Category Archives: Christian living

Manna, Quail, and Breast milk, part 1

By Taylor Arthur | 25 October, 2013 - 8:18 am |
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Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions.”
Exodus 16:4-6
Please read the entirety of Exodus 16

During my pregnancy with Sam, the doctors prepared me for the fact that he may never breast feed because of his heart condition. I prepared myself to pump and feed him bottles, grateful to have a baby to feed at all while quietly mourning a bonding experience I had so looked forward to with each of my babies. Four days after his birth, to my surprise, his doctors turned to me in rounds and asked me if I would be willing to try to nurse him. Willing? Tears sprang to my eyes at this unexpected gift. To everyone’s shock and joy, Sam nursed like a champ. I sat in the rocking chair nursing our miracle baby/nursing savant and let the tears of gratitude roll over me.

A couple months later, I brought Sam in for one of his frequent heart check-ups at Children’s. I was tired. Wait; tired’s not the word. Bone-bleached fatigued:, working endless days to keep the house and laundry as sterile as possible for our vulnerable heart baby, while nursing him day and night and trying to keep a precocious, bored, and frustrated two year old off of his newborn brother and out of trouble. His cardiologist sighed: “Okay. Sam’s not gaining enough weight. I think it’s because he’s burning too many calories nursing. So what I want to do is have you pump, and we’ll fortify every bottle with a full serving of formula.”

Okay, I could do that. Just for a few months, right? I put on a brave face for the doc, agreed to the new feeding regiment, and headed on home. But somewhere between the sliding doors of Children’s exit and our car door, reality slapped me in the face: How in the world was I going to have time to do this? I had no back stock of frozen breast milk. I had, for the first time in my life, struggled to provide enough for Sam (due to a little bit of stress and a lot of work). And now, I had to go home and produce like a dairy cow every 2.5-3 hours, 8 times a day.

Pumping takes time, time I didn’t have. It was hard enough to nurse Sam while Abraham ran loose around the house. Now, I would have to double the time for every feeding: first pumping, then feeding Sam. Sam needed every last ounce of attention and touch and love I had to give him to stay healthy, not to mention every single probiotic my body could provide him. As I drove home through Seattle traffic, I formulated a plan: I would build a back-stock, some way some-how. I would pump like the dickens, get ahead of this problem, stock that freezer!

Only I couldn’t. Every feeding was always a little short of a full bottle. Or, I would be so tired I would knock a full bottle of just-pumped milk over, or Sam would throw a feeding up because of his meds. And I would have to start from scratch, usually after going hysterical.

I was going crazy as an overtime dairy cow. Those poor bovines! I developed a deep sympathy for them during my pumping-only days. And, then, one day while I was disciplining Abraham and pumping and holding a hungry, crying Sam in a messy house with tears streaming down my face, God broke through: this is how they felt in the wilderness gathering Manna and Quail. I physically stopped my milking frenzy and put my forehead to the dirty kitchen counter. OHHHHHHH.

I realized in that instant that I couldn’t do enough to keep Sam alive. I realized I couldn’t stock enough in the freezer, pump enough, work hard enough, to eliminate every germ that he was exposed to, to make his body grow. I realized that those mamas in the wilderness, who led their children out of a bad place but a place where at least their babies’ bellies would be filled, must have been as scared as I was. And I realized that a big part of the wilderness is shedding our silly idea that we can work hard enough, be smart enough, to stock pile enough to protect our families from the horrible realities of life.

Manna and Quail were a lesson–first and foremost–in submission. When we submit to a God who can provide all, and stop pretending we are God ourselves, we can stop chasing our own tails and rest in His provision. And it always comes . Maybe it isn’t what we want, but it is always enough. And I don’t know how Sam got enough breast milk (but he did!) or if that whole dairy cow experience was just a lesson for me to stop freaking out whenever I feel a lack (and I am!). But, there is nothing more frightening than my mother-heart’s panic over my children not being provided for. That panic is a trigger I need to get better at listening to: it’s my signal to put my head on the counter and pray, pray, pray.

I am still learning this lesson, one I think is necessary to live in the promised land. We’ll talk more about this next week, as I feel we’ve just scratched the surface. But I want to leave with you this thought: what if every lack brought us to our knees? What if we saw each physical need as a new place for God to fill us with more of Himself?

