A Mother's Call To Arms

I took some time away because I was really hurt by all of the ugliness that I saw over the past few weeks. From people on all fronts about multiple issues, covid, masks, racism, police brutality, voting, the president... Just grand sweeping statements that were divisive and cutting and I was flat out discouraged. 

I finally sat down with my daughter who was vastly concerned with the amount of "news" her Dad and I had been consuming. A few things she saw, a few things that she heard and she just had a plethora of questions. It wasn't the first time I had to reassure her that she was safe and we would do everything in our power to protect her. We explained what happened to George Floyd, Tamir Rice, and a number of others including David Dorn. We explained the images she saw of officers broken, exhausted and drained.

My daughter was broken, sad. Could not understand why some one could be murdered in cold blood and why some one else would want to kill her grandfather, uncle and aunt because of their profession. And this isn't where I tell you that I said I don't know baby and was just sad with her. I had the hard conversation with her about racism. I had the hard conversation about sin, and its repercussions. I explained times when I myself had experienced racism and some one had judged me solely by the way I look.

I explained the difference between protesters, their right to do so and why that's absolutely good and a right we should protect, and rioters and looters taking and detracting from the good and the change trying to be enacted in this moment. I explained how some officers have valor and honor and some officers need to be censured and reproved, held accountable for their actions and what that looks like. We talked about all of the good men and women behind the badge and why they should be protected. We showed her the image of the officer that was separated from his unit being protected by protesters.

We have a unique position because not only is our very multicultural family believers in Christ but we are police officers and we are lawyers in the justice system. It was easy for us to relate to her what this all looks like in real time and how holding an adult accountable for their actions works. 

After a long amount of time talking she said she was still bothered. I sat with her and told her that I was too. I still am. 

The part of this conversation I kept to myself was that if my child were in a situation, either unjustly or of their own making where their last moments were crying out for help, for me... and I could not help them I would break beyond measure. I cannot imagine all of the mothers that have laid their babies to rest in that manner. I mourn with you. I shed tears for you and your babies. (Matthew 2:18) I cannot imagine How George Floyds mother felt knowing he called out for her. In the same years ago my father, a police officer responding to a robery sat beside a girl who was shot asking for her mother as she lay dying. The description of this scene has haunted me for years. I still mourn for her family.

Mothers. This is where I call you to arms, in this moment this is where we are the boots on the ground. This is where we start the process of change and the correction of generational sin. Teaching my children how generational sin effects all of us, from addiction to racism to hate and lawlessness. It all has to do with the greater problem of evil. 

This is where I may lose some of you. That's ok.

All of these things exist because of our sinful nature as a people. As humans we fail and are broken. We are fallible and have to propensity to be evil when left to our own devices. Racism is evil. Hatred is evil. As believers in Christ we are to rebuke those things and stand arm in arm with our brothers and sisters in Christ for a sin against them is a sin against an image bearer of God. We are all created in God's image (Genesis 1:26-27) we have to acknowledge to one brother or sister in Christ the disparity in their human condition. This doesn't mean that we take the law into our own hands, God has placed all of our government, leaders and structures in their place to work together for his glory. We cannot justify wickedness and condemn the righteous in one blanketed statement (Proverbs 17:15.) We must speak out, righteously and justly when we see that there is a disparity (Proverbs 31:8-9.) We as believers, as mothers, who are gifted with birthing the image bearers in the next generation are implored to teach them to do good, seek justice and correct oppression when it exists (Isaiah 1:17.) 

When some one says black lives matter to its genuine purpose what they mean is black lives matter too, and to a Christian that should mean an image bearer of God matters. Period. Because humans reflect the image of God and to take a human life viciously and purposefully is a tragedy and an assault on our entire purpose here, to be fruitful and multiply (Genesis 1:28.) 

One day we will be called home, guess what? Heaven isn't going to be monotone. In our anthropology we must be comprehensive, we aren't going to heaven to be grey we are going to be of all nations and of all colors and of all tongues united as one. As God intended for us from the beginning.  (Revelation 5:8, Matthew 28:19 again in Revelation 7 & Acts 8.)
We cannot purposefully corner off parts of the human experience or condition, hide away in ivory towers or run rampant in the streets. We are called to something beyond all of this. We cannot have a subjective experience with an identity in the world that separates us from our Christian brethren, but we have to now, choose to meet people where they are, finding unity in Christ. If your identity is in anything but Jesus you have built your foundation on sand and it will surely fail. Let me explain...

