Molly Piper

It’s the end of January.

About this time of year in Minnesota people start counting down to spring. Here’s how it goes:

Well it’s already the end of January. And February’s a short month. And then it’s March! March comes “in like a lion, out like a lamb”, right? And then it’ll be spring!

I do this too. But what we all tend to forget in our longing for spring is that this whole promise of better March days is kind of a crapshoot in Minnesota.

We forget all too easily that it snowed in May last year. MAY!!! I remember it particularly because my birthday’s in May. And even in all my Pennsylvania winters growing up, it never snowed in my birth month.

Perhaps it’s good that our memories fail us this time of year. Perhaps the cold freezes our hippocampuses or something. If we kept a record of wrongs against the weather here, we’d have all hit the road long ago.

Perhaps we’re gluttons for punishment. Perhaps we have martyr complexes.

But perhaps there’s just something so comforting about the warmth of a necessary hot beverage. Or cozy about the fleece jammies we clothe our children in at night. Or awe-inspiring as we catch snow on our tongues, remembering the purchase-price that made all our evil deeds just like those floating flakes.

Don’t get me wrong—I’m excited for spring. But I want to revel more in those moments that make what’s left of winter magical. They, like everything else, will be gone too soon.

During the month of December, we decided to read Luke, Chapter 2 every night before bed with Orison. We would do our Advent Calendar reading for the night, then Orison would settle into his bed for Daddy to read the account of Jesus’s birth.

He got excited about the repetition and predictability of it. “Are we going to read Luke 2 tonight?!?!”

The effect of reading one section of Scripture every night for a month was surprising. Nothing we anticipated, really. But on December 23rd, Abraham got him started and did an experiment to see how many words he knew in the story.

Basically, he just kept going. And going.

He had the whole thing almost word-perfect from verses 1-21. We were STUNNED!

So our new plan for family devotions for 2009 is to introduce Orison to important people/accounts in the Bible, reading a section repeatedly for a certain amount of time. We might not do a whole month with all of them, but the repetition has proven really good for his little memory.

And it’s had its effect on us, as well. I know a lot more of Luke 2 than I ever have before. So not only do your kids get concepts and stories from the Bible into their eager little brains, but you learn it too!

Enjoy the edited version!

The Minneapolis Star Tribune ran an article today about my friend Dorothy and her family.

Why should you read it?

• She has 10 children, 7 of whom are adopted. (If that alone doesn’t have you curious…)
• She’s faithful to her calling to be a Christian in her neighborhood, loving her neighbor as herself.
• She’s a nurturing mother to all her children.
• She’s one of the most joyful people I know.

There’s also a beautiful slideshow you can view.

I’m thankful to know a woman like Dorothy. She’s taught me so much. I love you, Dorothy!

I was shocked to see the Christmas stuff out at Costco right after back-to-school was over. Seriously?!?! Does anyone really have their act together enough to be thinking about Christmas in September?

For our family, the busyness of the season begins this week. Orison’s birthday starts it off tomorrow, and we don’t really take a breath until next year.

There will be 3 major holidays, 5 birthdays, and 1 milestone wedding anniversary between Friday and mid-January.

I really want this time of year to be intentional, where we take time to talk and ponder words like Thanksgiving and Advent and Immanuel. I want to feel them somewhere in the middle of my chest.

I want them to take my breath away.

I’m excited for the things that make this season busy. I want to stand in awe and joyfully celebrate forty years of my in-laws’ faithfulness to God and each other in marriage. I want to lift my voice to sing “Happy Birthday” multiple times to people I love and then again to sing “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” and “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” to the God who sent his Son so that I could love them.

I want these things to land on me in ways that go beyond presents and food and endless events.

Only God can do this in my heart. Only he can open my eyes to take notice of the beauty around me. Only he can free me from the love of money and consumerism that would numb me. I pray that he does it for me, and for all of you too.

I’m totally copying my friend Jenna’s post from yesterday, but this was such a good idea, I wanted to link here too.

