Still giving butterflies

On Wednesday, July 1st, Brian and I celebrated three years of marriage. On Sunday, Mom had me watch the wedding video at her house. It was really crazy to think back to that day. I looked at the girl in the video and immediately thought, "If only I could tell her some things that I now know...it would save her some heartache." But not really. No, I wouldn't go back. I mean, sure, I wish that I would have had it all together back then (and hey, I wish I knew where it was now!). Brian and I were talking about how crazy things have been in the last three years and how grateful we are to have been afforded the opportunity to share this life together.

I have learned so much from that man. He is a tower of strength... and yet kind and patient. I am so thrilled to be doing life with Brian Duane Caldwell. He makes my heart smile and still gives me butterflies.

Well, he's here. By "he," I definitely mean the newest member of the Caldwell family: Caleb Elias Brian Caldwell.

Caleb arrived on May 11th at 8:39 A.M. He weighed 7 pounds 15 ounces and had a very interesting/exciting entrance into this world. After 34 hours of intense (and yes, natural) labor, Caleb had to be delivered by emergency Cesarean section. Nothing went as I had thought it would-- which is somewhat liberating for a control freak like myself. Nevertheless, God certainly has shown off about how He is the one who is in control and He never lets go.

I don't have much time to write these days. There is so much that I would like to express to you via blogspot, but I simply don't have the time! For now, I will continue to ponder these things in my heart in hopes that one day soon I will be able to pen them somewhere.

Design and Due Dates

I thought that the last update would indeed be the last one for a while, with the expected arrival of Baby Caldwell sometime this week gone by. For some reason unknown by me, the baby has not arrived and so I update once more.

I have been thinking a lot lately (what else to do whilst I wait?)...

I have been very adamant about requesting prayer (and praying myself) about wanting to trust Christ with every fiber of my being and not excluding the birth of this baby in that desire to trust Him. Brian and I have chosen to go the natural (no intervention) route for a plethora of reasons, namely the fact that we believe that God's design of the body is not lacking and therefore, childbirth can be accomplished without medical intervention (induction, pitocin, other augmentation, etc.)

NOTE: We don't believe that one MUST have a natural childbirth if she is REALLY spirit-led; that's not it at all. But, for us, this has been a much-prayed-about, well-researched decision that we feel very strongly about. (Reader: Hopefully you do not feel like we are pushing anything other than Christ as being ultimate. We know that lots of believers have epidurals and we are completely thrilled for ANY way that God allows us to birth babies.)

Anyway, so we're trusting Him and gearing me up for talking to myself (thank you, D. Martin Lloyd-Jones) during labor and delivery.

What is the truth?

• The truth is that God is not opposing me while I am experiencing intense labor (thanks, Rachel Thurmond, for this reminder).
• God made my body to work in this way-- and it is W-O-R-K , the hardest work my body will do(thanks, Jenny Allen, for telling me the truth about this).
• It is a blessing from the Lord to experience every moment of this entire process-- pregnancy, laboring, delivering, and all the wonderful moments ahead in shepherding this little one.

So I have really been working on my attitude about the process and gearing up to experience this pain (that is, pain with a purpose), though I really don't know if one can adequately prepare for this sort of thing.

But this week-- seeing my due date come and go with no sign of baby-- I have realized that I neglected something. I have neglected to really view this whole experience in light of God's timing. Yes, He is sovereign over His own design and purpose in childbirth. He is also sovereign over when this blessing will arrive. It's in His hands. No matter how miserable I am or how ready I am, nothing competes with the fact that HE knows exactly when this baby will come. That knowledge and order is perfect. He is doing what brings Him glory...and in that, my needs are met-- even when they don't feel mushy-gushy.

Pray for me, that I would trust Him completely... with the design and with the date.

Counting down

So, the countdown has begun...

My due date is May 3rd, though we're not actually sure exactly which day Baby Caldwell will grace us with his/her presence... If the entry will be graceful or not, we're also not certain. I will say that we have been praying that in all things, we will glorify Jesus. I don't believe that birthing a child is exempt from one of the opportunities in this life to honor Christ. Life is all about Him...

...we could never make a bigger deal of Christ than He is worthy of...

We have seen the LORD provide for us (and for Baby Caldwell-- affectionately called "The Womb-Dweller by those dear) in the showering of gifts and kind words towards our family. Thanks be to God for all that He does to show us more of Himself.

I feel so inadequate to be called "Mama" to this child; however, I am sure of this: Christ will be made much of in my life because of this baby. I say that in confidence because I know, without a doubt, that Brian and I will be forced to lay prostrate before Him concerning rearing this little one for the glory of the Father. And I think that is honoring to God because we are admitting/acknowledging our complete and utter dependence on Him and therein His absolute God-ness in our lives and in the universe...and beyond!

Please pray for Brian and I as we enter into the last days of the pregnancy. We want to trust Christ with our whole lives...in pain or in sweetness.... And when the two collide.