If you define yourself in anything of this world, politics, color, ethnicity, wealth, career, children, your waistline or accomplishments, the list can go on but I am telling you, you have made an idol of it and you will see ruin come from it. (Leviticus 19:4, Psalm 16:4, Galatians 4:8, 1 Corinthians 10:14, 1John 5:21)

This is where I ask you the hard questions. Are you part of the problem? Are you hiding a prideful nature?(Pride can look like your ways are the only ways and you have all the answers)  Are you quick to anger?(This can look like listening to respond not listening to hear) Do you truly believe the gospel?(are we truly living out the great comission?) And the hardest question of all... those of us that believe we are pro life are you truly going to hold that value to all lives?(Do you care for people beyond the innocence of birth?)  Will you speak out for these injustices? Will you join me in teaching our next generation to break this chain of bondage?

Now, this isn't where I tell you that I am like this and to be like me. Don't. Be like Christ. Be above reproach. Call out sin when you see it and reprove your brother or sister in Christ with love and honesty. Darkness cannot exist where there is light. You can reprove sin in another and acknowledge that injustice with out seeking vengeance and we can do this with out being offended. This is where we draw on our humility. Pray this prayer with me. 

"Heavenly Father be with us in these dark times, seek those who mourn and comfort them, bring us peace in this time of unrest. If we should be callous, if we should be distant, if we should be heinous correct us in our wayward thinking. Shine your light onto our darkness and expose our sin that we may confess and walk with you in the light. Remove the hurt and hatred, anger and vengeance from our hearts and minds. May you empty us of the world and let your heavenly ways flow through us and produce the fruit we should righteously bear - Amen-"

I can close this with saying, I love all of you, in the things that make us diverse and the things that God has made us beautifully unique in. I celebrate you. I see you. 

Here are some resources beyond the scripture I have provided you. 

Oneness A sermon by Tony Evans
Racial Reconciliation a sermon by Pastor Mike Todd
Become the Bridge with Pastors Steven Furtick and John Gray

Scripture discussion, prayer inspiration and further talking points can be found on IGTV with @jeremy_vuolo and @paulpitts3

Esmerelda Sabine

I told myself I wouldn't be one of those mothers that let the documentation of their children go by the way side the more they have. Well... I've become "that mom."

I would be lying if I didn't admit that it was partially lack of time and being spread too thin but a lot of it this past year is because I was taking time away from things that didn't edify my time with my family. Taking more time to be in the moment than being obsessed with documenting it. I still take pictures, I still write my letters to my kids but I share less and experience more.

Last I posted we were struggling with infertility, and I was convinced that I was never going to have another biological child. I started to look back at my career and take steps to go back to work. Entered into higher biblical education and looked at moving forward. In all honesty I was not surrendered to having another child. We confided this division of Dan's fervent belief our family was not complete and my lack of belief in myself to carry another child to friends and mentors of ours. The response of the couple was "as long as you are divided you cannot move forward."

They were right. Later that following week I was on my face to God. I admitted that I was sad, and scared, that I didn't want to declare any huge declarations because what if I failed? What if we lost this baby too? Every opposition you could imagine I had it and Gods answer to me was "trust me."
I don't know if I was there, Id love to tell you that I did immediately trust him and there was a beautiful sunrise and all was well but all I could muster was "Ok God, your will be done."

On Christmas morning I found out I was pregnant. 

In the early weeks of my pregnancy Dan and I decided that we wanted to try for a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean) and more than likely a home birth. We found a midwife and were elated to have her on our medical team. Not only did me have her on board but my previous OB surgically cleared me for a VBAC and offered her help in any way she could. After struggling through the loss of my son, two hard C-sections after I felt like we were on our way to restoration. For Dan, myself and our whole family.

My pregnancy went on week after uneventful week where I hung in there through SPD, Hyperemesis, Sciatica, and all of those other fun pregnancy happenings. This pregnancy was my hardest and my most debilitating. However, we watched more than one friend lose their babies, deliver early or have devastating news and my complications seemed minor. I trusted that God was going to provide. Even through the moments of fear I did have around her anatomy scan I knew we would have her with us and I trusted in that gift from God.

Where we shot ourselves in the foot was thinking this little baby was going to be cooperative at all and come early like her brother did. Instead I had on and off prodromal labor from the end of August until Mid September. I remember being on a mom date with a good friend of mine sobbing in her car hoping that this baby would be born in August because I didn't want her to be born around Gianni's birthday. My friend reassured me that she would come before then and that was "super late" for her to be born... but the weeks drug on... and on... and on...

