On the day before that flight home, the Belgrade hotel room that I shared with my dear friends Lisa and Rachelle became a prayer closet.  People came by throughout the afternoon and evening to pray with us.  The last person to stop by was a woman named Mila.  Other than the fact that she had been at a prayer conference in Sarajevo the month before, I knew nothing about her before she came to our door.  As she got comfortable on our little hotel couch and explained to the women in the room that God had spoken to her at that conference in Sarajevo about opening a crisis pregnancy center, I created a confidently smug reply in my head.  With the two women who know me (just about as good as I know myself) sitting nearby, I looked Mila in the eyes and said, “I’m not called to work with a crisis pregnancy center.  You see.  I had two abortions before I was married and I hope that God is more merciful than to call a person to minister in the one area that hurts the most.”  Lisa and Rachelle actually laughed out loud.

In the two weeks after my return from Serbia, I prayed over the list I created on my journey home.  I knew that I had no power to meet all of the needs on that list, but that I was called to meet at least one of them.  Over the course of those two weeks, God allowed me to have three very significant conversations (one of them with my own daughter) that led to a clear revelation about my calling.  In the seven months since that clear revelation I have denied that calling.  Today, God showed me that it’s time to come clean.

I killed my babies.  I have written an entire book about healing and I’ve led people to believe that it’s all about being healed from cancer.  It is not about cancer.  It is all about the process of being healed from the wounds that led to cancer.  You will have to buy the book if you want to know my whole story.  My whole story is not what this blog-post is about.  This post is about my disgust with the body of Christ over their approach to abortion.

When I was in middle school I participated in anti-abortion rallies.  I watched slide-shows of aborted babies and held up posters with pictures from those slide-shows that said things like, “Abortion Kills!” and “Don’t murder your unborn children”.  Seven or eight years later I walked across the parking lot of an abortion clinic on the way to kill my baby.  There were men on the edge of the parking lot wearing suits and holding Bibles up in the air while screaming, “Thou shall not kill!”  The next year I ended up facing the same decision.  I was doing drugs and still dating the same guy who once again stated that he wanted “Nothing to do with fathering my child” and promised that he would remind me as often as possible that “It was all my fault that this baby was “*#&@*d up” because I had done drugs while I was pregnant.  I ended up at the other abortion clinic in town.  This time there were teenage girls (probably passionate college students who were simply coached to do so) holding up signs with pictures of aborted babies.  The last words I remember as I walked through the door of that clinic were, “YOU’RE A BABY KILLER!!”

My point today is that the men waving their Bibles in the air and the young girls who called me a baby killer were very far removed from the God I have come to know personally.  The God who loves me DESPITE my shortcomings.  The God who taught me that His grace is bigger than any wound I have ever received….. Whether the wound was inflicted by others or self-inflicted.

For more than a decade of my life I tried to earn grace.  I tried to atone for killing my babies.  I thought that by refusing to enjoy the amazing life I had, I could somehow make the pain and guilt go away.  My plan did not work.

In the fall of 2002 I sat at Cascade Hills Church in Columbus, Georgia and listened to Dr. Bill Purvis preach a sermon on grace.  I grew up in church, attended a Christian school throughout middle school and part of high school.  Yet, somehow I missed out on the one thing God is really all about.

2 Corinthians 12:9 Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me.

One line in that sermon by Bill Purvis changed my life. “Who are you to think that ANYTHING you could ever do, is bigger than God allowing his son to die?”

Much like the moment today when I realized I was going to write this post, I was broken.  God is ALL ABOUT GRACE!  All the years I spent trying to punish myself were years wasted in an attempt to be my own god.  Vengeance and justice are not mine.  They belong to God.  If you don’t believe me, do a Google search on “scripture God vengeance”.  He is pretty stinking clear on the subject.

Those girls at the second clinic, the men with the Bibles at the first clinic, and me, myself and the thirteen year old I, are all just a part of the failure of The Church.  As Christians, we have spent our resources (man-power, money, time, and energy) fighting abortion by telling girls and women that abortion kills babies.  In that attempt we have not stopped abortion nor gained political ground.  We have simply made the wounds of the women who’ve experienced abortion that much bigger. I think we’ve all got it.  Abortion kills.  If you believe that life begins at conception, then you cannot argue the point that choosing abortion means choosing to end a life.

