Weeping may tarry for the night…

A lot of you have probably already knew or had read about how my wife was diagnosed with premature ovarian failure and told that she would never, ever, ever get pregnant.

She did get pregnant.  We have spent the last 8 weeks really excited about something that we thought we would never get to be excited about.  We praised God for a miracle.  We really couldn’t believe that we had created a baby.

Well, there have been some complications for the past two weeks or so, but we’ve been hopeful.  We had an ultrasound the other day, and the doctor said that there was no heartbeat.  But we were still hopeful.  Quite a few people told us that they had similar things happen and gone on to have a healthy baby, so we still had hope.

But we lost the baby this morning.

I know that most of you may not understand this, but we lost a child.  We lost a child that we loved as much as any parents would ever love a child.  We had already picked out names for him or her.  We had already started planning for cribs and strollers and all that stuff.  We lost our baby.

Its hard to breath right now.  We’re not going to be able to get through this without God.  We’re not going to be able to get through this without our friends and our family.  But we’re 2000 miles away from our families.  But we still need you.  Leah needs you.

We need you to pray.  We don’t need you to tell us you are praying for us if you’re not.  We really need you to pray.

We don’t need a nice hallmark message as you go on with your life, we need empathy.  But we don’t need you to just read this and not say anything.

We’ve got eachother, and we’ve got God, but we feel lonely.  We feel really lonely.

We’re trusting that God will be with us, but that doesn’t make it much easier.

In the midst of grief, in the midst of the toughest trials, God is still good.  God is still enough.  He is enough, but this is still hard.

Some people may think that we should not have shared about our pregnancy as early as we did in case something like this were to happen.  But we don’t regret it.  We wanted you guys to share in the miracle.  And now we want you guys to be there for us in the grieving.  In reality, I don’t know how we would make it if we hid this all away and didn’t tell anyone about it.  Or how we would explain that things are just different right now.

It may take us some time to get back to normal.  Or to find a new normal.  Things feel really dark right now.  So we need your love.  We need you to mourn with us and for us.  We need you to be there for us if we want to cry.  We need you to be there for us if we want to laugh.  We need you to be there for us if we don’t want to say anything at all.

Psalm 30 says, “Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.”

“You have turned for me my mourning into dancing;
you have loosed my sackcloth
and clothed me with gladness,
that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent.
O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever!”

Right now we are in the night.  We are mourning.  I don’t know how long this night will last, but we both trust that God will bring the morning and turn our grief into dancing.

Keep praying for us.

We love all of you.

-Brandon

This is really hard to say

This is really hard to say.

I had an ultrasound done on Saturday.  The technician wouldn’t tell us anything about it.  So we had to wait until today to see the doctor.  We heard some bad news.  She told us that they saw an eight-week old baby but could not find the heartbeat.  The doctor gave us absolutely no hope.  As you can imagine, this was heart-wrenching.  It was one of the hardest thing that we’ve ever had to hear.  I have had a few complications along the way, but I have not miscarried yet.

I’m having a hard time believing this, and I’m going to have a hard time believing it until I actually have a miscarriage.  Maybe its crazy or naive, but I still have hope that God can work miracles.  Doctors have been wrong before.  Maybe she was right, and if so, we’re going to need a lot of prayer and support in the next few weeks.  But we want you to pray now.  For Brandon and I, but also for a miracle.  As long as this baby is inside of me, we’re going to hold on to hope.  Of course we’ve read stories about doctors missing the heartbeat only for it to show up in a week or two.  In fact, my aunt had the same thing happen to her; they couldn’t find the baby’s heartbeat at about 8 weeks, but two weeks later, there it was, and everything ended up fine.

So for now, we choose to hope.  So we’re asking you to hope with us and pray with us.  Pray that God would work a miracle like the one that he worked when we got pregnant in the first place.

it’s real.

read this.

