three weeks, 2 days

Tonight I realized it'd been six weeks almost since i last wrote on the blog and I felt compelled to put something down. I'm sorry. I suppose a part of me has wanted to sort of withdraw and just relax mentally. it's hard to believe that in a little over three weeks - three weeks from this Friday - we will be meeting our third daughter.

Even as I sat beside Sellers tonight while she "read" a Berenstain Bears book to me before bed, the whole time feeling the baby kick around at her sister's voice, it just doesn't seem real. I can hardly believe a few inches separate me from her now, let alone a few weeks' time. Every evidence is there to prove she's on her way... soon... but it still doesn't seem real.

Just for you to know the details, we are going in on Friday, November 21 for a c-section at noon (Nashville time). We will of course be posting pictures and sending updates as often as possible! I know for many of you this feels like it's as much a part of your own story - in its way - as it is for Conor and I. We, too, are anxious to see what marvels the Lord has up His sleeve. My only requests at this point are for a smooth, easy delivery. I've not yet had a baby who wasn't in the NICU (Sellers was delivered three weeks early due to an infection and consequently spent a few days there), so I am praying this will be my first!

If you get the chance, please go visit Youtube.com and watch Matt and Ginny Mooney's video documentary about their son, Eliot. I'm sure most of you have; it's fresh on my heart today because the Mooneys got to spend a few moments on "Oprah" this afternoon discussing their story. It wasn't nearly as long as they should've had to talk about that precious boy, but I can only imagine how many people have since watched the video and heard the Gospel proclaimed through the simplest terms: God loves to show Himself through weakness. I look forward to getting to meet Eliot when I've got Copeland back in my arms again.

More to come...

one year

Tomorrow is Copeland's birthday. I can hardly believe so much time has passed. Conor and I pulled up the video we were so graciously given for her memorial service and I was absolutely undone as we watched what should be by now familiar images flash across the screen. For him, perhaps they were; for me - well, I confess I can so rarely watch the video that each time I do, it's like a sort of reunion... remembering her face, her noises, just the way she was. And realizing, all over again, that she's gone. I would ask you simply to pray for us. Amazingly, in almost six months, God has given me really smooth days. Not to say that the sadness doesn't creep in on occasion, but life has been startlingly normal and... good. For some reason, after putting Sellers to bed tonight, the weight of all that was about to happen a year ago tomorrow - the beginning of the best and the worst week of my life - hit and I felt the very air being sucked out of me. The joy. That strange, panicked sensation that rocked my very being when the funeral home took Copeland's body away... it all returned afresh, as though twelve months hadn't really gone by. In some ways, as I've told friends, I just want tomorrow to be normal. It hurts too much to allow it to be anything more. It's too hard. And yet, in others, I know it will bless me to stop and do whatever it is I need to do - cry, laugh, simply remember - and give myself the freedom to indulge what I beginning to realize I've long suppressed. Whether that suppression is healthy, I don't know. I suppose I've done what I've needed to do to get by. But i found myself tonight uttering the same prayers I did a year ago: "God, just get me through this. Get me through whatever time is left between now and the moment i get to hold her again." Pray that our grief would be authentic... whatever that means. And pray, too, that as we embark on a new season, one filled with unspeakable joy, that I will have wisdom and maturity to open my heart and my arms to embrace the new life we are about to welcome into our family.

Thank you all for being one of the many who reached out to Conor and I over the last twelve months to carry our burden. Your letters and cards and e-mails and even - of course! - comments on this blog, have meant more to me than I can express. I am forever altered by the way you have loved me. It will always shape the way I love others from now on and it will give me strength as I continue to walk this path the Lord has called me to.

With deepest gratitude and sincerest affection,
Boothe

sweet Joseph

Just when we begin to decide we've acquired enough spiritual maturity to wrestle with the "big questions" in life, the Lord will be faithful to remind us we don't have it all figured out and He's going to be a mystery until we see Him face to face.

Precious Joseph Peabody, whom I blogged about months ago after his diagnosis with a brain tumor at the tender age of three, passed away this past Thursday. He had celebrated his fourth birthday Wednesday. Conor and I have just returned from the visitation. To say I felt like an idiot trying to articulate anything of worth to sweet GIllian and Allen is a vast understatement. They will probably remember little of this night and be anxious to forget what they do recall. Allen's sister, Jennifer, reiterated to me what I knew for the first time - and, I pray, the last - almost a year ago when we handed our sweet Copeland over to the funeral home: death is horrid. Ugly. Evil. It's truly wielded in the fires of hell, meant to bind us forever in hopeless captivity. Jesus, Jesus, how we trust Thee! How we've proved Thee o'er and o'er! Praise be to God that this is not all there is... and what is to come can be incomparably greater than what we know now, if only we will throw ourselves at His scarred feet and breathe the words, "I need You. Save me. I cannot do this anymore on my own."

