When the Other Shoe Drops...and Another...and Another!

With distended bellies and cheeks sore from laughter, we waddled from the local Italian restaurant. The food was scrumptious; the fellowship even tastier. Our banter continued as we strolled toward James’ truck. Slightly ahead, James stopped dead in his tracks. Clearly perplexed, as if in slow motion, he pivoted toward us as the words spill forth:

“Where’s my truck!?!?”

The reality of the empty parking space answered his question: the truck was stolen. With the police on the phone and our youngest nearing hysterics, we packed ourselves like sardines in our friend’s sedan and headed home. With the police report filed, the house alarm on, fears allayed, and everyone tucked, we headed to bed. At 3 a.m., the police called with good and bad news: They found the truck, but there wasn’t much left of it. That was February.

Fast forward to September. It’s a girl’s night out of the purest kind. Delectable delights only a female would appreciate adorn my dining room table. Racks of fashion skirt the living room and excited chatter fills the air. It’s an evening of shopping at home with my favorite friends! Finally settling down with my plate of food, I look into the kitchen to see my son’s finger summon me. By his urgent expression, I know it’s important. As I enter the kitchen, he moves to the garage door, still beckoning me with the same gesture and somber look. Stepping into the garage, there’s James, sitting in his golf cart, head bent, labored breathing, eyes rolled back. Instantly, my heart sinks to my toes, my head starts to spin, and I think the worst:

“He’s had a stroke!”

Not really wanting to hear the answer, I ask, “What happened?!?!?” “I hurt my leg,” James responds. “Oh praise Jesus! What did you do???” And so the story unfolds. In the face of too much estrogen, he decided to golf. Alone. When alas, he spotted a golf ball. Not just any golf ball...a really, really nice golf ball. Without a second thought, he leapt like a super hero to the top of the wrought iron fence separating him and the ball. That’s when things went wrong. His foot got stuck, and as his body continued over the fence, his knee contorted in ways it never should. Laying on the other side of the fence with the very nice golf ball (which, by the way, he no longer cared much about), he was faced with getting back over the fence to his golf cart, which held his phone, and back home for help. The rest of the evening was spent in the emergency room. One knee surgery and three months of physical therapy later, he has his swing back. Life is good. And I’ll give him $5 any time he wants a new, worthy-of-jumping-a-fence ball.

Two months later, the second line turns pink again. The doctor confirms, but this time I wait to shout it from the mountaintop. At seven weeks, we witness life on the screen and the pounding of the baby’s heartbeat is like music to our ears. “Could we hear that just one more time?” we ask. It’s for real this time. Time to tell the world! And so I do. The following week, things don’t seem right. The doctor wants to see me. Watching the ultrasound screen, my ears hear, and my heart sinks:

“I can’t find a heartbeat.”

I don’t get it Lord! Why a second time? Why do you give life that never sees delivery? What have I done wrong? Is there sin in my life that is opening the door to the devil’s destruction?

What do we do when a split second changes everything? What do we do when we don’t understand the tragedy that strikes? What do we do when our circumstances challenge what we think about God and what His word tells us about Him? Jobsites were vandalized as thieves stripped copper wires from several of our company's homes under construction. The Lord moved us from our church home of eight years. And I questioned. Is my understanding of the scriptures biblically correct? Have I believed without confirming in the word for myself? If I stood on the word but tragedy still came, what did I do wrong? Why didn’t it work? Have I reduced my relationship to a formula by which I try to get what I want from God? And then when it doesn’t work, where does that leave me? If I don’t know that my beliefs are correct, then how do I pray? What is my relationship to You, Lord, if I don’t know what I believe?

In the process of crying out to the Lord for answers, He faithfully showed Himself available. Trustworthy. Holy. Sovereign. Full of mercy. Full of grace. True. When everything around us is unpredictable, unreliable, vulnerable, and changing, He is not. His word is irrevocable. He is unchanging. He can be trusted. He answered my cry, and He secured in my spirit two more irrevocable truths.

