, 28 days, ovulating days 14-16. We didn't use hormonal birth control, but rather counted my days & prayed. 

As October began we were in a big financial bind! Money had been more tight than normal & I had taken a part time job to help make ends meet. Because of this we decided to wait until November, not that we thought a month would change our finances that much, but we just needed more time. Basically, our faith was lacking, because God said October. This month my cycle also started early which it NEVER had before; I didn't even know what to make of it. I plugged it in my app to try & make sure I knew when I'd be ovulating so we wouldn't get pregnant. On top of that Brad got sick during the supposed fertile days so we were certain that NO baby was conceived! It was pretty impossible.

On October 31 I took the boys to a friend's house for a play date & she asked if I was pregnant. I told her the whole story, but she reminded me that God said October & He was never wrong. Though I knew she was right I had no doubts that I was not pregnant, because, after all, we hadn't done the thing that needs to be done to conceive because Brad had been sick. There was just NO WAY!!!

But when I got home I couldn't get her out of my head, so I took a pregnancy test I had left over from Keller to prove her wrong. And to my great surprise

I immediately started crying tears of joy thanking Jesus! I was amazed! Stunned! I made the boys get in the car & we drove up the road to the Dollar General to buy another test. All they had was an old school one that cost $1. You know the kind where you have to pee in a cup, use a dropper to get the pee in a tiny hole to even take the test...a science experiment no doubt! :) Sure enough it was positive! 

I facetimed Brad to tell him. I couldn't wait until he got home & I had to see his expression. Just like me he was shocked! 

No matter what our plans were, or our lack of faith, God kept His promise! He told us we would conceive in October & even through our doubt He created a beautiful baby! 

Whenever we had this sonogram I was 5 1/2 weeks & we could hear the heartbeat! My doctor was worried because the heart rate was low & I was spotting a little. I was in danger of miscarrying. I was not going to let doubt or anything else get in my way this time! I had faith that this child was going to be fine because GOD SAID OCTOBER!

I had to be on bed rest for 2 weeks until we went back to the doctor. The sonogram showed Chapel had grown & all was well! She had a strong heartbeat of 161, the bleeding had stopped, & my severe nausea & vomiting had begun! I had never been so excited to puke!

Stay tuned! I plan to write more later on about how I knew this baby was a girl because of another promise God had given me years ago!

Isn't He beyond amazing!??! I'm thankful that He is faithful even when we are not!

Be blessed friends!