Jesus was pretty clear on one thing…. John 13:34 “So now I am giving you a new commandment: LOVE EACH OTHER.  Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.“NLT

Where is the love in screaming out, “Baby Killer!” to a girl who does not see any other option?  Where is the love in a church who shows slide-shows of aborted fetuses?  What kind of love does that show to the women (or men) who have lost a child to abortion?

If you have not walked in my shoes, you can not judge me (Read Matthew 6).  Am I guilty of murdering my babies? Yes.  Has the healing process been hell?  Yes.  Has the body of Christ made that healing process a thousand times more painful?  YES!  Is murder unforgivable?  No.  the apostle Paul was very clearly a murderer and thirteen books written by him still managed to make it into the New Testament of the Bible.  God is ALL ABOUT GRACE!!  He is ALL ABOUT HEALING!!  He is ALL ABOUT LOVE!!

Personally, I do not think we will ever see an end to abortion.  If the devil can get mothers to kill their babies before they are ever born then he doesn’t have to work to kill them throughout their lives…. John 10:10 “The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy….”  Abortion kills a baby and destroys the life of a mother.  The other half of John 10:10 says, “….I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”  The “I” in that verse is Christ.

Body of Christ, I challenge you to make a choice.  You can either be a part of the “destroying of lives” or you can be a part of the “life abundant”.  Do not call yourself “pro-life” unless you are actually pro-life.  You see…. Until The Church actually decides to show love and grace to women who have experienced abortion, there will never be any women to minister to those who are considering it.

I cannot tell you the number of CHRISTIAN women I have met that bow their head in shame and whisper, “me too.” when they hear my story.  Church, we have failed.

You wanna be like Christ?  The next time you meet a girl who’s pregnant and uncertain about what she will do, tell her that no matter what she chooses, GOD STILL LOVES HER!  Tell her that “HIS GRACE IS ALL SHE NEEDS!”  Talk to her about adoption.  The next time you hear another Christian talking about their stand on abortion, ask them what they are doing to encourage and support adoption.  After all, we were not instructed that pure ministry was to stop murder in James 1:27.  We were instructed that pure and undefiled ministry, before God, is to take care of the fatherless.

If you want to be pro-life, you must first be pro-choice.  CHOOSE to encourage the abundant life promised by God to both unborn babies AND to the women who have lost their babies to abortion.  CHOOSE to not be a part of the enemy’s scheme to steal (joy, peace, love, grace, you name it), kill (babies whose Moms feel rejected and/or judged by the body of Christ and who do not see any other options being promoted by the body of Christ), and destroy (the lives of babies, women, men, grandparents, aunts, uncles and anyone else who cares).

After explaining to Mila on that day last May how I was not called to work with her, I explained to her all the things I have just described for you.  I told her that the only way she would ever make a difference (in a nation that averages three abortions to every one live birth) would be to offer grace, love, and healing to women (and men) who have experienced the loss of a child through abortion.  Mila listened to me.  Her center will be a place of healing.

After seven long months and a roller-coaster ride of chasing after worthy callings that are not my own, one thing is clear.  God is immeasurably merciful mixed with a twisted sense of humor in the needs he calls us to fill.  He gives us love and grace to the point that we can overflow that love and grace to others.

This is my gauntlet.  Consider it thrown.

day-8-call-to-action.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AllArePreciousInHisSight+%28All+Are+Precious+In+His+Sight%29

Every single day in our house, we play the game.

Prime example:  My instructions to Chase (my 14yo son), “Unload the dishwasher.  Tell Kira (my 17yo daughter) to load it and tell Seth (my 11yo stimmer) to put away the leftovers.”  Simple commands, right?  How hard could it be to remember the ONE thing he has to do and pass along two simple instructions to his siblings.  Half an hour later I walk through the kitchen and find the leftovers on the stove and the sink is piled high with dirty dishes.  I ask Seth why he didn’t put them away and he replies, “Chase told me to tell Kira to put them away.”  I march to Kira’s room and ask her why she didn’t load the dishwasher.  She replies, “Seth told me to UNLOAD the dishwasher.  Somebody already did it and I needed to practice guitar.  Can you please close my door?”  Telephone game over…. let the blame-game commence.