My due date of August 24th came and went... we waited and prayed and waited some more. Nothing. We joked about her needing to be well done, me making a comfortable home for her and reminding ourselves that God was in control. That she would come when she was ready and that we were signed on for however long it would be. In the midst of this however, our midwife and another family had a devastating loss. They delivered their baby sleeping and we all mourned with them. Our midwife was visibly shaken at our next appointment and insisted on talking alternative options with us. At this point I was 42 weeks and 1day. She checked me and there was no progress, I was devastated. I knew in my heart that this home birth and VBAC weren't going to happen. All I wanted was for my last vaginal delivery to not be the same delivery where I knew I was delivering a baby that would leave me. We agreed to call our back up perinatologist and get checked out on Monday. 9/11. The day before Gianni's birthday. Our appointment was at 9am.

Dan and I called all of our family and told them what was going on. Asked for prayer and settled in to our new reality. My mom came and left almost as quickly because my niece decided to come two weeks before her due date, my sister in law had an unmedicated birth and Lilah came on 9/10.

I lost it. I told Dan I needed some time and I went to take a shower. I put on my worship music and I ugly face cried. It seems so superficial but it hurt so deeply to let go of all of those desires and know there was a reason to so fully believe that God had a plan and I was just not able to have all the answers then. So I cried out. I gave all my pain. All my lost expectations. My hopes. I cried for my son... I cried until it was all out. Dan and I stayed up until 3am. We couldn't sleep. We prayed. We cried. He reassured me that we were doing the right thing by going in and getting more answers.

So we get the kids settled, Evie at school and Frankie with one of our friends and head to our appointment. When we finally get called back we answer some basic questions and immediately have a great rapport with our doctor, we look at coming back later in the week for a C-section because everything looks good with me and the baby. We all start making jokes and the doctor gives me the "ok we have to talk about it" look and says
"How big do you think that baby is?"
"I don't feel like she's any bigger than my others and they were 8 and half to 9lbs."
"Id feel better if we give you an ultrasound just to make sure everything is where we think it is."

I go to lay down on the table and my water breaks. "never mind" he says "guess we're going to take you in right now." We start furiously making phone calls and getting family settled and on their way. Making sure some one was there to pick up big kids and meet my mom and before we knew it we were on our way. I didn't have time to think. Dan was on both my and his phone texting and calling while a nurse jogged my wheelchair to L&D.

Dan explained to my nurses and my doctor why I was a little disconnected and why I needed a little extra handling and my nurses were amazing and so was our doctor. It brought part of the restoration I needed. In my partner, and my medical team. Things never slowed down and they offered to check me to see if I could just start pushing. I agreed and when they went to check me they found she was face presenting. They tried to let me down easy but I was on board at that point. I was team get the baby out safely, and moments later we were in the OR. Everything was calm and strangely peaceful. Not one moment where there was worry or anxiety. In those moments I received complete restoration. I had a beautiful healthy baby girl with my husband and it looked nothing like I had planned, nothing like I imagined but exactly how God had planned it.

He knew better than I.

We welcomed Esmerelda Sabine 

at 11:23am on September 11th 2017 

Weighing 10lbs 11oz and Measuring 22in.

Four to Five.

I have been meaning to write another entry since June, but after school broke for summer I just haven't had the time. Or when I did it seemed more fitting to stare at the wall in silence because just like my Nana told me years ago it is golden. At least in a house with an almost 6 year old and a 3 year old it is. Then I found myself in a place where we had amazing experiences and travels over the summer in a bullet pointed form but when I sat down to write about them and recapture those moments they just seemed to escape me. Kind of like a water color with too much liquid, just this opaque smear with little depth...

We have so much to be thankful for and so many things that this next school year is bringing for us that I should be able to flood you with our happenings and thoughts and expectations but I am unable to find exactly what to say or rather how to say it.

We accomplished Dan finishing law school and taking the BAR exam. Evie finished her first year in school and is getting ready to start another. We are looking at buying our home. My son might soon be fully potty trained which means he will possibly maybe, with luck, not be the first child to enter kindergarten in diapers. Until earlier this evening I didn't have high hopes for that prospect. In other parts of my family I had my younger brother get married to an amazing woman and my brother in law get engaged to what I can only describe as his ultimately perfect match. My new niece is an amazing little being and I am so glad to have her as a cousin for my children.

