Let Your Light Shine

5 years ago after some prompting, okay, a lot of prompting from the Holy Spirit I opened up my heart to a roomful of teenage girls at Camp Winimac.  It was one of the most terrifying things I have ever done, more so than being interviewed by a room full of educators and definitely more terrifying than my skydiving adventure. The week before I was to stand in front of these girls I spent much time in prayer. I also requested prayers from a few prayer warriors. My prayer was that the light of our Lord would shine through me so that when that room full of girls looked up on that stage they would only see Christ. 

The night of sharing came and as I got up on stage I tripped and fell. Embarrassing? You better believe it, it's tough to have any pride when you are on your face, but that's when God can do his best work. In a shaky voice I began sharing the miracle of Christ in my life. I don't remember too much about how it went, I do remember feeling exposed and vulnerable as I got down off the stage. I also remember feeling as though I had been through a battlefield, I was physically and emotionally exhausted.

The next morning as I walked toward the dining hall for breakfast I bumped into the camp photographer. She stopped me long enough to thank me for sharing the night before, give me a hug, and press a paper into my hand. As I continued to breakfast I opened up the paper which had been folded in half and in half again. It was a letter and it began with, "Last night as you spoke I was drawn to the light of Jesus shining through you." My tears fell and I had to wipe them off my face as I continued to read. She shared the following verses with me from her morning scripture readings. 

"Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their father, we all with open faces beholding as in a glass the glory of The Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the spirit of The Lord."

She also shared these verses from Isaiah and Nehemiah. "Gladness and joy will overtake them and sorrow and sighing will flee away." "He will give us the oil of gladness instead of mourning, a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair."

This letter has remained folded in my Bible for the past 5 years. Every now and then I unfold it and read it again, and each time my heart is ministered to in a new way. 

I received another note from her two years ago, not long after I went through the heartache of delivering my stillborn daughter, Elsa. I cried when I read, "...there let the way appear, steps unto heaven; all that thou sendest me in mercy given; angels to beckon me nearer, my God to thee, nearer to thee!"

She was not only the camp photographer but she was my college roommates mother, my husbands aunt, and from the day I married Caleb 4 years ago she has felt like my aunt too.  She was our aunt Karen. 

This week I am amazed at how the verses she chose to share with me speak to my soul as we say goodbye. The light of Christ shone through her and now even after she is gone he continues to use her to minister to my heart.  I can only imagine the reunion on the far side of the river, give my sweet Elsa a kiss, we will see you soon. 

Ghosts from the Past

      Technology has us able to share our thoughts, good or bad, in a heartbeat.  In a moment of irritation, anger, ditziness, annoyance, or joy we can express our emotions with a single keystroke.  As we post our thoughts in the name of expressing ourselves, we have the power to alienate or anger, bring to tears or bring to laughter, those who are our friends on facebook. 
       You may be wondering where I am going with this, well my past moments of self expression will soon be yours to read.  Once a week facebook asks me if I want to switch to timeline.  Recently I have noticed a lot of my friends have made the switch so before taking the plunge I have scrolled their pages to check out what this "timeline" entails.  This is how I discovered how quickly I can dive into anyones past.  That scared me.  This may surprise some of you who may think of me as a pillar of female virtue and faultless living...just kidding, I am sure you all know me better than that.  Anyway, as I thought about the ghosts of my past being available for all to see with one click of their mouse I couldn't help but cringe.  It seems that although I am okay with talking about the ghosts of my past I am not so okay with someone seeing them and reading them first hand.  You see when I talk about my ghosts I am able to paint to the audience a picture that makes them feel compassion for why I made the choices I did.  Whereas if you were to discover them on your own I fear your rejection and your disgust with my choices. 
      My solution to this problem was to spend the last hour going back into my facebook history and deleting any and all comments I thought someone might find damning.  As I finished I found my thoughts muddled with the choices I had made years ago, and then was reminded how those choices were forgiven and forgotten by the one who matters most.  How easy it was to be drawn into worrying about what man thinks of me, how silly to put so much effort trying to paint this spotless image to my "friends" on facebook.  It does not matter what man sees because when my heavenly Father looks upon me he see me as spotless, not because I was able to successfully go back and delete messages, but because of the work of Christ on the cross.  His voice resounds through the ages, "It is finished"  Christ has won, our sins are white as snow, thrown as far as the east is from the west!  Believe it, claim it, live it, what we have done was forgiven before we even did it!  How great is our God!  How wonderful to be a part of His timeline!

