I sat on the bathroom floor, the positive pregnancy test in my hand. I had been sure I was wrong; after all, I couldn’t be pregnant!!! I had an IUD. I looked up at heaven, “Why God, why me?” 

I immediately felt guilty. I’d always believed a child was a gift, and I knew mothers who were fighting to conceive. How could I dread such a blessing? 

I stood up, dried my tears and went to tell my husband that we were expecting number six in eight years. 

I wasn’t ready for the postpartum darkness that would ensue. Everything was in question, which was so unlike me. My faith, my self confidence, my ability to do things, my ability to ever be myself again. 

I would go to church where it felt like EVERY SINGLE sermon and lesson was about the beauty of families and how a husband’s duty is to protect and love his wife. But I didn’t have that. Church quickly turned from my refuge to a place that brought pain. I had lived my life exactly the way God had asked me to live it. I did everything right. Yet the love I was promised was replaced by severe mental, emotional, and verbal abuse.

I won’t ever forget the look on the doctor’s face as he delivered the results of the test– it was filled with grief. All I heard was, “eye disease… blindness…and no cure or timeline.” My only thought was that there must be a mistake. 

A phone call awoke me to the news: there was a plane crash. In that single moment I lost my sister who had been my role model from the time I was born, my brother-in-law who was the big brother I never had, my 15 year old nephew, and my 12 year old niece. It was something I never could have imagined in my worst nightmares. It was a devastating loss for our family, no doubt.  

But we needed something different and as we thought more on it, the idea of moving from California to Utah started to feel scary, but at the same time made sense. There is always a lot of chaos and nerves around making a big decision, but the moment we decided to follow the prompting, everything felt so calm.

In our world it feels to me that we have become preoccupied with measuring our success based off the grades we receive, the money we make, or the location in which we reside (to name a few). So much so, that we have lost focus on what matters most. Sure, counting from 1-20 is a good skill to learn; however, I am confident we would all agree being kind far outweighs that.

My story, though unique in many ways, is also familiar to all. A story of struggle, of loss, of pain both physical and spiritual…and in the end, miraculously a story of triumph. I know not all stories have happy endings and for a long time, I feared that mine would not. I was adjusting my mind over time to embrace a new normal. A normal that included physical disabilities, brain damage and mental illness. However, with the Lord’s tender mercies and even just a mustard seed of faith, I held on and the light came. 

I spent the next hour or so reading about the terror she felt when she saw the hole in my face. The guilt my dad felt over not having seen the situation and stopping it in time. The miracle after miracle that brought family and doctors into the right situation so that everything worked out okay. But mostly, I read about the love—all the love that my family had for me, and that God had for me. He was there for me. He was aware of the pain, the timing, the fear, and He provided miracles.

God is real. He is a God of miracles, and He can help us overcome our weaknesses, take our pain away, and fill our souls with peace in even the worst circumstances. He knows exactly what we need and He can provide us with our 2lb block of cheese!