Pray for the Peabody family. Pray they will be comforted, somehow. Pray they will see Joseph in their dreams. Pray they will be able to find steadiness in their moments of panic, in the moments they feel the sudden, terrifying reality of separation from their sweet boy set in. I can attest to the fact that there is nothing like it. Pray Jesus gives them an amazing sense of peace and knits them close to Himself. Please visit their blog, www.prayforjoseph.blogspot.com, if you desire to leave a word of encouragement or peace. The next few months will be hardest, in some ways, as their world has been ripped at the seams while ours continues on in plodding regularity.

Come, Lord Jesus, come. Please come.

what did she mean by that?

I've never responded to comments posted on my blog before, but my spirit is restless and I feel compelled to do so. I pray my heart is made clear here.

First of all, I let the post entitled "simplify" sit for a while after it was written because I was unsure of how it would be received. I want those of you who are reading my blog to understand that I believe in the inerrancy of Scripture. That it is totally God-breathed and that even the parts of it that seem difficult to understand or process are still His Word. We can't dissect portions of it so that our feelings are better justified or defended. Having said that, I would tell anyone - gay or straight - that my personal beliefs on homosexuality must be shaped by the words of the Bible. Everything else in my life is! The Bible is very clear on homosexuality. Paul even writes in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 about homosexuality and says that it is a sin. I struggle to use that word because our interpretation of sin as modern-day Bible readers is sometimes so skewed; we often believe it gives us permission to begin alienating and persecuting the very "one anothers" Jesus calls us to love. What sin is, in its simplest form, is something that separates us from God. Homosexuality is a sin just like lying or cheating or even compulsive worry are sins. They are things that separate us from the Father because they are not a part of the way He created us to live in complete compatibility with Him. This is what I wanted to make clear by using the passage regarding living "well" - not just getting by. Where there is sin, there is a better way. A way to experience freedom in Christ that, in turn, points to living righteously. We will never be able to reverse the equation. Freedom in Christ - accepting His free gift of grace - must come before any decisions we make to live sometimes incredibly difficult but godly lives.

While I am utterly convinced that Scripture is not only clear but inerrant in this teaching on homosexuality as sin, I am also utterly convinced that Jesus is appalled at the way Christians treat homosexuals. Not because we are wrong to read the Bible as inerrant, but because we take the word 'sin' and allow it to justify an incredible abuse of our fellow man. We are called to love each other while at the same time hate the sins that entangle us. Hate the sin - the traps we fall into, the lies we believe about ourselves and about life. Satan is at the helm of our determination to mock, persecute and degrade homosexuals out of their homosexuality. I desire, as a sinner saved by Jesus' unbelievable grace, to say to my precious friends who are homosexuals - whether wrestling against it or embracing it fully - to simply exonerate the truths of Jesus: you are loved, you are dear to the Father, and if you so desire, He will equip you to live in a better way. It will not be easy. And I cannot say I understand it or can comprehend what that path will look like for you. But far be it from me to question His capability.

simplify

I have heard the Gospel - and it was foreign to me.
I have heard the Gospel and it was the gospel - good news.

The Lord has been giving me a word lately, over and over: simplify. I have believed these words were directly related to my materialism. I do love a good shopping spree. Not something the good Christian should admit to, I suppose. What I have realized is that He wasn't talking about those things at all. He was talking about my definition of my own salvation.

He sent a man to my family - my parents, my brother, Conor and I - this last week. A South African man who, along with his wife, has resided in the United States long enough to lose his lovely accent but, I suspect because the Lord appreciates a thing of beauty, still pronounces every syllable with the merry, lilting sound of someone entrenched in a world seas away. This is who brought me the Gospel. And it is on those terms that I hand it back to you. They aren't his terms, but rather the Father's, and so I am suprised after twenty-nine years alive to not have heard it before.

There are two stories here - both true. One involves me and a friend in a Starbuck's about a year ago. She is looking at me, knowing that I know she is seeing another woman, and tells me, plainly, as though stating a fact, "I know I could marry her. I know it would be all right. But something in me knows that if I were to marry a man, it'd be better." That is the beginning of one story. It is not over. But the second happened thousands of years ago and has long since been given its share of dust. Just like all other stories in Scripture, it holds truths that, were we to glimpse it clearly, would blow our minds.