I'm looking at a full ministry plate this year with our church and I could not be happier and my husband looked at me with a crooked smile as I was telling him that Tuesday-Thursday was filled with obligations and ministry opportunities all to have Saturday and Sunday as rotation days to learn other parts of our church and how they function... only to have him say "I knew you wouldn't be happy until you were there at least 5 days out of the week." He isn't wrong.

Just so many things to be thankful for and all of that seems to be dim right now... because in the midst of all this... I expected there to be another baby. There isn't.

This is something that I have struggled with my whole adult woman life (roughly two decades) and When I lost my first child shortly after his birth it changed who I was, fundamentally. My marriage failed. I became somewhat obsessed with having more children. A myriad of miscarriages and two years later my daughter arrived and I was content with her being the only one. I wanted her. I needed her to be a girl because I didn't want to look into her face and see my son. I stayed in a very dark place for longer than I would like to admit and sometimes that demon still creeps in.

When I had my son I called him my summer thunderstorm, because he was unexpected and very needed. I didn't know what I was missing but God knew. He knew we all needed that little boy in our lives.

After that ... we started talking about more. We started to try for another baby knowing it would take time and effort and probably a little bit of science. I expected for a few months maybe a year... Well that year has come and gone and there is still no baby.

I'm struggling. I'm in my 30s. What if we aren't meant to have more? How much longer do we try? How much longer do we pray for this? How do we know if the answer is no or not right now? As a follower of Christ I am so conflicted, because I am also a control freak and I just want to know if this literal cycle will end.

Whenever I am brave enough to open up about this I'm told the same few things that seem helpful but just aren't. Not because they aren't good advice or that I hadn't already thought of them but because my brain doesn't just work that way and it falls into the easier said than done category.


"Let go and let God."
"Trust in His timing."
"God knows the desires of your heart."
"Its all part of his plan."

Great. Thanks. I appreciate that... Really I do and I appreciate any one who takes the time to listen to me and give words of encouragement. I just cannot let go of this anchor in my life. Which has left me asking God "What do we do now?" And its just not who I am. If you ask any one else about any one thing that is uncertain in my life I can tell you that God has a plan and that I will be provided for because God has always provided for me. Even at my darkest God has never forsaken me and I. KNOW. THAT. In my bones I know and live that...

The doubt, pain and sadness that secondary infertility due to PCOS has caused us is fairly immeasurable.

I find myself in a place where I don't really know where to go next. I find myself waiting and wondering. Praying and being quiet. Not wanting to take things into my own hands and cause a forward facing butterfly effect because I'm a nerd that thinks of things like that.

Just like everything else... I guess I will have to wait and see.

One

A few months ago we were on a dinner date with some new friends and while we were getting to know each other we mentioned our anniversary was coming up. My new girlfriend excitedly said
"OH you're newlyweds! How exciting!"

Our Family.

Dan and I kind of chuckled it off and admittedly told them "We feel like we have been doing this for 100 years!" Even though that was kind of a joke, in the way that Dan and I can only joke... (you know very hilariously but extremely dry and sarcastically) but it is so true. We have been through so much in our first year together. A lot that some couples wouldn't have survived.

Which you might think is a bragging point but for me it brings a wave of complete humility. Reason being is that I know what caused us to succeed. Complete and total surrender to God. I know a lot of my readers at this point will turn away and say that "I'm not one of those women " or "she's divorced what does she know about surrender" or my favorite "you're new to your faith this is just a honeymoon."

At my Best Friends Wedding 9/14

our first official "date"

Those are all awesome topics I would love to address at a later date but for now stay with me here and let me tell you how my husband and I managed to get to the same place with God and how it changed us. Forever...

I met my husband for the first time at probably, no definitively the worst part of my life. He was a  recent graduate and I was a senior and high school and I never gave him a second thought (He has since told me for years he had a crush on me and thought I was an amazing person) Fast forward to over a decade later and we both found ourselves in failed marriages needing something to give, to break, to release us from the turmoil we were drowning in.

I had lost everything. I had buried a child, I had been emotionally abused and taken advantage of, lost businesses and jobs, homes, and at my lowest point had asked my Parents to move back in with them and my two small children to get away from the toxic relationship that I was in. The past half of my life was spent in complete and utter chaos and I was hell-bent on not having that be my children's life.

Our Ceremony Day.