Last week I posted about the Art*Music*Justice tour, but I didn’t realize that this video was available on YouTube. Good find, Jenna!

Every fall our church focuses on missions for 2 Sundays in a row, with all kinds of various events on the days between. So with that in mind, I want to ask God what he wants for our family on a more international level.

This is one of the videos shown at the concert, and I just loved it, in a very brokenhearted way.

Incidentally, Sara Groves and her family will return to Rwanda in March with Food for the Hungry, and they are working on adopting an entire village through the contributions they get until then. They also gave an open invitation at the concert to anyone who wants to join the team.

I’ll just insert the video now…

[youtube=

Have a great weekend.

[via All The Way Home]

There are no words to express how joyful we feel right now as we welcome our second son into the world. One thing I asked people to pray for us after we lost Felicity was that God would restore our hope. We were looking for a tomorrow that somehow made more sense than the one we were in.

As we considered this name for our child, the last stanza of Great Is Thy Faithfulness often filled my thoughts:

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth,
Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide.
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.
Blessings all mine with ten thousand beside.

Great is thy faithfulness!
Great is thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed thy hand hath provided.
Great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto me.

There are so many beautiful references in the Bible to the morning (when his mercies are new, when we want him to satisfy us, how we should long for him, etc.). But the one that resonated the most with me was Psalm 30:5, particularly the second part of the verse.

For his anger is but for a moment,
and his favor is for a lifetime.
Weeping may tarry for the night,
but joy comes with the morning.

We chose John for a middle name after Abraham’s father. We have known such strong support and sweet affection from him in particular as we have lived through the last 11 months. Also, Abraham holds a deep affection for his daddy, who has been his most faithful fan and encourager through the last 29 years. We love you, John, and are so thankful that you are Morrow’s granddaddy.

Morrow John Piper

Born August 22, 2008 at 12:22 pm

Weight: 7 pounds, 13 ounces

Length: 20.5″

The first time I held him (immediately upon birth).

One proud dad.

Already fallen in love.

We came into the hospital last night and I received two small doses of a pill designed to soften the cervix and prepare for induction the next morning. We actually managed to sleep through our nervousness and excitement (after watching the men win gold in beach volleyball, of course).

This morning they started a very slow dose of Pitocin around 7:30 am. I hung out around 3 cm for most of the morning and after they broke my water, the contractions increased drastically (in amount and amplitude).

I opted for an epidural around 11 am, which, in my humble opinion, was amazing. I took a short rest after that, then Abraham decided to go get some lunch around 11:50 am.

Ten minutes later the nurse came in to check me and told me I was between 9 and 10 centimeters. I was absolutely shocked. I kept asking her, “Are you serious?”, “Are you sure?”. She said she’d let my doctor know. In the meantime, the resident doctor came to check on me. I told her I was feeling quite a bit of pressure. She checked me and said, “You’re ready to deliver. He’s right there.”

I immediately freaked out. Abraham wasn’t even in the room!!! So we waited and waited for him to get there, with nurses scanning the cafeteria looking for him. He was coming up the elevator, and someone asked him,

“What room are you in?”

He said, “I don’t remember.”

They said, “Are you with Molly?”

“Yes,” he answered.

“She’s already delivered!”

Abraham rushed back into the room with a pit in his stomach, thinking I was going to be so mad at him. I was only thinking about how heartbroken he would be if he missed it. Thankfully the person in the elevator was wrong—I hadn’t delivered, but only because he wasn’t there yet.

Three pushes later, on 8/22 at 12:22, we said hello to our precious baby boy, Morrow John Piper.

He is amazing already. You can see a few different pictures on Abraham’s site, too!

Since losing Felicity, I’ve had people ask me fairly often about pregnancy. We wrestled with this issue almost immediately after Felicity’s death, which was an issue all to itself. The following questions have either been asked of me, or I have asked them of myself:

When is it okay to start thinking about getting pregnant again?

