So, a couple of weeks ago a friend of mine sent out an emergency e-mail. You know, one of those "pray for us" right now sort of messages. Her husband had been having severe pain in his abdomin which ended up landing him in the ER. After several tests had been run, he wound up having an emergency appendectomy late one night and spent TWO ENTIRE days in the hospital recovering.
The sad part of this e-mail wasn't that I was overrun with compassion to pray for them! Instead, my thoughts went immediately to, "Wow! Two whole days in the hospital to just lay in bed!! That must be so nice! No one was asking him to do anything. People brought him food and everything he needed. How can I get one of those?"
I was talking to my friend Lacey, who's husband is in Iraq for A YEAR, and I told her that you know you've completely "lost it" and that you are now in the my-spouse-is-deployed-looney-bin when you want to have an appendectomy just so you can get a break from life and and from your kids for a few days!
I don't recall ever staring fondly at a hospital as I drove by before Spence's deployment, so I must now officially qualify for this special looney bin!
Oh well. Lacey said too much calcium can cause a person to have a kidney stone, but since I hear that's pretty painful, I don't think I'll be OD-ing on Calcium anytime soon. Seriously, my friend's husband is better, so instead of the hospital stay, I think I'll take a spa day in late January after Spence gets home!
By the way, it looks like January 10 is the "magic" date of his return. If you hear singing from the mountaintops on that day, it's not Jesus returning -- it's just me shouting with joy to no longer be alone and have help again with my children! AMEN!
Merry Christmas everyone!
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Monday, December 1, 2008
My Testimony - Learning to Love Well
I'm sharing this tomorrow to a group of about 300 women at my parent's home church during their "Loving Well" Bible study that they are studying right now by Beth Moore. It's my testimony of how God's grace & love has sustained us through many storms of life. It is, I hope, I better reflection than anything else I have shared about how God HAS loved us and protected our family during the obstacles life throws our way.
Learning to “Love Well”
My Testimony
Thank you for the opportunity to share my testimony very briefly with you this morning. I’ve titled it “Learning to Love Well” and my story is probably like many of yours. I too am learning to “love well” the people and situations that God has brought into my life.
I am the wife of a U.S. Air Force chaplain, William Spencer, who everyone calls Spence. He has been an active duty Air Force chaplain for 4 and a half years now, and he is currently deployed to Kuwait where he takes care of the troops going in and out of Iraq on various missions. He has been in Kuwait since Sept 4 at an airbase located 36 miles from the Iraqi border and we hope he will return to the U.S. around mid January. Our ministry and our calling to these airmen has been to spread the gospel, disciple these brave men and women and to help advance their quality of life in the military.
Spence and I have been married for 11 years and have 3 beautiful children, Lauren, age 7, Samuel who is almost 4 and Thomas who just turned one year. My children and I have been privileged to move temporarily from our current duty station at Wright Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio to spend the past 4 months here in Naples near my family and as a part of the First Baptist Church family while my husband has been deployed.
Our ministry definitely stems out of our personal story – our story to "love well" our family and then the people God has placed around us.
On a warm summer day of 2004, my husband and I and our then 3-year-old daughter were in the midst of packing boxes and loading a moving truck. We were slated to move to our first active duty Air Force assignment from south Florida to Tyndall Air Force Base in Panama City, Florida, when we received an unexpected phone call. It was a call that changed our lives. It’s amazing how one phone call can change your life, isn’t it?
At the time I was nearly 5 months pregnant with our second child and it was my doctor on the other line. She had some unfortunate news, she told me. The results of my amniocentecis had come back and had confirmed our worst suspicions. The baby I was carrying in my womb would be born with Down syndrome. In addition to Down syndrome, the baby had two large holes in his heart and would require open-heart surgery as an infant in order to survive.
The tears flowed freely as I comprehended this unbelievable news. I was only 29 years old and had never had any complications in my previous pregnancy with our older daughter. This couldn’t be happening, I thought. We could never raise a handicapped child. Why, Lord? We were in ministry. Shouldn’t he protect us from such a tragedy, I asked?
The doctor’s first question to me that day was, “You need to decide in the next day or two if you wish to continue your pregnancy. All options are on the table right now. It is probably best for you and your husband to terminate this pregnancy. I don’t see what value this child’s life would hold,” the doctor said.
Visions of the handicapped bus coming to my house to take our child to school and a “normal” life that he would never lead flooded my mind. Yet, at that moment, Psalm 139 came to life for me like never before.
“For you created my inmost being;
You knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
When I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
Your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
Were written in your book
Before one of them came to be.
