God's Perfect Timing

As I have written about before, I had a miscarriage in January of 2012, an event that affected me so deeply and so fully that it changed who I am.  Since then, as friends have loved me, listened to me, shared their stories with me, and prayed with me, I know I have healed.  But miscarriage is one of those events that I am not sure someone can ever completely heal from.  For months following the loss of our baby, I was on a mission to become pregnant again.  It consumed my brain and I couldn't make it stop.  I studied ovulation charts, read books, stalked pregnancy web sites, consulted with friends and family members, spent a ridiculous amount of money on ovulation prediction kits, and pretty much drove my husband crazy with incessant planning. My husband was a good sport about my, "we have 12 hours to get pregnant" announcements month after month, only making sarcastic comments roughly half of the time. Seriously, this man should get an award for his love and patience, especially since during part of this baby craze, he had a drainage tube in his side for some kidney stone issues he was having and he still didn't tell me to give it a rest.  He was mostly patient and understanding and I am continually thankful that God chose this man to be my husband.

During all of this planning and research, I started to become convicted about the whole thing.  As I prayed, I was continually met with God asking me, "Do you want this baby more than you want Me?" and "Don't you trust Me?".  At first, I pushed those questions away because surely I loved the Lord above all and trusted Him fully, I didn't even need to think about it.  But then, I started examining how I spent my time. Did I really think about this non-existent baby more than I thought about the real and living God?  Was I spending more time perusing natural fertility web sites than I was studying the Word of God?  It terrified me to come face to face with this truth.  God is definitely first in my life, but the fact that this concern was even in my mind gave me a new outlook on having another baby.

Finally, I had had enough.  I could no longer calculate the best day to get pregnant.  I couldn't handle the pitying look the cashier at the Dollar Tree gave me as I purchased yet five more ovulation kits.  That two week wait to find out if I was pregnant was just too dreadful for me to endure. I certainly couldn't tolerate the possibility of this baby becoming an idol.  As much as I wanted another baby, I prayed for God to change my heart if this wasn't His will for my life.  I also prayed that He would give me a desire for Him that was greater than anything else in my life.

A dear friend gave my family the opportunity to have an affordable beach vacation, which happened to be the week that our baby would have turned a year old.  I was relieved for the distraction from our every day life and glad to be able to get away with my other three little blessings from Jesus to have a fun week.  But as the anniversary of my would-have-been due date came, I found myself feeling a bit sad.  It seemed the beach was filled with one-year-old babies and pregnant women!  I couldn't help but think about how much fun it would be to have a sunblock and sand covered toddler with us, chasing seagulls, spilling juice boxes, finding lady bugs and eating dirt.  I again longed for that baby I didn't get to meet.  I also thought it was strange that I was so grieved by this day that I began to physically feel pregnancy symptoms.  Unwilling to let my emotions and now physical ailments ruin our fun, I ignored all of this and continued on with our vacation.

Watching the waves on Lake Michigan.

We got home and unpacked in the evening on August 29th, a year after the day our baby would have been due and I still felt not-quite-right.  I still had a pregnancy test in the bathroom and decided to take it just in case this nausea wasn't all in my head.  It was positive.  I was in shock.  I wanted to be excited.  I wanted to love this baby and think about who he or she would be.  In reality though, this was not at all how I imagined I  would feel when I finally did become pregnant.  I wanted reassurance that this baby would be healthy and a guarantee that I would be holding this little baby in the spring.

Doug and I decided to wait to tell our kids until after we heard the baby's heartbeat.  When I miscarried, there was never a heartbeat, so this seemed like a good milestone.  At nine weeks, I had an appointment with a nurse and I lost it.  I told her about my miscarriage and how unenthusiastic I was about being pregnant.  She had experienced a miscarriage as well and understood, so she squeezed me in for an ultrasound.  I got to see little hands and a little heartbeat, so I did feel much better knowing there was a live baby in there!  We told our other kids later that evening and they were excited about having a new baby.  My daughter had just turned four and is obsessed with babies, so this news was the best ever for her.  She even asked me if this baby can be her own child when it grows up.  I am not sure what that means exactly, but I know this little baby is loved already!  She tells everyone from the nurse who gave her a flu shot to the cashier at the grocery store that there is a baby in her Momma's tummy.