In the weeks immediately following Felicity’s death, I remember berating myself for even thinking about pregnancy with another child. Part of why I thought of it so often was that my arms were empty, my home was empty (relatively speaking)—raising a newborn was what I planned to do during this year. All the plans I had made for our immediate life in October, November, December included planning for a newborn.

So part of why pregnancy was on my mind a lot was panic. What am I going to do now?!?!

I also thought a lot of things like this:

It takes so stinking long to get to the point we were (39 weeks)!!! I better hurry up and get pregnant, in order to catch up to where I thought I would be in my life.

Maybe we should just start the adoption process right now and try to get pregnant.

Many of the women I had been pregnant with the first time around had already had their second and some were even pregnant with their third. Women have such comparison complexes, and losing our child was not helping when I looked around at the people who were “ahead” of me.

Am I betraying my dead child to think of more children? Am I trying to replace her?

I was really afraid that if we thought of other children that we would be trying to replace Felicity. A week or so after we lost her, though, Abraham had a rich, God-ordained conversation with pastor/author Randy Alcorn, who was in Minneapolis speaking at the Desiring God conference.

Randy helped us understand something that has been pivotal in our thinking about subsequent children. He explained it something like this: There are at least two voids that you are living with right now. There is the void that Felicity has left in your family. That void will never be filled; it will always be there. A separate void is your desire for more children, which you hoped would be filled in part by Felicity’s arrival. It’s important to recognize that these are separate voids/longings—Felicity and more children.

That really freed us from the guilt we felt whenever we thought of our desire to add to our family. Another thing my wise mother-in-law mentioned early on as well was, “You’re no more trying to replace Felicity by having another child than you are trying to replace Orison [our living child].”

It’s just not replacement.

“I think I feel ready, but…”

I remember getting an email awhile back from someone I didn’t know who experienced something similar to us. She was asking me about pregnancy, saying she “felt ready,” even though it had only been a couple months since the death of their child.

When I read that I thought to myself, “I wonder if she really feels ready, or feels like she has to defend herself in saying that she feels ready?” If it had only been a couple months since her child died, at least in my experience with grieving, she hadn’t even hit the reality phase of the loss really setting in.

But I definitely don’t think that makes pregnancy a non-option for her. I think you can be grieving and pregnant at the same time. If I had to wait to get pregnant until I felt like I was “over” the loss of Felicity, I would never have more children. Then both of the voids are never dealt with and I’ve basically told God, “No! I will not pursue one of the desires of my heart, a desire that I feel is from you.”

Do Not Give Way to Fear.

Obviously the decision to add to your family after a loss is much weightier than prior to the loss. Many people lose children due to a genetic cause, making pregnancy very risky for them and/or their baby. Perhaps some women feel as though they can’t go through that much pain again. Maybe some feel, in praying through their particular situation, that God is not leading them to add to their family right away.

I think there is wisdom in waiting for some measure of healing to take place. I also don’t think it’s unwise to step forward quickly in faith and hope that God will add to your family if it’s His will, even as you weep. In deciding to move forward immediately or wait, I think it’s important to check our hearts continually for fear.

The motivation to get pregnant quickly should not come from fear (like the panic I referenced above). God is your provider.

The decision to wait for a season should not come from fear (self-protection). God is your defender.

A good reminder for all of us is Sarah, wife of the faithful Abraham. I love 1 Peter 3:6.

“…you are her children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening.”

The verse doesn’t just say don’t be afraid. It legitimizes the fact that there are frightening things in life. It’s where we place our fear that makes us Sarah’s children. We are to cast our cares on Him, because he cares for us.

Life after a loss is so altered. Nothing is as black and white as it used to be, once the innocence of never having lost is stripped away. This decision is not an easy one. It’s important to trust God’s work in your heart to know how (and when) to move forward.

So you can pray for us. We go into the hospital tonight for a Friday morning induction.

