If These Stairs Could Talk

If these stairs could talk, they’d tell you of many things.

The friends and family who visited when we first moved in, sharing in thanks for more space.

The weight carried up and down, things moved from one place to another.

The tears cried on them, many from the kids and many from myself.

The coffee spilled on them, hurriedly wiped up so the white wouldn’t be stained.

The babies carried up to bed, or snuggled in close and brought downstairs to try again.

The moments I’ve sat in the middle, waiting for quiet to come over the bedrooms.

The moments I’ve sat on the bottom, weary, waiting, resting.

The guests running up to use the bathroom, or grab their sneaky babies.

The kids’ friends scampering up and down to play together.

The toys thrown down, the balls thrown up and down and up again.

The times I’ve sat and listened to videos or read texts from dear friends.

The one stair at just the right height to let me sit and watch cars come down our street.

They’re not an idol, these stairs: they’re a reminder.

A means of giving thanks.

Because when I look back at all the memories and daily happenings, I am reminded:

• God provides: for all our needs, all the time

• Our babies are safe and loved

• Our friends and family are welcome and comfortable here

• We live this life fully

We always have enough. We always can extend more, and when we serve out of humility and love for our Lord it never comes back empty. He fills us up. He shows Himself to us and He teaches us what we need to know, when we need to know it. He is so incredibly sufficient!

If these stairs could talk, I think they’d tell of what a great Savior we have. What a hope we have in Him, what care we have from Him.

What a sweet, sweet place to be.

From Fear to Peace: Three Truths to Fight Fear

I sat in my car as monsoon rains poured down on our little island in the East China Sea, while my husband was on the other side of the world, preaching at his mother’s funeral. 

A few years prior, ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease) set in, ravaging her young and vibrant body. 

I realized that the memorial service was just underway. Anguish forced its way up my throat and out, in body-shaking sobs. 

Fear and anxiety accompanied my grief. My mother in law’s life was ended not just by ALS, but actually by FALS—Familial ALS. Her father was also taken by it nine years prior. When she was diagnosed, we had the crushing realization that my husband has a 50% chance of having FALS. And if he does, then so do our children.

Currently, there is no treatment, cure, or prevention for ALS. Victims are captive to their bodies, which deteriorate while their minds stay healthy. After three to five years, they die from being unable to breathe or swallow. 

I didn’t just weep for the loss of my sweet mother-in-law, or for the sadness that my husband bore without me. I wept over the “what-ifs”. And I begged the Lord to not let them be so. 

From Grief to Fear

Five years later, the anxiety that arrived the day of her death still threatens to take hold. I can easily spiral into a frenzy of “what-ifs”. 

Grasping for reassurance, I’ve read the scientific research and the stories of other FALS-affected families. I’ve put my kids and husband through diets and regimens in hopes of staving off what can feel inevitable. I’ve wrung my hands and rechecked statistics. We even briefly considered genetic testing. 

Yet deep down I know what Christians need to do when they are afraid. We need to rest in the Lord himself. More than prevention, more than science, more than our best efforts—in the face of what could be, we need a peace that surpasses understanding (Philippians 4:7). And we need a renewing of our mind (Romans 12:2). Both are ours by God’s Spirit if we only seek him and ask. 

The Word of God and the Spirit of God stand ready to equip and empower believers in the battle against fear. Both are living and active. The Holy Spirit resides in us, giving us the strength and grace to fight our fears afresh each day. He also reminds us of truth when we wander into fear (John 14:26), helping us to wield the Word of God, our offensive weapon (Ephesians 6:17). 

From Fear to Peace: Three Truths to Fight Fear

I want to share with you three biblical truths God’s Spirit arms me with when I’m tempted to be afraid.

1. My life is not my own.

You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. (1 Corinthians 6:20)

When I surrendered to the Lord as a freshman in college, these words changed my whole perspective. I awakened to the reality that my life, my body, and my future did not actually belong to me. The Lord created me, and ransomed me with his precious blood; therefore, I belong to him and live for him (1 Peter 1:18-19).

In the years since then, Paul’s words inspired by God’s Spirit have sunk deeper into my soul: “For by him all things were created…through him and for him” (Colossians 1:16). My very existence is by God, through God, and for God. I am not untethered, required to conjure up my own meaning, purpose, and future. The Lord has already done that.

