When the Unexpected Happens
Sometimes, life throws us curveballs.
And God always sees us through.
1 Corinthians 10:13 says
"You have been put to no test but such as is common to man: and God is true, who will not let any test come on you which you are not able to undergo; but he will make with the test a way out of it, so that you may be able to go through it."
Those challenges don't seem any less daunting when we are facing them, though.
In my own life, I have one example of a challenge faced by a close friend
and another one that affected my beloved new husband and I.
When I was 16 and Molly was 15,
we met for the first time in a girls-only community service club.
They paired us up as "sisters" for the semester, as they do with
all the other girls. The difference was, when they went their
separate ways at the end of the year,
Molly and I formed a separate friendship outside of school
and are still good friends to this day.
As I would finish high school and head off to college,
I would face growing pains such as making mistakes,
choosing the wrong crowd of friends at times,
having bad attitudes, going through a string of boyfriends
and getting my heart broken, sinning sexually.
The list went on.
In the mean time, Molly faced growing pains of her own.
My freshman year of college was her senior year of
high school, and she spent it living with a family friend
because of a difficult situation at home.
Her family had a long history of problems.
She had to go to a different school her last year.
She had to save up for college and go intermittently
over a period of time.
She faced many struggles that would have driven other teens
into drug addiction, alcoholism or bad relationships.
Instead, she cast her worries on God.
She chose a small Christian college where she felt safe,
and she stayed snug in a few churches with her Christian friends.
Most of all, she stayed away from boys.
At times I felt like I "looked up to" Molly,
even though she was younger.
I wished I'd done what she did,
instead of letting myself fall into situations
where I would suffer so much heart break.
Finally, when she was probably about 23,
she met her first boyfriend.
They went out for two years,
but nothing ever became too serious.
They didn't move in together.
They didn't get engaged.
They didn't get married.
In fact, they grew apart.
One year ago, Molly was newly single.
That's why the rapid development of the next phase
of her life took me and a few of our other friends by surprise.
This chapter of the story is proof that even those who love and try to follow God
make choices sometimes that have consequences and change the course
of their entire future.
It is also proof of God's promise in Romans 8:28
"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."
Last summer, Molly started spending time with a young man
about her age who was newly divorced from a brief marriage.
A few of us questioned it, but Molly had fallen in love.
They wanted to be together.
There must have been a very different kind of chemistry in this relationship
from her last one,
because just after Halloween last fall,
she sent messages to me and a few other people.
"I'm prego!" and just to assure us it wasn't a prank,
attached was a picture of her sonogram.
Of course it wasn't planned. It came as a big shock.
For her, there was only one solution.
Have the baby, and raise it. There was no "other choice".
And her boyfriend wanted to stay beside her.
She was delighted when on Christmas day,
she wound up on a scavenger hunt that lead her to
a scenic spot by a lake.
There, her boyfriend got on one knee and proposed.
Some couples wind up pregnant before the vows,
and they wait until after the baby is born and established
to plan a wedding.
This is the other place where she had only one solution.
Together they pulled everything together in time for
a wedding that was one week after Valentine's Day.
I was a bridesmaid.
This was a good three months before the baby was due.
They said their vows, and in them,
he promised to be there for her and their child.
On June 6, 2014, just one day before my wedding,
Luke Elijah was born.
In the span of one year, Molly went from newly single
to falling in love
to pregnant
to married
to mommy.
For someone who took their time progressing through other aspects
of adulthood, this was a very rapid change.
She loves her son. They both do.
And I can tell that this huge unplanned development
has brought her closer to God again.
It would have had to-
When something like this is facing you,
all you can do is put it in God's hands.
Have faith that Romans 8:28 will indeed be true.
And it has been.
I pray for her every day, that she will always stay close to God.
And I know she will.
And I know the baby will grow up to love God too.
And God always sees us through.
1 Corinthians 10:13 says
"You have been put to no test but such as is common to man: and God is true, who will not let any test come on you which you are not able to undergo; but he will make with the test a way out of it, so that you may be able to go through it."
Those challenges don't seem any less daunting when we are facing them, though.
In my own life, I have one example of a challenge faced by a close friend
and another one that affected my beloved new husband and I.
Molly the Mom
AKA "the unexpected blessing"When I was 16 and Molly was 15,
we met for the first time in a girls-only community service club.
