Showers of Blessing





     Friday night I went to a baby shower. It was to me a shower of blessing!  It is one that I will never forget because it was one where the gift of a child was DEFINTELY NOT taken for granted. I drove there with my dear friend Maria who recently lost her precious baby at twenty weeks.  She delivered the baby and held him/her (she believes little Dakota is a girl) and in the midst of all the grief,  heart ache and sorrow she wanted to be there for Julia who is weeks away from delivering her long awaited miracle baby.  Julia prayed for a long time against what the doctors were telling her.  She was told she was barren. The desire to have a baby was so strong though, Julia believed that that very desire was placed in her by God and she wouldn't give up on her dream.  But there did come a place where she was at a cross-roads and it was there where she layed her dream of a baby on the alter because she deemed God faithful.  It was the very dream He had placed in her heart that she gave back to Him.  This is the moment I believe she recieved His strength to conceive! His strength is made PERFECT in weakness.

    While she was opening her gifts she stopped and spoke to all of us and began to cry.  She said she had dreamed about this day for a long time and she expressed how thankful she was.  The whole event was SUCH a blessing .  My friend Maria who had just recently given her baby back to God in a small ceremony where she laid Dakota to rest,  must have been so blessed by Julia's expression of gratitude at the preciousness of the gift she'd been given. I know I was .  Maria told me on the way to the shower that she understood King David's heart when his son died and how he tore his clothes and shaved his head.  She cried as she told me how her grief was so great she wanted somehow to express it in a way that was demonstrative of the depth of her grief........and she knew what that feeling was like. 

    Maria and Julia, my heart goes out to each of you. Julia I rejoice with you. And Maria I share your sorrow. I love you both so much.  I've stood by and watched both of you as an act of the will lay down that which was SO precious to each of you . I see a beauty in each of you that can only come from God in a willingness to let God be God! 
   I don't know what God has in store for you Maria, but what I do know is this.  It must be something special!  The glory you bring to His name through your honest pain, void of bitterness- is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.  I weep with you Maria.  Don't ever think that you can't talk about your baby with me or that it's been long enough and you should "move on".  Even God weeps over the state of this world and that He has provided an answer to all of the sorrow in Jesus and yet many refuse to come to Him .  Jesus was a man of sorrows and well aquainted with grief.
   You have been a wonderful friend to me Maria. You reached out to me in my own pain when others didn't know what to do with me. I will be forever grateful for your friendship.  You too Julia-you are very dear to me.




 

Your pain has changed me

Your dreams inspire.

Your face a memory,

Your hope a fire

Your courage asks me

What I am made of 
And what I know of love

Lyrics by Sara Groves- the song " I saw what I saw"