<Please read all the way through and don’t skip ahead or skim>
When I was 17 my heart broke for the first time. I was a senior in high school I was a Jesus Freak, babysitter, guitar playing, songwriting girl. I loved church, youth group, music and was quite the music snob, coffee houses…especially with open mic nights, and I wanted to be just like my big brother Adam who was in college. The thing I remember most is that I loved life, people, having fun and laughing. But then there was a day when a few words changed my life. I was told that I have Premature Ovarian Failure. Basically it’s similar to early menopause. I went through some pretty strenuous tests and saw a reproductive sciences specialist for the last 6-7 years. Through all of this, the statistics never changed, I would never conceive and there was a less than 1 % chance that I would ever get pregnant even with medicine. My heart broke and even though I feel like God has used this to make me stronger in my faith and has really healed a lot of the pain, I was never the same. I have been living in the loss of this. Can you imagine going through that? I met a wonderful guy who dated me knowing this, who fell in love with me knowing this, and married me knowing this. But we still have to mourn. You go through such ups and downs with mourning and the hardest part with this is that I never had something tangible TO mourn. Some people might not ever feel that way about infertility, some people feel worse, if you haven’t ever been there you really can’t know, and I can’t explain it, but I can tell you that most of the time I felt empty, incomplete and worthless. Without the love of Christ and the promise of Him having a plan, I couldn’t have made it. Brandon and I have finally gotten to the place where even though it hurt, even though it is hard to breath sometimes, we are okay. We know that we will be great parents and that adoption is an amazing option. But honestly we have had no hope of ever having one of our own. It’s been three years in October that we have been married and “trying”.

I’m telling you all this to say that in spite of giving up, in spite of a 99.9% chance that it will never happen, the Lord has done a miracle in my body. We are having a baby. I don’t if you believe in God, if you are Christian or if you used to be or whatever please hear me out. I would like you to keep reading. There is no way medically or otherwise that I should be pregnant. The doctors CAN NOT explain it other than a miracle. You see God sent His Son Jesus to die for you and for me, and even though we don’t deserve it, Jesus took on our sin to give us LIFE. He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason, God highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Whether or not you believe that statement you cannot argue that this is a miracle and it is only from God that miracles happen. Period. The Lord is faithful. The thing about a miracle is that we DON”T DESERVE IT!!! Just like we don’t deserve the grace and mercy that God has shown us by sending His Son to die to take our sin, and become an atoning sacrifice for us, and yet He has done it anyway. He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.

The coolness of fall makes me miss my ladies.

So, I know I’m sappy, I know that I am open about home sickness (maybe to a fault), but I also know that I have amazing girl friends, many of whom I have not/will not see in the 2009, and even if I have seen them, it was not nearly enough. Around this time of year I really really miss them, so here are a few things about the lovely ladies in my life, you know who you are. Know that you are loved, often thought of, missed incredibly and my sisters.

• I can talk about my really weird obsessions, or new discoveries and they are open to listening.
• They all LOVE the south…imagine that, southern girls loving the south! I find it soothing.
• The aren’t selfish with their faith, they bring me alongside them, especially in the weak times and through the struggles, but also through what God is teaching them, they love me enough to reprimand me and hold me accountable.
• They make an effort to stay connected, even when/especially when I don’t.
• They aren’t afraid of silence. Sometimes, it’s okay to sit in a room and just “be”, especially in pj’s and with ice cream.
• We can always pick up where we left off…no matter what. Some of us (as in ME) are really bad about keeping in touch and some of them are awesome, so we HAVE to give each other grace there, and usually they do. If not it’s because I’m just being a jerk, but they love me enough to call me on it!
• They are generous, with their love, their lives, their faith and their never ending-2600 hundred mile away friendship.
• I know that I can always go to them…about anything…and it’s 100% secure: locked down.
• They are the best people to cry with or to, or to vent to, or to be excited with.
• My ladies are extremely gracious and I can truly say that from my end, I have never been mad (for any length of time) with them. Everything is dealt with immediately. I can honestly say I have nothing negative in my heart toward them, usually the problems are with me and my being an oblivious friend.
• We just “get” each other.
• Before I got married, the made sure to make it abundantly clear that they think my husband is the perfect guy for me, and that they all think he’s pretty dang cool..now their husbands/boyfriends/dad’s all really like him a lot too .
• They’re the coolest people I know.
• They are the most faithful friends I’ve had, and I can’t imagine new sister’s ever comparing.
• It’s awe inspiring to watch them love their families and to see their love for me…just they beautiful way in which they love.
• They are genuine lovers of Jesus.
• They are  REAL and transparent. I don’t ever have to guess with them. I know what’s up, where they stand and where we stand, that’s usually because they’re awesome with communicating and I’m still just learning…thanks ladies for that.
• They have always believed in me.
• They love me, good, bad and in between, they care about my newest weekly obsession, the way I get my hopes over everything, the way my heart breaks over everything, the way I pour all of my self into things, my newest pimple, my oldest irritation, the consistent struggle to keep balance in my life and figure out who I am and what God wants from me. These ladies (you know who you are) are more appreciated than they will ever realize. I wish I see their faces daily.                                                                                     They are my sisters

