Christina

I started this blog mainly for the simple reason of keeping a journal. I feel like sometime life hits us so hard with obstacles that we tend to overlook the daily blessings that God gives us to sustain us through our trials. Journaling is my way of recognizing the beauty of each trial placed before me, because of what it does to my relationship with God, my father. He is always there for me and always makes everything so beautiful, even when I continuously get in His way. 

The struggle to have a child and create a family that follows after the heart of God has actually not been my biggest obstacle this year. I started a girls home for recovering addicts just so that I could help these girls see the beauty of restoration in their own lives. I am a prime example of doing everything all wrong. The "chief of sinners" as my pastor always says. But my life is also a prime example of what God can do with us when we step out of the way, surrender to Him and trust in His plan for us. 

That example is what I try so hard to show my girls. The most difficult task in my life at this point is that. Trying to conceive a child has been heartbreaking and scary and frustrating and confusing, and so many other emotions....but trying to show young women who are so sick, so wrapped up in their addictions and pain, that there is a better way, is almost impossible. Almost...

The first day we open our women's home, The Titus House, we had so many hopes and expectations for our new ministry. We just knew that our home would be blessed in such a way that would show the world who God is, how He can change lives. Restore broken hearts to new again, heal the sick, bring love back into the hearts of these deprived young women. 

We poured our hearts into that home working day and night for weeks to get it ready for these girls. We tried so hard to make this house a home, not just another "halfway" house. Because in our minds, nothing was going to be done halfway in this home. 

We had 14 freshly made beds ready for occupancy. We were ready to change lives! There was no doubt that within the first month, we would have all 14 beds occupied and I would be pouring my heart into these girls who would clearly hang on my every word and do exactly as I instructed to find peace and healing in their lives!

Ya right! Day one we got one girl. A beautiful girl named Christina. She was excited and grateful and so bubbly and full of life! We loved her from the moment we met her. 

Day 2 Amanda. Everything Christina was not. Sad, scared, no family, bitter, angry.... very angry, and extremely self destructive. 

We went 3 months with 2 girls and one or two who floated in and out not really trying to recover, just needed a minute to regroup before their next run. 

O.k. so not exactly what we expected but we can work with 2 girls. Our financial plan went out the window but God can provide and 2 girls is better than none, I thought. 

Christina had a strong family support. Her mother was extremely involved and her father was her rock. We encouraged her to follow the plan of her parents and listen to them before anyone else, even us, in order to restore her broken relationship with them first and foremost. And she did. She was a very compliant girl who respected authority and really gave us no trouble at all. In fact, she was so good that I started to think she must be really sneaky and know exactly what to do and say to keep herself under the radar. That theory proved wrong later on.

So our focus was on Amanda. And what a roller coaster Amanda took us on. She didn't just have addiction issues she had an eating disorder, cutting disorder, mood disorder and of course, daddy disorder. This girl needed so much love but had no idea how to receive it . She fought every good thing I tried to do for her and every good word I tried to speak into her life. My house manager at the time had no tolerance for her and actually became extremely hard on her and on Christina. 

These girls needed nothing more than someone to show them that no matter how far they fall, they can always find a way to get back up yet inside my home, when I was not there, they were being told that they would never recover and never get better. My house, my ministry,  became destructive for them simply because I had a manager who although spoke about god constantly, actually knew nothing about Him or His character, not my God anyway. 

3 months after we opened Titus we got just one more woman. The decision had to be made at that point weather to close down this beautiful home that we had so much hope and dreams for, or to make some changes and start over. It was clear that God was not allowing our house to grow but I could not figure out why. My heart and soul went into this house and the girls in it. I knew that there must be another reason why and God revealed it to me when He allowed my manager to just leave one day with the simple explanation of "I am leaving and taking all the girls with me" in a text message. 

Long story short, Amanda left with her. It broke my heart. But out of the clear blue sky after being so wrapped up with the drama and the ups and downs of Amanda's life, Christina, my girl who flew under the radar all this time, calls me in a panic from work.

