Everyday Miracles
Lora Armendariz
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Miracles Happen Everyday

God daily shows us how special we are and how much He loves us.  Join me as I write about how my life and the lives of other people who have been touched by God's grace.

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Courage to Fall in Love With My Premature Babies

8/6/2014

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At first I was afraid to love them.  Ashamed I even dreaded going into that room where their little bodies lay under plastic, hooked up to monitors, their lungs moving as machines ensured their lungs would breathe and liquid running into their veins made sure they kept on living.  Every time a doctor walked up to us I felt like I was dying, just a little.  Every time the phone rang my heart would drop.  My world was torn and I was trapped in a nightmare.  If they survived, the doctors said, they would stay in the hospital for months.

I stood on the brink, ready to jump into one of two deep pools.  Because I could no longer stay where I was and remain sane I could feel my heart falling either into a deep resentment for what God had allowed or a faith that would challenge me to see each moment as a gift. 

I stood on that brink far too long, building up walls, trying not to have to take responsibility for anything. 

But then I jumped.


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Suddenly a face obscured by plastic tubing was beautiful.  The eyes that blinked out at me from below an IV line were precious.  And those girls that scared me more than death itself became my daughters.

I fell deep deep into a love that will never break. 

God gave me this.  He gave me the courage to take a chance on a broken heart.  He gave me the strength to step forward when fear was holding me in place.  He showed me how to laugh during times of grief and smile even when disaster seems eminent.


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And today I’m holding my girls again.  My arms wrap around their growing bodies, devoid of IV lines with lungs that nearly hold their own in the world.  I know, as surely as if it were a palpable, touchable thing, that grace is real.   That miracles happen.

Newborn photos by Falling Star Photography
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All Things for Good.... Even This

4/11/2014

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Use it all God.  Every hurt, Every heartbeat.  I give it all to you.  You use all things for good.  Use me.
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As I pray those words I can feel it, like a spring bulb emerging from the soil, life is coming out of the coldness and promising beauty. 

Right now, my life is in a tender season where every hurt is deep and hard and every joy is brilliant as the sun. 

God, in His great wisdom, has given me identical twin girls who now a battle a rare sickness before they are even born.  And this has thrown my world upside-down.  I left my husband in Russia to see the amazing medical professionals here in the United States.  I left my daughter with my mother-in-law while I underwent surgery this week.  I lie in bed now trying not to let every worry and doubt shatter my faith into pieces. 

But, with every breath, I feel strength of a new and amazing kind burn within me. God is taking me to new heights, burning away the old and replacing it with a new kind of love and power that comes from Him. 

And everywhere I look I start to see the changes and am amazed.  I am closer to my mother-in-law, loving and appreciating her undaunted insistence to care for her family.  I see and admire the strength and love of my sister who has taken me in to care for me even as she juggles her own full life.  I thank God daily for the courage and trust of my husband who always knows just what to say to take away my worries and encourage me and I can feel his loving arms around me even though we are oceans apart.

Even when I had to go to Houston for surgery and every moment was a challenge just to remember to focus and breathe and pray, I was blessed with physicians, surgeons, and nurses who cared enough to hold my hand and even hug me in the hard moments.  And my brother-in-law who has no experience with pregnancies and babies, took time off of work so that he could see me though the procedure, make me laugh in the hospital, and see me safely back home again.

I can see God smiling at me through every crack in this topsy-turvey world.  His love shines out at me through a thousand souls who pray for us, hug us, love us, and offer a helping hand.

So, God, let me not see this as a time of pity, but a time for your power.  Use it all for Your great good.  I give it all to you. 

Photo by Fountain_Head via Flikr
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God Knows You're Beautiful.  Time for Us to Get the Message.

11/15/2013

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Do you feel ugly? Stupid? Mean? Ridiculous? Unreasonable? Unwanted?  Unloved?

You’re not.  I always had a huge problem when people used to say things like, “Everyone is beautiful.”  “You’re precious and special.”  and “God loves everyone unconditionally.”

I couldn’t accept it.  Part of me would nod, and think, of course, sure.  But deep down I couldn’t and wouldn’t really believe it about me.

Because, I know me.  I know how my forehead still breaks out when I’m stressed even though I’m 28.  I know how my mind fills with selfish thoughts when I’m tired.  I know how I still hide my candy bar under a book beside my computer so I won’t have to share. 