Ellery making footprints in the sand with her baby doll, Logan.

I am excited to meet the baby God has made for our family.  This baby is the one He chose for us, not the one I planned and orchestrated.  Isaiah 55:8 says, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD."  It can be so hard to "give up" sometimes when I want something so much that I felt like I need to help God in order to make it happen.  That wisdom He gave me when I was faced with those hard questions wasn't easy to accept. But thankfully, God has made a way for me to have another baby, but in the way that He planned from the start.

"My soul finds rest in God alone, my salvation comes from him.  He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken."  Psalm 62:1-2

Who's Hearing the Gospel In Room 224?

During Doug's last hospital visit, the kids and I visited him after lunch one day.  The nurse came in to check on Doug and asked if our kids had a snow day that day, since they were at the hospital during "school hours."  When I told her we home school, she was full of questions.  She had been thinking of homeschooling her son because he was being bullied at his public school.  We began talking about our reasons for homeschooling and how God nudged us down that path.  Instantly, I could tell she was offended by my faith and my reasons for homeschooling.

A few sentences later, she revealed that she grew up attending a Catholic school and had read the Bible, but she had abandoned her faith years ago.  I began to encourage her to change her heart, when she got a page from another nurse and had to leave, but she assured me she'd be right back.  After she stepped out, my husband said that he'd already tried to talk to her and she shut him down and she was going to feel "attacked."  

Doug and I exchanged a few sort-of-not-nice words with one another about obedience to God and our faith.  Our boys, who had said nothing until then, chimed in with their observations.  They began talking about how you could "feel" the Holy Spirit when we were talking to this nurse.  They compared it to a movie and kept wondering what we were going to say next. They are at an age where they are intrigued by wars, battles, and the fights between good and evil, making this conversation between the nurse and I extremely interesting to them. If nothing else, I was glad that my three children were experiencing firsthand how not everyone will be receptive to us as Christians and not everyone will choose Jesus.  I think my husband had the same thoughts.

When the nurse returned, my husband, who moments earlier said my words sounded attacking and harsh, pretty much threw a spiritual brick at her head.  She explained how she's a "spiritual" person and is raising her kids to have good morals and values and is a nurse because it's what God wants her to do.  Before I could say anything, Doug blurts out, "Well, that's good and all, but you need Jesus Christ" and proceeded to explain how God sent his son, Jesus, to die for our sins.  This is where I'd like to say that she accepted Jesus right then and there and her life will be forever changed.  Instead, she said she didn't have time to talk about this anymore and had to tend to another patient.

This experience was not new to neither Doug nor I, but to my children this was baffling.  Why didn't she want to hear more, to know more about Jesus?  They couldn't understand, after hearing about God's love for someone, how that person could not immediately be affected.  The Bible talks about child-like faith and I love that I have three examples of this in front of me nearly all of the time.  What a great reminder! There are times when I share my faith with someone when I wonder exactly who it is I am witnessing to.  At the time, I thought it was the nurse.  Looking back, it was really my children.  It would have been wonderful for them to see this heart-broken woman turn to Christ.  But they learned more in that half-hour of overhearing our conversation than I had taught them all morning using our highly-rated homeschooling curriculum!

A Christmas Blog Post in January :)

Every day, I am amazed at how God provides for my family.  Seriously.  Every time our family needs anything, we pray continuously and wait and God always shows us His providence.  My husband and I reflect often on how truly, abundantly blessed we are. When our family needs something, somehow God makes it happen. 

I try not to be a Scrooge, but I really have a strong desire to "simplify" Christmas.  We worship Jesus and celebrate His birth all year long, not just on December 25th.  My husband and I have had many arguments discussions about the necessity of giving our kids elaborate gifts and can't seem to agree on this issue.  In November, my children began talking about Christmas and which gifts they would like to receive.  As I listened, the gifts grew in price--my daughter wanted a Toy Story Woody doll, my youngest son wanted a really cool baseball bat and some throwing knives (I know, my thoughts exactly!), and my oldest son wanted a Taylor acoustic guitar.

