While we had some nice highlights, this actually proved to be a painful September for us. Our church family has been going through many challenges and has lost numerous staff from resignations and layoffs. We’re discouraged and like many, are unsure of our church’s future but we will stay and continue invest in this church home for the time being, until we’re called to plant our family into another church in this area.
In August, we discovered that I was pregnant. While it was surprising and daunting to think about having three children under the age of three next Spring, we were very excited that our family was growing again and to meet the new baby. After a few ultrasounds though, we learned that this baby died during the second month of my pregnancy. We’re devastated we didn’t get to ever see a heartbeat and that we won’t get to meet him or her next year as a family. It’d be understatement to say life’s felt so hard since receiving that news. I’m snuggling Timothy and Grace extra amounts these days. However my heart continues to ache heavily for the loss of our third baby, their little sibling.
BSF has been a great source of encouragement for me as I’ve been studying the life of Moses along with the history of the Israelites. I’m so thankful for God’s providence and timing in reminding me gently and firmly that he is sovereign and cares deeply for his people. As we grieve and process, I look forward to the day when the Lord wipes away our tears and death will be no more. Some of the songs that I’ve sung often lately include “It Is Well With My Soul”, along with other classic hymns. Timothy has quickly picked up, and “It is Weow” is a new favorite with him. I love hearing him belt out hymns while strumming hard on his ukulele or pressing into the toy electric guitars. His singing and playing fill the house and reminds me that music is an incredible gift from the Lord. I’m also thankful for the blessing of community who have been walking with me through this loss and point me towards our surest hope in Jesus the midst of despair, confusion, pain and a veritable rollercoaster of emotions.
Family visitors in September meant our family enjoyed plenty of extra help for me and attention for the children. It was so fun to watch Timothy interact so fully with extended family members and speak so much Cantonese to others. He loved having Aunty Alison, Uncle Kevin, Grampa & Grandma Ma, and Aunty Sophia stay here with us. Grace was giddy with all the extra attention and snuggles from everyone, too. Timothy’s been expressing that he misses people and it’s endearing for him to let us know when he misses relatives after their visits.
Sweet little baby Grace continues to be a joyous sign of Jesus’ exceeding graciousness towards me. Her happy and mellow disposition helps me enjoy recent difficult days with renewed perspective and gratitude. I’m blown away everyday by how much her presence and life is an immense blessing to our family, and I marvel at how wonderfully Grace has been created. She continues to crack up at big brother’s antics, “jokes”, and now loves to ride on him in addition to chasing him with our help. Grace has also progressed quickly from strongly sitting up to starting to crawl quickly in September. She seems to enjoy solid foods pretty well so far even she isn’t as voracious of an eater as her brother was at this age.
We took Timothy to the Museum of Flight and it was a blast to see him explore the many interesting
exhibits and have fun with the hands-on displays. Andrew and I actually hadn’t been there since we had our wedding reception there over 5 years ago, so it was neat to reminisce a bit and share with our son about our wedding day. Timothy liked pointing out how happy everyone was in our wedding album, and that the wedding cake was missing candles! I’m pretty sure he was pleased to learn that big festive cakes are for more than celebrating birthdays.
