Things I have learned in the valley

I would say the past 2 years, with the exception of the last 6 months, I have spent in the valley. Before that I spent a good bit of time in a pit, but more on that later. I will start by sharing where this all began and preview where it is going....... at the beginning of 2011 I found out I was expecting my 6th child at the sweet ol age of 42. Let me stop and add that my children have been my biggest achievement, my biggest challenges  and certainly my biggest blessings. So we were expecting our 6th and my husband was still in disbelief that the Lord was going to bless us again or maybe we were both in shock that He was going to trust us with another one of His precious possessions. A fact that continues to boggle my mind. Anyway within a couple of weeks of finding out we were expecting I began to show the sure signs of miscarriage. But sure enough every time my husband would rush home from work and we would zoom off to the doctor for another ultrasound there he'd be. Little peanut, hanging in there, heart just a beating. This would scare me to death every time and went on for weeks. Finally one day Jay took me by the arms and looked me right in the eye and said, " Michele don't you realize that it's going to be alright? Whether we have this baby or not it's still our baby and if we don't have it here on earth he will be there waiting for us in Heaven." For some strange reason that's all I needed to hear and it put me tremendously at ease. It somehow took away the sting of "losing the baby". It was my baby and always would be. God had given this child to us and whether we got to hold this precious baby here on the earth or not, nothing could take that away from me. From that day on I simply trusted God and prayed and hoped that I would carry the baby full term but the anguish of a possible miscarriage just left me. This would be my first of many opportunities to trust God over something I had no control over anyway.