Category: Faith

As I sit here and reflect on the last few months. I am amazed at all that has happened. There has been hard times and good times and many questions along the way. After losing the twins we spent a lot of time reflecting and asking God what we should do next. Everything we had known and expected had fallen apart and we were left with just what we still knew to be true. Even through the heartache, we knew that God was good and this His plan for us was still the same. We asked Him what the word for the season was and we felt very clearly that he said the word for us was still Family. In the midst of losing such anticipated, loved and hoped for members of our family we felt like he was reminding us that he didn’t change and that his plans were still the same.

As we reflected on what that meant for us in the aftermath of losing the twins and in the new season we felt he was calling us into, we felt that he was calling us to a new place.

Now the new place was actually a call to return home, to return to where He had originally called many years before. But the call to return to this place was still full of uncertainty and questions.  We had no idea whether we could find jobs or where we would live but even in that uncertainty we knew he was calling us there and we trusted that the pieces would fall into place.

During that season God gave us this scripture:

Psalm 107: 4 – 9

Some wandered in desert wastelands, finding no way to a city where they could settle. They were hungry and thirsty, and their lives ebbed away. Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress.He led them by a straight way to a city where they could settle. Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for mankind, for he satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things.

It was such a poignant word to us at that time as we both felt like we had been wandering around in the desert both literally but also in many other ways. The stark landscape and extreme temperatures meant that in many ways Arizona was a difficult place to live. When it’s 120 degrees you wonder whatever made people settle here! Now Phoenix has certainly been a place of blessing for us and we are thankful for all the investment we have received here. It is here in the desert that God restored and redeemed our marriage and provided for us again & again. But it is here that we also experienced the hardest time in our lives.

Losing our twins definitely brought me through my own personal desert experience. With my mind full of questions and confusion I often felt that I was wandering in a desert wasteland. But even through that experience, I learned many things and my relationship with the Father is deeper than ever before.

Through the desert I discovered that he never left me, even when I felt like everything had fallen apart he held me and provided for my every need. When I felt like I had nothing left I clung to Him and His unfailing love and he brought me through.

Secondly, I learned that the desert isn’t the end of the road. Even though at times it felt like I would never get through the grief and loss- I cried out to the Lord. I cried out to Him in my pain and my grief and my confusion and He heard my cry. Even as I wept He already knew the plan He had to redeem and restore all that we had lost and calling us back to Pawleys Island was just the first part of that plan.

As we began to pack up our stuff in Phoenix and prepare for the new season I knew in my heart that somehow everything we had hoped for and dreamed about would finally come to fruition. Now I wasn’t sure how it was going to happen but I knew it would and being the loving Heavenly Father that He is, He was true to His promises. He provided me with a job that I love and incredible people to work with. He provided my husband with a job that fits him perfectly and feels like such a gift. He provided us with a home that is three doors down from where my sister lives, is walking distance to my husband’s job and 5 minutes from the beach. We never in our wildest dreams thought we could own a home in a place like this. He has exceeded our expectations at every point along the way.

Then the second to last day before we left He provided us with the ultimate gift and the thing we had prayed for, cried over and spent thousands of dollars trying to achieve.  Literally 48 hours before we left Phoenix I found out I was pregnant. The thing that doctors had told me would never happen, had happened and with no medical intervention at all. I remember looking at the pregnancy test in shock and awe. Half of me wanted to scream and shout and tell everyone I knew but the other half of me still remembered the pain that came after the last time and I was so afraid to let myself believe it was true. Was I finally going to have what I had always dreamed of? Would I really be able to hold this baby in my arms and watch it grow up?

The next few months were filled with many challenges including me being hospitalized with a blood clot just a week after we arrived in Pawleys Island. Each step of the way, at every doctor’s appointment and in every moment of doubt I had to remind myself that this child was a gift from God and that I had to trust him with this child every day, no matter what.

Everything in me wanted to hold on to this baby with all that I had but in those moments my loving Heavenly Father would whisper gently to me – “Open up your hands, trust me with this child.” Even though he never promised me that everything would be okay and that this baby would make it to full term, I knew that this baby was safer in His hands and it ever would be in mine. So day by day I learned to trust Him again.

And even now that I am through the first trimester and the risk of miscarriage is significantly lower I still remind myself to give this child to him daily and trust that He will take care of it.

Because one thing I know is that “The One who calls you is faithful and He will do it”. Not me, He will do it and no matter how hard I try I will never be able to create a life for myself better than the one He has planned.