IRREVOCABLE TRUTH #3: We will lose heart unless we believe we will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Between discovering and losing my second pregnancy, I had one of those sweet encounters with God. My husband and I went out of town for a quick getaway, and while he fished with friends one day, I savored the time to myself. Rising relatively early, I treated myself to my favorite $5 coffee, returned to my room, laid my Bible in my lap, and started talking to God. Suppressed struggles spilled forth as I emptied myself before the Lord. As I fervently explained how desperately I didn’t want to go through the disappointment of losing another baby, He answered with Psalm 27. The closing verses became my prayer:

I will lose heart, Lord, unless I believe I will see Your goodness in the land of the living. I wait on You, Lord; I will be of good courage, and You will strengthen my heart; I will wait on You, Lord!

Things didn’t turn out the way I wanted, yet in the midst of grieving, questioning, railing, and letting go, I saw God’s goodness in the land of the living. I waited on Him, and He strengthened my heart. He confirmed His truth in my innermost being, deep down where no circumstance can argue against it.

IRREVOCABLE TRUTH #4: Do not lean on your own understanding. When I learned I was pregnant the second time, I was convinced it was God’s way of restoring what was lost with my blighted ovum earlier that year. I connected all the dots for Him and topped the whole explanation with a big red bow. When we lost the baby, my understanding unraveled. After letting family and friends know of our loss, my sweet sister-in-law searched the Bible for words of wisdom I would find consoling. The tenderness of her extended hand of comfort was magnified by the fact that she searched what she knew would mean most to me, and she sent me Proverbs 3:5-6:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.

Sometimes difficult relationships, unexpected developments, uncomfortable experiences, serious disappointments, and scary circumstances reveal our own misplaced trust and wrong understanding. His ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts, so as we desperately cling to Him through life’s twists and turns, our job is to believe His word. To trust. To love. To acknowledge, thank, and praise. No matter what. He WILL direct our paths. Every time, when we wait on Him. If there seems to be an infinite supply of other shoes dropping in your life, hang on to God’s goodness, to the truth of His word, and to His faithfulness. And stay tuned Thursday for the third and final blog in this series: “Maybe the Shoe Is a Hand!”

Happy New Year! May we aspire together to become more wholly His in 2012.

Shauna Wallace

Holy His

When the Shoe Drops

Two pink lines. There they were, plain as day. I must have done something wrong. Let me try that again. Wait, did they turn pink faster that time? Are they actually darker and more pronounced? How could that be? (Don’t answer that, because I really do know.)

Exactly one year ago today, this is the conversation I had with myself standing in my water closet wondering how in the world I was going to let my husband, James, down easy. You see, our oldest of four had just turned twenty-two and our youngest nine. James’ favorite daydream involved some form of us, all by ourselves, traveling and enjoying life while our grown children started families and gave us lots of adorable grandkids. All I could envision was me stabbing his empty nest balloon with a gigantic epidural needle! Trembling with fear, unbelief, and excitement, I held my tongue all day until he came home from work. Apparently, it had not been a good day, but there was no way in the world I could hold my mud for better timing. I invited him to our room, shut the door, asked if he wanted to sit down, and dropped the bomb: “I’m pregnant.” It was the first firework of the New Year! My husband took the news very well. We agreed that if God gave us life, we would embrace it, and then I proceeded to tell everyone we know. My children literally would not believe me, and the most common response from friends and family was, “Is this a joke?” I remember with a smile on my face. In January, we jetted off on our family vacation, and when we returned, I had my first doctor’s appointment. That’s when the shoe dropped.

“There’s no baby.”

The ultrasound screen showed a little sac, but it was empty. I must have looked like a deer in the headlights. My previous pregnancies had been free of complications. The thought had never even entered my mind that this one would be any different. James was waiting for me in the waiting room. All I had to do was pull it together enough to get from the exam room to his arms. And there I fell apart. Convulsing sobs made my speech unintelligible. Even though we weren’t planning to conceive, the moment we learned I was pregnant, that child became a part of our family. Now that child would never be?  I literally couldn’t believe it. We talked, and I looked on the internet and found hundreds of stories of women who had received the same diagnosis of a blighted ovum and later found out the diagnosis was wrong. Filled with hope, we put our faith in God and not in the doctor’s reports. Here are excerpts from an email I sent to friends and family for prayer:

While the doctor expects that I will have a miscarriage, I am waiting on the Lord’s report. God is good, and I am standing in faith that the work He has started in me He will be faithful to complete. I put my faith and trust in Him to show me exactly what’s going on, as He truly is the only one who can know. I found a web site where tons of women have posted their stories about being diagnosed with a blighted ovum and told to come back in a week or two for a D&C. When they did, they had one last ultrasound just to be sure, and there was a baby and a heartbeat. I don’t know what’s going on. The doctor’s can only say what they see with their machines. But the Lord knows, and until He tells me different, I will proceed with this healthy pregnancy. I have hope, because my hope is in the Lord. Several people have texted and emailed me words of encouragement with the same message: We walk by faith, not by sight. Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. God is so good, and I will praise His name forever no matter what happens.

