My Story-Part 6

Continually Trusting God in Blessing and Strife

Eventually, like with most marriages, Ben and I desired to expand our family.  We tried and tried and tried. For six months we tried. I know that doesn't seem like a long time, but when 13 (yes, I counted one day) of your closest friends are all expecting or unexpectedly expecting, six months seems like forever.

I haven't mentioned before is that Ben already had a child when we got married. AB is a sweet, loving, innocent boy. AB’s mom is not in our life—we rarely hear from her even when we try contacting her. 

During this time of not being able to get pregnant, I was constantly reminded of how easy it was for AB’s mom to get pregnant and how easy it was for her to leave him behind. In my heart of hearts, I wanted to have a child grow inside of me and I would love them forever and ever—but for whatever reason I couldn’t get pregnant and she so easily could. It didn’t seem fair. Why was God doing this to me?

Are you noticing a pattern: When things go wrong I'd just jump to blaming God. 

So why wasn’t I getting pregnant? At 21,I was diagnosed with stage four endometriosis, along with it's evil twin Interstitial Cystitis. Luckily, my gynecologist was very proactive and said we would only have to try on our own for six months, then she would send us to a specialist. 

Six months came and went, and off to a fertility specialist we went. 

But, I began to see we were leaning on ourselves and the world for we wanted, so I decided to pray. Wherever I could find people willing to pray for me, I asked them to pray for I would get pregnant. I wanted a child of my own to connect with more than anything.  

Maybe to fill that void again? 

Test after test proved I also had Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. I wondered if this was God's way of getting back at me for having sex before marriage. I cried out to Him, in desperation for a child. I, of course, know now that God doesn’t get back at us. He doesn’t strike us down because of what we’ve done. If that was the case he wouldn't have sent his ONE AND ONLY child to die on a cross just so to strike us down. Instead, He sent His son to save us, because He loves us. We see this in the Bible, in the Book of John. 

 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.  (John 3: 16-17 ESV)

Soon after I realized that God was not punishing me, but indeed he Love me, I started treatment for my PCOS, we were able to conceive a beautiful little girl!

 And oh, did the Lord know I would need a little girl. Don’t get me wrong—my son, AB, is amazing, but he is all BOY! He is a stinky, dirty, play with bugs and do sports type of boy. He won't sit and color with me, he won't cook with me, he doesn't enjoy doing girlie things with me. But, our daughter, EJ, is a tutu wearing, baby doll playing, girlie girl. In fact as I sit her typing this, she has: played doctor on me, colored me a picture and sat down next to me just to hang out. Okay, even though she is totally girlie girl, she totally adores her big brother and all that he does, she gets dirty right along with him, then realizes she is dirty and yells about it. The two together are quite the package for this momma. 

Every Season a New Chapter with God

Ben and I have now been married for five and a half years. AB is nine and EJ is two. We have recently uprooted our family and moved from the midwest to the south. We've had to rely more on God now then we have before as we don't have family here and we have a small, but growing, community of believers in our lives. 

This move is just another season in our life, but it has helped me to truly see God moving. He didn’t just start moving—He’s been moving ever since that I was born. Throughout my childhood of going to church and not really understating the Bible stories, verse, confirmation classes, and more. He was building a foundation for later. Throughout my teenage years of messing up, getting hurt, and being angry at Him, He was working it so that I’d eventually give Him my whole life. And throughout my early adult years he was also working so as a family we’d depend on Him in every good and bad situation. 

As you read my blog and watch me grow, I hope you will see him move in my life and in your life as well. Thank you for reading my story. Remember its not over, its just beginning of another chapter.

In Him

#warriorprincessKJ

My Story-Part 5

Not Happily Ever After, but Better

It could be easy to think that after marrying Ben everything would be like a fairy tale. But that’s not really what happened for us—in fact it wasn’t even a fairy tale honeymoon. Or much of a honeymoon at all!

I like to make sure Ben knows we never got a real honeymoon. Even if we could redo it, later in marriage, it’s just called vacation. Here’s what happened…

On the plane from Minnesota to Texas, Ben asked me for the vomit bag. Before I knew what he wanted, I was covered.  We changed out of our puke covered clothes on our layover in Texas, but at the gate for our flight to Mexico, Ben got sick again, and threw up three more times. 