They paired us up as "sisters" for the semester, as they do with
all the other girls. The difference was, when they went their
separate ways at the end of the year,
Molly and I formed a separate friendship outside of school
and are still good friends to this day.
As I would finish high school and head off to college,
I would face growing pains such as making mistakes,
choosing the wrong crowd of friends at times,
having bad attitudes, going through a string of boyfriends
and getting my heart broken, sinning sexually.
The list went on.
In the mean time, Molly faced growing pains of her own.
My freshman year of college was her senior year of
high school, and she spent it living with a family friend
because of a difficult situation at home.
Her family had a long history of problems.
She had to go to a different school her last year.
She had to save up for college and go intermittently
over a period of time.
She faced many struggles that would have driven other teens
into drug addiction, alcoholism or bad relationships.
Instead, she cast her worries on God.
She chose a small Christian college where she felt safe,
and she stayed snug in a few churches with her Christian friends.
Most of all, she stayed away from boys.
At times I felt like I "looked up to" Molly,
even though she was younger.
I wished I'd done what she did,
instead of letting myself fall into situations
where I would suffer so much heart break.
Finally, when she was probably about 23,
she met her first boyfriend.
They went out for two years,
but nothing ever became too serious.
They didn't move in together.
They didn't get engaged.
They didn't get married.
In fact, they grew apart.
One year ago, Molly was newly single.
That's why the rapid development of the next phase
of her life took me and a few of our other friends by surprise.
This chapter of the story is proof that even those who love and try to follow God
make choices sometimes that have consequences and change the course
of their entire future.
It is also proof of God's promise in Romans 8:28
"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."
Last summer, Molly started spending time with a young man
about her age who was newly divorced from a brief marriage.
A few of us questioned it, but Molly had fallen in love.
They wanted to be together.
There must have been a very different kind of chemistry in this relationship
from her last one,
because just after Halloween last fall,
she sent messages to me and a few other people.
"I'm prego!" and just to assure us it wasn't a prank,
attached was a picture of her sonogram.
Of course it wasn't planned. It came as a big shock.
For her, there was only one solution.
Have the baby, and raise it. There was no "other choice".
And her boyfriend wanted to stay beside her.
She was delighted when on Christmas day,
she wound up on a scavenger hunt that lead her to
a scenic spot by a lake.
There, her boyfriend got on one knee and proposed.
Some couples wind up pregnant before the vows,
and they wait until after the baby is born and established
to plan a wedding.
This is the other place where she had only one solution.
Together they pulled everything together in time for
a wedding that was one week after Valentine's Day.
I was a bridesmaid.
This was a good three months before the baby was due.
They said their vows, and in them,
he promised to be there for her and their child.
On June 6, 2014, just one day before my wedding,
Luke Elijah was born.
In the span of one year, Molly went from newly single
to falling in love
to pregnant
to married
to mommy.
For someone who took their time progressing through other aspects
of adulthood, this was a very rapid change.
She loves her son. They both do.
And I can tell that this huge unplanned development
has brought her closer to God again.
It would have had to-
When something like this is facing you,
all you can do is put it in God's hands.
Have faith that Romans 8:28 will indeed be true.
And it has been.
I pray for her every day, that she will always stay close to God.
And I know she will.
And I know the baby will grow up to love God too.
Matt and Molly and baby Luke Elijah as he turned one week old.
My Father-in-law's heart
Aka "The unexpected setback"
Many, many people would agree that an unexpected baby
is a blessing. I hear it every day.
On forums. On Facebook. At church.
"A child is a blessing from God!"
But what about an unexpected setback
as your future moves forward?
Something like- a medical emergency?
My husband and I set our wedding for June 7.
We set that date nearly 6 months ago.
And when we told his parents, who'd been wondering
for awhile if we would ever tie the knot,
(We dated off and on for nearly 5 years)
They were overjoyed.
They wanted to be right there in the front row.
In fact, in late April when I mailed the invitations,
I formally invited his parents as well as his siblings
as one big household. And they all RSVP'd "Yes!"
Little did we know that one very important member of this family
wouldn't get to sit in that front row or be there on that special day at all.
About 3 weeks from the big day,
His father wasn't feeling well.
I'm not exactly sure what the symptoms were.
Maybe tired and out of breath?
They were heart symptoms.
After a few days of this, my mother-in-law took him
to the local ER.
After running some tests, what they thought
might be a simple problem that calls for a simple procedure
( a stint to be exact) was really much worse than they anticipated.