This was the beginning of a journey that threatened and strengthened my faith. The doctors never found a baby. But I’m here to tell you, God gave me victory. In the midst of walking through one of the most difficult, heart breaking times I’ve ever experienced, God made Himself and His word alive to me. It’s one thing to hear His truth, but when He makes it real in us, we receive something no man and no doctor and no bad report or rotten circumstance, sickness, or disease can steal away. The irrevocable truths He instilled in me are forever mine, and in His omniscience, He knew I would need them throughout the year. Stick with me on this. I pray you find it worth your time to read a bit longer of a post today.

IRREVOKABLE TRUTH #1: “Your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God” (I Cor. 2:5). We are surrounded by the wisdom of men, referring to human wisdom. We’re full of it ourselves, aren’t we? But no matter what man says, no matter who a man is, the schooling he has, the authority he has, his expertise, position, or place in your life, he is still man, and we are not to put our faith in his wisdom.  No matter what scenario we contrive as the best for us, we are to place our faith in the power of God, not a particular outcome. As I placed my faith in seeing a baby appear on the screen, I wavered in unbelief when it didn’t happen. My faith was misplaced in my own wisdom. When the Lord gently and lovingly redirected my faith to His power, I found myself anchored solidly to Him. No matter what you’re facing, and I know many of you are facing much more devastating circumstances than mine, God’s word never changes. Place your faith in the power of God.

IRREVOKABLE TRUTH #2: Weak faith requires the faith of others to survive. We MUST join our faith together to survive the testing of our faith. I’d like to share the story as I tell it in my book, Holy His: Hope for a Life and a Nation Wholly His, in the chapter titled “Power-Packed Prayer ∼ on Coming Boldly to the Throne”:

I’ve also experienced times of testing when the prayers of others have given me the strength to keep going and made the difference between winning and losing a battle of faith. During the writing of this book, I found myself taking a stand of faith against the reports of doctors who told me I was pregnant, but there was no baby. My family chose to believe the report of the Lord over the reports of the doctors, and it was an unprecedented test of my faith to stand, and then having done all, to stand. Without the prayers of my friends and family, I would have failed. We must hold each other up when we can’t hold up on our own, just as Aaron and Hur do for Moses in Exodus 17:8-13 when Joshua and the Israelites are fighting the Amalekites:

Now Amalek came and fought with Israel in Rephidim. And Moses said to Joshua, “Choose us some men and go out, fight with Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in my hand.” So Joshua did as Moses said to him, and fought with Amalek. And Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. And so it was, when Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed; and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed. But Moses’ hands became heavy; so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it. And Aaron and Hur supported his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side; and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun. So Joshua defeated Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword.

Our battles may not be in fields against enemies with swords, but they are real, intense, and deadly nonetheless. Ephesians 6:12 tells us, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” As we’ve already seen, one of our mightiest weapons is “praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints” (Eph. 6:18). This means seeking, asking, and entreating God for one another! When we do, we are holding each others’ arms up so we can win the battles of faith!

Anchor yourself firmly to the faithfulness of God today. My blighted ovum was the beginning of a year when the other shoe actually did drop. Several times. Maybe you’ve had a year like that. Maybe you, too, lost a baby, or someone close to you received a cancer diagnosis. Or your husband lost his job. Or someone you love died. Or you lost your home in a fire. Or your child is wayward or moving far away. Perhaps you’ve been devastated financially, or your marriage is falling apart. Maybe you face criminal charges and legal troubles. Whatever circumstance you face, I pray you will put your faith in the power of God and allow others to join their faith with yours until victory becomes your reality regardless of your circumstances.

Stay tuned Monday for the second blog in this series on discovering God’s faithfulness in the midst of disappointment: “Where’s my truck?”

May the Lord bless you today as you become wholly His,

Shauna Wallace
Holy His