I was freaking out wondering what was going on with my new husband, should we be going to Mexico, what are we thinking? But Ben felt ready to go, so we boarded the plane. Sitting on the plane to Mexico, I looked over at ben and he was gray, about to pass out. I paged the flight attendant. Asked her if we could have a cold wash cloth, he wasn’t feeling good, he kind of felt like he was going to pass out. Flight attendant by day, nurse by night, she asked, “does he fly a lot, maybe he is just nervous?” My response, “Well, he is a pilot.” 

Instantly, a doctor and physician’s assistant sitting around us came to our aid. The flight attendant, knowing something wasn’t right, set in motion a gate return and had an ambulance called. At the emergency room, Ben was diagnosed with a stomach bug, and dehydration. 

We were not going to Mexico. We spent the first night of our honeymoon far from Mexico in a hotel room, that cost less than the room service we ordered.  We flew home the next day, but not together. I flew home and Ben had to use his original ticket back to Minnesota, as he was scheduled to go back to work right after our week in Mexico. Do you know anyone else who got to have dinner with JUST their in-laws on their honeymoon? Not my husband, just his parents. It was sweet and it is something we can laugh at now, but at the time, I was so angry. 

So our honeymoon was far from a fairy tale. All I can remember is wondering, why? Why, Lord, why?

Why did I not get to go on a honeymoon? After the stress of planning a wedding at a long distance and the stress of graduating and finding a real job, that was all I was looking forward to. I was so disappointed, I was so discouraged, I was so angry! I still don’t know why things happened the way they did. 

What I do know, is that God did not want us to go to Mexico, and he made sure we didn’t make it. 

But the marriage is more important than the wedding and honeymoon, right? That was no fairy tale right away either. As good as our relationship started by going to church and me coming to Christ, our marriage started differently.

Ben and I were surviving, getting along, doing things on our own and certainly not relying on God. Six months into marriage Ben lost his medical certificate—major thing a pilot needs to fly. When a pilot loses his medical certificate, he stops being able to work. Wow! Did we ever find ourselves in trial!

We were newly married, trying to figure out how to live with each other, and supporting ourselves. We were no longer being taken care of by our parents and we also no longer had two paychecks.  And my job didn’t even cover my student loan debt, let along our daily bills. 

How would this work? How could we survive? What should we do?

Notice the questions floating through our minds: They were asking how we would do it, not how He would do it. This was the first time I realized we weren’t relying on God in our marriage. We weren’t doing it right. This is the first time I remember turing to God—really turing to God. 

We made a lot of plans. We made plans for ourselves by ourselves. The plans weren’t made by God, but by just us. Every plan we made fell apart. I no longer felt married—I felt like I shared a bed with a male roommate. We were not talking to each other well. We were not making plans together. We were talking to everyone but the two people we needed to be to talk to—each other and God. I screamed out to God so confused and so lost.

One bright spot in Ben being laid off from work, was he was home on weekends, which meant we could attend church together. We were able to try out a different church we had been interested in. It happened to be Adoption Sunday and the Lord spoke to us both, he told us both we belonged at that church, that He wanted us there. We looked at each other in the car and just both knew that we had both felt the same thing. 

God was working in us. We started relying on God more than ourselves. Ben ever got his medical back and was able to fly again. God was paving paths for us. 

My Story-Part 4

Unfillable Void

Life continued on after my confession. However, I also continued to try fill the void in my heart. Later I found out this void was because I was missing a relationship with Jesus Christ, but I didn’t know that at the time. So instead of Christ, I found Tony.

 Tony was grand. He was a big tough guy with a sensitive side. I told him my story. I told him I wasn’t ready, and he held me while I cried. He helped me work through the pain. He even basically quoted my brother. So I felt I had a strong man that would protect me should Chris ever show up again. But no man can truly fill that void. I saw a future with Tony, so I started clinging to him like I should have been clinging to God. This pushed Tony away, right into another girl’s bed. 

Then I met Garrett. and found my way into his arms and his bed. Garrett wanted me and I wanted to be wanted.  So even though he tore me away from all my friends, and close family and my parents hated him, that really didn’t matter. At 17, I thought I knew it all and I found someone who wanted me for me.