There was no way I could do you the justice you deserve by writing about our lives in one blog post. I could have made every day of this series about ya’ll and it still wouldn’t be enough. You are  incredible, Godly women. I can’t believe God saw it fit that we should be friends. He has blessed me more than I deserve through knowing ya’ll. I would not trade our friendship for anything. Thank you for being faithful friends and walking through life with someone like me. I don’t deserve any of it.

I love ya’ll

-Leah

Girl’s Nite

So last night I had some youth girls…well some graduated youth girls and some actual youth girlie’s over for dinner and a movie. Brandon drove down to Winnipeg (8hours) with some friend of ours to pick up his mom and aunt who are visiting for a week!

We watched two movies,

Sense and Sensibility  and

Connie and Carla .

Both of which are classic chick flicks and iconic to the person that is Leah.Our first choice was a Molly Ringwald, either Sixteen Candles or Pretty in Pink which are iconic to being a teenage girl, but our little secluded northern town had no Molly Ringwald to be found so we had to hit my personal movie stash…

Anyway I thought it was really beautiful to see my ladies figuring out the depths of Jane Austen. Most of the girls had read Jane Austen so it was really cool! We are really lucky in that most of our students are the “smart” kids. For the most part they are in band, or have an out of control love of music and I can’t think of one that doesn’t play an instrument. Also, they’re just deep. They would rather sit and talk and fellowship than anything else. They’re crazy funny and sweet. We are SO lucky. In youth ministry, you’re very aware that these are “your” kids. You feel responsible for them, love them, and are intensly proud or disappointed in them. More than anything though, I just want to see these youth, and young ladies love Christ and treasure Him as the center of their lives. To be living lives that are counted as worthy of their Savior. To sit and watch and be apart of my lovely ladies diving into Jane Austen I couldn’t help but reminded that they can HANDLE the gospel. They can handle theology, they handle the Word of God and honestly they CAN emotionally handle the sacrificial love of our Savior. I think they get treated like little kids enough, so why would they listen to me, or us if all we’re doing is treating them like little kids. It really puts into perspective how I need to be discipling these girls, and pouring into them because truthfully, they can handle it…That’s really cool to me…

This seriously cracks me up.

No Tpane’s were hurt during the making of this video.

CHRIS Tomlin!

Awkward side-hug!

His&Hers..it’s official

So official in fact, that we registered for a pure volume account and even recorded our newest song…however we didn’t edit, produce or mix it so it’s like super duper rough….

But we are giving ya’ll supporters a chance to listen to it first. http://www.purevolume.com/HisHers

Ok done and done.

we love ya’ll feedback is ALWAYS loved appreciated(just as long as it’s not about the mix because we already know about that!)

<3

Update on the name…

So, Cora, my ever lovely best, came up with an good idea for a name because “and then there were two” is taken… She came up with “His and Hers” and I really like that..I think it’s kind of perfect, especially for me and Brandon because we tend to be territorial about our instruments, and books… we are trying to learn to share!

What do ya’ll think of this name?

His and Her’s

also we really want/need for recording, a Melodica…any and all donations of said instrument would be GREATLY appreciated(seriously, this is me asking for one )

watch this video of rose and rose doing a Peter Gabriel cover with an acoustic guitar and melodica.

What’s in a name…

I came up an idea for a name for Brandon and I to go by with our music and I kinda need to know what ya’ll think about it…

“And Then There Were Two”

and if we do decide to go with that, then we will probably title our EP the “What God put together let no man put asunder” Ep

I’m not sold on it yet…We are finding that deciding on a name is like getting a tattoo, marrying someone that you’re not quite in love with yet, or buying a house. We haven’t done the last two of these, but I’m just saying that this is big deal and I don’t why.

But I JUST realized after doing extensive Google research, apparently there are two bands already with this name…but it looks like neither are signed with a label so i wonder if that means we could be called that too…Does that change my mind on the idea of that being our name?

I need your feedback for real.