Motherhood Makes Me Question My Faith

May 22, 2013 By Brenda

From the outside looking in it seems that I’ve proved my faith in God.

First, there was the four-year-long boyfriend who I grew up with but in the end chose a gay lifestyle. I sobbed because I felt robbed – robbed of four years in the most precious time of life. How could this happen to me – the good girl? Things like this don’t happen to good girls, right? But in the end I praised God because the experience made cling to His hem with a fierce might that I didn’t even know was in me. I fell more in love with God that day.

Then the singleness continued. And continued. And continued. My identity was wrapped up in the desire to be a wife and mother. Who was I now? A girl who may never get married? I kept trudging along making lots of mistakes along the way, but never making the mistake of leaving the One I was in love with for life. Again, I squeezed tightly to His hem. I tried to be faithful.

After that my husband lay on the seventh floor of the ICU dying of heart failure. My heart wanted to die, too. This time I learned to surrender sooner. There wasn’t much kicking and screaming – only a little – and I told God that I trusted Him. His will be done. Faith seeped from my pores in a supernatural way – so much so that others thought I was in denial. They comforted me because they knew my husband was going to die. But he didn’t. I found peace in the middle of my faith – and my surrender.

I turn on the news this week and feel in the most minuscule way the heartache of the moms who lost their babies in the tornado in Oklahoma. Then I open Facebook and learn of another mom who tragically and suddenly lost her toddler-girl. She died in her sleep. They think it was pneumonia. I don’t even know these people, but I found myself on the floor sobbing like I had lost my own.

Last November I became a mom. A mom to a baby girl. Motherhood is cliché in its nature because no matter how hard I try to be original when I write about it, I can’t. It’s just that soul-wrenching. There’s no way to know the feeling until it’s in your own chest. My heart pounds for that child. I feel like I was born again last November.

Then I lose my faith.

I watch and listen and walk myself through the shoes of the moms who lost their babies in the best way I can, but the only question I ask myself over and over is, “How do they go on?” I don’t think I could.

The moment those words whisper through my mind I shiver. They reveal a secret in my soul.

**Do I really believe in Jesus?**

Yes, of course, I believe that Jesus is the Son of God. I know He died on the Cross for the painful sinner that I am. I know I am completely forgiven and redeemed by His blood. I know one day I will see Him and spend eternity with Him. I know all of that.

But do I believe He will take care of me even in the depths of despair I could face?

Having my heart crushed in two by a silly boy, I believed. Spending Sunday afternoons lonely and yearning for a family, I believed. Sitting in a chair in the ICU, I believed. But motherhood is different.

My security is to stand puffed up with how faithful I have been before, but motherhood shows me how far away I truly am.

My tendency is to squeeze hold of my baby girl a little tighter, protect her a little more, refuse to allow anything to happen to her. Or to beg over and over and over again, day-in and day-out, “Lord, please don’t take my baby!”. Then there is fear that I have a lesson to learn. After all, I know God cares more about my holiness than my happiness. What if taking her is the only way I can learn the lesson? The thoughts continue.

Motherhood makes me question my faith.

So my thoughts must move elsewhere – to His truth.

“Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all. Both riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all. In your hand are power and might, and in your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all.” 1 Chronicles 29:11-12

“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.” Deuteronomy 31:8

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Matthew 11:28-29

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.” 2 Corinthians 1:3-7

““For there is hope for a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that its shoots will not cease. Though its root grow old in the earth, and its stump die in the soil, yet at the scent of water it will bud and put out branches like a young plant.” Job 14:7-9

“Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” Isaiah 41:10

Hidden in these words is my faith. Without them I have nothing. I might as well believe that I couldn’t go on – because I couldn’t. However, with them is my life.

How has motherhood changed your faith in God?

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Loves Me Not: Heartbreak and Healing God’s Way {A Book Review}

May 13, 2013 By Brenda

To say that I experienced my share of heartbreak is an understatement. I’ve known my husband for six years now, and the memories of relationships before him still haunt me. Some of my biggest regrets revolve around how I handled myself during and after a those break-ups. I used to describe is as a physical pain in my chest that just throbbed. For me, heartbreak was more than emotional.

The bottom line: I didn’t handle heartbreak God’s way. Instead of allowing God to heal me, I tried to heal myself which typically meant responding out of me feelings of rejection, worthlessness, and fear. I was the girl who called, over and over again I called, cried, begged for answers, and gave away my dignity. I wanted revenge, and I went great lengths to try to get it.

“There are times when doing nothing demands much greater strength than taking action. Maintaining composure is often the best evidence of power.” Loves Me Not, p. 20

Renee Fisher, author of several books including her newly released eBook Loves Me Not: Heartbreak and Healing God’s Way, saw a need that single people have to address heartbreak in a more God-focused way. Using her own heartbreak, Renee shares with us truth that leads us to Jesus instead of regret.