The heart was badly damaged, and blocked.
In fact, he'd had a heart attack and didn't even know it.
He was transferred to a larger, more specialized hospital
20 miles farther away.
He was in the intensive care unit.
He was hooked up to so many tubes and IV's and breathing apparatuses
it was hard to tell what was used for what.
Saturday he'd gone in for a few tests.
Monday he went under the knife for triple bypass.
He came through and was doing ok,
but a week later, instead of getting better
he got worse.
He flatlined four times.
"dead" four times in one night.
At this point, we'd gone from hoping he'd bounce back
and be at our wedding
to knowing he wouldn't
and now we wondered if he'd live a few days to see his own birthday
which was the Saturday before the wedding
and if my mother-in-law would even feel that he was stable enough
to leave his side and come to the wedding herself.
Our minds and conversations with family were reeling with questions.
"Is it right to go forward? Is that what he would have wanted?"
"Is it too late to postpone? yes. Will that make everyone angry?"
"Will this overshadow our happy occasion and make it a sad one?"
"What if he doesn't survive? Then we will feel guilty for worrying about OUR big day at all…"
"What if something awful happens during our wedding? right after? And we're not here."
"What about what was pre-paid, anticipating his family's arrival? Now those seats will be paid but empty. Who can fill them?"
"Will his brother and sister bail on being best man and a bridesmaid?"
"Will his entire family not show up at all?"
"WHAT's NEXT?"
All were valid questions, doubts and fears. In the heat of a moment like that, a lot of people would be wondering the same things.
As people who put our faith in God, however, we should have been remembering this verse:
"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:6-7
Oh, how this verse proved true.
That night, we prayed. We were up late praying.
The next day, we had a dozen bible study friends praying.
I had Facebook praying.
A forum praying.
My other bridesmaids praying.
My parents praying.
30 + people were rounded up by my now-husband and I to pray
for the Lord to deliver his father from the sting of death,
give him one more chance,
and restore his family back to peace.
And of course, there were at least that many people from my husband's mom and siblings' side.
Even his agnostic brother was praying.
By that weekend, for his 69th birthday,
he wasn't fully conscious but his vitals were getting stronger.
On the day before our wedding, we had a rehearsal dinner.
In his place, there was a photo of him that said "please pray" and a candle was lit.
On June 7, the day of our wedding,
In his seat in the front aisle, there was the same photo and his tie.
It was a tribute. Next to it sat… My husband's mother. His older sister.
Next to us stood…. his brother, his little sister. All dressed up as planned.
Everyone was there and our father-in-law was there in spirit.
His mother-in-law called him from the reception,
and he was happy and proud.
Also, he was awake and talking.
During our honeymoon, we got updates.
Every day there was a group text string of updates.
He got a pacemaker.
He got up and walked.
He put on normal clothes.
He eats more food.
He graduated to a rehab facility.
He does upper body exercises.
His doctors said, with astonishment,
"You look good. According to these charts,
you should be dead."
Gee, that's reassuring. But it's written in bold there:
"the power of prayer!" As his mom said in a text.
Prayer hard at work.
Worry for nothing.
Today, father's day, 8 days after the wedding,
We got to see him and talk to him.
And he's much closer to normal.
In fact, he's probably a week away from returning to life as he knew it.
(For the most part).
But that doesn't mean nothing was changed or reshaped by all this.
Faith in all of our hearts grew so much stronger.
His two California-dwelling oldest sisters came here for a few days,
and I got to meet them.
They couldn't stay for the wedding, but it means
I made a connection to know my new family better.
Other people seemingly grew closer to us in all this
and it made our intimate 40-guest celebration more special.
The dynamic of my husband's family home changed.
They will bond more as a family, I can just tell.
Already this scary situation brought the three older half-sisters
home to their dad for awhile and brought the rest of the family closer in the process.
God is hard at work, doing just what he said he would do in Romans 8:28.
"Work everything together for good for His purpose"
It all made my husband and I closer too.
Things may not ever be quite the same,
but I know they will be okay.
In fact, they will be better than okay because God will work in this.
We're both sad his father couldn't be there for our wedding,
but for all the ways it has strengthened all of us in faith,
I'm ok. And he's ok.
We're ok.
His father will be ok.
Amen.
Left: My husband. Center: My mother-in-law. Right: Me
Bottom: Our father in law
We are on a porch of the rehab facility, and he's looking much better now.
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