Happy 7th Heavenly Birthday to my first daughter Honesty Noel! Seven years doesn’t seem possible! Everything has changed so much since! But the painful memories bring me back to reality of the tragedy we faced and still feels fresh to my heart. Losing Honesty was the hardest thing I’ve ever faced! But now I see the goodness of God in it all.
If we just met recently or you are new to my photography page and haven’t heard my story I’ll give you a quick glimpse. Seven years ago after waiting a long time to be a mom, I got pregnant. Josh has four boys so we always talked about having a girl for 7 years before she was conceived. After Josh’s vasectomy reversal I got pregnant only a month later and we found out we were having a girl! Our lives were full of dreams and joy and we were happier than ever. I was six months pregnant when we were heading to an ultrasound appointment when a car veered into our lane and hit us head on. Honesty didn’t make it.
Every year looking back it gives me the time to reflect. You know when you are going through Something horrible at the moment you cannot see the good? That’s how it was for me in this situation. So many years of being in a dark place wondering when it would get better and easier and just wanting something to go right.
So while reflecting on this tragedy I want to tell you how God has used it for the good and what God has shown me. I feel a little bit vulnerable posting this but I think it will be beneficial to somebody.
Compassion:The first thing that was born in me after I lost Honesty was true compassion. I thought I was compassionate before but I was more hardened by life. I tried to sympathize with others hurts but it’s different when you yourself have went through something horrible and you know pain to a level you never thought possible. I’ve went through plenty of bad things as a child, as a teenager etc. But losing Honesty pierced my soul. Therefore I became more compassionate to others hurts and that opened doors for God to work through me in other people’s lives. Why? Because God works through us when we are loving and compassionate for He’s called us to love one another, and care for one another.
The second thing that was born out of tragedy was the gift of writing. Seriously! I was NEVER a writer before. Not when I was younger I never had a diary like my sister did ( I know because I would read her diary ?), I hated writing in school because I was terrible at it and English being my second language made it harder, and my social media posts were always short. But the night of the accident I wrote for the first time. Many of you will remember this day. I wrote and God used it to touch many lives.
In that darkest night of my life laying in a hospital bed crying, crushed, unable to get out of bed, holding Honesty, feeling useless in my condition, God seen the potential as I looked to Him and thought I know you have something good in this and because of that little hope I had left, He moved in a mighty way and I have heard so many wonderful testimonies of how God touched people that day as I wrote my personal testimony on Facebook for the first time in my life and the outcome has truly helped so much with my grief as I know that nothing that happened was in vain.
Patience: EEEKK the word itself is a hard one. Raise your hands if you think you were patient but life showed you otherwise ?I’ve been called patient all my life. In fact when I was little my mom would take me to run errands all the time that would last all day because I was patient and would never complain. How many of you would take your kid to do that? Not I, ha ha. But I really did believe I was patient till the thing that I wanted most in the world was gone. Now does that mean that I’m perfectly patient now? Heck no. But I learned to shift my focus which creates patience. If your focus is only on that thing that you want, then you’ll become impatient and inpatientness leads to desperation which can cause some bad decisions. But focusing on God knowing He’ll give me the desires of my heart in His way and timing causes me to rest in Him and wait patiently.
Humility:I may have cringed a little bit on that one. Pain can reveal some ugly things about ourselves. Sometimes things we didn’t know were there. I always thought I was following God’s will and I really did want to but instead I became controlling. I started to make my own plans and I thought they were God’s plans. I told everyone I would have twins because God showed me, I told everyone it would be a boy and a girl, I planned in my mind the pregnancy I would have, the birth, even the month they would be born. I called it Faith but it was Control! Which is humiliating but it’s also humbleling. My favorite story in the Bible is of Joseph. Oh how I can relate! God gave him a dream and he was so excited about it that he went around telling his whole family which caused his brothers to be even more jealous of him and they plotted to kill him. God spared his life but he went through years of tests and hardships. But God did what He promised in his dream came true as there was a great famine in the land and God used Joseph as the only way to save his family’s lives.
Yes God gave me a dream and instead of me seeking guidance from leaders and asking God more about it, I became the person that would make it happen in my own way. And guess what? Every single thing that I planned (except having twins) in my head never happen therefore crushing me even deeper into dispair. But God has been very good and despite my failures and not getting it right, He’s blessed me with double the reward with two beautiful girls! I would not trade it for the world and God knew what was best. I don’t know what else God has planned but the only thing that matters is that it is good. I don’t have to worry about how and when and what it looks like anymore.I already have went down that road and it’s not good and it definitely doesn’t work.
And the Bible says in Romans 2:11 “For God does not show favoritism.” Meaning that He wants to use whatever you are going through for your good too! He uses all bad for our good. Like in the story of Genesis 50:20 Joseph said “You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people.” Wow! That’s huge! And don’t you want to be used by Him to help others? And when we help others in our pain I believe it helps with our healing too.
My hope for today is that you can see the light and the good that comes out of dark situations. You probably won’t know what that is and what it’ll look like but it’ll come as long as you allow God to work it all out for the good.
I pray that you allow God to show you the ugly too. Allow Him to search your heart and reveal things that He doesn’t want to be there. After all they are things that are harmful to ourselves. Yes it’s hard, yes it can be humiliating and humbleling but it’ll also be liberating and freeing! And when we allow God to change our hearts, it draws the world closer to Him as we reflect His image. The world is not looking for words that are empty and don’t deliver. The world is hungry for truth, love and hope that only Jesus can bring through the people that are willing to be used by Him.