Christina wanted to speak to me so desperately to tell me that she loves and trust Ryan and I so much that she would never just leave the house based on someone else's decision to leave. She went into the details of the past few months and how she had watched Ryan and I run the house and really respected what we had been trying to accomplish. She knew it was difficult, especially with so little clients, but she wanted to make sure I knew she was sticking by my side no matter what.

Here is the crazy part of this. There are so many other details involved but the bottom line is, I was trying so hard to help this sick girl, doing and doing and doing, and getting no response, no respect and no results and I had this other girl (who I really didn't pour into that much because she already had very wise parents directing her), watching the whole thing and seeing my heart behind all my efforts. How is it that the girl I was trying to help could not see it but her roomate, who I was not even directly dealing with, could!? What a gem! Christina was like a true diamond in the rough. 

God played this all out so beautifully because my relationship with Christina from that moment on became one of trust, mutual respect and love. All along it was Christina that God was working through while I tried so hard in my own efforts to get Amanda to see Gods glory. God was working on the heart of whom He chose to work on. 

How much more beautiful is that when you wake up one day and think God why aren't you helping me with this ministry and all along HE WAS. I just wasn't listening or seeing it. My heart was so determined to "fix" Amanda but God had other plans...Christina...

So here she was, my new manager. Supportive, trusting and willing. She was always so willing. Right after we made Christina manager on January 1, we filled up with 9 girls within that same month. God knew what He was doing all along. 

Christina has been with me since day one of my ministry. We have had so many crazy days, so many unbelievable things happen that just don't happen in real life, but they happened to us. She has stuck by my side every inch of the way and gone above and beyond my expectations of a manager for this home. 

There are times when her and I will talk and we will try to name all the girls that we have had come in and out of the house this past year. There is about 20, maybe more....but none like Christina, sadly. She is the exception to all the rules. 

Recovery is a funny thing. No matter how hard these girls want it, they just simply refuse to submit to it. They think they can conquer it their way. They think they can create their own recovery plan, or just be sober but not change their behaviors. Its heartbreaking to watch a woman with so much potential, destroy herself over and over and over again. But the bottom line is, these girls, they don't have love. Somewhere along the path of their life, their perception of love was skewed. Somewhere along the path, they changed their thinking and turned to drugs or alcohol to replace that pain that pierced them so deeply that they could no longer stand to live with it. 

I know because I was that same girl. No I did not turn to drugs or alcohol, but I had my addictions. I had my destructive behaviors that I used to cover my shame, my pain and my sadness. The bottom line is that we all have those feelings of fear and loneliness, we are all broken, drugs and alcohol is just a side effect of the real problems. And for most of us the real problem is love, or lack thereof. How can we ever turn our back on these girls who just cry out for love. They do it in the most destructive way but all they really want is to be loved. And at this point, God is the only one who can fill that void. 

And nobody wants to hear about my God. This past year and a half, I have often said to Ryan we are not making a difference. Titus hasn't changed lives, our dreams didn't come true, these girls just don't listen, they don't want to hear what i have to say. Titus is a failure.

 But then, I think of Chrissy. She is the one, the only one who has been the reason Titus has NOT been a failure. And isn't one life being changed just as important as 14 or 25 or 50? Of course it is. Our ministry has changed the life of one girl and for that I am so truly blessed. 

Christina is now leaving us. She is moving onto to continue her education and start her life again. She has been restored and it is so bittersweet. I don't know what I will do next. I don't know if I have the heart to continue without her but what I do know is that when I see her transformation, I know that it is only through the Grace of God and His hand upon her life that she has truly made this change. 

With God's help, Christina finally decided for herself it was time to make a change. But the foundation was laid for her when she was just a little girl. The love and comfort she received from her mother and the confidence and strength she learned from having a daddy who has always been her rock. These things are irreplaceable in a young girls life. These things are things that had we all had, we may not have led the destructive lives  we had to lead. Christina's parents gave her something that was originally intended by God for us all to have and that was the nurturing of a mother and the strong loving hand of a father. 