For the Lord is the one 

who made the world and everything in it… he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind…having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. (Acts 17:24-27)

God himself determined when and where I would live. The Lord set me here in this very family with these genes, so that I may seek him and perhaps feel my way toward him and find him (Acts 17:27). 

May the the things that cause us to fear lead us to seek the Lord and find him.

2. God will never leave me nor forsake me.

“I will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5)

The fact that God promised this gives me tremendous courage. My kids and I have memorized Psalm 46. Together we rehearse that “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (v.10, emphasis added). I know him who walks with me—that his character is good and trustworthy and sovereign.

And I know what he has already done for me in Christ: He was forsaken on my behalf, hung on a cross in my place, endured wrath from the Father for me. Because we know him and we trust these promises from him, we can face any future. 

Triumph in God’s promise to never leave or forsake you:

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)

3. Even if…yet I will rejoice in the Lord.

Finally, I find rest from fear in the words of Habakkuk: 

Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength… (Habakkuk 3:17-19)  

Even if this dreaded disease visits us again—even if I am forced to walk through this particular valley of the shadow of death, I will rejoice in the Lord. 

We can rejoice precisely because he is the God of our salvation, because he has already given himself over to us. More than the gifts he gives, Jesus, the Giver, is our gift. Nothing—not sickness, not suffering, not loss—can separate us from this gift. 

Behold, All Things Will Be Made New

When I think back on that sad day, when my grief returns and fear threatens to well up within me, God’s Spirit reminds me that my life is not my own, that God will never leave me nor forsake me, and that even if the worst comes, I will be able to take joy in the God of my salvation. 

He is also the God who says, “Behold I am making all things new” (Revelation 21:5). God promises to those who have faith in Jesus Christ that, 

“He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:3-4)

One day soon, and then forever, ALS will be no more. Whatever you may fear—school shootings, car accidents, separation from loved ones, the loss of a child, extended suffering at the end of life—it will not remain. Perfect love will cast it all out. You and I will be with our Lord, and scary diagnoses and suffering will be no more.

Written by Jen Oshman. This article originally appeared here, at Unlocking the Bible. Shared with permission.

An Aching Womb: A Note From a Single Woman

As I picked up the limp, sleeping body of the sweet four-year-old girl, tears began to fill my eyes and I thought, “will this ever be my life?”

Those moments are few and far between for me, which is good, because I’m a nanny and if picking up a child always made me cry I would probably need to find a new career. The most recent occurrences have been while watching four specific kiddos. This has happened twice now, both times when I was putting the little girl to bed. One time she was awake, and another she’d fallen asleep early on the couch. Both times caught me by surprise, especially since in addition to being a nanny, I’ve been an aunt most of my life and serve in the kids ministry at my church, so it’s not like I’m not around kids often enough to be reminded I don’t have any. But there was something about tucking four kids into bed, in the style of house I’d love to own someday, that hit me in the feels. To you mamas, it probably feels extremely ordinary and maybe even a bit of a chore at times. No doubt there are times you look at your peacefully sleeping children and also get teary eyed; grateful, happy tears of love for the little life that’s been entrusted to you, but I’m sure other times you’re just exhausted and would love a break and for someone else to put the children to bed. But for me, someone who has always wanted to be a mom, it sometimes feels like a dream unfulfilled and withheld.

For the past year or so I’ve been wanting to do a Biblical word study on children, because I think we have such a selfish idea of them in this day and age. I look around at my own culture, and even among Christians, there seems to be a very self-centered approach to parenting. The emphasis is on what “we’ want, when “we” want, what “we” can afford, what “we” have the patience for, where “we” want to live, the vacations “we” want to take, the life “we” want to give our children. Children are seen as a blessing, (although the attitude for many seems to be, “as long as you don’t have more than four because that’s just ridiculous and irresponsible.”) but do we really consider them ordained by God and uniquely designed? Have we even entertained the thought of allowing God to determine how large our families grow to be? Or if we should also expand them through adoption? Before you freak out, this isn’t a post about birth-control and I’m not here to tell you you’re wrong if you are taking precautions, or if you aren’t pursuing adoption, but I am serious in posing those questions. Are these things you’ve surrendered to Christ -completely- and sense His peace and leading in your decisions? Or are they based only on your own wants and preferences? In a culture that puts so much value on education and careers and has increasingly diminished the sacrifice and beauty of stay-at-home moms, while turning their nose up at large families, have we begun to believe what the world says about children? Or do we remember and hold to what the Word says?

“Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them.” -Psalm 127:3-5

“Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.” -Mark 9:37

“But Jesus called them to him, saying, ‘Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God.’” -Luke 18:16

“He gives the barren woman a home, making her the joyous mother of children. Praise the Lord!” -Psalm 113:9

“So I would have younger widows marry, bear children, manage their households, and give the adversary no occasion for slander.” -1 Timothy 5:14

“And when Esau lifted up his eyes and saw the women and children, he said, ‘Who are these with you?’ Jacob said, ‘The children whom God has graciously given your servant.’” -Genesis 33:5

Psalm 139 highlights the intimacy with which God knows us, long before we are born. Science speaks to our miraculous being, through what we know about DNA and how each child is unique and reflects the specific egg and sperm connection. The same combination of sperm and egg can never repeat. Of course, you have multiples that can form from the same egg and sperm (which is another awesome miracle in of itself!), but aside from identical multiples, each unique set of DNA cannot repeat and an egg only gets one shot per month of teaming up with sperm to begin developing into a human. It’s so fascinating! It’s one of the biggest reasons I’m Pro-Life and why abortion breaks my heart. It’s part of why miscarriage, even at the earliest stages of pregnancy, is devastating. It’s not just a clump of cells that is lost, it’s a unique little person that the family will never get to hold, kiss, smell or know, this side of eternity.

Lately, I’ve been realizing that although my life isn’t going according to my plan, if I am going to have children they will be according to HIS plan; the children He has ordained for me to have. He is the giver of life, knows how many eggs I have in my ovaries, and exactly which ones, if any, will be fertilized. They would be knit together by Him, not me, in His perfect timing. His time frame is so much bigger than mine; He is the author of time. He is over time. I can trust Him with my life, dreams, and certainly my maternal clock.

Remember that when you look into the faces of your own little miracles. Maybe they were unplanned, maybe they didn’t come as soon as you’d hoped, but if they hadn’t come in the precise moment they did you never would’ve had them. Their DNA would’ve been discarded in your monthly cycle. All of the character traits that give them their attributes and personality would not be the exact same had you conceived a different egg, fertilized at a different time.

If you feel like you’re drowning in children, in over your head and questioning why God made you so fertile, remember: children are a blessing and God has been so incredibly gracious to entrust these miracles to your care. It’s hard, it’s overwhelming, it’s a lot - but it’s not too much. God doesn’t make mistakes, children aren’t accidents and His grace is sufficient.

Sometimes I put my hand over my physically and figuratively aching womb and ask God if it will ever hold a child. If this longing that’s been deep inside my bones for as long as I can remember will be fulfilled biologically, only through adoption, or if it was put their by God for a purpose other than my own motherhood. Maybe it was to have the passion to help other families, to nanny well or maybe even someday to have an orphanage. Whatever the long-term purpose, for now this passion is reminding you what a blessing children are and that being a mother is hard, beautiful, creative, biblical, sanctifying, messy, honorable, feminine, sacrificial, weighty, courageous and so worth it. I think we could all stand to be reminded of that.

Written for Strength & Song by Veronica Leguire. Veronica is a full-time nanny and prolife advocate who lives in Toledo, OH.

Remembering and Recommitting to Our Parenting Manifesto

“Ok, Dad, we have to run. Do you want to come with the baby to the NICU?”

Not exactly the words a mother wants to hear the very second she pushes her child out. But that’s what our neonatal doctor said to my husband when Abby Grace entered the world 12 years ago. During labor my obstetrician asked us, “Have you ever been told about her erratic heartbeat?” That was the first indication that something was wrong.    

After she entered the world her heart went from beating so fast they were afraid she’d have a heart attack to so slow they worried it would stop. I vividly remember a team of NICU doctors and nurses dressed in magenta scrubs racing my newborn baby down the corridors in the old military hospital where she was born in Okinawa, Japan. 