Of Hopes and Heartaches

My husband told me to write but I am not sure where to start.  The best place to start anything is usually at the beginning but a part of me doesn’t want to remember.  Remembering might result in tears.

September 26

I wake up to the sound of Caleb’s alarm, it is 4:15.  Far too early to be awake, especially considering how exhausted I have been over the past week, but there is something I need to do before Caleb heads off to work.  He is going to be on stay away all week and I want him to be with me when I confirm my suspicions.  I roll myself off the bed and head to the bathroom, Caleb mutters something unintelligible.  A moment later I crawl back into bed.  “Well?”  Caleb asks.  “I’m not sure yet.”  Two minutes seems an eternity.  Back into the bathroom I go, this time I’m back in bed much quicker.  We don’t have a lot of time to celebrate before Caleb is out of bed and heading to work.  I try to fall back to sleep, after tossing and turning for almost two hours I finally give up and begin getting ready for work.  All the while my mind is running with excitement.  We are going to have a baby.

October 6

My period is officially one week late.  I took another pregnancy test before calling the obgyn to schedule my first pregnancy test.  I have spent the last week and a half reading books and articles online.  According to what I have read, at home pregnancy tests are 100% accurate one week after your missed period.  Yes, I wanted to make sure!  I didn’t want to be the girl who went into her first appointment only to have the doctors say, “Sorry honey, you’re not pregnant.”  Now that test number two also has two pink lines, I am calling to make my first appointment.  I know a lot of moms wait until 12 or more weeks, but I am new at this and might be a little on the excited side.  What can I say?  I am thrilled and want to confirm what I already know!

October 26

According to most online due date calculators I am due between May 31^st and June 8^th and am 8 weeks along.  I went to my first appointment, which I must say was rather boring, now I know why veteran moms wait awhile!  After going through a physical (haven’t had one for a year), my doctor said I was measuring small so she scheduled me for an ultrasound for early next week.  Can’t wait to see the little bugger who is making me so tired!

Oh yeah, we bumped into a friend on the way out, she now knows our news but has promised to keep our secret.  I guess that’s what happens when you live in small close knit communities! Her excitement for us was so sweet.  

October 31

Happy Halloween!   My first ultrasound! 

I will never follow the directions given to me prior to having an ultrasound again.  I am fairly good about averaging 80 ounces of liquid a day so drinking 20 ounces in one hour and then not going to the bathroom for an hour and a half will never happen again.  Plus, the ultrasound technician told me those directions were aimed at people who do not stay hydrated, I wish they had told me that before.  Instead I drove the back roads from Troy to Peterborough and averaged 10+mph over the speed limit.  Let me tell you how glad I was that I was wearing a long sweater, yes I unbuttoned and unzipped my pants.  By the time I got to the hospital I had to fight tears because it hurt so bad to hold the pee, I was in so much pain I probably walked like a duck all the way to the obgyn department!  The memory is still painful!

Finally, I made it to the table, the jelly on the belly, and there it is on the screen my uterus (and my bulging, and I mean bulging bladder)!  After a few moments and line drawing, the ultrasound technician let me know that in order to get a more accurate picture of baby she would need to do a vaginal ultrasound.  After changing, and using the bathroom (sweet relief!), I was back on the table.  This time I see my baby, just a little bitty thing but an actual physical picture of what is going on inside my abdomen, amazing!  My ultrasound technician is fairly chatty and does a great job explaining what I am seeing on the screen.  Then I really hear what she is saying, “So you are about 6 ½ weeks pregnant”.  I must look at her funny, so I explain, “I am 8 ½ weeks pregnant”, she smiles and simply says, “Well the measurements are showing you at about 6 ½ weeks, you will talk more with the doctor about the results though, nothing to worry about.” 