I transferred colleges to one near Garrett, but within a month it was over. Sadly, it took Garrett threatening to kill himself for my attention for me to wake up and realize I was in another abusive relationship. Only this time it was emotional and mental rather than physical, but it was abusive nonetheless.

 One week later I met Ben. Oh man, did Ben make my heart flutter! We met online, in a chat room, as with all the men before. Only, this time was different. 

A Fresh Start

By this point in my life, I started to see that something was missing from my life. I could tell that these boys weren’t comforting anymore. After high school graduation I had stopped going to church unless it was with family—but only then to please them. But now I wasn’t quite so mad at God and had started missing Him. 

Soon after we met, Ben picked me up for our first date. Boy, was he cute. He held open doors for me: dorm doors, car doors; if it was a door, Ben was holding it open. This was October 28 (that’s a familiar date!) we went to Applebee’s, he paid and I was in Love. The last two boys, never had money, both had full time jobs, but no money for dates. 

Then, for our second date, Ben took me to church. 

Can you believe it? Here I was a “mad at God” girl going to Church—on a date. I had been feeling that void stronger than ever, so when Ben invited me to church, I said, “Yes!” What was there to lose? 

Ben and I attended church together as much as we could. And guess what? The void in my heart began to fill! I started reading the Bible. I started spending time in prayer, searching, asking questions, and learning. I soon realized that I had never truly accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. I had never admitted to being a sinner and that I truly needed Him. 

October 28 is a significant day for me. It’s the day I was “confirmed” in my faith, and the day I met the man who would lead me to Christ. 

The day I saw my daddy cry for the second time, was the day Ben was waiting for me, at the end of the aisle, at the front of the Church, ready to become my husband and my forever partner. 

God had done a significant work in my life to bring me to this point where I trusted in Him for salvation and trusted in Him to fill my void. The wedding was beautiful. Our pastor shared the Gospel for the message, which was the most important thing to us besides our vows. 

I'm Struggling

I'm having a super hard time keeping my mouth shut with this whole SCOTUS thing.

Since I don't really think I have any readers, I'm just going to put my feelings out here. 
I believe in Christ Jesus and what the Bible says about marriage...
Marriage is between a MAN, a WOMAN, and GOD.  Keyword, GOD.

Its not so much the ruling I have a problem with as it is using the word "marriage" that I have a problem with. Marriage is a biblical word. God designed it. God did not design marriage to be between people of the same sex, he also did not design it to be something for just anyone. 

I feel that if a man and woman get married but it is not in front of God, and God is not the center of their marriage then they shouldn't get to use the word "marriage" either. 

I feel that my gay friends deserve the right to be in a relationship that is recognized by the government in order to get the benefits that I get as a married person. 

I think that as America was founded on a separation of church and state, that marriage should be something in the church that the state and government can not control. 

Lets use a different word; like union. Marriage or Union, they should get the same benefits from the government, because in the eyes of the government they should be the same. However, in the eyes of God, they are not. If God is not apart of it, you shouldn't be allowed to use the word "marriage". 

I had a friend say the following: "It's ludicrous that anyone would presume to know what Jesus's opinion would be on anything" When I saw this I really questioned our friendship even more then I have been lately. The bible is God's word, Jesus is God, so therefore, we are not presuming to know what Jesus's opinion is, it is clearly stated in the bible. I also found this to be a rude comment, because, while she wasn't saying it to me, I felt attacked for I love Jesus. 

I am disappointed in the white house looking like a rainbow, I feel that is disrespectful to those of us American's who don't agree. Now Disney World light up the castle, fine, that is not my government or my country. I feel excluded by my country because I don't agree, and I think that sucks. 

I know this is jumping around a lot  but I am still really struggling with it all, and how to put my words and beliefs out there without offending to many people, or getting to much backlash. 

I have friends who are gay, who are in legal unions with their signifant others, and I love them. I love them dearly. I don't judge them for who they love. I have enough of my own flaws to judge others, believe me, I'm a mess, however I know Jesus. I know he came and lived a perfect life, so that I may have a savior in HIM. 

Please know, that whether you support gay marriage or not, I love you. Whether our opinions are the same or different doesn't matter to me, what matters to me is how you treat others for thinking differently then you. 

Signing off

#warriorprincesskj