Sophie Kate's Life Verse

I would like to share with y'all how we came about choosing Zephaniah 3:17 as Sophie Kate's life verse. It came to us while SK was still in the NICU, she spent 25 days there. During the course of such an emotional time you really get to know the nurses and doctors that are taking care of your baby, it is a very close environment, no one is ever very far from your baby...there is a comfort in that.

One of Sophie Kate's nurses had left a note for us, in it she expressed our shared love for Christ and for Sophie. She told us that she had a CD in her car of Bible verses set to music and that when she heard Zephaniah 3:17 that morning on her way to work, it brought our sweet baby to her mind and she wanted to share that verse with us. "The Lord your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing."

There really wasn't much left to say after reading those words, Chad and I exchanged a tearful glance and I don't even know which one of us said it first, "That's the one." That one verse speaks so much to us and to our little girl. The emotions that come over you after receiving a tragic diagnosis are pretty much indescribable. The pain is unthinkable but you also feel a numbness like all you can do some moments is just go through the motions.

As far as my faith goes, I feel like I have been through it all...doubt, anger, questioning (lots of questioning), complete submission, utter awe. You name it, I think I have felt it at some point over the past two years. For me it came down an issue of believing God. Oh I believed in Him...I still believed that Jesus was the Son of God and that He died on the cross for my sins and the sins of the world, I believed that He rose from the dead 3 days later, I believed that He conquered death and saved me and that I would spend eternity with Him in Heaven...I believed all those things still...but I didn't believe Him.

I didn't believe His words, I didn't believe that He wouldn't ever leave me or forsake me. In my mind I had been forsaken, so to read the words of Zephaniah 3:17 in light of the diagnosis we had just received and were still trying to process was like living water to the dying. "The Lord your God IS with you" and He is mighty.

Looking back on it now for me, it was easier to be upbeat, positive, prayerful and faithful those first 4 days of her life. Yes, we were told that more than likely she still wouldn't live and yes we were expecting a phone call to my room at any moment that we needed to come down to the NICU right then, we were told to be prepared for that...but each of those four days before I was discharged, each minute, each hour, each day she hung on. Each minute, each hour, each day she got just a teeny tiny bit better.

It was that fourth day, the day that I was discharged that we received the news of her extensive brain damage, picking up after that devastation is what I still struggle with everyday. I remember sitting in the family waiting room right before we were taken in to meet with Sophie's neurologist...I remember praying and saying to God and to myself "There is nothing that man can lay before us that is bigger than our God, there is nothing that man can throw at us that our God cannot handle" and then I left that hospital and my baby girl that night along with all the truths that I had held so tightly about my Savior my entire life.

I believed in Him, but I didn't believe Him anymore. I didn't believe that He could handle this b/c He hadn't handled it the way I wanted Him to. In my mind He had abandoned us and forsaken us b/c He had not given us our "perfect" baby girl. I go back to Zephaniah 3:17..."He will take great delight in you." Sophie's Creator takes great delight in her, wow I need to pause and just let that one marinate.

"He will quiet you with His love." I think of all the tears that have been shed, are being shed and will be shed in this house, both hers and ours. There was a period of time after we brought Sophie Kate home from the NICU that all she did was cry. Praise God that season is over, He quieted her with His love. He is still doing that for me in such a loving and gentle way.

"He will rejoice over you with singing." Rejoicing is the last thing I feel like doing most days and I really hate to admit that, but if I am being truthful, it is the bottom line truth. I should be rejoicing that she is even here with us and that we get to care for her like we do, so many families have lost their little ones. I love her smiles and her sweet baby breath. I rejoice over her good health of late and the days when we have less crying. But God doesn't pick and choose what He rejoices over like us humans do, He rejoices over the total package, she's absolutely perfect to Him. That's where I beat myself up b/c I just don't see her that way, I know, it's awful isn't it? I'm her mother for crying out loud!

There is still so much to work through and so much work to be done. We will continue to pray this verse over our family and over our sweet girl and will continue to be present in each day upheld and under girded with strength from God and God alone.

We are having one of SK's birthday parties on Halloween this year (her actual birthday is Nov. 3), we will be surrounded by family, it will be a day of thankfulness and celebration. Thank you for checking in on us and praying us through these upcoming days.