Have you ever experienced a time in your life when the worst has happened? Maybe you lost your job or got a divorce, or a loved one passed away. As I sit here reflecting on this Holy Saturday I think that’s how the disciples must have felt all those thousands of years ago. Their Savior and friend was gone and they were lost and confused. They were grieving and in pain. Everything they had hoped for was gone and unlike us, they didn’t know Easter Sunday was coming.

As many of you know I recently experienced a very painful time in my life. Losing our twins was certainly the most painful thing I have ever experienced. All the hopes and dreams we had for them were gone in an instant and like the disciples, we were left lost and confused.  So what do we do when our lives feel like they are stuck in the day in between? When the worst has happened and we don’t know what do to next. When we are confused and lost and overwhelmed by grief and pain.

When I visited Minnesota recently I landed in Minneapolis and as we flew in I was amazed by how white everything was. The whole city was covered in snow. The trees, the houses, the roads. And although it was breathtakingly beautiful there was something very somber about seeing all that snow. In the winter you can’t see the green grass or the leaves on the trees. The animals are all hibernating and there really isn’t much evidence of life at all. I think that’s how it must have felt on that first Holy Saturday. As the disciples considered all that had just happened and that their Savior and friend now lay dead in a tomb there would have been no signs to tell them what was really going on, under the surface, beyond where they could see.

The amazing thing about the winter though is that even as the snow lays on the ground and there are no visible signs of life, just under the surface beyond where the eye can see things are beginning to happen.
I think when we consider Easter it is easy to skip over the importance of this Saturday. It’s easy to focus on Good Friday and the fact that Jesus died for our sins and then to focus on the joy of Easter Sunday and the fact that he has risen again. But the day in between was just as important. God was working even though we couldn’t see it. Jesus was completing the work he started on the cross the day before.

The last few months have felt like a cold and dark winter for me, at times I felt like there was no hope. But what I have discovered is that even in my darkest hour when all was lost He was still working and I’m beginning to see the signs of Spring.  As He begins to show what me He is doing and how He is carving out a new life for us in a new place, hope is beginning to rise. He’s reminding me that He sees it all. He sees my pain and my grief and all my hopes and dreams and He has not forgotten. He has held me in my darkest days when I was lost & confused and has already begun to redeem and restore all that I have lost. As we live in the day in between and as we wait, we remember the promise of the resurrection that Jesus lives and that even when all seemed lost God was already working His redemptive plan. A plan to save the world and restore His children and their relationship with Him.
Its like when you see the first buds of spring break through the snow. Its still cold, the snow is still on the ground but its beginning to melt and the promise of Spring is just around the corner. And as the disciples discovered just one day later, God always redeems, always restores and always has the victory! Christ is risen! And I will hold on to that promise and that hope till the Spring comes.

I have a new found respect and honor for my mum. My mum & I have always had a good relationship. We went through the normal teenage years were we argued and I felt she didn’t understand me. Through my early twenties as I was discovering who I was I was convinced that I was nothing like my mum. I never doubted that she loved me and that would do anything for me but I just thought we were nothing alike. From being a little girl I was full of emotions and my mum is very logical and straight forward. With the best intentions, she would always show me the good in a situation and help me to see that things weren’t as bad as I thought.

People would always tell me how much like my mum I was and I always thought it was just that they didn’t know me that well. Over the last year though I have discovered much like her I am and what a privilege and blessing it has been to be raised by such an incredible mother.
When my siblings and I were young my mum stayed at home with us while my dad was a Pastor in inner city London. She continually made sacrifices for us, she sacrificed her time, her money and her freedom. She raised us to be strong Christian people with good character and she loved us all deeply. I can say without a shadow of a doubt that there has never been a time in my life that I didn’t know she loved me, even when we disagree. But loving people that deeply comes with a cost and that cost is the inevitable pain you will undoubtedly feel.
My mum once told me that when she looked at me the first time she realized that if anything ever happened to me it would break her. There is an unexplainable bond between a mother and a child and that bond has the power to break your heart into a million pieces.

I have observed my mum during the difficult times in my life and I have seen how much she wants to protect me from pain and heartache and how much it pains her when she can’t.