What if you are not in a time of stock-piling and saving and storing? What if you are in a season of growing up in your dependence on God? I know I am there, learning to look to heaven with each hunger pain. In the mean time, I will look to one Mother’s example of trusting God, namely One who didn’t even know where her baby would be born. Yet, God provided for her Son. And he provides for mine just the same.

“for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name . . . He has filled the hungry with good things . . . ” Luke 1:49, 53

Amen.

Taylor

Helping helps!

By Taylor Arthur | 23 October, 2013 - 7:06 pm | , , , , ,
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Team CJA - Tears Event

In honor of Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month . . .

It had been a month since Caleb died. The dust was settling, and people were getting on with their lives. I was sitting on the couch in the living room staring at the television, googling crazy things like “Why did this happen to me, God?” and watching youtube videos made by other grieving moms that made me cry so hard I would eventually pass out from exhaustion. FUN TIMES. (Note: one of the unfair things about a late-term still birth or infant loss is that I (like many moms) was already on maternity leave. Our bodies are still recovering from delivery, even if there is no child to care for. There is a hole ripped in time, and we are stuck in a maternity-leave limbo with no baby.)

And then, I prayed, “Lord, please give me something to do or I am going to go crazy.”

Almost instantly, Jack received an email from a God-conduit–my friend Kasi–about the TEARS foundation . I went to therapy that week, and my therapist, Phyllis–another God-conduit–handed me a TEARS advertisement. Their annual walk was coming up; there was still time to enter a “Caleb Joshua Arthur” team. A path cleared before me: I would assemble a team to walk in memory of our son, and raise money for other families who needed help with burial expenses. God had answered my prayers!

I spent the next few weeks in a frenzied effort to honor my son and assemble the biggest, most lucrative team ever assembled for the TEARS foundation’s remembrance walk. We showed up in full-force with Caleb’s full name filling up our t-shirts. Family and friends from all around participated, and we felt a roar of support for this angel son of ours. This moment in history could never make up for every sports event we would not attend for him, every graduation we would not listen to his name being called, every first day of school and field trip and every single thing I was so happy and ready to share with Caleb as his proud mama . . . but this moment in history was a moment in THIS WORLD when my son’s NAME was called, there was a crowd to cheer for him, and we felt proud, proud, proud. I still have tears rolling down my face just remembering how proud we were that day.

The TEARS foundation became an important piece of our grieving Caleb. I plunged into support groups and volunteer opportunities that allowed me to spend time honoring my first born son with people who understood how important that was for me to do.

I gave to fill a hole I couldn’t fill by myself. I am still doing that, in every blog I write and newly grieving friend I reach out to. I don’t know what else to do. And, I promise: it helps. This grief is unbearable on the couch alone googling crazy things and watching youtube videos. It’s too much pressure on my marriage to expect my husband to be the only person I spill my bucket of tears on every night. But, it can be carried with a modicum of grace when we let God use our suffering, our experience, to help others who suffer as well. McKayla Butler is doing that with her blog, “ rainbows for noah: what loss looks like from here .” Sarah Slack and her staff are carrying their griefs to balm others’ sorrows through every funeral they make possible and every support group they gather through the TEARS foundation . The Stillborn, Still loved Guild is working to create awareness and community for those surviving a stillborn child.

There are places for us, friends, to use our holed out hearts for good. There are places we can speak the names of our dead children and rise with pride as their parents. There are places where this deepest agony can be filled with grace. Find your place. And help. It helps, I promise.

God bless you, in your pain and your crazy google moments.

I pray He is with you.

I know He is . . .

Taylor

Miracles and Murmurings

By Taylor Arthur | 18 October, 2013 - 7:28 am | , , , , ,
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And my God will fully satisfy every need of yours according to His riches in glory.
Philippians 4:19

I must confess: I have spent my whole life judging the Hebrews during their wilderness sojourn. It is difficult for me to watch them murmur against the God who continually, faithfully provides for them. They witness the ten plagues against Egypt, including the smiting of every firstborn male in Egypt. They leave Egypt weighted down by their captors’ treasures after 430 years of bondage, led by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. And yet, when Pharoah gives chase, they cry to Moses, Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert! Number 14:11-12.