Remember

Chandler (The Village Church) said something that was worth mentioning:

Luke 22:39- 23:56

On the cross, there are all these places to go: the atoning work of God, etc. on all that is taking place in this moment. But the thing that struck my heart the most as I was thinking and dwelling and preparing, is not just the death of Jesus Christ on the cross, but also the death of the sinful man, Matt Chandler, in the cross of Jesus Christ and that every offense, every thought, every wickedness, every bit of shame, every lie, every stumble,every foolish fantasy, every petty fear, every sin that was an offense to Christ, to God, all that separated me from Him was crucified on the cross with Him...

In the cross of Christ, all that made Matt Chandler an enemy of God was poured out on Him, absorbed completely by Him, so that I am no longer under wrath, but under mercy.

I've come here to celebrate my own funeral. I've come to just sit in my own death. I've come in to sing and celebrate that "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me (Galatians 2:20)."

And so celebration tonight is that all that could me accused of me before the Living God, every sin imaginable that the accuser could bring before God, Jesus at His right hand would say, "No, I paid for that. This is my adopted son, perfect, spotless, pure, holy, Mine." Christ paid for it.

I want to celebrate that I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.
And that the cross was my death too.

Farewell, our dear friend

"Healer", This is Our God, Hillsong (2008)
You hold my every moment.
You calm my raging seas.
You walk with me through fire.
You heal all my disease.

I trust in You.
I trust in You.

I believe that You're my Healer.
I believe that You're all I need.

I believe You're my portion.
I believe You're more than enough for me.
Jesus, You're all I need.

Nothing is impossible for You.
Nothing is impossible for You.
Nothing is impossible for You.

You hold the world in Your hands.

You're more than enough for me....

The same power that conquered the grave lives in me.
The same power that rescued the earth lives in me.



This song is an incredible declaration of who God is and what He can do. Now, He doesn't always "heal" as I want Him to heal. And I think that this is largely what I think about and become overwhelmed with in hearing and singing this song.

His definition of love and mine collide-- His makes a mess of mine. What to do? I tried just not thinking about it-- how different His ways are from mine; however, that doesn't work. I mean, in the struggle, in the heat, when bad things happen/when good things happen, when there is doubt and fear in me-- my views about Him are confronted. What I think about God (who He is, what He does, etc)has to line up with Scripture and come under His authority or else my "Christianity" is nothing more than a pitiful excuse for a hobby. And I want to believe the truth about whoever He is...because then I can trust and cling to Him in the fires of life that are certain to come.

It's still hard, though.

Because sometimes I want for Him to choose to heal in an earthly sense more than I want Him to heal in the spiritual sense.

William James Fulerton Pufall.
A name that perhaps means nothing to you...
YET,
A leader of people into worship through song.
One of seven groomsmen in mine and Brian's wedding.
A friend to Brian through the years.
A fellow journeymen to the Grand Canyon with Brian one October.
A buddy on the Appalachain Trail...(He affectionately named me "Gravity" on the AT and it sort of stuck). And one, who, coincidentally, never liked any of the trail names we gave him...
Host of many 'gatherings' at his home.
A friend to many.

and much more.

Will passed away today. I still cannot believe it. I'm crying, but I still don't really believe that it's true. I mean, how? And why? Knowing that God can heal and sometimes chooses not to heal is hard to swallow. And that's because I'm not God and don't understand the bigness of who He is and what He's about.

I know that everything was created through Him and for Him (Colossians 1:16) and that He is before all things (Colossians 1:17), so in every sense, our every breath is His-- He is the author. He gives and takes away and owes no explanation. He is kind and wise. But this is difficult to apply to my emotions today because a dear friend is no longer here... He won't see Baby Caldwell in May. He won't host another gathering of friends at his house. He won't be leading worship. He won't be writing or working on another CD. He won't be going on the AT with us again. He won't be borrowing gear from Brian. He won't be around to make us smile with his wit.

But he will be before the throne. And I want that for him. I do believe that we're the most satisfied when He is most glorified. I hope that Will's life and death anthem the renown of Jesus Christ...

I recently got around to listening to Piper's sermon entitled "What's the recession for?" Let me just say that it is mind-blowing...

2 Corinthians 1:1-11

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

To the church of God that is at Corinth, with all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia:

2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.


3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 5 For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. [1] 6 If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. 7 Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.

8 For we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, [2] of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. 9 Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. 10 He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. 11 You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.

God is sovereign, which is why you can speak in terms of His purpose for things like the recession. He causes and/or permits all things by design-- however it comes to pass. This is the foundation that we have when we ask what the purposes of God are in the recession. There are many answers...billions of things that we don't realize. There are things that we can know clearly because they are in the Bible and are clear.

These are Piper's Five main reasons for God causing/allowing the recession:

1. He intends (in this recession) to expose hidden sin and to bring us to repentance and cleansing.
2. He intends to wake us (in the West, especially) up to the constant and desperate condition of the developing world where they ALWAYS have mega recession and nothing else.
3. He intends to recolate the roots of our joy in His grace and not in our goods; in His mercy and not in our money; in His worth and not in our wealth.
4. He intends to advance His saving mission in the world and to spread the Gospel like wildfire and grow His church precisely at a time where they have least resources to do it.
5. He intends for the church to care for its hurting members and to grow in the gift of love so that no one is in need in the church of Jesus Christ.

I will be back for more on this topic later.
For now, I have to run.