The DOUBLE blessing

Wow, I didn't write for a whole month. I honestly can't remember the last time I wrote. It has been a strange time. We moved house, a very large, very full house into a much smaller one. We have done ministry. In normal churches and poor churches and private schools and kind of poor public schools and the responses have been very positive and people are keen to have us back.   We have lived at the new office and gone on short trips doing ministry in Mpumalanga. I love typing that place almost as much as I love saying it. It is a beautiful, exotic, gorgeous part of the country. 

Moving on! I did say there was a double blessing in the title after all.

In January as we were preparing for the biggest part of our move, I began to suspect that I was expecting! I took a test sooner than I had been planning because of the move, and not wanting to do any damage to the potential mustard seed sized life. My husband and I counted to three and peeked over at the test together and with shaky grins we hugged and took pictures with the little stick. I had previously thought it was a strange thing to take pictures with, but looking back on our loss in August, a picture of a positive test can be a precious proof that it was real. That this child was real.

As the weeks went on, I got more and more sick of my sense of smell, making the fridge an abominable adversary, and my waning taste buds, which rendered food I loved as disgusting. (Praise the Lord I've only had full on morning sickness three times so far!) That, combined with sore body parts and hormonal outbursts towards my poor husband gave me a lot of hope that at our first appointment, we would hear a heart beat. There was going to be a raspberry sized person on that screen! (There are plenty of helpful websites that will tell you what sized fruit your baby is every week of development.)

Still, going to the doctor, the same place where we found out not so many months before that our first baby wasn't coming was tough. I remembered in so much detail just crying besides the car while Marten called our supervisor to say there wasn't good news. I think I plugged my ears because I just couldn't imagine what it would be like to hear the words out loud. As we drove to the doctor, we listened to a Bethel Redding CD we have listened to A LOT in the past few months.

My heart will stay steadfast. I know that you are good.

It was what we needed. Nothing could have prepared us for the moment of revelation when the sonogram was happening, and there were two sacs. Two heartbeats. Two tiny raspberries! The Lord, in his incredibly mysterious and hysterical sense of humor has decided to give us twins.

I keep praying, Oh Lord, let their hearts keep beating. Let them keep growing healthy and strong. And now we are in March. At the end of this month I will be out of my first trimester!

Ministry is happening, and will keep on happening for as long as I am able. Which will be for a while, prayerfully. September is not for a long long time. I know God is going to provide for all the needs because he chose us to be stewards of His children. In 30 odd weeks, my children will be my ministry as well. I am so excited to take care of them. To be a Mommy. To be the most important person in their lives. What an honor. Please pray that our fear will be wiped away. Because it comes. Sometimes I worry that I'm not feeling sick enough for them to be doing okay. Being pregnant after a loss makes a person pray some weird things. “Oh Lord, I would be willing to be sick everyday if it meant they were doing okay.” Oh wow. Am I asking to throw up?

And so, in conclusion, I'm a little bit more odd than usual. But God is so good and you just never know His surprises. I can just imagine the Lord grinning like Christmas day as this divine surprise of His was revealed to us and all we could do was laugh and slowly let the breath out of our lungs and shake our heads as any words that came to mind were nonsensical sentence fragments of shock.