As soon as I was allowed, I was wheeled from the labor and delivery room to the NICU.  Abby Grace was resting inside a warm, glass dome, connected to a tangle of wires and tubes. While myriad machines beeped around her I looked in and found her eyes wide open. She looked back at me. I cooed and cried and she stared. I prayed to God, “Lord, do not let me fall asleep. Please keep my eyes wide open. If this night is the only one she is going to live, please don’t let me miss even one second of it.” 

Every year on and around her birthday, Mark and I recount all the drama of Abby Grace’s delivery and the weeks that followed. We often tear up when we think about how precarious her life seemed in those first days. We laugh when we remember how her two-year-old sister donned a face mask and met her for the first time. We wipe our tears when we think about how her heart finally steadied four weeks after she was born. You’d never know it now.

Kids’ birthdays are poignant times to reflect on what the Lord has done in their lives and in ours, through them. I think it’s universal for parents to remember their babies’ births and to dream about what’s to come.  Our kids are all in double digits now, with our youngest having recently turned ten. We’ve exited the stage of babies and toddlers and littles and we’re in the throes of shaping teens and pre-teens, praying that God allows us to launch them according to his good will for their lives. 

As such, Mark and I are reviewing the Oshman Parenting Manifesto, which we brainstormed together and he wrote out a few years back. The Manifesto is our commitment to remembering what matters in parenting. We find that so many things in the world aim to capture the hearts of our children and their futures, as well as our efforts as parents. Our goals and desires for our kids can shift with each cultural wind, if we’re not committed to what really matters. 

I want to share our Manifesto here, in hopes that it will encourage you as you pursue what’s best for your kids. We owe this to the Word of God and the people of God—both have shaped us and mentored us in our role as mom and dad these last 14 years. We are immeasurably grateful for the parents who have gone before us and discipled us along the way! 

Oshman Parenting Manifesto

We believe Jesus is the most valuable treasure in the universe.

1. The surpassing worth of Jesus is reason to give our lives to the pursuit of Him (Philippians 3:14; Hebrews 12:2). 

2. All of life is about Jesus, from Jesus, through Jesus and to Jesus (Colossians 1:16-17; Romans 11:36).

3. Without knowing, worshipping, loving, and pursuing Jesus, life is meaningless (Matthew 7:21-23).

4. As your parents, God has entrusted us to disciple you and point you toward him (Proverbs 22:6).

Our goal as your parents: To provide opportunity and encouragement for you to know, love, worship, and pursue Jesus. 

Our goal as your parents IS NOT...

1. That you would get a good job and make a lot of money.

2. That you would get a great education.

3. That you would be really successful in the world’s eyes.

4. That you would have all the great stuff of life and Jesus too. 

5. That you would have a great husband, kids, and family. 

6. That life would go smoothly for you or that you would be “happy.”

Our goal as your parents is...

1. That no matter what you do, you do it in pursuit of Jesus.

2. If you want to become a doctor, great! - How will that pursuit lead you to a greater experience of Jesus? If you want to wash dishes, great! How will that pursuit lead you to a greater experience of Jesus?

3. If you want to become a lawyer, or chef, or missionary, mother, etc... how will you make Jesus the center of all of those activities?

How we will pursue this goal:

• By providing a home where exercising our faith, prayer, worship, study of God’s Word, repentance, and reconciliation are normal activities for us individually and together.

• By continually asking you important questions... like:

1. How will certain decisions affect your spiritual life?

2. Who are you going to surround yourself with and how will you affect them and they affect you spiritually?

3. What does/will worship in that situation/calling/school look like for you?

4. How are you using your time, talent, and treasure to magnify Christ? 

5. What ways are you currently pursuing Christ?

6. How does the gospel affect the decision you will make...?

7. How are you/will you be an active participant in the body of Christ?

8. What struggles are you currently facing? How can we pray for you in those struggles?  Is there anything we can do to help?

“What if I don’t want to follow Jesus?”

1. We will continue to love you, pray for you, and encourage you toward Christ. 

2. We will not do anything that we feel will contribute to a lifestyle that rejects God.

3. As you become adults, you will have to make adult decisions.

4. We will not enable you to sin or live a life that rejects God’s good will for your life.

Originally written and published by Jen Oshman. Used with permission.