I am shown to another room and wait about 10 minutes for the doctor.  Finally he arrives and asks me all kinds of questions about my last period, how many days I usually have between periods, when did I get my first positive pregnancy test, etc.  My answers don’t match with what the ultrasound says.  His response doesn’t freak me out but neither does it answer my questions.  He wants me to come back in two weeks for another ultrasound, he lets me know that for now I am in limbo, he doesn’t have good news, but he doesn’t have bad news either.  His hope is that we will have more answers in two weeks when I come back for another ultrasound.  I hope he is right, limbo is not where I want to be.

November 6

We finally told someone our news!  What a relief to tell my parents, if anyone knows anything about pregnancy it would be my mom, she has already done this nine times!

November 12

I started spotting today.  It looks like old blood which is a good sign, I still don’t like it though.

November 13

Still spotting, still looking like old blood, but still making me nervous.

November 14

Bright red blood when I got up this morning, I started to sob.  Caleb was already gone to work, after calling him and allowing him to calm me down I called the doctor.  It was a struggle to talk to her without crying, I had to stop a few times to take deep breaths.  After explaining to her what was going on she told me I could come in after the office opened and they would do an ultrasound to check on the baby or I could wait until my scheduled ultrasound which was the next day.  Now I had a dilemma, this was the day of the third grade field trip, we were going to Concord.  Finally, I decided I would not go to into the doctors but I was going to drive my car to Concord so that if the bleeding got worse I had a way to get myself to the doctors.  Yes, it was the worse field trip of my life.  I was tired, experiencing lower back pain, and off and on cramping all day.  I managed to hold myself together emotionally except when I was alone in the car.

Before crawling in bed that night I passed a fairly large clot, I knew I was losing my baby.  I let me husband hold me and tell me it was going to be okay, his calm reassurance enabled me to sleep through the night.

November 15

I woke up and was still bleeding.  I managed to hold myself together emotionally during work and finally my 3:15 ultrasound arrived.  I had a different ultrasound technician this time, she didn’t explain anything, I suspected I knew why, I could not find the egg sack, the only similarity between this screen and the one two weeks prior was the placenta, but this time the placenta was empty.  Finally, I gathered my courage and asked her the question, “Are you going to tell me what is going on, or do I have to wait for the doctor.”  Her eyes said it all but she must’ve known I needed to hear it out loud, “You’ve lost the baby, I’m so sorry.”  The tears flowed as she turned off the machine and quietly let me know to take my time in getting dressed and using the room, I would go see the doctor after I changed.  She quietly exited and my tears changed to sobs.  I called Caleb at work, “I lost the baby” I cried, “We miscarried.”  He was working two hours away and couldn’t be home for a few more hours so next I called my mom.  She was in Jaffrey and said she would be in the waiting room when I got out.   

A Husband's Love

Every once in awhile I get a little glimpse of the encompassing love of God, I would like to say my recent glimpse came in one day but I am a slow learner.  Over the past year, I have often had the thought that the way my husband shows me love is the same way Christ has shown humanity love.  Whenever I realize how blessed I am to have a husband who loves me in this way a feeling of completeness fills my very soul.  Yet I haven’t really taken the time to dive into the chapter in the Bible that references the love of husbands and of Christ.  Today, after attending the wedding of a friend, I was sitting with my husband and once again thinking of how much he has shown me love, and I began to think about the love of Christ.  So I pulled my Bible out, as well as a concordance and began to do some research.  What exactly did the Bible say about husbands that not only filled me with love for my husband but also for my Jesus?  I found my answer in Ephesians.

Ephesians 5:25-27

(25) Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her (26) to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, (27) and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

 Christ gave himself up for me, for us, to make us holy, he did this because we were not holy, we needed to be made holy.  The only way for us to be made holy was for Christ to die on the cross for our sins.  In verse 27 we find out why he did this for us.  It says “to present her to himself” we are not presenting ourselves to Christ and saying please accept me, no, he has made us holy so that he may present us to himself.  There is NOTHING we can do.  He has made us holy so that we may be with him.  When he looks at us he does not see our wrongs, our past, or our selfish choices, as it is written in Ephesians, he does not see our stains, wrinkles, or blemishes.  He sees us as holy and blameless.  So what does this have to do with husbands?  As you read my account below remember that  I am no theologian, I am only sharing with you the parallels I see with my life and this verse. 