My husband being raised much like Christina, comes from a family that also is not perfect, but not broken either. All of his remarkable qualities come from his foundation of family,  and as a man, his fathers heavy hand. Not since Ryan had I seen someone like Christina with such solid morals and such confidence in her abilities as a young women. She had the security always having her dad to turn to and the loving arms of her mother to always cry with her and feel the pain with her when she is down. 

Gods plan for family was to show the world who He is, to explain to all of us what unconditional love looks like. The purpose of parents to a child is to be the example to our Father in Heaven to us. The same truth and love, grace and mercy that Gods expresses to us, our mother and father also do. The purpose of siblings is to learn to take the grace and mercy that our parents teach us and try it out on them. Once we begin to show that to our family, we then take it out into the world and show it to others. 

Christina has done that, she has been so graceful and so merciful with even those girls who didn't respect her or her position. And I applaud her for that. God placed this broken girl in Titus but also knew the foundation in which she was raised and knew it would rise above all the other lives in that house, not in a way to look down upon them, but in a way that would help build them up higher. My Titus girls don't know the Lord just yet, and most of them, don't know the special bond of family,  but Christina has been the example of Gods grace that God would want us to be to others, and the only family that these girls may ever know, and honestly, what more could I have ever imagined for my ministry. 

I don't know how much Christina has learned from me, but I have learned so much from her. If I ever get the chance to have a little girl, I can only hope that she would be as beautifully spirited as this young women. She is tenacious, strong willed, intelligent, diligent, responsible, funny, clumsy, awkward and beautiful all at the same time. I will miss her more than I can express but I am so honored to have shared this past year with her. She was my grace from God. Gods mercy on my ministry this year was Christina. She was the gift that He placed right before me that I didn't see for 3 months. Christina is my blessing and her story is the worlds blessing. Her life as it is today is one of honor and dignity. She isn't just drug free or alcohol free, she is free. God has given her back her wings and I am so eager to watch her soar . 

Not my will but Yours Lord...

So here it is December 4th 2013. It was February when we lost our pregnancy. I am still not pregnant. This phase of my journey with Christ has brought more pain and disappointment then I would have wanted to experience. Why? Because I had a plan. I had a plan to have a baby before I turned 38. When that didn't happen, my plan was to celebrate our first wedding anniversary with a pregnancy. After July 14th came and went, I planned to be pregnant for my trip to see my oldest son in Virginia, to announce it to him right before he travels overseas. When we went to Virginia, there was no announcement, there was no pregnancy.But it was o.k because I was sure it would happen for the holiday. My plan would be to announce our pregnancy at the dinner table Thanksgiving day, surprising my in-laws, my mother, with a new grandchild, the first for my in-laws.

Every month has brought more and more obstacles and more and more altering of my plans. What is going on here. I am Miss, Make things happen. Why can't I make this happen. Excuse me God, can't you see I have a plan! Work with me !

After 6 more months of trying to have a child after the miscarriage, I scheduled an appointment with my OBGYN. I explained to him that with my blood mutation and my lack of time (remember I am on a schedule!) I needed to see a specialist. Oh and a very aggressive would be great, thank you.

A week later there I was being told by the specialist that he would get me pregnant. Duh! That's the plan! For the next 4 weeks I went through the entire work up of the initial diagnostic testing. It was exhausting. And invasive. Every week there was a new stranger looking at my insides, poking and protting and sticking. It was awful. And I did it all with a great big smile on my face. Because this just a stepping stone in my plan, a bridge to cross to get the prize at the end and I was happy to do it.

Ryan....not so much. There may have been a point where he muttered something along the lines of "Did we pray about this before deciding to send me to a bathroom in a doctors office with a cup" And not for a urine sample either, I might add. "Baby this is just a formality. Do what you need to do, be proactive!" I told him as I shoved him through the bathroom door.

Fast forward to result day. Long story short as we sat in front of our doctor hearing that between the two of us it was highly, and he emphasized the word highly, like he suddenly became Jewish, "hhhhighly" unlikely that we would get pregnant naturally. In fact, here is his plan.