Did you know that the “telephone game” is actually the Garden of Eden game?  God told Adam, “…You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden— except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die.” Genesis 2:16-17  In chapter 3 the serpent and his sneaky self asks Eve about what God had said.  She replied, “God said, ‘You must not eat it or even TOUCH it; if you do, you will die.’”  You gotta hand it to Eve.  The bedazzler had yet to be invented and in her very first conversation with the outside world she still managed to add a little gemstone with that extra, “or even TOUCH it.” Feel free to insert your own jokes here on poor male communication and/or a woman’s gift to embellish the truth.

I have to confess.  I like a little embellishment.  Maybe it’s just the Eve in me, but I’m a sucker for a little fringe on a little throw pillow or a little mercury glass on a mantle.  Or better yet, dozens of translations of the Bible that when scoured give me just the meaning I’m searching for.  As I read through various translations of a certain passage and come across the one that says exactly what I was looking for, I am satisfied.  You know what, though?  That satisfaction has lost its sweetness.  The more time I spend reading the Bible and looking up Hebrew and Greek translations, the more clearly I see that the translations that bring me satisfaction are watered-down versions of what God actually intended. The many English translations of the Bible that we have available to us today are  part of a centuries long telephone game.

Anyone who knows me or has read my blog for any amount of time, knows that I am a HUGE fan of being planted in a church.  I believe that the picture of “the church” that Jesus lived out and that Paul painted for us in his various letters, is necessary for spiritual survival.  We all NEED to be living life with others who share our faith and who draw us closer to God.  That being said, I’m also a little skeptical of anyone who gets all of their “spiritual food” from their church.

My little scenario about the dishes is actually one that plays out in my house several times each week.  I know good and well that if I want Kira to load the dishwasher, the best way to make that happen is to go to her and ask her myself.  As a matter of fact, the only days that doing dishes doesn’t turn into a blame-game are the ones where my dear hubby or I communicate what we would like done directly to the person we would like to do it.

I do not have it all figured out and I am not fluent in Hebrew or Greek.  If you laid the Dead Sea Scrolls in front of me the only thing I could probably tell you about them is that they’re old.  However, I do know how to communicate with God.  I talk to Him and when I’m willing to listen He talks to me.  No matter how watered-down the translation may be, whenever I pray over an issue and ask Him for a biblical perspective, He always leads me to it.  When I ask for peace, He delivers it.  When I ask for clarity and closed doors, he slams them in my face and shows me loudly and clearly where to go and where not to go.  When I thank Him for the richness of my life, He somehow makes it just a little richer.

Here’s the deal.  He wants an intimate relationship with each and every one of us.  He has unconditional love for each and every one of us.  In my forty years of living, I’ve seen pastors fall and churches fall apart.  But you know something?  I’ve never seen God change.  His constant and unconditional mercy and love continually blow me away.

This morning, just as I finished thanking God for the fact that my relationship with him is not dependent on any other relationship, I read this:

Judges 18:24 “What do you mean, ‘What’s the matter?’” Micah replied. “You’ve taken away all the gods I have made, and my priest, and I have nothing left!”

I keep hoping that some day I will walk through the kitchen and be able to smile with pleasure over the fact that my kids have known what they needed to do and simply gotten busy doing it.  I pray for a week with no Garden of Eden or blame-games in my house.  As my Father, I think God wants the same from me.  What about you?  If all of the “gods” you’ve made and your “priest” were taken away, would you still have a relationship with your maker?  Would you know what He wants you to do?  Is He smiling now in pleasure over the fact that you’re actually doing what you were created for?  Or would you be like Micah…..

When I met my husband in February of 1989 he called me the “Shama Lama Ding Dong.”  He had me at Shama .

This week the word shama took on a new spelling and whole new meaning for me.  One of God’s Hebrew names is Jevohah-Shammah.  It is the name used at the end of Ezekial and it is the last new name given to God in the Old Testament.  Ezekial said that the city of Jerusalem would be called “Jehovah-Shammah”.  Meaning ~ The Lord is Present.

Much like a Stuart Smalley mantra, I’ve walked around saying it both out-loud and to myself.  “Jehovah-Shammah.”  “The Lord is Here!”  It’s a pretty powerful declaration to make.  Try it.