In my past I made some choices that I believed would someday either prevent me from marrying or cause pain for myself and my husband to be.  With the prompting of the spirit, I made the decision that if I were to meet a man whom I believed I would marry, I needed to share with him my past before the end of our first month dating.  I met my husband in February, we became good friends, and soon I became comfortable sharing hints about my past with him, but never details.  In July I asked him to attend my brothers’ wedding with me and we both confessed having feelings for each other.  The next night I shared with him my past.  As a friend, he often reminded me that my sins were as far as the east is from the west.  As the man that I had just began dating and was sure I would someday marry, he held my hand, looked me in the eye and said Sheri, if Christ can throw your sins as far as the east is from the west, then so can I.  Just as Christ sees me without blemish, my husband chose to see me without blemish.  His ability to choose forgiveness was the start of an amazing relationship.  We were married after dating for one year.  We have now been married one year, in this short time my husband has again and again shown me forgiveness.  In showing me the love of Christ, my husband has shown me Christ.  This command that God gave husbands, was another way for him to show us his love.  This glimpse of God’s encompassing love was slow in coming, but hopefully it will stay with me forever. 

Praying that my readers will be Christ to those they come in contact with today.

Tripping Up the Stairs

I didn't sleep well last night.  I tossed and turned, I dozed in and out of rest.  Not sure if my body ever reached that elusive state of REM that medical professionals claim we need in order to wake feeling well rested.  So, when I woke up this morning feeling slightly fuzzy it didn't take much for me to go from fuzzy to frazzled.  While picking up I struggled focusing on one task, I found that I forgot to wash my paint clothes, I decided to wear them dirty.  While starting a load of laundry, I realized I forgot to pick up a check that needs to be deposited today.  I then remembered I was supposed to take the Nisu out of the freezer for a retirement party.  When I went downstairs to take the Nisu out of the freezer I decided I needed a cup of coffee to smooth my already frazzled nerves, it was then I realized I forgot to descale(clean) my coffee maker.  My vinegar(used to descale my coffee maker) is kept in the basement, so I headed downstairs.  I flipped on the lightswitch, the light bulb had burnt out.  I found the biggest flashlight, hit the button, the beam of light came on and slowly began to fade, great, the batteries are dying (note to self: buy batteries before Hurricane Irene hits).  I finally got the light bulb changed and headed up the stairs.  Apparently New Hampshire's state safety codes for stairs don't account for short people, I didn't left my foot quite high enough and I tripped going up the stairs.  I managed to keep my language appropriate and simply exclaimed, "What the flip?!"

Needless to say by the time I sat down to breakfast with My Upmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers, I was feeling like my upmost was not up but rather low.  But God had a nugget of truth for me.

Today's scripture reference was from John 14:27.  "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you."  My morning wasn't terrible, I didn't have a lifechanging incident happen.  I experienced some day to day frustrations.  Yet even on these days where nothing seems to go right, Jesus says, He has peace for me!  What a gift, the sense that despite (or in spite of) our daily trials and ups and downs, we have peace at our finger trips, an opportunity for an untroubled heart, a smile instead of a frown.  Praying all my readers will pray for that peace that Jesus says He will give to you!  For he also says, as Mr. Chambers so kindly reminded me, "Let not your heart be troubled."

As for me, next time I trip up the stairs I can do it peacefully, may be I won't even say, "What the flip!?"

Bad Choice?

I love writing!  It is not unusual for my students to hear me say, "Some day I will write a book, but until then, I am going to teach you to write."  That being said, I am not quite sure how I feel about this "blogging thing".  After being a secret follower of some of my cousins, sisters, and friends' blogs, I decided maybe this could be a place to practice my writing.  I hope to use this as a source to share my faith, inspirations, dreams, heartaches, and whatever else happens upon my heart.  I am secretly okay with not having any followers, in fact I will candidly admit that this blog of mine is more for me than for you, of course, if you find yourself interested or intrigued by my random blogging, I am happy to invite you into my little piece of the world.