Blessed Beyond Words

Last night, I had the amazing privilege to hear Sandy Day's testimony. She made me laugh in the midst of crying with her sense of humor and VERY strong southern accent! She is the founder of Caleb Ministries, which ministers to women and families who have lost a baby through miscarriage, stillbirth, early infant death, or women who struggle with infertility or who are post-abortive.

My main reason for blogging about her ministry is because it is a huge resource for women who have been through one of these things, and I most definitely think it is something that EVERYONE should know about! We ALL know people who have suffered through at least one of these things, and I know that some of you reading this have been through something like this yourself.

Sandy Day's testimony blew my mind away....and she will tell you that the Lord carried her through ever hardship she faced, and made it for good. She said she is thankful for EVERY extreme difficulty the Lord gave her, because through each trial she grew tremendously in different areas in her walk with the Lord.

She aborted her baby at the age of nineteen, right after she became a believer. She was widowed at the age of 23 after being married for two years, to a husband who committed suicide. She was remarried to her current husband and a couple years later lost her perfectly healthy, James Caleb, at 8 months old in the womb...she delivered him stillborn. They then had trouble getting pregnant again, and after finally giving her burden to the Lord, and realizing the LORD ALONE is more than enough and always enough, she got pregnant. At about 26 weeks pregnant she went into preterm labor, and was on bedrest for 3 months. Through these things she learned to be wholly dependant upon the Lord; the incredible sufficiency of scripture; the importance of purity; the great beauty of complete forgiveness and blamelessness through the lense of Christ; the importance of memorizing scripture and taking your thoughts captive; the importance of obedience to God...and many other valuable things. Her joy eminated in the room as she gave her heart-wrenching tesimony.

I sat their and thought, "Lord, I want to be like her...I want to have memorized 7 books of the Bible by the time I am 50 (or way more, because God has graciously saved me so young!), I want to be so in love with your WORD every day of my life, I want to look back on everything in my life and praise you for it!" I have no idea what God will use in my own life to make me more like Him, but my prayer is that I would always take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ (2 Cor. 10:5), by knowing his Scriptures intimately, and that I would exult greatly in my tribulations, knowing that they produce perseverance, proven character (Christlikeness), and hope , which does NOT dissapoint, because the love of God has been poured out within my heart through the Holy Spirit whom He gave me (Roman 5:3-5).

I encourage you to check out the Caleb Ministries Website! Her testimony isn't avaiable on the web, but you can order a copy. She has some great resources available here, and also beautiful gifts to encourage thouse who have lost a baby. Her ultimate desire is to give women hope, and if they don't have Christ, to give them the gospel. Praise the Lord to see someone USE their sins and sufferings as a great means to minister to others. May we all do the same thing!