Renee starts off in section one by giving us a basis from which Christian friendship should be built. I have always been of the “girls and guys can’t be friends” opinion. This is primarily because being friends with guys didn’t work for me, and it didn’t work for people around me. Either I was interested enough to date the guy, or the guy was interested enough to date me. There was no happy friendship zone.

But Renee gave me something to think about. She writes,

“With today’s hook-up-or-go-home culture, friendship with the opposite sex seems nearly impossible—especially before dating. What better way to discern if a relationship will be a good fit if you know what good of a friend he or she is?” (Loves Me Not, p. 11 and 14)

I never thought about being friends with the opposite sex as a way to discern a future relationship. In this section, Renee breaks down what Christian friendship should look like. And don’t you want to be friends, best friends, with your one-day spouse?

Later in this section she discusses the anatomy of a whole heart – a heart fully for Jesus instead of idols we create.

“Our plans had all melted into something that resembled an idol. We worshiped our relationship because we were more scared of the breakup—and being single.” Loves Me Not, p. 26

What is very useful in this chapter is a list of Bible verses to help when we experience a broken heart.

In section two, Renee gets into the practical side of breakups. She uses her own and other people’s stories to show that all of us struggle with handling breakups. Renee talks about the questions we ask such as, “Is it okay to breakup with someone in a text?” and the lame excuses that drive us crazy like “God just told me to do it.”

When I was going through a breakup I knew I had all of these emotions and feelings, but I didn’t know what to do with them. Talking about them over and over with my girlfriends didn’t seem to be the answer either. Renee explains how when we’re experiencing breakup we must run to God – not away from Him, be willing to forgive, and live in a place of gratitude.

“If you remember nothing else from this book, remember that you’re worth pursuing.” (Loves Me Not, p. 35)

In the last part of the book, Renee shares how to move past a breakup and allow it to work for you instead of against you. This includes knowing who God made you to be.

“No relationship can compare to the God-sized-shaped hole in her heart.” (Loves Me Not, p. 60)

Renee reminds us that “breakups sting because our hearts were never meant to experience heartbreak.” (Loves Me Not, p. 64) Breakups are a result of a fallen world. However, despite that, God graciously gives us wisdom to protect us from long-lasting effects of breakups.

Loves Me Not is a book that not only I wish I had when I was single, but it’s a book that I wish every single person would read. Whether or not you are healing from a heartbreak or you need a healthy perspective on relationships, Christian friendship, and where God is in the midst of all of it, you will gleam much wisdom from Renee’s experience and words.

You can get your copy here, on Amazon.

Renee Fisher, the Devotional Diva®, is the spirited speaker and author of Faithbook of Jesus, Not Another Dating Book,Forgiving Others, Forgiving Me, and Loves Me Not. A graduate of Biola University, Renee’s mission in life is to “spur others forward” (Hebrews 10:24) using the lessons learned from her own trials to encourage others in their walk with God. She and her husband, Marc, live in California with their dog, Star. Learn more about Renee at www.devotionaldiva.com.

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Is Online Dating Right for You?

May 8, 2013 By Brenda

My husband and I met of a very popular online dating site (I’ll let you guess which one!). I used to tell him that we had to make up another story – a more romantic one – to tell people. Now I’m okay with admitting the truth. Even though online dating “worked for me”, however, I don’t endorse online dating for everyone. Each person has to decide whether online dating is right for them.

“”All things are lawful,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up.” 1 Corinthians 10:23

Today I am sharing my experiences with online dating at More to Be. I give you five questions to ask yourself before you use online dating. I also tell you how you can use online in a way that is helpful and builds up.

More to Be Contributor

Please join me at More to Be to read more. And I’d love to hear your thoughts, opinions, and comments, too!

* This post does contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure statement here.

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Now I Get It :: Thoughts on a Second Mother’s Day

May 7, 2013 By Brenda

I had driven five hours that day to be there with her. John and I had only been home from our 43 day hospital stay for a few days, and I was off to see another part of my heart laying there, sick, dying. This time it was my mom.

I came in the door that leads from the garage into the house. The last time I had seen her she was helping me clean out the small brush in our back yard. John sat there on our back porch with a Picc in his arm feeding him IV fluid, trying to keep him alive, watching. It was only three months earlier.

To the right were the double doors leading into the basement den. I knew she was in there. No longer could she climb stairs and now she had a hospital bed downstairs to keep her comfortable. I remember turning my head around that corner. I gasped trying to keep the lump coming up out of my gut from coming through my mouth and into a wail. I fought the tears.