We start clomid asap. We monitor my follicles, stimulate ovulation with an HCG hormone trigger shot, intrauterally inseminate me (IUI) and wait two weeks to find out it if it works. Oh and the chances are about 20% that I will actually conceive. If that doesn't work after 4 tries, we move to a more aggressive plan of In Vitro fertilization, (IVF). Sounds good to me when can we get started?

Now don't get me wrong. The past 9 months Ryan and I have been in heavy prayer. We have fallen to our knees and begged God to speak to us about this issue. We have begged him month after month to have mercy on us and give us a child. We know that He is the ultimate decision maker. However, because I have felt so responsible, because it was my body that didn't hold the baby, I have felt it was me who had to fix things. I just knew I was the one who had to make this happen.

In November we started the entire process. The doctors were actually extremely encouraging regarding our chances. My body responded extremely well to the medications and I produced 3 large follicles, giving me 3 chances of conceiving! My estrogen level the day of the IUI was 1040. The doctors like to see a level of 200-300 per follicle. That means each one of my 3 follicles had strong viable eggs! My progesterone 7 days after the procedure was 49! It only needed to be 10 to confirm ovulation. Everything was "more than perfect" the doctor said.

Our 2 week waiting period fell right at the last 2 weeks of the month. Our HCG beta test to determine pregnancy was scheduled for November 27th. The two week wait was the easiest part. It was the day we were to get the results that was so overwhelming. We scheduled our test for early morning so we would be sure to get the call with the results that same day. We went about our business just knowing that God was about to bless us with a pregnancy.

Ryan went to get a haircut and I went to do my Thanksgiving grocery shopping right next door. And that's when I got the call. "I'm sorry you are not pregnant." ......no, I'm sorry.....WHAAAT!

But everything worked so perfectly, it was so....PERFECT! More than perfect ! And yet she wasn't wrong. There was no mix-up with the tests. There was no mistake from the lab. We simply were not pregnant...again.

I left the groceries in the cart and ran out of the store before the tears could fall from my eyes. I waited for Ryan outside and when I saw him, saw his face, I let it all go. The tears and the questions. This was just truly exhausting. As my husband sat there on the bench outside Publix shopping center, holding me and praying over me, over the situation, I started to realize I was really NOT in control. I wasn't even riding shotgun. I didn't just realize it, I welcomed it.

I was tired. I was so hormonal that my husbands new nickname for me was Sybil. I had tried everything. I spent month after month with doctor google creating the perfect supplement plan for my MTHFR gene mutation. I was taking my baby aspirin for a good 6 months now just to make sure there was no evidence of clotting for when I did get pregnant. I made a mean Maca powder shake to boost our fertility. I introduced zinc and fish oil into my husbands diet to ensure his motility was strong, I charted my days, Everything was perfectly prepared. Where did I GO WRONG!

Where did I go wrong?! Where do I start? I start all the way back to the beginning. To the day when I gave my life over to Christ. The day I accepted HIM as not just my Savior but Lord....over my life.

Thanksgiving day was a blur. I was tired (have I mentioned I was tired?). I spent the whole day thinking about God and thinking about my plan. My plan. I can't even go as far as saying it was Ryan and I's plan. Sure my husband wants a child more than anything. But he was just a passenger along for the ride. He showed up at the appointments he needed to show up at. He paid attention, listened to the doctors. He took all the new vitamins and shakes I laid in front of him. He did it all, without letting it consume him, even the IUI procedure. But not me, I had absolutely let this consume me. It became my mission to make this happen. My husband just became a crucial player. And God? At some point along the way, I must have said to Him "You go relax for a while, I got this", although I can't even remember at what point that was.

Funny how you want something so badly, something that lines up with Gods Word. Something that you know He wants to give you. So you take it upon yourself to decide how and when you are going to get it. Because honestly, having a family is a blessing from God so why would it be wrong to actively seek to achieve something that is a blessing from God?

