About my journey...PART 1

[moxicarose]

Hello, everyone!

Allow me to introduce myself in a little more detail. My friends call me Jessi. I'm married to a wonderful, loving husband named Andrew, and we have three beautiful little girls. Cassie (9), Aly ( and Bella (15 months) All three of our babies are gifts from God, and although none of them had a conventional entry into this world, our youngest daughter's birth is the most remarkable of the three. Long before she was born many doctors told us she was as good as dead, and to prepare ourselves to say goodbye. All the way up until the day before she was delivered, we were given such morbid examples of what was most likely going to occur. She began dying in my womb, and at the point that it was no longer safer for her inside than out, they operated and took her. That was August 17th, 2009. My due date was not until November 18th, so as you can see, that was three months too soon. She was severely stunted in growth, and whereas she should have weighed approximately a pound and a half, she was only 14 ounces, and 11 inches long. They did not expect to be able to intubate her as her airway was so incredibly tiny. Despite all that she had stacked against her, in an earthly sense, as we speak I'm listening to her scoot around behind me, babbling and playing with her toys! She has a large scar on her ribcage from a delicate heart surgery at two weeks, and she is fed through a tube because she was on oxygen support for almost 4 months and didn't learn to eat well enough to get all her calorie needs by mouth. She's a little behind in size as would be expected, and she isn't quite caught up developmentally, but in all reality you can hardly tell what this baby has been through! Praise the Lord! Her two older sisters are so in love with her, and we are so blessed by their willingness to be helpers. Since she is tube fed, it takes much longer than a normal feeding, and has many challenges on it's own that require me to spend the majority of each day feeding her. I am also not to take the baby out to public places at all this time of year because her respiratory system cannot handle cold and such as a full term baby's would. I'm pretty cooped up, but I DO have ample time to read the Word of God on my phone, and Ray's writings! I am (trying) homeschooling my older two, and my husband has a full time job. We don't really have any outside support, and my husband and I are both ragged as a result of so many months with no real physical rest. If you read this, would you pray that if God is willing, He might send us some people in our area who are able to lend a helping hand sometimes? We have been praying ourselves, and asking those we know...it seems maybe we are being taught a lesson in patience.

  That is my current life situation, and since it is a big part of me, and is partly responsible for how I found BT, I hope you don't mind reading about all that.. My personal background regarding my introduction/involvement in 'Christendom' is rather a large quilt, but I will do my best to give you 'swatches' rather than whole 'squares'. My parents did not profess Christ until I was 5, when my mom said she'd been "born again" and then promptly uncovered her lies to me about Santa and the Easter Bunny. She followed that by telling about Jesus, who saves us from our sins. I was upset, and didn't want to hear it, but I was five..so obviously I came around. At least in the head knowledge sense. I learned a lot about Christianity and the Bible over the years. I also learned that my parents fought violently quite often, and that sometimes the violence was directed at myself as well as my younger siblings. (I am the eldest of 6 kids.) By the time I was 15, I had been immersed in doctrines of a  primarily Calvinistic nature, and my mother had systematically removed everything she perceived to be worldly from our home and us children. I did not make friends easily already, so I really had no friends once I was not allowed to even dress at all similarly to any of my peers, which were exclusively in the church we attended. This is not to say that my entire childhood was dreary and utterly friendless,(pretty close) but there was a whole lot of confusion and hurt regarding God and the church brewing in my soul before I even hit puberty. My parent's marriage ended when I was 15, almost as soon as I figured out by looking at a calendar that I was not born in wedlock as all my siblings had been. (Was a big deal to me then..not at all now) The pastor of our church wanted to help my parents save their marriage, but my father had been unfaithful, and my mother could not bear it as there was a lot more leading up to that which she was unable to trust my Dad on account of. Sadly, the church kicked us out because my mother was 'rebellious' or something like that. Even then I thought it was strange that she was condemned by them when she had biblical grounds for divorce. After that, I became very angry, and I doubted that there even was a God. I made a point of telling God, "I don't think you exist, but if you do, I hate you. You ruined my life." I was a very depressed girl. My mother sank into a depression as well, and the rest of my time at home was marked with anger and quarrels with my mother over my desire to fit in and have friends by leaving behind some of the more restrictive lifestyle methods that she held so dear to her heart. SO, I rebelled as most teenagers have done, but my trespasses were not smoking, drinking, or drugs, or even premarital sex, but those of listening to oldies instead of classical music, and of wearing pants instead of skirts and cutting my hair above my waist and such.... Of course, I learned that no matter what you wear, people don't like you if they don't like you..and only certain types of people like me. At 18, I moved out of my mother's home and worked and lived at a Christian Conference Center. There I found little difference in the way I was treated from the church world I had come from. I was not happy, and to me God was just another 'unreachable' in my life,  like friends or loving leadership...to be continued, because the baby needs feeding..


Have a wonderful night!

Jessi aka moxicarose