When Yahweh again saved them by extraordinary means–parting the Red Sea, providing dry ground for them to walk across the sea floor, and drowning the Egyptians who chased them–and led them into the desert, they continued to grumble when they couldn’t find drinkable water at Mara. He provided water, but then they got hungry. He provided abundant honey-like food, but they wanted meat. He gave them quail to eat, and when Moses was gone just a bit too long talking to Yahweh on their behalf? Bam! They created a golden calf and worshiped it.

It is so easy for me to judge them. Ingrates! But, really, as I think of them throwing their fits every time their basic needs for survival beg to be met, I wonder how many times I have thrown the same tantrum about something much less significant than food, water, and safety . . . Yuck.

Having gone down the pathetic “poor me” path more than my fair share, I am beginning to realize that it never helps me be a better person. Now, I’m not saying that feelings are not completely valid, or that we shouldn’t grieve a loss (of many kinds). We should take time to rest after struggles, and Yahweh even built Sabbath in for us so that we’d have a rest in this wilderness. But, what I am saying is that we need to be darn careful not to cross the line from frustration and grief and exhaustion into grumbling.

Harper Collins (I refer to this Biblical Commentary like I would a friend because I sincerely love this big, buxom book!) points out that there are positive and negative motifs working in the wilderness account. God’s continuous, miraculous provision for his people as a positive motif juxtaposes the Hebrews’ repeated murmurings against Him. They resent the hunger, danger, thirst. But I think it goes deeper than that with them and with me: I think we resent the awareness of our absolute dependence on God . We’d rather think we have some control over our lives.

In Egypt, they were slaves: beaten, raped, starved, thrown out like garbage. And yet, there was a comfort in the familiar that they would rather return to, and a danger in the unknown they kept trying to flee. In the wilderness, the only comfort, the only stability lies in trusting God. And that is hard: ego crushing, dream shattering, dangerous hard. I don’t want to be hungry all the time, and I don’t want to have to live a life where every morning I wake up and ask God just get me through this day, please . But that level of dependence, that level of necessity, is where God does miracles.

I can write a volume about the miracles God has performed throughout my life, starting with all the mornings, time after time, when I opened my Bible or devotional to find exactly the words I needed to brave another day, feeling God so close on the couch, snuggled up with me and my cup of coffee. Isn’t that a miracle? I can write about the miracle of my marriage, thriving and real and growing, a shelter for both Jack and I in the midst of desert. I can write about Christmas mornings with presents under the tree, dinner parties with friends, camping trips, date nights, birthday parties, snuggling warm babies on the couch every morning . . . but this doesn’t sound like a barren wilderness, does it? It sounds like a life: a beautiful one. This beautiful life continuously crops up in the midst of defining hardships.

So I think we need to decide: are we a people who define ourselves on bondage, Pharoah’s armies chasing us, need, and loss? Or are we a people—a Miracle people—who define our lives by Liberation, the parting of the Red Sea, Providence, and Redemption? For every need God’s people experienced, for every cry they uttered in the wilderness, God heard and provided. And while we would all rather never have to know an empty belly or checking account, the need for a pediatric heart surgeon, a priest, or the strength just to get out of bed, our need hollows out in each of our hearts a place for God to move.

Oh geez. I don’t like this. I find myself feeling more and more empathy for those Hebrews all the time.

Let’s pray for Miracle eyes, embedded deep in our hearts, to seek out a God who fills every belly and quenches every thirst.

God bless you,

Taylor

Share your comfort and troubles with a good friend today

By Taylor Arthur | 16 October, 2013 - 8:02 am |
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2 Corinthians 1:3-7

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.

We are meant to comfort and encourage each other! Have a great Wednesday!

By your side,
Taylor

In honor of National Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Day

By Taylor Arthur | 15 October, 2013 - 3:40 pm | , , , ,
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Everyone, I have someone amazing for you to meet. Her name is McKayla Butler, and she is the proud, brave, faithful, and honest mother of Baby Noah. I will allow her to introduce herself and her sweet boy:

i’m noah’s mama.
my name is mccayla and i’m part of the club no one wants to belong to – i lost my baby.

noah hudson butler was born a healthy 7 pounds, 5 ounces on june 5, 2013. the first 24 hours with him were another dimension of bliss. our dreams had come true – we were parents. and we were the happiest we’ve ever been.

then the nightmare began. he started having trouble breathing and things went from bad to worse. 12 days later he was diagnosed with an extremely rare, and fatal, condition called alveolar capillary dysplasia. there was nothing else the doctors could do.

we said goodbye to our sweet boy that night, june 18, 2013, after spending the holiest of days with the one who changed our world forever.

this is my journey of living in the tension between despair and hope as i navigate through this “new normal” without noah. and it’s what loss looks like from here.

