A Time to Rejoice!

"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."

Hebrews 11:1

Beth Moore's teachings online have been my church for the past year  while Oscar Andres continued to grow and develop in the safe environment of our home - something a preemie requires.


I was recently listening to one of her teachings on Praying and Believing God. She said that we need to put our hope and expectations on God, meaning we need to see things from God's perspective and not focus on what we see now today. The reality for us needs to be God's promises to us and not what our human eyes can see in the flesh today. 

It had me reflecting on what this year has been for me - a first time mother and the mother of a preemie. For many preemies, things don't come naturally. O.A. has had to be taught how to do everything from the "outside in" rather than just naturally aquiring the skills and figuring things out on his own. We have been blessed to have such a wonderful medical team of doctors and therapists who have worked diligently with him all these months, but I know that it is ultimately the Lord's hand that has brought him to the place he is today and it was the Lord that led us to the right people to help him.  (pictures below:  1. Me meeting my son for the first time - day two of his life. 2.  Finally going home after being in the NICU for one month!)

On August 10th, 14 months after O.A. was born, we were finally given the a-ok to take him off of oxygen - this time for real!  I am so pleased to share that he passed his echocardiogram and oxygen saturation tests and all is well!!!

It wasn't but two days later that I had him in his therapy where we were working hard to get him to do an army crawl. By Saturday, he was getting on all fours and crawling and by Sunday, I found him in the crib standing up!!

I know that every parent gets excited when their child does things for the first time, but for a preemie parent things like this truly bring us to our knees before the Father. We know how hard O.A. had to work to get to this point! Today he his crawling all over the place, pulling up to stand on furniture, babbling, eating better, and full of giggles and smiles and while all this means more work for us as parents - we very joyfully welcome it!

There have been so many times over this past year that we could have easily chosen to believe what we saw in the flesh.  I remember taking O.A. to an early stimulation class and seeing other babies his age so far ahead of where he was, wondering if we would ever get there.  It takes faith to see things from God's perspective. To be a believer isn't to just believe in God, it is to live out your belief in God. Standing in faith, believe that that which we cannot see today will one day be!  We so rejoice in His good work in Oscar Andres!