Okay, it’s time. It’s time to be honest; to tell you a story. A not so pretty story, but a real life story.

I recently had a dream in the midst of our 2^nd miscarriage this year, and combined with the heartache so many friends and family members are experiencing right now, it brought me here: where my heart is ready to share, and where I hope our struggles can help you.

I’m entirely uncertain where to start though.

Let’s see…

The first year Eric and I were married, we rented a little apartment in a not so nice area of Tacoma – we thought we were so smart (and we really were for barely having entered our twenties). We both worked and saved money all that year, hoping to buy a home, and then planning to start a family. We had qualified for a loan amount that we knew we couldn’t maintain if I wanted to stay home with future little ones, so we purchased a home with a much smaller mortgage that we could still afford without my income. The week before our first anniversary, we signed escrow papers on a sweet little house on the border of Sumner, Edgewood, and Puyallup. It was perfect. We had life figured out; planned.

We had a few babies, paid our mortgage every month, started a business. Life wasn’t easy, but it was good.

Then life got real.

As long as we’re being honest here, let’s admit the fact that the first few years of owning a business really sucks. And that’s as long as our business lasted; we could only handle a few years of making no money. Eric went to work with the Carpenter’s Union, but when the economy crashed he was laid off and struggled to find work for nearly two years.

It was stressful to say the least.

Disconnected power – check!

Vehicle repossesion – been there.

Struggle to put food on the table – done it.

Constant creditor harassment – I don’t like these memories.

The humiliation of finally enrolling in the “Food Stamps” program – I’ve officially said too much.

Add an alcohol addiction to the already hopeless mix for good measure!

I felt like we had no future. Didn’t know if our marriage could withstand the storm. And it didn’t feel like just a season, it felt like we were stuck there forever.

My husband was miserable. He hated not working, not being able to provide for his family. He ended up taking a job that actually paid less than his Unemployment Benefits, because he just needed to work. I worked a temporary position with the Census Bureau, and we spent a year trying our hardest to pay off as much debt leftover from the business years as possible, and doing everything humanly possible to save the house.

We moved back to my hometown, into my parent’s rec-room in hopes of renting the house out in order to save it. But in distancing ourselves from it, we realized that it wasn’t worth killing ourselves and our marriage over. We still loved each other, our kids were happy and healthy – we could let go of the home we owned for over 8 years and restart our financial lives over again.

It was a weight of relief to let it go, and yet still carried so much guilt and shame. And from being in financial distress for so many years, I found myself consumed with fear and anxiety over finances and our future. It gripped my heart and thoughts. It affected my marriage, and children.

We were bankrupt in so many ways.

It’s been 5 years since we “lost” the house, and through a long season of healing and forgiveness, I found freedom from that spirit of fear. Lots of positive changes have taken place in our family since that time, contributing to that freedom – mostly my husband leading our home in such a beautiful way into a deeper relationship with Jesus.

This year has been a struggle, I won’t lie. We’ve been looking for a home closer to Orting for a year now, and have been unsuccessful at finding anything affordable on a part-time Minister’s salary. We miscarried in January, and that hurt, but there was a lot of peace in the midst of it.

We tried again, and found out we were expecting at the end of April. I literally felt like I was carrying the promises of God with this “Rainbow Baby.” (A Rainbow baby is a baby born after the loss of another baby). I was discouraged with our housing situation, but still held onto the significance of what the child growing in my womb represented: God’s promises.

We miscarried again about 5 weeks ago, and I found myself in a pit of emotional anxiety and fear that threatened to consume me yet again.

I wanted to hide from the world.

To wallow in my heartache, depression and disappointment.

I didn’t want to hear any positive encouragement.

Because,

I felt abandoned.

I started to question.

Was this Ministry thing even worth it?

Would we ever be able to own another home?

It felt like God’s promises died along with the baby.

I wondered why God wasn’t speaking to me, making himself known like he did the last time.

But.

Everyday, I told him, “I don’t know where you are. I don’t understand why. And even though I don’t really feel like it, I’m choosing to bring you a sacrifice of praise. And it is a sacrifice – this hurts. I’m choosing to worship you anyway.”

And then he came to me, in a dream.

I woke up, my chest tight and heart heavy with anxiety. Immediately, I reached for Eric’s hand, and he woke up.

“I just had a dream,” I said.

I knew it was a spiritual dream that meant something, but I didn’t know what yet.

He held my hand and listened as I recounted the details of the dream:

I was married. As dreams go, I couldn’t necessarily say the man I was married to was Eric. We were home, and it was dark. I had just put kids to bed, and had accidentally forgot to completely close and lock the back door. A man was looking in the windows and creeping around outside the house; I had apparently had an intimate relationship with this man before I met and married my husband. He found the open/unlocked door, and came in. In front of my husband, he recounts our previous intimacy and claims that we have been intimate more recently. He is attempting to accuse and manipulate me back into a twisted relationship with him. I am wrecked, and terrified that I might lose everything that actually matters to me because of these accusations. But my husband sees and understands the truth that this was in my past, and kicks the guy out of our house. The dream is over.

The meaning of the dream revealed itself simultaneously as I conveyed it’s details to Eric.

My husband represented God. The creeper represented the Enemy, the Accuser, that Spirit of Fear and Anxiety that felt so comfortable and yet so miserable at the same time. Talk about an abusive relationship! The Enemy was attempting to use our current discouraging and painful life circumstances (the dark night) to “romance” and manipulate me back into a relationship with Fear and Anxiety. He was, and is, creeping around looking for doors in our lives that we haven’t been diligent in closing and locking, so that he can make an entrance to accuse and bring up the past in an attempt to rob us of a relationship with God; to steal the health of our marriages; to destroy the hope in our children.

BUT!

We have a God, who sees through those lies and accusations. He is Truth itself. He is Love. He forgives freely. He’s a protective husband.

The enemy is getting kicked out!

Eric and I discussed the meaning, and prayed together. Went back to sleep holding hands. And since that night there’s been a settling in our hearts about the storm that seems to be raging all around us.

We all have hard life circumstances that the enemy wants to use against us.

I will not go back to living in fear.

I will walk in the freedom he paid the price for on that cross.

I do have a hope and a future.

The name we had for our heavenly little one this time was Kinsman Orting. There’s a beautiful story in the Bible, the book of Ruth – so much loss, and pain. And incredible redemption by the Kinsman (closest relative) Redeemer who represents Christ in this story. Our heart with this name was that we LOVE the city of Orting – we are family with this town, we are kinsman. And we are praying for it’s redemption. Believing that Jesus will redeem the broken-hearted. That he will redeem the struggling marriages and families. And that those consumed with addictions will be redeemed!

God’s promises are alive and active; growing within me – growing within the city of Orting; kicking and squirming like an unborn child awaiting it’s day of birth.

And I believe the labor pains have begun.

 

Proverbs 13:12 “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life.”