Yesterday I awoke at 5:30am to a fourteen year old boy standing in my doorway in a towel announcing that his shower would not turn off.  I thought my husband got up and took care of it.  He didn’t.  At 8am I woke again to an eleven year old boy (who has not seen his first R-rated movie) announcing that his shower had been on all morning.  As I walked through the kitchen towards his bathroom I paused and took note of the fact that my six year old has finally decided to color.  Her first canvas was my kitchen table and her medium of choice was an extra-wide black Sharpie.  Happy.  Happy.  Joy.  Joy.  Somewhere around 1pm we were able to get the cover off of the water main and shut the water off and soon after a plumber arrived and replaced whatever needed replacing.  In between I spent three hours at the hospital being poked and prodded and learned that the the padding that has grown on my hips and thighs is perfectly justifiable because my thyroid levels are nowhere close to what they should be.  You know that weight where your ‘fat-jeans’ are your only comfortable pants?  Yea.  I passed that weight about ten pounds ago.  While I was at the hospital my dear hubby learned that whitening toothpaste and Lysol wipes will remove the majority of black sharpie from furniture (Sorry, Sofija.  We’ll memorialize your new talents on a proper canvas.  I promise.)

In the middle of yesterday’s chaos, I found myself whispering, “Lord, you are here.”  And occasionally singing out loud, “You’re my Shammah lama ding dong….”

Now I just need Him to be present when the water bill arrives.

My husband and I had a discussion a few days ago about our goals for 2012.  While things like “achieving a shape other than round” and “reading more” were mentioned in that conversation, our goals for the new year revolve more around the things we want to avoid.  I have spent this last day of 2011 sitting at home and reflecting on all the things I DO NOT want to repeat or carry with me into 2012.  My reflections have resulted in countless tears.

I am looking out an open window and enjoying the beautiful spring air.  Wait a minute!  It’s winter.  Yet, even with an open window and clear view of the weather outside, it seems like spring.  The high today was 62 degrees fahrenheit.  The disguise this winter day is wearing has fooled even the birds who have dined at my window feeder since the early morning.

In Aesop’s Fables, a wolf slips into a sheep’s skin and is able to fool the shepherd into believing that he is a member of the flock so that he can devour the sheep.  In Little Red Riding Hood, a wolf dresses like a little old lady in his attempt to eat a little girl.  In the Bible, we are warned about false prophets who are just ravenous wolves disguised as sheep.

No matter the reference point it, the big bad wolf is always the same character ~ Someone hiding malicious intent by displaying kindness, gentleness or the need to be cared for.

2011 has been filled with wolves.  I could write an entire book (and I probably will) about the humanitarian Ponzi scheme that costs us a good chunk of our savings.  Or the wounded person I encouraged for the majority of the year whose wounds weren’t exactly real.  Or the people my husband has encouraged for the past few years that have now made false allegations against him.

Guess what?  I’m thankful for the wolves.  The wolves have forced us to grow and become truly aware of all that God is doing around us and in us.  The wolves have taught us that discernment is a not just a word to be thrown around, but a gift that we are responsible to act on and that is necessary for survival.

A.W. Tozer: “The healthy soul, like the healthy blood system, has its proper proportion of white and red blood cells. The red corpuscles are like faith: they carry the life-giving oxygen to every part of the body. The white cells are like discernment: they pounce upon dead and toxic matter and carry it out to the drain. In the healthy heart there must be provision for keeping dead and poisonous matter out of the life stream.”

This statement was like a slap across the face for me.  It doesn’t matter how strong your faith is.  Without discernment, your spiritual-life will be filled with disease and poison.

So… in the middle of all the deception we’ve encountered,  we’ve learned to trust our discernment.  For those of you not clear on the experience of discernment, it’s your God-given intuition.  That sick feeling in your gut when something just isn’t right about a situation or a person.  It’s the voice in your head telling you to question what you’re being told or to dig a little deeper.  It’s the conclusion you come to after testing what you’ve been told against the Word of God.  It is wisdom.

My #1 goal for 2012: Let the discernment God has given both myself and my husband guide us and protect us from becoming ensnared in the types of trials we’ve endured in 2011.  #2: Achieve a shape other than round

While I do wish you a happy 2012, my heart’s desire is that anyone who reads this have a new year filled with wide open windows providing a beautiful view.  I pray that you have a year filled with peace and faith that is pure and holy.  I pray that you recognize every big bad wolf that should cross your path.  I pray that you find joy in all that you do.  And… I pray that you never stop thanking God for everything. Even the wolves.

