A Plea to Jehovah Jireh for Our Nation

Most Precious Heavenly Father,

How great is your name in all the earth!  You reign forever!

You are the refuge for the oppressed, the stronghold in times of trouble!  Abba Father, you have never forsaken those who seek you! (Ps 9:7-10).

You know when we sit and you know when we rise.  You hem us in behind and before! You knit us together in our mother’s wombs in quiet and secret moments.   In those first tender moments my existence was hidden from all technology, from all human knowledge, but never hidden from you.  (Ps 139) You know the number of hairs on each individual’s head (Mt. 10:30).  You give strength to the weary and increase the power of the weak (Is.  40:29). You never leave!  When things seem at their worst you are right there.

You are our greatest cheerleader, our wisest counsel, our most loyal friend, the softest shoulder on which to cry.

Father, you meet all our needs.  When others will fall short you are steadfast.  You reach down to rescue us in the deepest valleys and you are there waiting on us at the source of our deepest pain.

Over 200 years ago you formed a country based on freedom.  Lord, you delivered our forefathers from oppression and raised them up a great nation, “conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all are created equal.”  You love no other man more than the other.  You love the self-righteous, the pious, the ones who have turned their back on you, ALL.  Lord, so many years ago you set in those men’s hearts that ALL men and women should have opportunities, ALL men and women should have rights, ALL men and women should be treated equally.  Lord, we are honored by your vast blessing!  Thank you for lifting the United States up and blessing our land to be one of the most, if not the most powerful nation on earth!  Thank you for the liberties we enjoy!  Thank you for allowing our boys to grow into men and CHOOSE their occupation, thank you for the ability for women to CHOOSE whether to have a career or to stay at home and devote themselves to their household.  Thank you for the ability to worship you freely, not in a secret meeting or at risk of losing our lives.

Precious Lord, people out there want to hurt us, even kill us, for the beliefs we have.  People are so bold as to fly airplanes into our great buildings, killing over 3,000 of our brothers and sisters.  Father, they will try to keep us down, they will try to kill us, they will try to overtake this great nation!  But, with YOU at the helm they can do nothing.

All that said, Lord, we need you today, more than ever.  Father, we are divided amongst ourselves.  We fight battles against each other, in words, in hate, in violence, and loving our neighbor is the farthest thing from our minds.  Father, we have lost the fire that was in the beginning of this great nation.  We have misplaced our focus.  Lord, we are so concerned about our own rights and privileges and what we “deserve” that we have skewed the purpose of this great nation.  We have turned our nation from a mindset of honor and gratefulness for the opportunities we have to that of selfishness and a focus on what we feel we are owed.

We know a house divided against itself will fall (Mt 12:25, Mk 3:25, Lk 11:17).  We know it is inevitable that our great nation will be the source of its own demise should we not come together.

El Shaddai, my plea today is for you to come and fill the hearts and minds of our people!  Make us a unified nation, one whose purpose is to serve the one God, Jehovah!  Move in the hearts of those who love you. Raise them up to be great leaders, to be the disciples you have called them to be.  Anoint them as witnesses for you!  Lord, take away our fear of rejection, judgement, and even fear for our lives.  May we boldly approach the Throne of Grace and boldly approach our very existence in a way that shouts from the mountain tops that you are who you say you are!

Lord, prick the hearts of those who do not know your goodness, mercy, and grace.  Give them a reason to seek your face, give them examples, bring to them those witnesses mentioned before so that they may see who YOU are and be changed!  Fill every longing they have with your goodness!

Jehovah Jireh, send your Holy Spirit like you did on the day of Pentecost.  Send it down like tongues of fire to fill the people of our nation!  May we all bear witness to a great revival.  Lord, let that revival start here and now!  Let it start with me!  Just as you went before the Israelites in a pillar of fire in the desert, Lord, I ask that you blaze our paths in the midst of this dark time, make the path you choose known to us!

Raise our men up to walk in truth, lift our women to stand for justice.  May we be a formidable foe in the face of any adversary!  For if YOU are with us, who can truly stand against us?

Let us urge those who do not know you not to turn away from you during times of trial.  Let us show them how to run toward you, with full and reckless abandon.  Lord, show us how to love our neighbor, all our neighbors.  Show us what that love looks like.  Let us fully express that love in our lives toward those who live differently, look differently, and think differently than we do.  May we be used as your instrument to love as you first loved us, and let us not get in the way of your work.  May we glorify your name in the fruits that we bear.

My Adonai, you are the only one who can provide revival to this nation.  I stand now, with arms wide, in awe of your goodness, your mercy, and your eternal grace, and excited for the time to come.

In your most holy, most precious, all-powerful name,

AMEN

The Peace in The Valley: A Celebration of Life, But What Comes After?

(James 1:2-4)

It’s August 13^th.

A normal day for most, and an occasional day of “Freaky Friday” superstition.

But for us it’s different.

This is the day we celebrate one of two lives we have waiting on us, whom we long to meet in Heaven.

In 2011 we lost a baby by miscarriage.  That child went to be with his or her brother or sister, whom we lost in 2010.  We celebrate the lives of those precious children on August 13^th and January 23^rd because those were my due dates.  We are not sure of the date they fell asleep and awoke in the presence of their Most Holy Maker.

I have gotten to the point where only occasionally I fall apart.  I lost it in church the other day.  Several youth were on stage speaking on their camp experience.  My heart sank with the sorrow that these two children will never get the opportunity to go to camp.  More importantly, they will never get the opportunity to share Jesus with others…

Or will they?