With a calm assurance from the Holy Spirit, though broken and in the midst of tears, I knew what was right. I replied to this doctor, “I will continue this pregnancy. I will have this baby.”
I remember sitting on a moving box in the midst of that phone call and thinking, “Lord, why have you called us to this ministry and to move away from all our family & friends in the midst of such a tragedy?”
Well, we moved that day with our truck full of furniture and our hearts full of grief in order to “minister” to those at Tyndall Air Force base. In reality, we met some of the most amazing people who, I believe, ministered more to us than we did to them at that point of our lives. Looking back, I can see how God “loved us well” to put us in such a caring community.
Four months later, Samuel was born on December 15, 2004, at the University of Florida at a planned delivery in order to have the right people in place. He spent the next month in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of the hospital and we camped out at his bedside and at the Ronald McDonald House across from the hospital. It was a gut wrenching time as we almost lost our son twice, watched him be intibated multiple times and prayed that God would spare him. My husband and our daughter spent Christmas at Sam’s bedside & we rang in the New year to beeping heart machines while the prayers of so many, including many from this church, were what sustained us.
But God was answering our prayers and kept him alive, and I was learning to love God even when life didn’t make sense and even when the tears and the pain were so overwhelming I could hardly pray. Through it all, God loved me well, even as I at times shook my fist at heaven with questions and thoughts of, “Why, Lord? Why would you choose me to be this child’s mother and why, Lord, why didn’t you protect him against Down syndrome?
Yet in our grief my husband and I clung to Psalms like Psalm 46,
“God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in times of trouble.
Therefore, we will not fear though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.
There is river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the Holy Place where the most High dwells.
Be still and know that I am God
I will be exalted among the nations
I will be exalted in the earth
The Lord Almighty is with us
The God of Jacob is our fortress.
Well, let me just say that God is to be exalted! He is to be praised even in the storms of life. Samuel’s life up to that point was a miracle in and of itself, but God wasn’t done yet!
In mid January it became apparent that Sam’s heart surgery could no longer be postponed and we flew him via Air Ambulance from the University of Florida to Miami Children’s Hospital where an amazing heart surgeon was in the business of tackling the toughest pediatric open-heart surgery cases. We felt like we were in the best human hands we could find, and surgery was scheduled for the next day.
The day of the operation was very surreal for us. As we kissed our 5 POUND son goodbye at the operating room doors, we placed our faith and trust not in human hands, but in the hands of our Almighty and Loving God. After a six-hour operation that repaired the two holes, repaired a valve and opened his pulmonary artery, the surgeon declared the operation a success. Samuel would live! Praise be to God! We jumped up & down, hugged the surgeon and thanked God for this miracle. He had poured out his love and mercy upon our family that day. God was so faithful to us and that was just the beginning of his hand of faithfulness in our lives!
Following Samuel’s heart surgery and his release from the hospital, our family moved from Tyndall AFB in order to be closer to a major Air Force medical facility. This time we moved to Biloxi, Mississippi. It was our second move in just 7 months, but we felt like it was best for Samuel’s health. Unfortunately, when we moved we arrived just in time for Hurricane Katrina to slam into the Gulfcoast, and completely destroy the city of Biloxi. Seventy percent of our Air Force base was damaged and much of the city was totally wiped out.
Yet again God loved us well. He protected our home from that storm and while most of the homes on our own street had to be completely gutted or partially renovated following Katrina’s aftermath, our home had damage basically confined to the roof area above the garage and ALL our belongings were totally fine. It was nothing short of a miracle. Again, we thank the Lord for His graciousness to our family.
Yet again our family moved and this time we moved to our current duty station in Dayton Ohio. It was three moves and four houses in just about a 16-month period. Even as a military family, we were tired of moving and starting over, but we felt sustained by the presence of God and trusted in His higher plans.
In 2007, perhaps the greatest miracle of all occurred with the birth of our third child. It was another walk of faith to choose to have a 3rd child. Our chances of having another child with Down syndrome became much higher than the average couple, but this time we did no prenatal testing. We just completely trusted God for a positive outcome. Our hope was in Ephesians 3:20, which states, “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!”
On November 8, 2007, Thomas Raass Spencer was born whole and healthy. We give God all the glory for this true miracle. No healthy baby born would ever again be taken for granted by myself or my family! Again, God loved us well and gave us another miracle.
Today Samuel our son with Down syndrome is a very active almost 4-year-old. He learned to walk back in February, just after his third birthday and he communicates to us with a combination of sign language and some words. He tries hard to keep up with his older sister and his busy younger brother. It takes Samuel 1,000 times to learn even the most basic of skills, and so we don’t take for granted anything he learns. Samuel presents us with many challenges on a daily basis, but earlier this year, his life and our story led a dear friend to salvation in Jesus Christ. I don’t know of many 3 year olds who can say that their young life led to someone’s salvation. God has already showed us that Sam has the gift of evangelism and he can’t even talk yet!
