"I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me..."

These past several months due to some increasing and daunting health problems for me, the trials of mothering seven kids under 10, grieving and hurting over loved ones walking through struggles of their own, and the apparent acceleration of God's dealing with and rooting out very specific sins in me and those around me...has gradually snowballed into one of the most difficult seasons I have had in a good many years.

I have found myself feeling so totally alone (humanly speaking) and finally finding myself in that sweetest of places. You get to this point after awhile and perceive that people can only listen to so much moanin, and can only empathize and comfort you so much in your pains and sorrows and that people, no matter how hard they try, simply cannot feel and carry with you the true burden that only Christ has truly carried and knows the weight of. In fact, since they are smitten with the same painful disease of sin, they may make you worse! It reminds me of when my 4th child was born. Silas was my 3rd newborn with unexplained respiratory distress at birth who had to stay in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit for some time on a ventilator. This time hit me very hard because I had carried him longer (over 38 wks!) and we were SO sure he'd be okay.

We had a well meaning young christian friend who felt he had to call and suggest that our third baby in a row with lung problems must be due to sins of mine. The call came when he was about three days old and I had to, with broken heart, leave him to come home to see my other little ones, and rest my post partum body while he was intubated.

I remember the total despair I felt later after getting that call while heading out the door late at night to drive down to Swedish hospital to spend the night with my days old baby on respiratory distress. How it felt to leave behind the other three little ones... I remember grabbing my bible before I left and the feeling of walking through the dark hospital halls and percieving that I was hitting some sort of spiritual rock bottom. And then...once I "landed" , it was like I felt like Jesus, my Savior, that old familiar comforter who had hidden Himself at times, but never left or forsaken me, really sitting there next to me, closer and more real than I had EVER known! I had this mental image of the longest, deepest, loneliest pit and I had finally sunk down, down to the deepest level it it. The deepest level of despair (that my inexperience could comprehend), and landed at rock bottom.

In what felt like the loneliest place on earth, He met me. He really met me there. And we just sat. Silas was still in critical care, there were still people actually believing some sin of mine had caused my sweet baby this distress, I was still alone in this hospital at night away from my husband and little ones...but the truth of the verse came to life "Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me." I still to this day, if ever I hear the beeping of hospital machines, get goose bumps when I remember how it felt to have God's presence so near, so real and so incredibly sufficient.

Almost six years later, Silas is a completely healthy little rascal, tucked safely in bed with the rest, yet I find myself back in this valley--in this pit. The fall has been long, dizzying plummet to the place I need to be most. Alone, with no human or earthly idol to lean on, and next to my Savior.

For I confess my iniquity
I am full of anxiety because of my sin.
But my enemies are vigorous and numerous
Many are those who hate me wrongfully
and those who repay evil for good
They oppose me, because I follow what is good.
Do not forsake me, O Lord;
O my God, do not be far from me! ~Psalm 38:18-21

My prayer for the time that I spend on this blog is that someone will be encouraged in their calling as a woman, a wife, a mother. That they would see Christ's finished and yet constant redemptive work in the life of this sinful fallen mother of many, as I seek to be transparent in sharing my sin, my struggles, my victories and JOY! How God gives me joy and laughter, the many "rewards of the fruit of the womb", and how He is sanctifying me as I struggle through the raising of them, and the raising of ...me.