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December 12, 2017

Same Song (Empty Arms), Second Verse (His Kindness Leads to Repentance)

DISCLAIMER:  This is ‘my’ testimony about the loss of ‘our’ baby and what God said to ‘me’.  I believe that God uses what happened to me as a clear picture of the importance of forgiveness and a clear conscious.  Please don’t read your or your friends situations into my events, just open your hearts to see Jesus amidst tragedy.  🙂

After the doctor performed a cleaning procedure on me, he entered my room and tried to explain what had happened to our baby.  Probably due to frustration at my blank expression to all his medical jargon, he stated, “It is as if something ate your baby.  The amniotic fluid is there, the placenta is there, but no baby.” (statement referred to in previous blog, “Empty Arms . . . “)  Although his words may seem harsh to you, I hid them in my heart and God used them for healing later.

When we found out I was pregnant, I was on staff at a large church and Randy had been the interim youth pastor.  A new youth pastor from a more ‘liberal’ background had been hired and Randy was now serving as his assistant.  Randy and the new Youth Pastor butted heads over some morality issues.  Randy used the Word as a sword and made his point – lacking love and respect. 🙂  Although the Sr. Pastor told us he would lean on agreeing with Randy, our disrespect forced him to back the decision for Randy to be let go.  He graciously stated that the church would never repeat this incident and always give Randy great recommendations.  Randy and I made peace with the Youth Pastor.  BUT the thing that I am most proud of Randy is he actually put on his resume’  that he had been fired and the reason why.  I LOVE HONEST TRANSPARENCY!  And so does God!!  Both of the head coaches that he for which he worked in the next 9 years, hired and respected him because he had not hidden this fact.  God honors the truth.  (Great side note)

However, my individual heart was pretty messy.  The night Randy was fired, I had severe pains in my stomach and the baby began to miscarry soon after.  God was so sweet to heal my soul first as I wrote about in “Empty Arms to Making God Smile” before confronting my sin.  About 6 months after we had left Lubbock and were living and coaching in McKinney, God began to stir up ‘wonderings’ in my heart.

God amazes me with His kindness.  He gave me time to heal, to be able to talk about the loss of our baby without tears flowing, time for my emotions to be completely engulfed by His emotions for His children.  Then His kindness toward my heart’s condition kicked in which led me to repentance.  His kindness gave me courage to wonder, to ask questions and to accept the truth and my responsibility in the loss of my child.

I was fresh out of the university when I became the Children’s Pastor at this prominent church.  I was full of zeal and lacking on wisdom.  Although I didn’t voice my ‘superior’ attitude and judgment of many of the leaders around me, I nurtured them in my heart.  In my youthfulness and ignorance I had judged several church leaders.  I felt that I really knew better and would do things better.  IMMATURITY!

These secret judgments stewed into bitterness. When Randy was fired that sin of bitterness exploded in my belly.  The poison that I had nurtured in my inner most being along with my body nurturing a growing life within my womb literally erupted, resulting in the intense stomach pain and destroying of the beautiful life God was forming inside me.

As the wonderings and questions surfaced in my heart, God’s conviction blanketed those same questions.  With the Holy Spirit holding my hand I was able to take accept the truth that MY sin was what ‘ate my baby.’  The Dr.’s words rang true!  God began cleaning out the ‘goo’ of the sin of bitterness in my heart.  God’s kindness towards us will not allow the poison of any kind of sin to remain.  I experienced that with His conviction there is always freedom if I will take responsibility, change my perspective and how I live.  In this act of repentance, as I walked into God’s perspective, there was no guilt attached rather life.  Instead of being weighed down in guilt, I am free to make better choices, to help bring the Kingdom in a more full way to others’ lives for Him to use this tragedy as a picture of His Kingdom coming.

If I could live moments again, I would rather have things differently, Sometimes, there is still sorrow attached to the memorty.  But God never wastes anything given over to Him – no person, no event, no circumstance, not even our bad choices, when given to Him.  He redeems all and completely for His purpose and for His Kingdom.  As a result my bad choices are an eternal picture for me and I hope now for you that

1.  Bitterness (unforgiveness) will eat the life right out of you.  I declare no mercy on bitterness or unforgiveness in my life.

2.  God’s kindness leads us to a full repentance – seeing and living from God’s perspective.  I run to repentance.  I run to Him.

I hope that this simple story of one of our life events is a picture burned in your mind and that you too will NEVER let unforgiveness take root and you will experience His kindness that leads us to repentance.

Originally posted December 18,2016