This afternoon Orison got a gift bag and told me he was packing his things.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“I’m going to Kenya,” he replied.

“Wow, what are you going to do there?”

“I’m going to see my friend Eli. I’ll be gone for three days.”

He proceeded to pack all kinds of essentials, like kazoos, blocks, toy cars, and a train whistle. He went in my room for a spell, told me he was getting on the airplane. All the while I’m playing along and encouraging this little game.

He came out of my room after a few minutes with a big grin on his face, proclaiming, “Mommy, I’m back in Minneapolis!”

I can only hope I’m that willing to “play along” when God really does call him to far places. I have no idea what the future holds for our firstborn son. He may be called to the hardest country in the world for the glory of God. Will I be ready for that?

That’s why I love the words of dedication that our church uses for our child dedications. The pastor says something like this:

Orison, together with your parents who love you dearly, and this people who care about the outcome of your faith, I dedicate you to God, surrendering together with them all worldly claims upon your life, in the hope that you will belong wholly to God forever.

“Surrendering… all worldly claims upon your life.”

Is my highest hope that he will belong wholly to God forever? Or is it that he’ll go to a good college? or behave well in preschool this year? or have nice friends in adolescence? or marry someone that I approve of?

I felt like I got a small glimpse into my parenting future today. Though I don’t know if he’ll be a missionary, whatever he does with his life will require me to let him go and pray my guts out that he be God’s, above anything else.

My father-in-law posted this last week, and it was a good (hard) reminder for me.

Why God Doesn’t Fully Explain Pain

By: John Piper

One of the reasons God rarely gives micro reasons for his painful providences, but regularly gives magnificent macro reasons, is that there are too many micro reasons for us to manage, namely, millions and millions and millions and millions and millions.

God says things like:

• These bad things happened to you because I intend to work it together for your good (Romans 8).
• These happened so that you would rely more on God who raises the dead (2 Corinthians 1).
• This happened so that the gold and silver of your faith would be refined (1 Peter 1).
• This thorn is so that the power of Christ would be magnified in your weakness (2 Corinthians 12).

But we can always object that there are other easier ways for God to accomplish those things. We want to know more specifics: Why now? Why this much? Why this often? Why this way? Why these people?

The problem is, we would have to be God to grasp all that God is doing in our problems. In fact, pushing too hard for more detailed explanations from God is a kind of demand that we be God.

Think of this, you are a blacksmith making horseshoes. You are hammering on a white hot shoe and it ricochets off and hits you in the leg and burns you. In your haste to tend to your leg you let the shoe alone unfinished. You wonder why God let this happen. You were singing a hymn and doing his will.

Your helper, not knowing the horseshoe was unfinished gathered it up and put it with the others.

Later there was an invasion of your country by a hostile army with a powerful cavalry. They came through your town and demanded that you supply them with food and with shoes for their horses. You comply.

Their commander has his horse shoed by his own smith using the stolen horseshoes, and the unfinished shoe with the thin weak spot is put on the commander’s horse.

In the decisive battle against the loyal troops defending your homeland the enemy commander is leading the final charge. The weak shoe snaps and catches on a root and causes his horse to fall. He crashes to the ground and his own soldiers, galloping at full speed, trample him to death.

This causes such a confusion that the defenders are able to rout the enemy and the country is saved.

Now you might say, well, it would sure help me trust God if he informed me of these events so that I would know why the horseshoe ricocheted and burned my leg. Well maybe it would help you. Maybe not.

God cannot make plain all he is doing, because there are millions and millions and millions and millions of effects of every event in your life, the good and the bad. God guides them all. They all have micro purposes and macro purposes. He cannot tell you all of them because your brain can’t hold all of them.

Trust does not demand more than God has told us. And he has given us immeasurably precious promises that he is in control of all things and only does good to his children. And he has given us a very thick book where we can read story after story after story about how he rules for the good of his people.

Let’s trust him and not ask for what our brains cannot contain.