In case you are unaware, Taylor acoustic guitars START at $600.  I immediately told him to choose something else because it isn't happening. Our son helps our children's librarian at our local library run a guitar club for kids and they give free guitar lessons to around twenty kids every Thursday and Friday.  He is a responsible, obedient, godly young man who loves the Lord, works hard at homeschooling and helps out around the house like no other teenage boy I've ever met and he loves playing the guitar.  We went to Guitar Center and let him play a bunch of different guitars and our good friend and worship leader brought over some guitars for him to play.  The joy on this little boy's face while playing these guitars was priceless. He even offered to put $100 towards this gift.  But spending this much on a single Christmas gift just didn't make sense for our family. 

My family jokes that if they need something, that I am usually able to knit them whatever it is or find a way to make it using Pinterest.  A few days later, we agreed that we would pray about this and see what God would do.  That's when the Etsy orders started rolling in. I was knitting non-stop and couldn't keep up!  I shipped birds nests and golf club covers and slippers and bunny rattles and hats all over the United States in December.  My sister got orders from some people locally and I knitted more slippers and more hats and gloves and stuffed animals.  A dear friend asked me if I would like to cater a brunch for her mom's group. More friends bought hats and birds nests.  A random check for $20 came in the mail because I'd purchased a certain kind of toilet cleaner (weird, right!?). I love that, in a way, I was able to knit my son a guitar!

During this time, other non-monetary bonuses kept popping up.  I "bought" Amazon gift cards with my Swagbucks balance.  If you haven't signed up for Swagbucks yet, please feel free to use my link: http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/sarahrobinson.  I used them to buy the really cool baseball bat and the throwing knives (these may end up being a temporary gift that is confiscated until he's a bit older!).  I even had enough left over to buy a Polly Pocket helicopter, two books, and a guitar tuner.   Then, Meijer had an mPerks offer for $30 off of my next general merchandise purchase.  Woody from Toy Story costs $39.99, so just $9.99 after the mPerks!  At this point, I am astounded that I've only spent roughly ten dollars of our "real" money on my children's Christmas gifts and gotten them everything they wanted.  I bought them a few other things as well, but I didn't spend anywhere near the amount I anticipated. 

Homeschooling 2012

Today is the end of our third week of homeschooling this school year.  A recent conversation with a friend who also home schools her children (and who has been a tremendous source of inspiration and encouragement!) made me think about my family's homeschooling journey.  Three years ago, after much prayer and research, my husband and I made the decision to home school.

Three years ago at this time, I was overwhelmed, holding a newborn baby, reminding my children to pay attention for the millionth time, traveling back and forth to the hospital to visit my husband who was recovering from yet another surgery, and certain that I made a terrible mistake by choosing to home school.  I thought back to the summer when we made this decision and was sure it must have been a moment of pregnancy craziness.  Everyone knows you shouldn't make life-altering decisions during the third trimester!  But, here I was in a big, heaping pile of the chaos as I tried to make sense of our homeschooling curriculum, grade books, planning, and teaching, while nursing a newborn, keeping my house semi-clean, going to soccer practices, doctor visits, and spending time in surgery waiting rooms.  It was one of those places in my life when I was doing lots of things, but none of them were being done well.  I've been in those places more than once and they're not a fun place to be!

I am glad that I had many family members and friends praying for us during that time!  My husband eventually came home from the hospital, the newborn baby adapted to our family and the process of planning and teaching and record-keeping became less-intimidating.  Three years later, I am sure that I heard God clearly when he spoke to my heart about homeschooling.  I feel very confident that I am not going to "mess up" my children's education.  I'm not easily frustrated when my lesson plan and actual school day do not even resemble one another.  I'm okay with giving my children Honey Bunches of Oats for lunch or knitting an Etsy order while one of the boys reads our Science lesson to save time.  I've found a Math curriculum that practically teaches itself.  And if my three-year-old empties her dresser and tries on every bathing suit she owns while I'm teaching History, that's fine by me.

The Robinson's house is much more relaxed these days.  When I remember those first few weeks of homeschooling and the circumstances surrounding them, I am reminded of how blessed I am today.  My husband is as healthy as he can be (seasonal changes are never easy for Crohn's Disease) and he's not in the hospital.  My kids are all three becoming responsible, respectful, intelligent, kind, compassionate, wonderful warriors for Christ.  I am keeping busy with just the right amount of Etsy orders.  And most importantly, God is in the center of all of this.  We still have our days when nothing I do can make my children remember how to spell the word "substitute" or no one can remember what the lowest common denominator means, someone older than age five asks me if December comes after October and I wonder if a mother's brain can actually explode.  I have moments when I feel like I am not teaching the right material or that I don't have enough time to teach my kids everything I want them to learn.  Experience and time have shown me that I need only to trust God and everything will work out just the way he planned.