1 Thessalonians 5:14-21  My friends, we beg you to warn anyone who isn’t living right. Encourage anyone who feels left out, help all who are weak, and be patient with everyone. Don’t be hateful to people, just because they are hateful to you. Rather, be good to each other and to everyone else.  Always be joyful and never stop praying. Whatever happens, keep thanking God because of Jesus Christ. This is what God wants you to do.  Don’t turn away God’s Spirit or ignore prophecies. Put everything to the test. Accept what is good and don’t have anything to do with evil.

James 1:2-4  Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.  Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Notice it doesn’t say “IF you face trials of many kinds”.  Because of this guarantee, I try to always ask God to let my faith be tested and my perseverance developed without too much misery.

Seth has warts on his feet.  One of them is very big and painful and in the middle of his arch.  We went to the doctor a couple of months ago only to be told that we should either soak his foot in hot water several times a day for ten days or cover it with duct tape and wait for his body to have a negative reaction to the tape adhesive and attack the wart in the process.  Gee thanks, Doc. Have you ever tried to keep a piece of duct tape on the foot of an eleven year old boy?  Let me save you the trouble.  It just gets really stinky and he rips it off when it stops him from running/climbing/jumping etc..  Have you ever tried to make a stimmer stick their foot in “not-quite-scalding hot water”?  Let me save you the trouble on that one too.  They scream and call you names and tell you that “you’re crazy if you think you’re going to make them do it four more times that day, or any day for that matter”.

Doing what any good mother would do, I went out and bought a freeze-off kit and attempted to remove it the traditional way.  We made our first attempt about a month ago.  It didn’t go so well.  He screamed.  He cried.  He told me I was abusing him and then he closed himself in his room and said that I could not make it better.

Mom of the year goes to…….not me.

A few layers of the wart have peeled away, but it clearly needed another treatment.  Two nights ago, my dear husband decided it was time for the second treatment.  The tears and screaming began immediately upon the site of the freeze-off kit.  This time around I wrapped my arms around my baby boy and with my mouth pressed to his ear prayed, “Father, we thank you for providing us with a way to remove this painful wart from Seth’s foot.  In John 14:14 you said that we could ask anything in your name and it will be done.  So Father, in your name, we claim the healing that you’ve already promised and we ask that you block the pain and not let this healing process hurt. Amen.”

By the time we were done praying, my dear husband was done freezing the wart.  Guess what?  Seth didn’t feel a thing.   About an hour later he came to my room and said, “Hey, Mom.  I think we should always ask God to block the pain when He’s healing us.”

“You know what, Seth?   I think you’re right.”

Moses’ Mother put him in a basket and set the basket in a river.  He was found and adopted by the pharaoh’s daughter.  Moses married the daughter of Jethro.  Jethro was a priest and a shepherd and for the forty years before God appeared to Moses in a burning bush, Moses busied himself with tending to Jethro’s flock.  There is a Jewish story (midrash) that seeks to explain why God chose Moses to lead the Israelites.  The midrash tells that Moses was chosen to lead the Children of Israel because of his kindness to animals. One day he was bringing the sheep to a river for water and one lamb did not come. Moses went and got the little lamb and carried it to the water so it could drink.  Aligned with the heart of God, Moses cared about each individual in the group, and not just about the group as a whole. His ability to recognize the value of each sheep in Jethro’s flock proved that he was worthy of leading God’s flock.  If you want to read all about this portion of Moses’ life it’s covered in Exodus 2 and 3.  In this part of the book of Exodus, God is simply known as “Jehovah”.  The Great I am.  The Hebrew name for God is actually unpronounceable.  His greatness is to not to be truly comprehended, but experienced.

In our journey to bring Sofija home and in the twenty months that she has been our daughter, my fascination with Moses has led to many moments of experiencing the greatness of God.  God likes to place orphans in families.  God LOVES adoption!  God loves to find those stray little lambs and carry them if necessary to make sure they belong to a flock.  As a special needs Mommy, we call that INCLUSION!  How cool is it that our maker loves inclusion?!?!!

With that little piece of the heart of God in mind, I came across a story in the Bible yesterday that I haven’t thought about in a while.

Mark 2:1-4 ¹ A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. ² They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. ³ Some men came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. ⁴ Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on.