I am so excited to share “rainbows for noah” with you because McKayla’s sharing is as gut-wrenchingly honest as it gets, while still anchored in a God bigger than all of our questions and losses. Everyone, meet McKayla. I hope she inspires you as much as she has me.

God bless all of my friends who are aching today,

Taylor

“I will carry you”

By Taylor Arthur | 11 October, 2013 - 9:30 am |
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I said to you, “Have no dread or fear . . . The LORD your God, who goes before you, is the one who will fight for you, just as he did for you in Egypt before your very eyes, and in the wilderness, where you saw how the LORD your God carried you, just as one carries a child, all the way that you traveled until you reached this place.” Deuteronomy 1:29-31

All the way that you traveled . . . I can’t believe it’s been 10 weeks since Sam’s surgery. I thought we would be back to normal life by now, settling into the new school year, a new rhythm. Instead, we are just beginning to process what happened to our family this last spring and summer. I didn’t realize this event, this new journey, was a trauma until now. I just walked it, breathed in and out, hoped, endured. But now, as I find it difficult to pull myself out of bed, find myself apologizing to Bram’s preschool teachers because he is 5, 10, or 40 minutes late, cry over a disorganized drawer or overflowing craft closet filled with half-finished projects from two years ago . . . I realize I am just a little bit of a wreck.

At our most recent appointment at Children’s we learned that while Sam is stable now, his right ventricle is not nearly as functional as we had hoped. This means that we are most likely not done with surgeries. We are not done . And, the next surgery he is slated to have in 2-4 years is much more extensive.

We weren’t expecting that, not at all. It hit hard, harder than I have allowed myself to even entertain. Loved ones offer encouraging words, and we are overjoyed that he is stable and happily playing in the backyard today. But the fact of the matter is: this journey continues for us . I thought we were crossing over, getting over this hurdle, and moving on with our lives. But if feels instead that we are caught in yet another limbo, waiting to see what will happen, asking God to intervene, back to wondering if Sam—, and when Sam–

This is not the jubilant crossing-over procession I had envisioned. I envisioned a moment of trumpets (yes, I know, my overly biblical imagination really does over-inflate my expectations at times) blasting a hallelujah tune as we crossed over from the pre-Glenn wilderness into a new heart-stable life with Sam. I pondered which “rocks” I would utilize to build a memorial in remembrance of this crossing over experience (please see Joshua 3 & 4 if my references aren’t making sense).

But the last thing I want to do right now is build a memorial to remember my baby with a tube down his throat pumped full of meds restrained in a crib in the CICU. The last thing I want to think about is how his cries sounded like a newborn once he was extubated because his vocal chords were so scratched. I look at the zipper scar on Sam’s chest ten times a day, and it still pulls in the deep corners of this mother-heart. Even as he plays, I mourn and remember this terrible journey: every step, every breath-holding moment, every echo, every single heart beat.

So, please excuse me as I sit down on the riverbank and curl into myself, take a moment or a year to cry. I mourn this entire journey, all the pain and terror, all the concessions I have made to survive, all the me I have relinquished to keep persisting. I mourn that so much of Sam’s and Abraham’s lives have been experienced through a lens of pain. I want to do over their babyhoods without such desperate mourning and fear. I want to enjoy them again for the first time, with innocent eyes.

But, I suppose that rainbows are born of storms. And we’ve been given two.

I’ve been reading Deuteronomy and Joshua lately, trying to get at the heart of what it is to cross over. Yahweh is adamant throughout the Hebrew Bible that we recount the stories of His victories, all the while keeping alive the anguish of Egypt and the cost of our deliverances. It is our STORY that marks us as a people—God’s people. Our Story continually redeems as it reminds and instructs us again and again about the nature of God’s love for us, and the lengths He will go to woo, save, and carry us through.

I have always assumed that to cross over was to leave behind, shed our wilderness selves, our manna- and quail- eating skins, “shake off our heavy chains”. But what did it mean for the Hebrews? To cross from wilderness to Promised Land?

