The Names of God: Jehovah-Sabaoth

Jehovah-Sabaoth: The LORD of Hosts - This name emphasizes the power and glory of God.

Psalms 46:7 KJV

The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.

Psalms 24:10 KJV

Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory. Selah.

There have been many ways I have started to go with this post. I thought about talking about how the LORD of Hosts has blessed us in our lives, especially in the last couple of months. We have seen many prayers answered and 2 souls saved. We have so much to praise Him for, so much to thank Him for. He has shown us His power and His glory. He is truly the LORD of hosts.

But tonight, instead of praising Him for what He has done, I want to praise Him for what He will do.

I know that many of my posts seem to center on my miscarriages and losing Lachlan. And though I certainly do not mean to dwell on my past, the pain and suffering of losing my babies is more in the present than I might care to admit. The Lord has given me a peace in losing my babies, I know that I would truly never pray them out of His arms and into mine. But when the due dates and the dates of my miscarriages sneak up on me, the pain can be hard to bear. 

Yesterday when the nurse came to take the boys back for their well exams to start McSmiles next week and I saw her rounded belly, I felt a pang in heart and a lump in my throat. And then immediately felt guilty for being jealous and hurt over something so joyous just because it wasn't mine. Last week while we celebrated my niece's 7th birthday, and I held my tiny great-nephew, my insides were in a knot. Aidyn should've turned a year old last Saturday. I should've spent the day making a smash cake and decorating and taking pictures of a chubby toddler covered in icing. This week I ought to have been passing out baby shower invitations for Declan, counting down the days of my last trimester and getting ready for a newborn in just a couple of months.

But God.

But God who is the the King of glory and our refuge, who is the LORD of Hosts can satisfy my barren womb. He can see that life grows within me again if that is His will. And until that day, I must praise Him that 4 of my children are already in His arms and pray for Kieran and Devlin each and every day, that they will come to know Him as their Savior so that my family will one day be whole in Heaven.

Then there are some days when I think that the pain is just too much to bear, when I mourn for babies not my own. Days when I read about Planned Parenthood and the horrific and gruesome atrocities done in the name of feminism and women's rights, and I sit enraged, sickened, and sorrowful. I sob for the babies who were hated and feared from the moment of their conception instead of being loved and cherished as they should be. I weep for the babies born alive and dissected for body parts and tissue to be sold to the highest bidder while their tiny hearts are still beating. 

But God.

But God who is powerful and glorious, who is the LORD of Hosts will see that justice is done for these babies one day and I am praising Him for that tonight. One day when my Jesus returns, evil will be stamped out in this earth. And until that day, I will spend each and every day in prayer for the abolition of abortion.

Jehovah-Sabaoth is the King of glory and the LORD of Hosts and I will praise Him for all that He can and will do as well as what He has done in my life and our nation.

The Beatitudes: Blessed Are The Pure In Heart

Matthew 5:8 KJV

Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

I have had the blessing of knowing many special people in my life including my family. People who are utterly selfless and full of love. People who have celebrated the momentous occasions in my life with me.  People who prayed for me, held me, and cried with me as I lost each of my 3 babies.  People who love my sons abundantly and have become their family. But perhaps the most special people in my life are those who serve others out of love, people who are truly pure in heart. 

I don't think I have ever been more thankful for these wonderful people in my life than I am at this very moment. 

You see, I just read an article  about a mother, and I use that word loosely, who has spent the last 47 years caring for her son who has Down Syndrome. 47 years that she has spent every single day of wishing she had aborted him. She claims she has spent those 47 years loving and caring for him and yet openly admits of 2 other instances, aside from abortion, when she either nearly did, or wished she had, ended his life.

She claims that her son, Stephen, has completely reeked havoc, devastation, and unhappiness on her life. That had he been aborted, she'd have gone on to have another child to complete her perfect family. That although, Stephen has brought many magical moments to her life, she'd trade every single one for a son without Down Syndrome. 

How a Momma could ever utter those chilling and heart shattering words I absolutely do not understand. I would trade my very own life, just to have my Lachlan back for a single day. Just to see him open his eyes and look at me. Just to see him smile at me. Just to hear him laugh and call me Momma. I would trade it all just to see him play with his brothers, to hug them, to kiss them, to know their love as I do. But praise God I know I don't have to! I know that one day my Savior will call us home and there my babies will be, together at last. In heaven Lachlan can see every beautiful shade of the scarlet blood my Savior shed for me. In heaven Lachlan can hear the heavenly host proclaiming "HOLY, HOLY, HOLY." In heaven Lachlan can touch the nail scarred hands that saved my soul. In heaven Lachlan can whisper "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, the sweetest name I know." 

I know with every fiber of my being that although the chances are very high that if Lachlan had lived to be born here on earth where he'd have been deaf, blind, mute, and mentally handicapped, that I would have loved him anyway. I would have given every ounce of strength I had to care for him, to protect him.

And unlike this woman who wishes her son had never been born, I would have made sure that he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was thankful for him, that I cherished him, that I adored him.

She claims that only a parent who has known her struggle could understand. She even pleads with women who know they are carrying a baby with Down Syndrome to abort. 

And I say this, you haven't known the extraordinary people that I have.  The people who do it every day. The people who willingly welcome unwanted children like Stephen into their families to give them round the clock care and love. The people who sit up days and nights upon end to take care of dying parents out of love. The people who, having raised their own children, adopt their grandchildren, to give them a safe, loving and Godly home. People who struggle as single parents, sacrificing for their children. People who take on the role of step-parent and love their spouse's children as their own. People who take time out of their hectic lives to visit with their grandparents just to make them smile. People who drop everything at a moment's notice, bake a casserole and rush to a friend's side in a time of need. People who will simply sit and hold you as your world falls to pieces. People who above all, love the Lord and love you because you're one of His.

The people who are pure in heart and will surely see God. 

The Beatitudes: Blessed Are The Merciful: Part 2

Matthew 5:7 KJV

Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.

In Part 1 of this post on being merciful, I wrote about taking a stand against abortion and showing mercy to those innocent babies who desperately need it. Tonight I want to write about the other side of the coin. The women who abort. 

I had never given the women much thought, other than to think them despicable and vile. But since beginning this Ministry, my viewpoint has changed. I've come to realize that these women don't need my condemnation. They need my love, my comfort, and most importantly my prayers and my Savior. 

There are few women who have abortions that come out of them unscathed and emotionally whole. The full weight of what they have done and the regrets, the sadness, the remorse and depression begin to set in. Perhaps not immediately, but it does. 

I have stood crying with a woman while she bared her soul to me, telling me of her abortion. She, like me, had been thrilled when her pregnancy test turned positive. But then the crushing weight of her husband's infidelity and demands to have an abortion broke her. I stood crying with her as she told me of her fear to conceive again with her new husband. A very real fear that as her punishment, the Lord would let her conceive only to miscarry. I held her and told her of my sweet Savior's forgiveness and mercy. 

She had made the only choice she thought she could in the situation she was in. I don't condone, justify, or even comprehend how she could make such a decision, yet I don't need to to offer her, and the millions of others just like her, mercy.   

In taking a stand against abortion, we must extend mercy and grace to the women who choose abortion. We must counsel them with love and forgiveness and teach them that there is a better way.  We must educate our young girls and women about the consequences of premarital sex and the dangers of abortion. We must be proactive in our fight against abortion, in prayer, in changing our laws, in giving the millions of babies a voice.

I have never had an abortion, yet I understand all too well the pain of losing a child. It is debilitating, life altering, nearly life ending for me. The weight of the guilt that I may have done something to cause my babies to die was nearly unbearable. To think of the pain that millions of women are in because they know they took the life of their child is a staggering thought. 

My only lifeline was my Jesus. These women need Jesus. Whether they are lost and don't know Him as their Savior, or have salvation and have wandered off the righteous path, Jesus is the answer, He is the cure for their pain, the balm for their sorrows. By extending our love and mercy to these women, we let Christ's light shine through us. A light that they are in desperate need of. 

I was once in need of that light, that mercy. And I thank God every day for sending His Only Begotten Son to extend that mercy to me, to shed His blood on Calvary so that I would be reunited with Him and my babies in Heaven some glad day.

Charles Spurgeon said this, "Have you no wish for others to be saved? Then you are not saved yourself. Be sure of that."

Having been redeemed myself, I cannot begrudge Christ's mercy for another's soul. In fact, I must actively seek to lead them to Christ for blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy.

Matthew 9:13 KJV

But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

The Beatitudes: Blessed Are The Merciful

Matthew 5:7 KJV
Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.

Exodus 21:22-25 KJV
22 If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.
23 And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life,
24 Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,
25 Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

Genesis 50:20-21 KJV
20 But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.
21 Now therefore fear ye not: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spake kindly unto them.

I have been tossing this post around for nearly a week. I have been putting off writing it because it was a difficult one to research. I think that anyone that knows me, know the heart that I have for babies and for children. To think of one suffering in any magnitude, breaks my heart. I rarely watch the news for this very reason, my nerves simply can't handle it. 

Yet if anyone deserves our mercy it is our children. Both born and unborn.

And so it is with a broken heart that I find myself writing this tonight. That it even needs to be written speaks to the evil that the world has succumbed to. 

I cannot tell you of the pain of rape or incest. I have never suffered such tragedies in my life. I cannot tell you of the pain of being rejected by the only family I have because of what is deemed a mistake in their eyes. I cannot tell you of the pain of being told that I am an inconvenience and I need to be gotten rid of. Or that I am deformed and therefore not worth letting live. Yet, since the legalization of abortion in 1973, millions of babies have suffered this pain, have been murdered simply because they were unwanted. 

I sit here with a lump in my throat, trying to banish the images from my mind that I have seen tonight. But I realize that it's this very mindset that let the horrors of Kermit Gosnell's abortion clinic go on for over 3 decades. Sticking my head in the sand will not unsee what I have seen and it certainly won't stop what is being done in our country. 

There are viable babies being born all over our country tonight that are being refused medical care or being flat out murdered because they are complications of abortion. As if it isn't heinous enough that we legally snuff out the lives of babies because they are "non-persons" until they are born and fill their lungs with oxygen, it is pure evil that allows a baby to die alone in a metal dish, refusing life saving medical treatment, simply because he was supposed to have died during the abortion procedure. It is the stuff of nightmares. Truly it is. I had no idea, or perhaps I just didn't want to believe that man could be so cold and callous, that there are babies who survive abortions, babies who, with medical intervention, could live a healthy life. But men like Kermit Gosnell, who perform illegal abortions on women well into their 3rd trimesters and routinely deliver viable babies, are "ensuring fetal demise" without blinking an eye. I read for myself tonight parts of the Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report in Gosnell's trial and I could do nothing but sit and weep in anger, in horror, in utter sadness. I was completely unprepared for the photos that were included. Seeing the gruesome effects of his "medical practice" and knowing that for over 30 years his employees not only stood by but helped him, never questioning his obvious illegal practices, was in itself sickening. 

We have convinced ourselves that if it doesn't affect us, it's not our problem. Not my monkeys, not my circus. Maybe so, but when the monkeys show up on your doorstep, overturning your right to vote against homosexual marriage, your right to carry a gun, your right to free speech, then I guess the circus tent just got a whole lot bigger.

Women like Kay Hagan, Wendy Davis, Gloria Steinem, who support abortion, even abortion after 20 weeks, are terrifying to me. These are women brainwashing other women into believing that babies are an invasion on their bodies, inconveniences causing them to lose control of their lives. 

And let's get one thing clear, whether or not a baby at 12 weeks can feel pain or whether it can't until 20 weeks, is utterly irrelevant. Abortion is murder. Life begins at conception. 

The Bible tells us in Exodus, that if a man harms a pregnant woman and causes her fruit to depart from her, to deliver prematurely, and the baby lives then the man must pay whatever the judge determines. But if she delivers prematurely and the baby is harmed or dies, life for life is required. Can you imagine if every mother, father, friend, abortionist, nurse, or anyone else that might be involved in a woman's decision and subsequent abortion, had their life required for the baby's life they stole?

We need to stand up and speak out against abortion, in all stages of gestation. We need to speak up and put an end to an evil that man has deemed acceptable and legal. We must show these babies mercy. Because they are at the mercy of our morals, our laws, our convictions.  And regardless of how they were conceived, whether you deem it to be the right time in your life, or whether that baby is healthy or not, what man thinks as evil against us, God means for good.

I can think of another group of people deemed unwanted, unfit, and undesirable. Sinners. You and me. All it took was One Man willing to show us mercy to save us from a neverending, unceasing hellfire and damnation. Christ Jesus. He laid down His life and became our Interceder. He died so that we could have eternal life by simply believing on Him.

Let us intercede, let us show mercy to the innocent, the unborn. 

Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy.

24 Weeks

Psalm 127:3 KJV
Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.

Isaiah 44:24 KJV
Thus saith the Lord, thy redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb, I am the Lord that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself;

Jeremiah 1:5 KJV
Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

Luke 1:15 KJV
For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb.

Luke 1:41 KJV
And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost:


My children are the most important things in my life, next to Jesus.  I count myself blessed beyond measure to be their Momma, to be able to see them grow and learn new things, to see them sweetly sing Jesus Loves Me and watch them as they begin to understand His love.  Teaching them about Christ's Love and His Sacrifice is my most important job in this life.  I treasure every day that I am given with them.  After struggling for so long, after losing Lachlan, to imagine my life without them would be a nightmare.  