Those four men who lowered the paralyzed man through the roof got it.  They understood and had a moment of experiencing Jehovah ~ The Great I Am.  Throughout our adoption journey we repeatedly experienced Jehovah-Jireh (God as our provider).  He gave us everything we needed to bring our daughter home and He has continued to provide everything we need to help her develop her God-given potential.  Yesterday I realized that God has allowed us to walk in the shoes of the four men who went to extreme measures to bring a disabled man into the presence of God.  I also realized that we are not done walking in those shoes.

The Great I Am has entrusted us with two very special gifts that require special accommodations in order to participate in our flock.  And… we have faith that Jehovah-Jireh has already provided all of the resources and manpower necessary to meet those accommodations.

Look out, Church!  We’re bringing our stimmers through the roof….

Isaiah 60:16 “You will drink the milk of nations
   and be nursed at royal breasts.
Then you will know that I, the LORD, am your Savior,
   your REDEEMER, the Mighty One of Jacob.“

Jehovah-Go’el translates to “God is my redeemer”.  According to thinkexist.com, redeem means:

1. (v. t.) To pay the penalty of; to make amends for; to serve as an equivalent or offset for; to atone for; to compensate; as, to redeem an error.
2. (v. t.) To make good by performing fully; to fulfill; as, to redeem one’s promises.

Think coupons.  Every coupon has a redemption value.  The person using the coupon uses the coupon as the equivalent of cash and the grocery store redeems the coupon by receiving compensation from the manufacturer who created the coupon.

I have spent my entire married life (almost 18 years) attempting to be a couponer.  I have given up.  I am not saying that I don’t use a coupon that I happen to come across, but I will not spend another hour of another day organizing piles of coupons into boxes, file folders or binders in an attempt to save money on groceries.  I know that I have a few friends who will read and this and have an instant impulse to pick up the phone and scold me or remind me of the few times that I’ve cut my grocery bill in half by cutting coupons.  Before you act on that urge, let me explain my concession in the couponing game….

First, my time is more valuable than the money I can save with coupons.  Second, I watched my Mom arrested in a grocery store at the age of five and I am choosing to no longer engage in an activity that makes me think of grocery shopping.  That’s my concession speech.

Here’s the real deal.  I don’t need to be a redeemer.  God sent His Son to pay the price for every single thing I have ever done or will ever do that needs redeeming.  I looked up the meaning of redeemer on dictionary.com.  Wanna know something really cool?  They gave two definitions for the noun redeemer.  1: someone who redeems.  2: Jesus Christ.

One week from today people all over the world will celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.  I could write a book on all that his birth and redemptive power mean to me, but probably the most important thing I can say is that…He Lives!

You don’t have to spend hours cutting and sorting coupons to cash in on the redemptive power of Jesus Christ.  You simply have to choose him.  Go ahead!  Do it!  Ask him to be your Go’el!

Job 19:25 “But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and he will stand upon the earth at last.”

Then let us all with one accord
Sing praises to our heavenly Lord
That hath made Heaven and earth of nought
And with his blood mankind has bought.
Go’el, Go’el, Go’el, Go’el
Born is the King of Israel!

What I’m learning about Daddy Go’el will have to wait until tomorrow.  I learned a few weeks ago that a childhood friend and his wife gave birth to their first child after many years of waiting.  Shortly after their son was born, the new Mom passed away.  Here is a brief glimpse of their story taken from the fundraising page that was started to help Scott with raising baby Cameron:

A message from The Crain Family

“Scott and Kristi tried for nearly 13 years to have a child and were finally blessed by a baby boy to be. The two were elated and prepared everything possible for his arrival. Precious Cameron was born on Thursday, November 10th. Kristi, his Mother, died on the same day just shortly after giving birth. There were no complications during her pregnancy. Due to this tragic turn of events, Scott now faces the unimaginable challenge of raising his first son while simultaneously mourning his wife. If you would like to make a donation in Kristi’s memory during this difficult time, please click on the link below. All donations will go directly to Cameron’s wellbeing, upbringing and college fund. The Crain family is grateful for all of your thoughts and support.”

If you feel led to give during this giving season, a page for them has been set up at….

http://www.gofundme.com/Cameron-Crain (If the link doesn’t work use the one on the sidebar)