I am so war-weary, so crossing-over-aged, that I cannot even imagine marching into the Promised land right now. So, I’ll be at the riverbank for a while if any of you need me. I’ll be the heap in the sand, probably eating some cookie dough or drinking a glass of wine.

But even in my heaping, even in my plain-old-“Lord, I can’t walk another step”-ness, He assures me,

Even to your old age I will be the same,
And even to your graying years I will bear you!
I have done it, and I will carry you;
And I will bear you and I will deliver you.

Lord, I’m yours to carry.

On the riverbank,

Taylor

Isaiah 46:4 I will be the same until your old age, and I will bear you up when you turn gray. I have made you, and I will carry you; I will bear and save you. (HCSB)

Isaiah 46:4
I will be the same until your old age,
and I will bear you up when you turn gray.
I have made you, and I will carry you;
I will bear and save you.
(HCSB)

August hiatus . . .

By Taylor Arthur | 8 August, 2013 - 5:05 pm |
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Hi Friends,

I just wanted to write all of you as I sit in the back yard, drinking a cocktail with Jack, and watching our babies play. We are home from the hospital, and Sam is already running around the back yard as if he hadn’t even had open heart surgery only 10 days ago. We are over the mountain and starting to breathe again.

I am taking August off from blogging, and will be back with a vengeance in September. I just want to do exactly what I’m doing now: enjoy my life, whisper prayers of thanksgiving, and drink a cocktail.

God bless you all . . . Happy August!

See ya when the school busses start comin’ round.

Taylor

On Holy Ground

By Taylor Arthur | 18 July, 2013 - 12:17 pm | , , ,
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Coming out, He went to the Mount of Olives, as He was accustomed, and His disciples also followed Him. When He came to the place, He said to them, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.”

And He was withdrawn from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and prayed, saying, “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.” Then an angel appeared to Him from heaven, strengthening Him. And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.

When He rose up from prayer, and had come to His disciples, He found them sleeping from sorrow. Then He said to them, “Why do you sleep? Rise and pray, lest you enter into temptation.”
Luke 22:39-46

I feel guilty for being this afraid. There: I said it. We are a week and a half away from Sam’s surgery, and there are minutes, hours, and sometimes whole days now when I feel paralyzed. I move, of course, and fulfill my duties as mom and wife. But I think in the last week, I have moved out of the realm of normal into “a stone’s throw” away. The marching has started. I am praying in the garden.

I think a lot about Joshua these days, as he readied himself and his people to march around Jericho. Really, it was a crazy idea. Literally. Crazy. But God gave them specific instructions: March around the city every day for six days with only the priests sounding their trumpets. On the seventh day, march seven times around the city with the priests blowing their trumpets, and then give the war cry. The walls of the city will collapse, and your troops will run in and take the city (my paraphrasing from Joshua 6:2-5).

So, God gave him these instructions. But did Joshua ever question them? Did he throw up that first morning behind his tent right before he walked out to lead his soldiers as they marched–not fought–around the city God had promised to deliver unto them? Did he shake? Did he need a drink–or a few–the night before? My guess is that he did. My guess is that he was as human as I am. And, even if he felt certain that God would make good on His promises, the physical reality of what he was about to do must have felt overwhelming. OVERWHELMING, like the current of a river that has overtaken you, like the Pacific’s waves crashing, tossing you just enough to make you panic, like a free-fall dream you can’t wake yourself up from.

If you read Joshua’s story and Jesus’, you’ll notice they have something very important in common: an angel visited each of them. We don’t get a lot of details, which is so frustrating to me because I really would like to know them. But, we do know that Joshua’s angel spoke to him: Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, “Are you for us or for our enemies?” “Neither,” he replied, “but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.” Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground in reverence, and asked him, “What message does my Lord have for his servant?” The commander of the Lord’s army replied, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so. Joshua 5:15

There is no record of what Jesus’ angel said to him. Perhaps that is because Jesus already knew what Joshua did not: that a stomach burning with anxiety, sweat falling in drops of blood, and the feeling that you are no longer in the realm of normal is, indeed, normal when you find yourself in Gethsemane. You ARE a “stone’s throw away” even from your most kindred, and as much as they love you, they cannot stand in this place for you. Just as the angel told Joshua, this is Holy Ground. This: blood, sweat, tears, and vomit. This is HOLY GROUND, where we come at our weakest and kneel before the Most High to submit a failing human heart to a plan much bigger than ME.