And all that—that isn’t perfect, or precious, particularly special, desirable, reasonable, or loveable.

But motherhood changed something deep within in me, and I’m starting to experience a version of the love God has for us and the kind he would like to have for those around us too. 

In my eyes my daughter is amazing, miraculous, and beautiful.  She has imperfections that I can see and those around me see them too, but it doesn’t effect my love for her.  And even though I know more about her than any person alive, to me she radiates with her own intelligence, her life carrying a precious and special energy that cannot ever be replaced.  She is a being in the world that belongs and I could not live the same without her.

Can you imagine that love coming down on us from our God?  Because it is the love of the father that He gives to us everyday.  Even when we rear-end a car, say angry words, forget to pay the bills, and eat too much chocolate we still have a heavenly father looking down on us with love.  He will guide us, shower us with hard truths, and discipline us always for our faults, but over it all is a never-ending love. 

The love that makes us all beautiful.

You are altogether beautiful, my love; there is no flaw in you.
Song of Solomon 4:7

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They're Watching

11/4/2013

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I don't know about you, but when I go to the salon to get my haircut I find it difficult submitting my head to the lady with the crazy chopped-up hair-do.  Why?  Because I think that if I let her start snipping then I'll end up like her. 

Its the same thing with adds on TV.  If I wear that shirt...I want to look like her.  Or, "Surely those pills don't work...look how unhappy he is."  And on, and on. 

Well, guess what...you are a walking-talking-billboard for the lifestyle you lead. 

I heard a story about a lady who became a Christian after ten years of marriage.  She found Christ and wanted desperately for her husband to make the same choice.  She pushed and pulled.  She nagged and bribed.  She tried everything to get him to read the Bible, go to church, and be saved. 

At each and every attempt she failed miserably. Finally, she stopped trying and started praying.  God told her to leave her husband's soul to Him.  This lady then started to simply live her Christian life just as God gave it to her.  She became happier as she learned to give her worries over to Him and to rely on His strength and guidance. 

And then the miracle happened.

One day she was cooking up supper after a long day at work and after having to redirect the poor attitudes of their teenage boys.  As she cooked she hummed one of her favorite hymns, praying for her family, and finding peace in the quiet of her little kitchen.  "Wow." She heard her husband whisper and looked up to see him watching her.  "I don't know how you do it."  She stopped and stared at him and said, "Me neither, but I'm thankful."

That Sunday her husband actually drove the family to church.  Later he confessed that he'd been watching her for years.  He'd thought the whole "being saved" thing was a joke.  He said he didn't understand why his wife kept insisting that Christ was wonderful and powerful and life changing.  All he saw was an unhappy nagging wife with nothing about the Christian life that seemed worth adopting.  But when she'd let it go and allowed God's love and peace to reign, she became positive advertisement for the Christian lifestyle.

I love her story.  I think of her and tell myself, "Remember, they're watching.


Photo by Leonid Mamchenkov



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Love Life of the Young

8/12/2013

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A very sweet young girl approached me the other day needing advice about a guy.  At first I puffed up, totally ready to tell her that the world is more than high school and how the opinions of one confused young man shouldn’t alter her own feelings of self-worth.  But a voice whispered to me to be still.  So I listened.  And when I listened to her, I remembered.

Oh, did I remember.  Those young teenage years are brutal.  Your world is closed up in the bottle neck of the social norms of a group of people who haven’t yet figured out who they are and have no business telling you who you are either.  And, when you meet that guy that makes your heart fall to your feet and your mind imagine your very own happily ever after, it is so cruel to be rejected. 

A distant reminder of that pain blinked through my heart and instead of giving rather callous advice to this young lady, I realized that some things just have to be lived through to be understood. 

That didn’t stop me from encouraging her to be strong, to remind her that she is more than what one guy thinks about her, and that God loves her more than she could ever imagine.

I know that many of my words were like putting Band-Aids on a wound that only time can heal.  The Band-Aids won’t really help, they only let her know that I care.  I care about the pain she feels as she goes through this journey.  She’ll get there.  And, perhaps life won’t get easier, but God strengthens us along the way. 


Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.
1 John 4:7

Photo by Moyan Brenn
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    Lora is a Christian writer, wife, and mother who travels the world with her husband, living and working on ranches.

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