Those children may never have set foot on the Earth alive, but they were a bold and strong testimony to the power of a Wonderful, Merciful Savior.  They were a catalyst in gently bringing me to my knees, to the source of my deepest pain, and My God was right there waiting on me.  You see, He had gone there before me.  (Deuteronomy 31:8)

Let me explain.  Yes, I am so, so sorry I do not have them here with me.  My arms literally ache for the babies I do not have here on Earth.  However, I do know if I had not lost those children there were so many things I might never have experienced, SO MANY emotions I likely would not have felt, and so many opportunities to draw nearer to my God that I might have otherwise missed out on if those children now resided on Earth as opposed to Heaven.  No, I do not have my children in my arms now.  Yes, I missed out and I will continue miss out on their Earthly lives, but I got the opportunity to experience love, deeper than any fathomable Earthly love, support, in the way of family and Heaven, a correlation to my God, in that I have a very small glimpse of what it’s like to lose a child.

Friends, I got the privilege to experience the Peace that surpasses any and all understanding for the first time in my life.  A deep and passionate romance with the Holy Spirit was cultivated in those tender, raw moments of pain and agony.  I got to feel the strong and mighty arms of my Savior wrap around me, like a daddy whose little girl fell off her bike and skinned her knee.  He held me until the pain was more bearable.  I fell off of the bicycle of life.  HE took on that pain and encouraged me to get back up, dust myself off, and keep living.  When no one else understood, when it might have slipped into the back of other’s minds, HE never left.  He was there the whole time.  How did I get that?  I did nothing more than pray earnestly for it, friend.  There was nothing more I did or could have done to receive such a precious gift.  You see, Our God gives freely, all we have to do is ask.

I also received the gift of compassion.  (2 Corinthians 1:3-4) I get the privilege now of coming along side other women who have lost a baby, particularly to miscarriage, and loving on them in their dark, cold, isolating, painful valley.  I have the privilege of saying “This hurts, sweet lady, I can relate, though I might not know your pain exactly, I know how badly it hurts to lose, and I am there for you every step of your way.”  What wonderful gifts God gave me through those beautiful children!  (Matthew 10:8)  I have a deeper appreciation for the fragility and sacredness of life and am (I hope) able to amplify that through my relationship with my children whom I have gotten the blessing of raising.

For me, dying and ascending to Heaven is more than a reunion of loved ones gone before, Heaven, to me, will be a Glorious meeting.  It makes Heaven, for me, a little sweeter.  First, I see myself asking to behold my Beautiful Savior.  As soon as He has kept me in his arms for as long as He can possibly stand it I will run to those sweet children, whom I know I will recognize, and hold them both in my arms for another eternity, until it is time for them  to meet their two brothers.  I will thank those babies for their bold witness to the goodness of our Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

One of the most powerful television events to me was when the Duggars lost their little one in-utero, little Jubilee.  It wasn’t the loss but that the Duggars IMMEDIATELY were able to thank their God for the time they had with their daughter, to thank Him for their daughter, that made this such a profound moment.  This was something that took me YEARS to do.  Now, I’m thankful for every second I got, every physical and emotional pain, every hope, every crushed anticipation, all of it.  It still hurts, friend, it doesn’t mean the pain goes away, but I fix my eyes on my  Rock, my Fortress, my Deliverer, my God in whom I take refuge, my Strength, and the Horn of my Salvation, and take things to him, without anxiousness, in prayer and supplication, and He grants me the blessed peace that surpasses all understanding.   And I know there was a purpose, those little lives had meaning, and they were most precious to Him.  (Psalm 18:1-2) (Philippians 4:6) (Psalm 139)

There’s another thing I would like to address.  For a long time I felt like I did not have the right to grieve.  I miscarried, there was nothing to bury.  It was very early in this particular case.  People are unconsciously cruel and saysometimes well-intentioned yet hurtful things.  I even overheard some moms talking about their friend who had just miscarried, one said, “It’s not like she lost a real baby”.  Sweet sisters who may have heard something like this:   It was your baby.  It was a child, who, if did not already, was soon to have a real heartbeat and already had a real soul.  That child’s days were already written down in the Lamb’s Book of Life and every fiber of his or her very being was woven together by God Himself.  Do not ever, EVER let anyone tell you differently.  You grieve your loss.  Do not push it down or discount it because someone else does not understand how marvelous our God is to create life the way only He can!

While writing this post I was able to go back to the posts on my old business blog from when we lost our two little ones.  We have come so far.  Here they are if you would like to read them, but then again, you already know how wordy I am.  Maybe save them for later.

http://www.hdstatements.blogspot.com/2012/08/a-life-to-be-celebrated-no-matter-how.html

http://www.hdstatements.blogspot.com/2011/01/to-everything-there-is-season.html

Until we meet again, my cherished little ones, you have all the love one Earthly being can give.

Friend, do you have pain; is there a deep longing, an ache in your soul that nothing has quenched?  Let me encourage you to fall head-first into the arms of your loving Savior.  Pray for peace and rest.  Dive into scripture.  Seek out the words He has waiting for you!  If you need someone I am here to pray with and for you.  Just email heritagedesigns@live.com

~Trista

James 1:2-4: Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy.  For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.

Deuteronomy 31:8 – It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed

2 Corinthians 1:3-4 – 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.

Matthew 10:8:  Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give

Psalm 18:1-2:  I love you, Lord, my strength.  The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

Philippians 4:6-7: Be anxious for nothing; but in ever thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.  And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus