We Are Provided For...

Since I am on bed rest, I am unable to attend church, so I have been receiving the church bulletin the last few weeks with the lessons in it. It is a hard thing for me to not go to church, because I have always gone and I always feel bad when I can't go. I also feel strongly that Ethan would not have been here had it not been for our faith in God and all of the prayers that were lifted up for him. I also strongly feel that I would not be this far into the pregnancy if I did not have faith that God would take care of this little one also. It was obviously God's plan for me to continue with this pregnancy and whatever comes with it, just as it would have been his plan to take this little boy to heaven with him 9 weeks ago.

I was reading the Gospel lesson from yesterday and found the words to be very true...

Matthew 6:31-34 says:
Therefore do no worry, saying, "What will we eat?" or "What will we drink?" or "What will we wear?" For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdome of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today.

There are so many levels to this set of verses, but I'll talk about two that I got from it. The first being the very last sentence. I have tried to face this pregnancy only thinking about today and the positive parts of the future. I have really tried to not worry too much about what the future of this pregnancy will bring. It is hard, especially when you are alone most of the day and your brain starts to think, but I try everyday to remember not to worry and this verse reminded me of that yesterday.

The second thing I got from it is that God will provide for you. Matt and I knew going into this pregnancy that we were going to face me having to go unpaid at some point, we just didn't think it would happen so early. We learned from the last time that we would be provided for during the difficult financial times, but that we also had to have faith for this to happen. And boy have we been provided for...

My focus is on the question "What will we eat?" - We have meals delivered about 3 times a week to us. We get meals from family, friends and our church members. The staff at the school I work at collected money and provided us with 12 frozen dinners that we can pull out on our nights that we don't have a dinner delivered. We are seriously never hungry. We sometimes, have too much to eat! It was funny because yesterday Matt and Ethan went to church and then to the church picnic and we knew Matt was picking up a dinner from one of the church members this week, but we didn't expect what we received.

Our moms had two of the meals this week and they really provided us with complete meals that will feed us for days, so our refrigerator was already pretty full. Matt called me from the picnic and said, "well we have a tin of some of the food from the picnic, the dinner we were expecting, a huge loaf of bread and Ethan and I won a cake in the cake walk". I just laughed, because we were just talking about how much we already had in our refrigerator and on top of that we already had 2 cakes in the fridge (my mom made a strawberry cake, and Matt's grandpa made a pineapple upside down cake). We have certainly not had to worry about "What will we eat?"

Thanks to so many people, especially my sister Taia, who coordinates the food calendar and to my pastor, who coordinates the church members, we have been well provided for and we appreciate it! I sometimes feel like we are in the story of Jesus providing for 5000 with only 2 fish and 5 loaves of bread. It seems as though the food comes in and multiplies in our refrigerator and gives us enough for dinner and lunch.

This baby is getting all of the vitamins and nutrients he needs to continue growing and we are thankful. We have enjoyed the conversations with friends and family as they drop off or even join us for the dinner. We have learned about some foods that we have never tried before and would like to try again in the future (when I can actually cook again someday). We appreciate it all and thank everyone involved in helping us not to worry so much about the future, and sometimes not even about today!