This second story involves, ironically, two friends, as well. Two young men - one, the son of the king, Jonathan. The other, an aid to the king, and Jonathan's best friend: David. The king, a man named Saul, a man tormented by his own avarice and ambition, knows what many others are beginning to know: God has anointed this young man, this David, and is preparing him to rise in power. Power that leads directly to the throne. Saul determines to kill David. And so, in a field outside the palace walls, David and Jonathan weep together, knowing one will remain with a vengeful father while another must flee for his life. Jonathan reminds David of something that would bind their households together forever: a covenant made between them in friendship that said that the Lord was a witness between them in their commitment to each other, between not only David and Jonathan, but also their descendants - forever.

Later, when Jonathan, along with his father, is killed in battle, David is in anguish. He cries out for his friend, calling him a "dear brother" for whom he is "crushed" (2 Samuel 1:25). There is a great love between them that cannot be fully understood in words. A love that was entrenched in sacrifice and honor. And David is true to his word, true to the covenant he made with Jonathan. Because of his love for his friend, David asks, after years have passed, after he is the crowned king, whom in the house of Saul - whom in Jonathan's line - is still living that he may honor the covenant he made with kindness? There is someone. He's not a hero. His name is Mephibosheth. He is living in a land far from David, a land marked with barrenness and of no consequence. What's more, he's a man who has lost use of both of his feet. We can imagine how he approached the king when summoned, with great pain and tremendous humiliation: "Shuffling and stammering, not looking at David in the eye, Mephibosheth said, 'Who am I that you pay attention to a stray dog like me?'" (2 Samuel 9:8, The Message). David lifts his chin and tells him not to fear. From now on, he is one of the king's household. Royalty. He and his family will eat at the king's table and will never worry about provision again. Because David loved Jonathan, Mephibosheth's father.

But Mephibosheth is a man, not unlike his grandfather Saul, who is tormented. Perhaps it was his crippled feet. Perhaps it was the fact that his family once set plans to kill this good king. Perhaps it was shame over secrets in his past, or anger with the father David so dearly loved, or lack of faith in a God David so ardently worshiped. Whatever the reason, Mephibosheth is not a man who can understand David's offer. Imagine David incessantly bestowing favor upon this man and his family. Imagine how often he must have seen the bent body, hobbling from place to place, all but shouting out, "I don't feel worthy!" Imagine what it must have been like for David when, after years, Mephibosheth, as much a son to David as any of his children, looks into the aging king's eyes and says, "What right do I have to appeal to you?" Imagine the sorrow. The frustration. "Oh, Mephibosheth! Will you never understand? It's not about you! It's about Jonathan!"

You and I are Mephibosheth. A people - not Christians, but humans - who are marked by defect, caught up in our own web of shame and humiliation, bent over and broken down, unworthy and unable to bring anything to God to earn even a crumb from His table. And yet He invites us to be a part. To be His children. But just like Mephibosheth, we make that invitation about us. We decide it must hinge on our actions or our words or our ritual - be it baptism, or communion, or charitable services, or tithing, or praying, or reading the Bible, or going to church, or never cussing or smoking or drinking or lying or sleeping around or being gay. Because it doesn't make sense otherwise. The offer doesn't make sense. If we aren't good enough as we are, then surely we have to earn it? But it's not about us. It's about Jesus.

We are accepted because God made a covenant with His Son. And we can live in the freedom of that acceptance if we'll simply take Him at His Word. It's not about us. It's about Jesus.

So back to Starbuck's. What was it that this girl got that I didn't? How could someone who'd been living what everyone else around me would call a "fallen" life have an answer to a question I'd never thought to ask? How could God reveal the truth of Christ to me through her? The truth of Christ is this: we are free. My friend was right - she could marry her girlfriend. God would still love her if that's the choice she made. Why? Because it's not about her. It's about Jesus. And yet - does that mean just because it would be permissible it's automatically beneficial? No! Jesus came to set us free from right and wrong. We are not slaves to the law. We are not slaves to rules. We have been set free. But not so that we can bow to our human nature. Rather, so that we can listen to the quiet stirrings within us that point to something better. Something higher. Something holier. As Paul wrote in his letter to the church at Corinth: "Looking at it one way, you could say, 'Anything goes... But the point is not to just get by. We want to live well" (1 Cor. 10:23, The Message). My friend knew it. She knew there was something better. There was a way to live well! Not right! Well! Fuller, deeper, richer, more meaningful lives handed to us from the very Throne of Grace!