Its not wrong. But what is wrong is to ask God to sit this one out. Truthfully, I didn't even realize I had done that. But here I was wracking my brain trying to figure out why this thing that we wanted so badly was not happening in my timing when I heard God say to me, Have you asked Me about My timing?

Ummmmm.....I prayed to You God. I prayed all the way through this whole process! I held onto scripture that pertained to our situation. I listened to doctors, followed their protocol, kept all my appointments. I even listened to testimonies about other believers and how You blessed them with their children.

But did you ever stop to listen to Me, He said. And that's when it hit me. No. I hadn't.

I was so busy planning, doing, researching, scheduling, charting, talking, crying, whining! I never stopped to actually listen. I couldn't remember the last time I had just found a quiet place to go and listen for Gods voice. Listen for His direction. Listen to His plan. And in all of this chaos and madness that I created, all He wanted was me. He waited so patiently. He never gave up. And when God knew I was finally done, He spoke. I was so tired of doing, that I had nowhere else to turn but to my Father. And He was there.

He had always been there. Just like He had always been there when I was a little girl, scared and afraid praying to a God that no one had ever taught me about but I knew existed. He was there every single time in my life that I grew tired and had nowhere else to turn but to Him. God has never let me down. Even before I knew He was there, He was there.

How beautiful a thing to have a Father like Him. One who loves us so much that He allows us to go, only so we can return, realizing that we need Him. Knowing what it's like to follow our own plan and then experiencing His plan in all its beauty. His plan is always beautiful. He is always beautiful. And He is always there.

I rejoice in my God and His plan. I rejoice because I know what I create when I try to do things my way. And I am so glad that God has put enough of a boundary in my life that He allows me to run in circles inside those boundaries until I grow tired, only to give in to Him and His will. I want to please Him and I want my life to reflect His Glory and He knows that. That is why He never gives up on me, because He knows the desires of my heart. He knows that when I finally come to my stubborn senses that I will always turn back to Him and say Lord I need You.

Could I still get pregnant with doctors and procedures and insemination, absolutely. Are the chances that I get pregnant without doctors and procedures still slim to none, yep they still are. Could it be Gods will that I do it that way, absolutely. Or could God still provide a miracle and give us a natural pregnancy with no doctors and no procedures? Yes! God can do whatever He chooses to do! he could give us a child, or maybe He won't. But the point is not that anymore.

The point is that I don't have to make anything happen. I am not the responsible party over my life anymore. God is. He wants to be. He wants to take this journey with me, not just be a spectator. He wants to lead us in our lives to a better way. His way brings comfort and security, love, so much love....and a much much better way.

His way does not disappoint. The disappointment I have been feeling, it was all because my plan had not been met. But God's, well that is still working, and I am anxiously awaiting His plan. I surrender, with faith, my will and accept my Fathers will in it's place.

If I have learned anything these past years as a Christian it's that my life as a believer does not have to have any expectations on it. Do I strive to be perfect like Jesus, yes always. But I have learned to embrace my mistakes with God because with each mistake I make, the reconciliation to Him is just so amazing. Its not about being perfect the first time, or the second or third. It's about recognizing that we are not perfect and that God rejoices with us in that because it draws us closer to Him and His perfect way. He loves that. He loves us, in all our flaws and craziness, He loves us anyway. And He sees us as we were intended to be, beautifully transformed, fearfully and wonderfully made, by our Creator, our Father who will never, ever leave us or forsake us.

Lord I just want to lift your name up to the highest of high places today. I am so grateful that you chose me to love when I am such a mess. But I rejoice with you today God because if I was not a mess, then I wouldn't need a Savior and Lord, I do need you. I need you and I love you Lord. I surrender all to you again, today. I am so sorry God for taking matters into my own hands and making plans without even waiting on You to speak. I no longer want to be in the lead, I want to step back and let You do what You do best. In the end, when all this is said and done, the glory God will all go to You. Because there is nothing I can add to this situation except acceptance and obedience. And I choose that every time. Because YOU do not disappoint, Jesus...