Though we haven’t always done as good of a job in trusting God as we should have, my husband and I have had to LEARN to trust God and LEARN that he does love us well. Instead of blaming God for our circumstances, which I did early on as part of my grieving process, we feel that we have learned that God does love us and that it was because of his love that he has protected our family from incredible circumstances, that he has assigned us to our three children and, that yes, he has chosen us to raise a disabled child. Our ministry and our lives have been transformed as we have learned these truths. To God be the glory! He has done great things!
Thank you for your continued prayers and thank you as a church family for loving my children and I during my husband’s deployment. We covet your prayers for our ministry to the airmen and their families that we serve and we appreciate your prayers for my husband’s safe return in January.
Thank you & may the Lord bless you all.
Learning to “Love Well”
My Testimony
Thank you for the opportunity to share my testimony very briefly with you this morning. I’ve titled it “Learning to Love Well” and my story is probably like many of yours. I too am learning to “love well” the people and situations that God has brought into my life.
I am the wife of a U.S. Air Force chaplain, William Spencer, who everyone calls Spence. He has been an active duty Air Force chaplain for 4 and a half years now, and he is currently deployed to Kuwait where he takes care of the troops going in and out of Iraq on various missions. He has been in Kuwait since Sept 4 at an airbase located 36 miles from the Iraqi border and we hope he will return to the U.S. around mid January. Our ministry and our calling to these airmen has been to spread the gospel, disciple these brave men and women and to help advance their quality of life in the military.
Spence and I have been married for 11 years and have 3 beautiful children, Lauren, age 7, Samuel who is almost 4 and Thomas who just turned one year. My children and I have been privileged to move temporarily from our current duty station at Wright Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio to spend the past 4 months here in Naples near my family and as a part of the First Baptist Church family while my husband has been deployed.
Our ministry definitely stems out of our personal story – our story to "love well" our family and then the people God has placed around us.
On a warm summer day of 2004, my husband and I and our then 3-year-old daughter were in the midst of packing boxes and loading a moving truck. We were slated to move to our first active duty Air Force assignment from south Florida to Tyndall Air Force Base in Panama City, Florida, when we received an unexpected phone call. It was a call that changed our lives. It’s amazing how one phone call can change your life, isn’t it?
At the time I was nearly 5 months pregnant with our second child and it was my doctor on the other line. She had some unfortunate news, she told me. The results of my amniocentecis had come back and had confirmed our worst suspicions. The baby I was carrying in my womb would be born with Down syndrome. In addition to Down syndrome, the baby had two large holes in his heart and would require open-heart surgery as an infant in order to survive.
The tears flowed freely as I comprehended this unbelievable news. I was only 29 years old and had never had any complications in my previous pregnancy with our older daughter. This couldn’t be happening, I thought. We could never raise a handicapped child. Why, Lord? We were in ministry. Shouldn’t he protect us from such a tragedy, I asked?
The doctor’s first question to me that day was, “You need to decide in the next day or two if you wish to continue your pregnancy. All options are on the table right now. It is probably best for you and your husband to terminate this pregnancy. I don’t see what value this child’s life would hold,” the doctor said.
Visions of the handicapped bus coming to my house to take our child to school and a “normal” life that he would never lead flooded my mind. Yet, at that moment, Psalm 139 came to life for me like never before.
“For you created my inmost being;
You knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
When I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
Your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
Were written in your book
Before one of them came to be.
With a calm assurance from the Holy Spirit, though broken and in the midst of tears, I knew what was right. I replied to this doctor, “I will continue this pregnancy. I will have this baby.”
I remember sitting on a moving box in the midst of that phone call and thinking, “Lord, why have you called us to this ministry and to move away from all our family & friends in the midst of such a tragedy?”
Well, we moved that day with our truck full of furniture and our hearts full of grief in order to “minister” to those at Tyndall Air Force base. In reality, we met some of the most amazing people who, I believe, ministered more to us than we did to them at that point of our lives. Looking back, I can see how God “loved us well” to put us in such a caring community.
Four months later, Samuel was born on December 15, 2004, at the University of Florida at a planned delivery in order to have the right people in place. He spent the next month in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of the hospital and we camped out at his bedside and at the Ronald McDonald House across from the hospital. It was a gut wrenching time as we almost lost our son twice, watched him be intibated multiple times and prayed that God would spare him. My husband and our daughter spent Christmas at Sam’s bedside & we rang in the New year to beeping heart machines while the prayers of so many, including many from this church, were what sustained us.