God has called me to simplify. This isn't about me. This isn't about my not being gay. This isn't about your not getting drunk - or whatever else we use to define our sense of self-righteousness. It's isn't about us at all. It's about Jesus.

psalm 126:3

"The Lord has done great things for us,
and we are filled with joy!"

Our girl is perfect!

These were the words written on one of those Christian-bookstore-type calendars hanging in the sonographer's office this morning. When we went in, I was so nervous and so unable to pray anything else, I simply began repeating over and over again in my mind, "Lord, please do great things for us today!" He was faithful. We were meant to spend an hour in the sonogram room and instead, spent only around 20 minutes - the baby was so active and so perfectly positioned that within less than half the time usually projected, we saw every single thing the doctors want "checked off" - organs, limbs, brain, heart, etc. She was incredibly "photogenic," as the sonographer put it, and Sellers - whom we took with us on a whim, since she's been adverse to going up until now - watched it all while happily gnawing on a lollypop. We are still somewhat reeling from the gift of this incredible news... the Lord truly has done great things for us, and we are indeed filled with inexpressible joy.

To say that words fail me in relaying my heartfelt GRATITUDE for your prayers today and throughout these days is an understatement. I prayed this morning that the Lord would use the joy of this victory to bring honor and glory to Himself in the same way He used our suffering. It is without a doubt that Conor and I are alive and functioning today because of HIM. He has been our sustenance and our joy and our strength. His Word has given us a firm footing to stand on when we have been shaken. We rejoice over this wonderful news not only for ourselves and the amazing blessing we know He is already pouring out on our family, but also as a message of HOPE for those who might feel all hope is lost. Do not fear! Our God is a God who loves us more than we love ourselves. He promises to give us the desires of our hearts if we will delight ourselves in Him.

Praying the blessing you have heaped upon us will return to you in hundredfolds...

Boothe

help me with my unbelief...

First of all, I cannot begin this e-mail without saying thank you, thank you, thank you for the prayers I know you are continuing to lift up on our behalf. I have so many times been prompted to pray for someone and found myself distracted and even irritated because I have something else I need to do; I am humbled knowing that so many of you have probably faced those same distractions and still have chosen to stop and pray for Conor, Sellers and I. Thank you.

I will officially be 20 weeks pregnant tomorrow. As many of you know, this marks a significant milestone in any pregnancy. For our family, it's HUGE. On Wednesday, July 16, I will go in for my 20-week ultrasound, the most detailed and extensive one I will have. This is the sonogram where most babies with defects, disease or deformities are diagnosed. This is when we first saw "markers" for Copeland's Trisomy-18. That being said, you can imagine that the appointment next week is a little scary for me.

What you may not be able to imagine - what even I find hard to believe! - is that I feel, strangely, quite peaceful. I don't mean to undermine the Lord's incredible ability to truly give us a peace beyond explanation; I've lived that before, in moments where I should've been out of control with grief or despair. But I can also remember distinctly, months before I ever learned I was pregnant, laying in my bed at night wrestling with feelings of intense anxiety because I could not fathom how I would ever survive a 20-week sonogram again. How would I consciously go into that room - that same room - and remain calm, knowing that so much can go wrong? I felt the Lord tell me then, "Boothe, you aren't going today, so you cannot imagine how you will cope with it today. I will give you what you need when you do go." I have clung to that, and find that He is giving me what I need, even now, six days out. I do feel remarkably restful. And I'm so thankful for that. But I cannot say that I believe that peace means I should forgo asking you all to pray, speciflcally. So here are the requests we would ask you to place before the Father on our behalf for this significant day next week:

1. That the baby would be in a position where the sonographer can see everything she needs to, easily (Copeland was not, which caused a lot of stress).
2. That everything the sonographer is looking for will be present and in perfect health, from the organs and the brain to the heart and the limbs.
3. That the peace Conor and I feel will continue as a constant for us and that we will be carried these next few days as Jesus binds Satan, who seeks to attack us and convince us we are undeserving or unworthy of such a gift.

I wish words were fuller, or weightier, as I present my prayer requests to you. To say that they feel urgent is a vast understatement. My prayers, outside of praying the same things, will also focus on asking the Lord to prompt you to pray, as I know my faith will be stretched greatly in the next few days. I need your faith to sustain mine.

Thank you, again, for loving us and walking with us down this bumpy road. Believe...