Our memory verse this week was Philippians 4:19: "And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus."  I'm grateful for His faithfulness and his provision in ALL circumstances.  Thankfully He gave me just enough strength and hope to continue teaching our kids.  It would have been extremely easy to give up on homeschooling and send my kids back to public schools, where they would receive an education, along with exposure to the undesirable things of this world that we work so hard to protect and shelter them from.  Homeschooling is hard work, but the rewards are better than anything I ever imagined.  

My Would-Be Due Date: August 29, 2012

Since my miscarriage in January, not a single day (hour maybe?) has gone by that I haven't thought about it.  Most of the time, it's just a passing thought, as I think about how far along I'd be or how big the baby would be.  But sometimes, it overwhelms me so much that I find my heart breaking all over again.  This week is proving to be especially hard for me since our baby was due on August 29th.  Seven months later and the thought that I should be getting ready to bring a baby home from the hospital is still floating around in my mind.

Yesterday, as I played baby dolls with my daughter and watched how loving and sweet she is with pretend babies, I lost it.  She often asks me for a friend and points out that Ian and Brodie are friends, but she doesn't have a sister.  Ellery asked me if I was crying because I missed Great Papa. I know she was trying to remember a time in her life when she had seen me this upset and my grandpa's funeral came into her mind.  I told her I was just sad and she said, "It's okay, Momma.  You will see Papa again someday.  He's with Jesus."

I thanked God for the comfort he sent to me in the words of a two-year-old.  I had the World's Most Wonderful Grandpa and I thought of him holding my baby in Heaven.  A few days before he died in June, he told me he wanted to hold my "other baby, the baby girl."  When I told him Ellery is the only baby girl I have, he told me I was wrong and he would hold my other baby later.  This delightful old man said lots of things that didn't make sense toward the end of his life, so I didn't think much of it.  But now I'm thankful for his seemingly crazy talk.  And I am thankful I have a grandpa who walked with Christ, who is now in Heaven loving on the baby I haven't gotten to meet yet.

Often, I wonder about those who don't know Christ.  How do they make it through each day?  How do they endure a miscarriage with no hope of ever seeing their baby in Heaven?  Anger and sadness must overtake their lives.  Even on my hardest days of healing from this loss, I know that God's hands are wrapped around my life and He loves me.  How amazing and wonderful to know that the Creator of the entire universe has chosen me to be His child and he holds every tear I've ever cried.

I always seem to turn to Psalms when I need encouragement.  There is always a verse that speaks directly to my heart.  Psalm 62:1-2 says:  "Hear my cry, O God; listen to my prayer.  From the ends of the earth I call to you, I call as my heart grows faint; lead me to the rock that is higher than I."

What an awesome reminder that when we are feeling overwhelmed, we need to seek God and his wisdom, rather than attempt to figure it out on our own.  I may never know why my miscarriage happened, but I know the One who does.  And I trust Him.

Play Doh Boogers and Other Things God Blessed Me With

I love weeks where things fall into place, even when they don't go the way I had planned.  My dear husband had an unhealthy week altogether.  This kind of thing can really disrupt my organized, meticulously planned week of homeschooling and running my household. God has *finally* shown me over the past few years, though, that this is not necessarily a bad thing and that it is part of HIS plan anyway.  His plan is always better than mine.  :)

What began as some pesky little Crohn's Disease symptoms, escalated to the point that he had to remain in bed for a few days.  When he finally began to recover, an infected tooth sent him to the dentist for repair.  Thankfully, all of his ailments are resolved now and we're enjoying a laid-back weekend!

During this week, I had many moments where I stopped just to think about HOW I was juggling so much at once.  Don't misunderstand, this week had nothing on the weeks that Doug is in the hospital recovering from surgery, but it was a challenging week, nonetheless.  Time and time again, God gave me just what my family needed to make our life feel less hectic and even productive.  Ellery was beyond excited to play Play Doh during school one day--for two hours straight!  She ended up making "boogers" out of the green Play Doh (those brothers teach her well!) and I had to stop often to look at her many creations, but that time she kept busy was a very appreciated gift.  And so, I thanked God that day for Play Doh Boogers.