From the time I was a little girl I knew I wanted to be a Momma.  From the time I was a freshman in high school I had a firm stance as a Pro-Lifer, in any and all circumstances. Abortion is an extremely hot topic.  A topic that to me is simply black and white but to many is filled with shades of grey.  This week a video exploded onto social media networks.  It was a video filmed by a young woman of her own, self-proclaimed, positive abortion story.  Emily Letts is a patient advocate at the Cherry Hill Women's Center in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. She speaks with women before their abortion procedures. Throughout her 3 minute video she proclaims that she is a lucky girl, that the abortion doctors are her heroes, that she feels good. At the end of the video she says, "I don't feel sad. I feel in awe that I can make a life. I can make a baby".  She does not say how many weeks pregnant she is, but if she had the abortion performed at the Cherry Hill Women's Center, she could have been up to 24 weeks and 6 days pregnant and they would still have performed the abortion to "remove the pregnancy", as stated on their website.  At 24 weeks the baby's brain cells are matured enough to develop conscious thought and memory, the baby can hear and recognize sounds and songs, the baby can respond to light, touch and movement, the baby can reach and grasp, the baby can dream, feel pain, and suck his thumb. The baby has a fighting chance and can, with medical intervention, survive if born prematurely at 24 weeks.

Abortion is a subject always talked about and yet never talked about. And I'm betting, prayed about even less. It makes me sick to my stomach, my heart aches, there is a lump lodged in my throat even now as I write this.  I read several articles regarding Emily Letts this week and found that I have been far too quick to condemn the women who have abortions as souless murderers in the past.  I've wanted to scream at them, call them vile names, damn them to hell.  But this week I came across an article written by a former Planned Parenthood Clinic Director, who had herself had 2 abortions, and the Holy Ghost tugged at my heart and whispered in my ear. He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her (John 8:7 KJV).  In that moment I wanted to weep for those women, for the pain I know that many of them come to feel after their abortions, for the loss, the guilt, the regret.  I wanted to weep for the doctors, the clinic workers, the men and women all over the world who support abortion.  It is them we should be weeping for.  Those precious babies whose lives were ended before they even began, those innocent souls are with my Lord and Savior.  They are safe, secure, and loved as they could never be here on this earth.  But these men and women in the midst of pro-choice culture, they need our prayers, they need our witness, they need our Savior.

The fruit of our wombs are His reward.  Our children are His heritage.  He formed us in our mother's womb.  He knows us and our calling before we are even formed.

In Luke chapter 1 we find Elisabeth who was barren and stricken in years.  She and her husband Zacharias were both righteous before God.  An angel of the Lord, Gabriel, appeared to Zacharias and told him that Elisabeth would conceive a son and his name was to be John, that he would be great in the sight of the Lord and filled with the Holy Ghost even from his mother's womb.  Elisabeth conceived and hid herself 5 months.

We also find in Luke chapter 1 that Gabriel visits the virgin Mary to tell her of her coming conception: The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren.  (Luke 1:35, 36 KJV).  

Luke 1:39-44 KJV
39 And Mary arose in those days, and went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Juda;
40 And entered into the house of Zacharias, and saluted Elisabeth.
41 And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost:
42 And she spake out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.
43 And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
44 For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.

Elisabeth was 6 months pregnant when Mary went to visit her.  Elisabeth was 24 weeks pregnant when Mary went to visit her.  Elisabeth was 24 weeks pregnant when John leaped in her belly at the presence of His Lord in Mary's womb.  Elisabeth was 24 weeks pregnant with John when the Holy Ghost filled her and her heart immediately knew Mary carried her Lord and Savior in her womb.  24 weeks pregnant.  Still within the legal limit for an abortion in many of the states in the U. S. today.

We must speak out against abortion, we must pray for it's end, and we must also treat those women around us who have had an abortion or support it, with love.  We must end the hatred and disdain.  Is abortion murder of an innocent? Yes.  Is one sin greater than another? No.  Does the sin of abortion carry far greater repercussions than we could ever imagine? Yes.  Please join me in prayer this Mother's Day weekend for those women suffering the pain of having had an abortion and those, like Emily Letts who have not yet begun to feel the guilt and regret of their choices.  Join me in praying for the doctors, clinic workers, and pro-choice supporters, that God may change their hearts, that they might come to know Christ as their Savior.  Please help me to pray each and every day for an end to abortion.