Gifts from Grace: God's Hand

Wow-it's been a long time. A lot has happened since I last posted. I've been meaning to write this post for a while, and I hope I haven't forgotten anything I wanted to write.

On one of the Sunday nights before Thanksgiving, our small group at church talked about things we were thankful for over the past 12 months. The thing that popped into my head was God's hand. I am so thankful that I have been able to see and feel and experience God's hand in such evident ways over the past 12 months. And really specifically, over the past 5-6 months.

It really starts with getting pregnant with baby number two. We really wanted to wait for the perfect time (and by perfect, I mean God's time) to get pregnant with baby number two. Life is so different than we thought it would be, and we really had to consider what was best for our family, and really Grace specifically. Without going into too many (personal) details, we really ~~feel like~~ KNOW that God created this little life at the perfect time. We are so excited.

Speaking of my pregnancy, we are also so thankful that this baby is HEALTHY. Oh, and this baby, I guess I should refer to by name - Micah James. We will call him Micah. I still can't believe that he's healthy sometimes, even though I almost felt entitled to have a healthy baby after having Grace (even though I knew that wasn't true/right). We have truly seen God's hand in the healing this has brought to us. Especially to my heart. Wow, it is healing right before my eyes. How precious is it that God knows how and wants to heal us?

Also speaking of the pregnancy, ever since we found out about the placenta previa, I have been on medical leave from work. That has been a huge stress for us, just thinking about the possibility of me having to be off the rest of the pregnancy. I have a lot of paid leave time built up, but not enough to cover the rest of the pregnancy. Plus FMLA only secures your job for 12 weeks. So thinking about this possibility, as well as the possibility of maybe not having a job to return to, on top of the financial stress this caused was almost taking the breath out of me at times. Well-enter God's hand. After four weeks of being on leave, my doctor lifted my restrictions so that I could return to work! I go back for an ultrasound next week, and I hope that the placenta previa has completely resolved!

Ok, so I should also talk about our recent move in this post too, because God's hand has been ALL OVER that. We listed our old house (an 80+ year old house in not the most popular area of Jackson), and in less than a week, we had an offer! And it was a good offer. We held our breath as the process with our old house was underway hoping for no major complications (an 80 year old house ALWAYS has complications...we've lived with them (and paid for them) over the past five years that we lived there). We also started the process of finding our next house. God lead us to the PERFECT house for us, and within the next week, we made an offer and it was accepted! Also - this house is in an awesome area with an awesome school district with an awesome special education department. The whole process from start to finish took a little over a month! That is just not typical in today's market. God's hand. Also, on the day of the closings we had our first kink in the whole process and were told we may not be able to close on the new house or move into the new house until the next week. I held back tears until within only a few minutes the problem was solved, which according to our realtor normally would not have happened. God's hand.

Also, we have seen God's hand through the health problems of several close family members over the past month. I don't want to go into details to protect the privacy of our family, but wow-God has been at work. He is so evident and real.

And of course (and probably most obviously) we have seen God's hand in Grace's life over the past year. She has made amazing progress with her development, and is just such a cool little girl. I am blessed to be able to witness miracles in her everyday. I am so blessed to be her mama.

I'm going to end this post with some updated pictures since my last post. :)