So I am grateful for the angel that delivered this understanding to me so that I can give myself ONE, BIG BREAK. I am a human mother who would gladly be split apart to spare my child. I am a human mother who racks and cries and would love to start cocktail hour at noon everyday. I am the human mother who stands in the kitchen, doing dishes, preparing meals, all the while praying, “Take this from him.” I am the human mother standing on Holy Ground, barefoot in my nightgown.

Take this brokenness, Lord, and bring down the walls of Jericho with it.

All my heart,

Taylor

How to use the Bible as a tool

By Taylor Arthur | 21 June, 2013 - 2:39 pm | , , , ,
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For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Hebrews 4:12

Your word is a lamp to my feet
And a light to my path.
Psalm 119:105

In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people. Ephesians 6:16-18

Through my healthy pregnancy with Abraham, I had white-knuckled the entire 9 months, never convinced that he would be born alive until they put him in my arms. I frequently experienced panic attacks, especially when sitting in dark ultra sound rooms, and during my twice weekly stress tests. I didn’t sleep well, constantly waking to make sure he was still moving. I spent the entire pregnancy terrified.

When we were pregnant with Sam, facing his terminal diagnosis, I knew there had to be another way of carrying a baby: a vital, trusting way, a way in which I could live every day to its fullest. I didn’t know how long we would have Sam, but I wanted every minute to count.

I knew I couldn’t do this vital living by myself, so I turned to God. Where was the lamp for this path? Could He show me the way? What I received was, really, one big DUH! Though I grew up memorizing Scripture, have a degree in Religious Studies, have gone to graduate school and studied the Bible, and taught Hebrew Scriptures, I had completely forgotten that THE BIBLE could help me. It is the Word of God, the lamp to my feet, the light to my path, the Sword of the Spirit!

So, this is what Jack and I did. I searched on Bible Gateway.com for specific words: “peace”, “trust in the Lord,” etc. I wrote down pages of references, and took my Bible and list of references with me along to doctor’s appointments. Then, when I would have totally freaked out before (i.e. waiting in the waiting room or waiting for ultra sound results) I would pull that Bible out and start looking up Bible passages.

I eventually learned that I also needed to remove myself from ultra sound rooms while we were waiting for results, just to stop shaking enough to flip through the pages. So, Jack and I would sit down in the hallway, Bibles in hand, and write out Bible verses about God’s promises to do us good, to be with us through all of life’s troubles, to shield and protect us.

We must have looked pretty funny: me with my big belly, and my husband, both noses in our Bible, scribbling furiously, as doctors walked over our legs in the back hallways of the most high risk Perinatology clinic in the area. I worried, too, that I would look like the dreaded “Jesus freak.” But, as my shaking hands calmed and my heart stilled by the TRUTH and LIGHT of God’s word pouring into my consciousness, I didn’t care anymore who or what I looked like. God was here with us , in this moment of supreme fear, and He was ministering to us, right then and there.

Despite the many obstacles we faced during our pregnancy with Sam, a deep peace ran through me. I couldn’t take any credit for it because I knew it was the Spirit of God working in me. The very places I had been the most afraid became places of solace. The stress tests I could never brave alone became a place of peace for me. I would drive up to Seattle in my car, listening either to Christian music (God’s word to music), or a sermon on DVD (a pastor or priest speaking God’s word aloud). It was my time alone with God and Sam, and I treasured it. I laid down on the hospital bed as they wrapped my belly with stress test belts and actually relaxed for twenty minutes. A passage was introduced to my consciousness, one I had memorized as a child:
He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
he refreshes my soul .
Psalm 23:2-3

I am not saying I wasn’t afraid. I was scared to death. To tell you the truth, as Sam’s open heart surgery date nears, I am still scared to death. But I don’t have to be captivated by that fear because I have a tool: the Word of God. And I’m going to keep using it, and share my Scripture lists with you. We can wield this Sword, this tool, God gives us so that we do not have to be captivated by our present circumstances. Instead, we can be captivated by His love and presence.

