We spent the last weekend celebrating the birthday of our oldest son, Ben. My how time flies! It is hard for me to believe that he is already 15 years old. As any parent does, I spent the week before his birthday reliving those precious times of his life. What sweet memories I have of him that I will always cherish. You see, his birth was a time of celebration but also of great healing in my life. I knew as a young girl that I wanted to be a mother. I loved everything about babies and would babysit any chance I could get! When Matt and I got married, it wasn’t long after that we were ready to start our family. That was our plan! God’s plan, however, took a much different route than ours.
Our family didn’t begin when we thought we were ready, it began at the time God knew we were ready. As a young married couple, we had to face trials and sufferings, that I believe now, shaped our marriage and made us learn to love each other in the way God intended. As all young married couples, we thought it would be so easy to start our family. That was not the case! After years of trying, doctor’s visits, heartache, and pain, we did finally hear the words that were music to our ears…. you’re pregnant! What an exciting time only to learn that 5 weeks later we would mourn the loss of that child. That brought devastation to my soul. In the months that followed that loss, God began redirecting our paths. He relocated us out of town and began to grow our marriage like never before. This became a time of healing, physically, emotionally, and spiritually! God was strengthening our marriage in a place away from everyone and everything we had known and we began to see God in a mighty way! We knew that God was doing a work in our lives and we were going to accept the task before us!
About nine months after our loss, we were surprised and ecstatic to learn that we were pregnant again! I have to be honest when I tell you that I was scared to death! Yes, I was excited, but scared to think of going through that pain again. Month after month our baby continued to grow and so did our souls! During that pregnancy, God would continually bring this verse of scripture to my heart,
Phil. 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
It was a comfort to know that God is going to complete the work in us that he started and we, no matter what came our way, were going to be okay!
On August 6, 1996, at 10:28 in the morning, we welcomed our beautiful son, Benjamin Matthew Jordan! All 10 pounds, 1 ounce of him! He was prefect and he truly was a gift from our God! As I stared at his little face, just in awe of our awesome Lord, I could sense God’s healing power in my life. Not just because he gave me the child I had prayed for, but because of the healing he did in my life through the whole experience. He is AMAZING GOD!
Over the last 15 years, I have seen our son grow in so many ways! He is such a joy! He is the child that gave me the title of “mother” but we also grew together. I was learning how to be a mother and he was learning how to walk and talk, etc. Matt and I clung to the scripture in Deuteronomy early in our parenthood in raising our children.
Deuteronomy 6:4-9 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”
We knew that a home without Jesus Christ is a home that will fail. Raising our son in the ways of God is such a blessing. Being able to open God’s Word and share with him those dear truths and promises has been incredible. Parenting is not always easy, but the rewards of seeing your children walk in truth are beyond anything I could ever fathom! Watching him grow as a young child asking questions about God and seeing the Lord nurturing his heart was priceless. The night that Ben came to us and knew he needed Jesus in his life was a moment that we will never forget! We, his earthly parents, were able to kneel beside his bed and hear him ask Jesus into his heart and commit his life to his Savior! Praise God! I am watching my son develop into a man that loves his Lord! He is growing closer to his Heavenly Father and is learning and nurturing his own personal relationship with his Lord! I am so proud of him and the paths he is taking. Will he make mistakes? Of course, I make plenty myself! But the truths we want to continue to instill is that when we make those mistakes, that we go to God first and lean on his Word to guide and direct our lives. We are to seek his forgiveness and follow his commands. That is how we learn and grow!
I praise God for the blessing of Ben! He continues to amaze us everyday by his love for God, his love for people, and his generous and nurturing spirit. I am honored that God chose me to be his mom and I am thankful that God took me through such uncomfortable and painful times because my relationship with God grew, my relationship with my husband grew, and we had the foundations set in our home to welcome the blessing of children!
3 John 1:4 “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.”
Allison
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