I can't completely speak for my husband but during this time he was searching for something more. I ended up showing him this diagram of a triangle where the husband and wife were each at the farthest points at the base of the triangle, and at the top of the triangle sat God. I told him the closer the two moved towards God the closer they began to get to each other and that's when I dropped the hammer and drew my line in the sand. I was not going to be with a man (again) who was not fervently seeking Christ. It was a deal breaker.

Which, I love to joke about this and tell people that's how I knew Dan was serious was because I told him this Saturday night and he was at service Sunday morning. In all honestly its not that far from the truth. He was at least willing to try and at this point I had zero expectations of being in a relationship with this man. I just knew what I was looking for and I had no idea he would rise to the occasion.

Ending my marriage was something that brought me to a place of numbness, not only with life in general but also with my faith. I had water in my kettle but the burner wasn't on. So when I decided to ask this of my husband I heard a voice tell me "You know if you're going to ask this of him when I've  already asked this of you, you're going to need to step up your game."  I had to acknowledge that I was stagnant in my relationship with Christ and even though I had the education behind me all it amounted to was books on a shelf collecting dust. It was not a living thriving relationship with our creator. I was dying and I didn't even realize how bad it had gotten until I ministered to my now husband out of friendship.

As a result of these convictions (and I'm sure thousands of prayers from my Nana) I have watched him become someone that is on fire for God. He is bold in his convictions and compassionate in his daily ministry. Which right now is being a father to our two children, being a student, a son and a husband. I see a man that is quick to forgive, who is honest and challenges me to bring my faith to the next level daily. Which for me, hasn't always been true.

I have always been a believer in Christ. It wasn't until I was in my late 20s that I wanted to be a follower and it is with complete and total surrender of everything in my life that I began to change  and the windfall happened. Blessings that I can not even begin to count and areas of my life I had never seen bear fruit were suddenly, (what would seem unexplainable) plentiful. Now when I say everything I mean ev-er-y-thing. My thinking, my time, my heart, my body. Everything. Complete and total surrender of my life in the world.

Every storm we have weathered, the trials we have gotten through (law school, behavioral problems with our oldest, fertility issues, our sons heart condition to name a few) with Christ at the center of our lives. Let me tell you, this man who had never prayed before in his life before he "met" me has become such an amazing prayer warrior. I am so blessed by his new found faith in Christ because he brings newness and growth to my understanding of God where I was sallow and stunted.

I know this sounds like an entire entry about how amazing my husband is (and well he is) it is really to tell you all that no matter the walk of life you come from or where you think you are with God there is no lack of grace. There is no amount of forgiveness needed that is too much and there is no problem or situation that God cannot see you through.

Now for a hard truth. In all of the beauty of my life that I have shared with you now... my first marriage... Would not have failed had my faith and my then husband would have what I have in God today. Everything else aside, all of the semantics and the he said and the she did. It all would have been completely non-consequential had we had the faith we were called to have. The faith that we were born into. 

My marriage. My husband Daniel. My entire life and everything in it is all because a little girl a long long time ago looked under the side of a revival tent and chose to follow Jesus... Now we are trying to fulfill the legacy that has been set before us...

But that's a story for another time...

I had recently looked back at my blog and noticed that I hadn't written anything in about three years. My last entry happened to be a half hearted attempt at a birth story for my son. That poor child came into our lives when everything was at its worst and it seemed like there was nothing to look forward to. Except everything.

When I found out I was pregnant with my son my entire world was on the verge of shattering. My former husband came through my life like a freight train that had gone off the rails and I was powerless to stop it. All I could do was claim the wreckage and move forward. I had thought about writing all of it down. Explaining myself for the court of public opinion, finding out how many other women had felt the way that I did, succumbed to desperation the way that I did, failed the way that I did. In the end I know what happened to me and I might revisit it in the future to tell the long tiresome tale of how I went from Muniz to Martin. In all reality, its a very common tale that ends in tears with a midway cliffhanger to be followed by a redemption tale. We have all read that story before, this one just happens to have my characters in it.

Part of what made this section of my life so trying was not only the divorce but my second son, this unplanned, unexpected miracle was also suffering from CHD. It brought me back to where the demise of my marriage actually happened. When everything changed in a matter of 47 minutes and we would never recover. In the midst of everything my husband, Daniel, came in much the same as my former husband left abruptly, but organically and seemingly effortless.

Over the next few entries I hope to do our family justice and actually account it in a way that tells our story for all that it is. The faith, joy, tears, hardships, love and perseverance. Hopefully this is like riding a bike. A daunting emotional bike but a bike none the less.