 
I was able to start and finish a cute pair of monkey slippers during my breaks (aka: naptime).   You can check them out on my Etsy site: http://www.etsy.com/listing/89849288/knitted-monkey-slippers


I also found a wonderful web site for making tests.  If you home school your children, I highly recommend this free web site:  https://www.easytestmaker.com/default.aspx.  A BIG time-saver for me!

Christmas Tree Hunting

 

We got our Christmas tree on Friday, a sixty-degree day in late November, a rare treat in Michigan!  After searching and searching, we finally found "the" tree.  On our tree-hunting adventure, we ran into some dear friends.  I love how God always surrounds us with people we love.  They found the perfect tree as well--who would have thought that there would be TWO perfect trees right next to each other!?  :)

Our friends, Jay and Shannon, with their adorable boys, Brayden and Camden.

Watching Dad chop down the tree is always so interesting!

Ian, Brodie, Ellery, and I with our freshly chopped Christmas tree.

Welcome To My New Blog!

Not long ago, I was sitting in yet another waiting room, re-reading magazines I'd read the last time I was there.  I was frustrated with so much of my time being consumed with waiting and feeling unproductive.  Later that day, I mentioned on Facebook that I wanted to learn how to knit so that I could use my waiting to create something.  I was overwhelmed at the number of people who offered to teach me!  Thankfully, one of my neighbors brought over some yarn and a pair of needles and patiently showed my how to knit.

God chose for me to be the wife of my husband, Doug, who has ongoing medical issues that require many surgeries, hospital stays, and doctor visits.  Doug has Crohn's Disease, which had caused just a couple of simple surgeries and mild health issues over the course of our marriage.  But in the summer of 2009, when I was six months pregnant with our third child, Doug's health changed dramatically.  A trip to the emergency room with an obstructed bowel turned into a Staph Infection, a surgical wound that took over a year to heal even with the use of a wound vacuum, and multiple other surgeries to remove scar tissue, portions of intestine and colon.  He has yet to experience complete healing and currently has a partial bowel obstruction that may or may not become fully-obstructed.  We've learned to stop questioning this and are content with living in the middle of God's will for our family.

What a journey this has been and continues to be, for not just Doug and I, but also for our three amazing, godly, beautiful, hilarious, wonderful children: Ian (13), Brodie (10) and Ellery (2).  What sometimes seems like a burden is also an indescribable blessing.  It's one thing to believe that God is the Almighty Healer; but when you're in the midst of sickness and still believe that, it takes tremendous faith.  For God to give my family that kind of faith is a miracle to me!  To know that God is using this storm to show us parts of himself that we could not see otherwise is an honor.   

We began homeschooling in the fall of 2010, an adventure that both encourages and disappoints me on a regular basis!  I love watching my kids learn and grow in ways that I would never witness if they were attending a traditional school. Seeing them wanting to find answers to big questions and listening to them tell me about the latest book they want to read is extremely rewarding.  It can also make me crazy when one of my boys can't remember what nine times six is, though they have known how to multiply for a long time or when they complain that homeschooling is way harder than public school.  I am grateful to have the opportunity to teach my children at home, especially when life gets messy.

God has also continuously provided for our family, giving us contentment without having a lot of "stuff".  I left my full-time job as a Business Office Manager to take care of my family, reducing our income by more than half.  I'm glad I didn't know at the time how long this season would last, but so far, God has not let us go without anything we need. We've definitely had to go without many things in the past few years.  Hopefully, my children will look back on this time in their childhood and remember how God's hand was on all of it.  Knowing that we serve an awesome Lord who will provide for us makes my heart filled with joy.

I am excited that all of the waiting and praying and tearful news has brought me to where I am at this moment and to this new blog about my knitting adventures.  Knitting and praying just go together, so I've been doing a lot of both!  I've recently opened an Etsy shop to sell what I've been creating.  This has given me a feeling of accomplishment and calmness in the middle of what can often feel like chaos!  Please visit my Etsy shop at: http://www.etsy.com/shop/TheRobinsonsHouse  and let me know what you think!