There she sat, in the recliner, her head laying back, mouth opened, oxygen tubes coming from her nose. Her hair was now white. Three months later and it was completely white. She was asleep.

I walked in. She immediately woke up. “My baby bird”, she said. “My baby.”

I started to bawl, grabbing her hands, wrinkled and worn, veins protruding. She was only 55 years old.

It has been almost three years since my got sick. And died. I have always missed her, but this year I miss her with a different understanding. This year, for the first time, I have my baby.

Now I get it.

When I hold my baby girl in my arms there is a love that comes through my bones, a physical feeling, that makes me want to hold on so tight. A love that compels me to holler, shout, and scream at this world and how it might hurt her. A love that would literally walk head on into a moving train to save her. A love so powerful. A love that makes me a different person.

Now I get it.

I get the decision my mom made at 22 to quite her job, in the mid-70′s when quitting your job wasn’t cool, to raise me. I get the countless hours she stayed up sewing me dresses and costumes and later drapes for my new home. I get the jobs she hated but she went to every day so that I could go to college – the college I wanted. I get the meals she would cook for me and freeze so that I could carry them back to my college-girl apartment. I get the notes she left on my mirror reminding me that I truly am beautiful when my 16-year-old self thought nothing but.

Now I get it.

Now I Get It

And now I get that there is no one on this planet who will ever love me again with that kind of love.

When she passed away I felt like an orphan. Yes, my dad is still alive and well, but I still felt like an orphan. When conflict arose in my life with this person or that I would think to myself that my one person – my one person who would be on my team no matter what – is now gone. When my baby girl came and I was up at night feeding her, exhausted, in a house so messy and dirty because my tired body just had to rest during the day, I thought of my mom. I was doing it alone. There was no one else. There’s no one like your mom.

Even though we were very different and not the kind to hang out and shop and talk for hours, she was still my mom. Even though she didn’t indulge me or pamper me or agree with me just for the sake of it, she was still my mom. Even though there are mistakes that were lived and regrets that force their way to mind even now, she was still my mom.

At the end of the day your mom is often your most trustworthy ally.

I look at my baby girl and I want to think that this life I live with her will be all hearts and doodles. I know better, though. I won’t always agree with her. She’ll break my heart, and I’ll break hers. I won’t stand up for her when she’s wrong. I hope she doesn’t for me either. But I will always be on her team. The first to reach out and help even if that help means pointing her to Truth instead of loyalty. Because that’s what true love is anyway, pointing to Truth.

One of the last things my mom said to me was this. “My knowing you has made me a better person.”

Now I get it.

For all of you moms, whether you’ve already conceived your children in your womb or your babies are still in your heart, may God bless you with understanding of His love through the love you have for your children.

Last year I celebrated my first Mother’s Day. My baby girl was not born, but she was four months in my womb. You can read about my first Mother’s Day here.

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Brave is the Woman Who Bears Her Unplanned Baby {Five Minute Friday}

May 3, 2013 By Brenda

It’s that time again. Time to join The Gypsy Mama – Lisa-Jo Baker – and several other writers to write for five minutes on a certain topic. Today’s topic is Brave. This post comes from the depths of my heart. I am in a season of deep grieving for aborted babies right now. Brave is the woman who makes a different choice. You are the bravest woman I know.

I do not have any inkling of what it is like to carry an unplanned baby. I will not even attempt to describe that feeling except to say there must be fear. There must be uncertainty.

But when I held my own first-born for the first time I had a glimpse of what it might feel like for someone to come by and take her out of my arms. For permanent. The thought made the tears well, my stomach knot, even fighting gloves come on.

I thought about all those women – those brave women – who make the choice to bear their unplanned babies only to have someone take them away – for good.

Brave.

Those women who selflessly lay their own ridicule, belittlement, and shame aside to deliver into this world the soul placed within them when they could have made a different choice.

Brave.

Those women who for nine months endure the glares, listen to the lectures, stand in the face of the unknown knowing that they can’t provide in nine months but there’s Someone who can.

Brave.

Then I think of Mary. Wasn’t she one of these women? Sure, the circumstances were different, but were the feelings not the same? One thing that she had further against her was an even more relentless culture. But she trusted. She trusted God.

Brave.

For any woman who decides to bear an unplanned baby only to give him to someone else to hear the coos and see the smiles and smell the sweet baby breath, you are brave.

For any woman who decides to bear an unplanned baby only to keep her not knowing how you will provide, not knowing where the food will come from, not knowing if you’ll be safe, you are brave.

You are brave for taking the more fearful path. You are brave for not accepting a quick fix. You are brave for taking responsibility. You are brave for looking head-on past this temporal world and into eternity. You are brave because you trust. You are the strongest kind-of-a-woman I know.

You are brave.