Most recently I looked into her eyes as my heart broke at the loss my own children and saw the pain she felt for me. Her own child was in unexplainable pain and there was nothing she could do about it. She could protect me from it or fix it. All she could do was hold my hand through it and trust me to Jesus.
Now one question I have pondered a lot recently is at what point do you become a mother?  Is at the moment that you hold your child for the first time, is it when you see them on the ultrasound screen, or when you see those two pinks lines on a pregnancy test. And the conclusion I have come to is that you are a mother from the moment God begins knitting them together in your womb. As he knits them together that bond begins and I believe that it is never broken not matter how long you got to keep them. Now I only got to keep my babies for 10 weeks and in the scheme of life that seems like such a small an insignificant amount of time but even so, they are my children and I am their mother.

I saw a quote recently that said “A wife who loses a husband is called a widow. A husband who loses a wife is called a widower. A child who loses his parents is called an orphan. But…there is no word for a parent who loses a child, that’s how awful the loss is!” Neugeboren.

Honestly, I believe there is no word because you are still a parent, you are just a parent without a child. And that is a kind of pain and loss is like no other. Although the overwhelming grief is starting to ease there still feels like there is part of me missing and there is. I am missing my children and a part of my heart will always be with them.
My husband and I decided to name our twins. We wanted to acknowledge their lives and to recognize that they were our children if only for a short time. We named them Ezekiel James and Phoebe Joy and although I don’t know for sure that they were a boy & girl that’s just what my heart told me and I feel like God has confirmed to me on numerous occasions. I have a necklace with their initials on that I wear every day and I had a picture created with their names on it. When we have future children we always tell them about their older brother and sister.

At first, after we lost the twins I said that I never wanted to get pregnant again because the pain & grief was so overwhelming that I couldn’t imagine risking having to go through that again. But as time has passed I have realized that whether we adopt or more biological children I am still risking the chance of pain. And unfortunately, until we get to heaven pain in inevitable especially if we allow ourselves to love and be loved.

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements….. To love is to be vulnerable.” C.S. Lewis

A couple of weeks ago my husband and I had the joy of being able to visit Pawleys Island and catch up with friends and family. It was a great week,  we had a wonderful time seeing our friends and getting to spend some quality time with our family. For me one of the greatest joys was getting to spend time with my nephew, he is four months old and is one of the happiest babies I have ever known ( I know I’m probably biased… but still!😉) We would hang out on the rocking chair while my sister did some gardening, or would giggle while we were driving in the car, he would cuddle and fall asleep on me in morning prayers.

My time with him was so precious and I cherished every moment of it. Now for any of you who are aunts, uncles, grandparents etc. you have probably experienced your own special times with your nieces and nephews, but for me this last week was a reminder again of the amazing redemptive and healing power of Jesus.

My husband and I were told a number of years ago that we had a 5% chance of having a baby. When we were first given the news I was devastated. All I had ever wanted was to be a mother and now the likelihood of that was very slim. I was brokenhearted and confused.

Every time a friend would tell me that she was pregnant, I would be torn between excitement for them and my own sadness that I would probably never get that opportunity. I was genuinely excited and happy for them, but the sadness was still there and my old wound reopened – each time forcing me to deal with the mix of emotions once again. The only way I could move on from the sadness and the sense of loss was to spend time with Jesus and be really honest with Him. There would be times I would just sob; I mourned the loss of something I never had.

Last August my sister told me she was pregnant and I went through those same emotions all over again. I was so excited for them but had this deep level of sadness too. For weeks and maybe even months I struggled with being able to fully experience the joy of this new life with my sister.  Thankfully through prayer, honest conversations with Jesus and time I finally was able to let go of the sadness and confusion and started to experience more of the joy of this new life that was entering our family.

One day last October my sister sent me an ultrasound picture of my nephew, as I looked at this picture I was overwhelmed by the love I felt for this little baby that I have never even met. It brought me to tears and this time they were tears of joy. Then on January 26, 2012, my nephew, Finley Sanderson David Culmer, was born and I was filled with joy. As I saw the pictures of this little baby I was brought to tears again; this baby was the newest member of our family and I couldn’t wait to meet him. Just two weeks later we had the opportunity to fly to South Carolina to see him. There was still a little apprehension of how I would feel when the reality of it was in front of me, but when I held him all the apprehension melted away and I was once again overwhelmed with love for this precious little baby.

I can’t tell you how much healing this precious little child has brought to me. I love him so much and miss him every day! Thankfully with today’s technology, we can FaceTime and fly back to see him every few months. 

Although our journey to parenthood is still far from over I know whatever happens the Lord has a greater plan than me. One day we will be parents I know that without a shadow of a doubt! There are still days when this journey is harder than others, but I am so thankful to God for blessing me with the gift of my nephew and for knowing how to heal my heart in the most miraculous and amazing ways!