But God was answering our prayers and kept him alive, and I was learning to love God even when life didn’t make sense and even when the tears and the pain were so overwhelming I could hardly pray. Through it all, God loved me well, even as I at times shook my fist at heaven with questions and thoughts of, “Why, Lord? Why would you choose me to be this child’s mother and why, Lord, why didn’t you protect him against Down syndrome?
Yet in our grief my husband and I clung to Psalms like Psalm 46,
“God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in times of trouble.
Therefore, we will not fear though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.
There is river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the Holy Place where the most High dwells.
Be still and know that I am God
I will be exalted among the nations
I will be exalted in the earth
The Lord Almighty is with us
The God of Jacob is our fortress.
Well, let me just say that God is to be exalted! He is to be praised even in the storms of life. Samuel’s life up to that point was a miracle in and of itself, but God wasn’t done yet!
In mid January it became apparent that Sam’s heart surgery could no longer be postponed and we flew him via Air Ambulance from the University of Florida to Miami Children’s Hospital where an amazing heart surgeon was in the business of tackling the toughest pediatric open-heart surgery cases. We felt like we were in the best human hands we could find, and surgery was scheduled for the next day.
The day of the operation was very surreal for us. As we kissed our 5 POUND son goodbye at the operating room doors, we placed our faith and trust not in human hands, but in the hands of our Almighty and Loving God. After a six-hour operation that repaired the two holes, repaired a valve and opened his pulmonary artery, the surgeon declared the operation a success. Samuel would live! Praise be to God! We jumped up & down, hugged the surgeon and thanked God for this miracle. He had poured out his love and mercy upon our family that day. God was so faithful to us and that was just the beginning of his hand of faithfulness in our lives!
Following Samuel’s heart surgery and his release from the hospital, our family moved from Tyndall AFB in order to be closer to a major Air Force medical facility. This time we moved to Biloxi, Mississippi. It was our second move in just 7 months, but we felt like it was best for Samuel’s health. Unfortunately, when we moved we arrived just in time for Hurricane Katrina to slam into the Gulfcoast, and completely destroy the city of Biloxi. Seventy percent of our Air Force base was damaged and much of the city was totally wiped out.
Yet again God loved us well. He protected our home from that storm and while most of the homes on our own street had to be completely gutted or partially renovated following Katrina’s aftermath, our home had damage basically confined to the roof area above the garage and ALL our belongings were totally fine. It was nothing short of a miracle. Again, we thank the Lord for His graciousness to our family.
Yet again our family moved and this time we moved to our current duty station in Dayton Ohio. It was three moves and four houses in just about a 16-month period. Even as a military family, we were tired of moving and starting over, but we felt sustained by the presence of God and trusted in His higher plans.
In 2007, perhaps the greatest miracle of all occurred with the birth of our third child. It was another walk of faith to choose to have a 3rd child. Our chances of having another child with Down syndrome became much higher than the average couple, but this time we did no prenatal testing. We just completely trusted God for a positive outcome. Our hope was in Ephesians 3:20, which states, “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!”
On November 8, 2007, Thomas Raass Spencer was born whole and healthy. We give God all the glory for this true miracle. No healthy baby born would ever again be taken for granted by myself or my family! Again, God loved us well and gave us another miracle.
Today Samuel our son with Down syndrome is a very active almost 4-year-old. He learned to walk back in February, just after his third birthday and he communicates to us with a combination of sign language and some words. He tries hard to keep up with his older sister and his busy younger brother. It takes Samuel 1,000 times to learn even the most basic of skills, and so we don’t take for granted anything he learns. Samuel presents us with many challenges on a daily basis, but earlier this year, his life and our story led a dear friend to salvation in Jesus Christ. I don’t know of many 3 year olds who can say that their young life led to someone’s salvation. God has already showed us that Sam has the gift of evangelism and he can’t even talk yet!
Though we haven’t always done as good of a job in trusting God as we should have, my husband and I have had to LEARN to trust God and LEARN that he does love us well. Instead of blaming God for our circumstances, which I did early on as part of my grieving process, we feel that we have learned that God does love us and that it was because of his love that he has protected our family from incredible circumstances, that he has assigned us to our three children and, that yes, he has chosen us to raise a disabled child. Our ministry and our lives have been transformed as we have learned these truths. To God be the glory! He has done great things!
Thank you for your continued prayers and thank you as a church family for loving my children and I during my husband’s deployment. We covet your prayers for our ministry to the airmen and their families that we serve and we appreciate your prayers for my husband’s safe return in January.
Thank you & may the Lord bless you all.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)