Now to today's post. My dear friend and original member of the Warrior Princesses, Shyla, sent me a Glory Story to post a few days ago. I finally had time to read and edit it and it is so good that I cannot wait another day to get it on here for the rest of you to read. What a wonderful story!
One more thing...I had posted a link to this blog on Facebook to let people know how Morgan is and so a few of you who have never visited here came for a visit. At least one person liked what she read and wondered if this blog was for anyone. YES! It is for anyone who is interested! Please, pass it on to anyone you think would be encouraged by the stories posted here and PLEASE, share your stories as the Lord leads you. I started and moderate this blog, but it is not my blog, it belongs to our Father. All of the stories written and posted here are really HIS stories told through our lives. So, you are always welcomed to share the blog with anyone, and we would love to hear what He has done in you. It is all For His Glory (Sole Deo Gloria).
Thank you again for your prayers for Morgan. Please, do continue to pray for healing for her bones and incisions. And now, I pray that you are blessed by Shyla's story.
Sole Deo Gloria,
WP Stacey
Shyla's Story
I Gave You My Baby, You Give Him His
As far as experience has taught me, I am an infertile woman. I had two pregnancies, two miscarriages both in the first two years of my marriage and then never got pregnant again during the remaining 11 years of my marriage. God blessed me with my first daughter almost exactly two years after my second miscarriage. God provided this daughter through an amazing woman named Donna. Donna was a sweet, godly presence of a woman. She chose to meet my husband and me from a book of available adoptive couples provided to her by the Christian adoptive agency we were licensed through. We ended up meeting Donna face to face for an “interview” and shortly thereafter she chose us to parent the baby girl that was growing in her womb and was nearly ready to be born. We only had 3 weeks to get prepared. Over those 3 weeks we continued to talk with Donna on the phone and get to know her. She had invited us into the delivery room and especially wanted me to be right by her side when our baby was born. She wanted me close and ready to see, hold, and love my daughter immediately after she was delivered.
On Nov. 15th in the late evening, Donna called to tell us that she was in labor and was heading to the hospital. We were about 1½ hours away, so we packed our bags for a couple day stay and hit the road. When we arrived at the hospital we were invited into the room. We labored with her, we endured the easy stuff, she endured the torturous stuff. Donna labored thru the night. Around 7:00 in the morning Donna was fully dilated and began to push. After 2 hours of pushing the doctor began to threaten to do a cesarean section and out of pure determination Donna started making slow but steady progress. After a total of 3 hours of pushing and a vacuum, our baby was born. She had some brief complications immediately after her birth so we didn’t get to hold her right away. After a short stint in the NICU, my husband and I were able to hold her and love on her and feed her. Due to a few reasons, Donna would need to stay in the hospital for 72 hours.
We spent this time hanging around the hospital, getting to meet Donna’s friends, co-workers and church friends. Amazingly and miraculously, Donna was warm and hospitable, welcoming to us parenting her daughter. She considered us and our daughter always before her and her baby. With the grace and power that ONLY an Oak of Righteousness could display, she invited us to parent her baby right in front of her. On the evening that Donna was released from the hospital she held a dedication service for all of us. She prepared and led the service herself at the church she had been attending during the short time she had been living in this city. With God’s blessing, she officially surrendered her precious baby into our arms. By God’s grace, this was just the beginning of something that just keeps getting more beautiful.
Our first baby was born in 1997. What would this have to do with the event of 2007? In 2007 I wake up in a nightmare where my husband has been having an affair with one particular woman for over 2 years. He has gotten this woman pregnant. My husband and I are in pain, in crisis, trying to figure out how and whether or not to pursue restoration of our marriage. The big unknown factor is this baby…. How do I overcome the baby?? How does he maintain a relationship with this child if he stays in the marriage? The questions are big and the answers are unknown.
I had told my husband shortly after I found out about the baby that I felt he should do as Abraham did and send the child away, along with his mistress. Hagar and Ishmael. WE are his covenant family and they are secondary to us! Send her and the baby away! At a time when you have no idea which end of life is up, you ponder, scramble, thrash around, trying to figure out what the rest of your life could possibly look like. You consider all sorts of things that you never would have considered when life was easy and intact. One day in March of 2007, I received a phone call from Donna, my daughter’s birth mom. She was fully aware of the crisis we were in and was supportive and prayerful for all of us. With great trepidation, she told me she had a message for me. She reiterated over and over again, that she didn’t want to deliver the message but was doing it out of obedience to God. I assured her that I was a woman who lived able and ready to hear any message and that I would not lash out at her. Me and my God walk pretty close, I know His voice when I hear it. I will know if it’s from Him this time too.
“GIVE HIM THE BABY.”
Love this baby. Faith. Embrace this baby. Faith. Allow your children to love and embrace this child. Keep a baby book for him. Welcome him. “Do you remember the history of Ishmael and Isaac?” she asked me. “Look at the mess it has made. What would happen if you embraced and loved this child instead of sending him away?” (By the way, she didn’t even know that I wanted him sent away.)
And then there was silence on her end…. I imagine she was waiting for the backlash. I told her I had to get off the phone and call my husband,…to give him his baby. She was shocked that I was willing to act so quickly… I confided in her that God had been telling me and preparing me for 2 weeks to do this very thing.
I hung up the phone and called my husband. I told him I wanted him to love his son. I told him that I would include him in our family. I told him that I was committed to loving his son too.
In my arrogance, I expected my husband to give up his son for the sake of me and my children. In God’s gentle goodness to me, He humbled me by providing the VERY woman who gave me her baby to tell me to give him his baby. Donna surrendered herself in the biggest form humanly possible to give me her precious baby. How could I NOT surrender this?
What I have learned about surrender is that there are no regrets when you give it all away. With surrender there is exhilarating joy. A kind of freaked-out-joy, like that of riding a wild roller coaster on which you think you are going to die! So out of control, but so absolutely right where you are supposed to be! Surrender feels like death but what it produces is life. The enemy wants to deceive us into believing it’s going to kill us. No matter what it is. God whispers, “Trust me Daughter. I am going to honor you in whatever you surrender for or because of Me. I will return LIFE to you for your courage.”
Warrior Princess Shyla
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