There is a lot of Scripture around my house: some as decoration, some as little post it notes with Crayola marker verses on them. You can usually decipher what I’m struggling with based on what verses are posted! But I don’t care. You see, I can’t do this life by myself. I need Jesus. Plain and simple.

I will leave you with the verse I had pinned to my wall when I was a kid:
You will keep in perfect peace
all who trust in you,
all whose thoughts are fixed on you!
Isaiah 26:3

Scared to death with my nose in the Word,

Taylor

What can you handle?

By Taylor Arthur | 14 June, 2013 - 10:01 am | , , , ,
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No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted,he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. (NIV)

No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face. All you need to remember is that God will never let you down; he’ll never let you be pushed past your limit; he’ll always be there to help you come through it . (MSG)

No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it . (NRSV)
1 Corinthians 10:13

I love this verse. It has been such a source of strength and encouragement since I was dating my sweetheart in high school, all the way through our current journey with Samuel. However, I do believe that it is one of the most misquoted and misunderstood bits of scripture in the entire Bible.

Anyone who has endured a difficult trial can probably recount at least one instance when a fellow Christian has tried to encourage them by saying, “Well, God never gives us more than we can handle.” If you are like me, a few times I’ve wanted to say something really nasty back to that well-meaning person, trying so desperately to come up with something profound to encourage me. In fact, I have slung a few nasty words after statements like that. I always regret it.

We are often confused about where temptation and testing come from. I really, truly, in all of the reading I’ve done on why there is evil in the world do not think God is sitting up in heaven with a bowl full of nasty, meting it out to the do-gooders like Job who will bring him glory, and to the evil-doers who really deserve a taste of their own medicine.

Instead, we live in a fallen world. This beautiful gift of free will our Lord has given us comes at a price: we live in a natural world with tsunamis, mental illness, cancer, heart conditions, stillborn babies. He allows the natural world to be naturally unpredictable and cruel because it is also incredibly beautiful and generous. He gives us the opportunity to choose to cling to the things and people of this roller coaster life, or to choose to hold onto Him. I’ve found holding onto Him always keeps me better than the things of this world.

The word “temptation” in the original Greek is synonymous with “testing.” Paul was not just talking about the temptations of this life; he was also addressing the trials we endure. I think this is an important distinction to make because while we all must be tempted from the venial to the moral, those are battles we fight internally. Testings, or trials, on the other hand, are battles we have no control over. We endure the troubles of this life–death, sickness, infertility, job loss, natural disasters–without a modicum of control. It is not as simple as not eating the cupcake or not smoking the cigarette. We must just hold on and “bear up,” waiting out the storm until it passes.

The fantastic truth of 1 Corinthians 10:13 is that we are not alone. God does not just watch from afar to see how many things can be piled on our little heads until we crumble. Rather, He walks beside us and helps bear our load. He helps bear our load. No matter what the trial or testing, He will provide your “way out.”

I think of David’s Psalms when I am feeling overwhelmed by circumstance. Time and time again, David speaks of the Lord as a rock to stand on or hide in. He doesn’t stop the storms of David’s life, but He provides shelter for David to withstand it.

I know that God continually provides people and circumstances to encourage me when I feel that I am about to crumble under the load I am carrying. The more I talk to Him and ask Him for help, the more provision is provided. I have carried burdens that should have landed me back in the mental hospital time and time again. The only explanation I have is that God was right beside me, carrying that load with me.

Never forget that He is good. Hold onto Him in the storm. He is the “shield about [us], [our]glory, and the lifter of [our] heads” (Psalm 3:3).

For he will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways.
On their hands they will bear you up,
so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.
You will tread on the lion and the adder,
the young lion and the serpent you will trample under foot.

Those who love me, I will deliver;
I will protect those who know my name.
When they call to me, I will answer them;
I will be with them in trouble,
I will rescue them and honor them.
With long life I will satisfy them,
and show them my salvation.
Psalm 91:11-16

God bless you all today,

Taylor

If you need extra encouragement while going through a difficult time, I have started a new page with lists of verses concerning different needs: Verses of Comfort and Encouragement . I purposely didn’t write them out for you, because I think there is power and solace in opening the pages of your Bible and reading and writing down the scriptures for yourself. This has served me in many moments of desolation and fear. I hope it will help you as well.

I also found the blog by Joe Stowell on his website “Strength for the Journey” helpful: “Load Limits”