Feedback on my mom:

My mom went for her first chemotherapy treatment again last week Wednesday.  I’m not sure which cancer they are treating her for, but she said this time it is a lot stronger than last time.  She really felt horrible on Friday and Saturday and she was basically in bed all day.  This time she is incredibly weak, tired and even nauseous and she said she had to vomit a couple of times.  The doctor said that the side effects will be gone after a week so she hopes that is the case.

She will get the chemo once every 4 weeks and they did not say how many treatments want to give her, it will all depend on how her  body reacts, especially her blood platelets – they will try for as long as possible and then go over to radiation if necessary.

My dad said that once again the doctors aren’t 100% sure that she does have cancer.  Her cancer marker test came back high and that is an indication that there might be cancer, and in the past those tests were always normal.  But I think that is all indication that they have, because I haven’t been told directly that they found traces of cancer from her liver biopsy.  So it’s once again a preventative treatment, just like last time with her para-aortic glands.

My friend “G” says the oncologists just try to keep you alive, and they don’t try to cure you, because they want to make as much money out of you as possible.  Maybe he is a bit cynical since he’s had his cancer for such a long time now, but I’m also starting to feel like the doctors are just trying to make their bit of money out of my mom.  I’m not sure they have her best interests at heart, because chemo is not something you want to go through if it can be helped or prevented at all, and since she had such a bad reaction to the lighter dose of chemo, I am not convinced that it is the best treatment for my mom.

But I haven’t spoken to her doctor and all the information I have is what I get from my parents, and that is not always a lot of information.  I get it in bits and pieces and maybe I don’t have the full picture.  And I can definitely not advise my mom not to go for any treatments – she needs to do what she thinks is best.  It is after all her life and she is the one that has to cope with the treatments and the side effects.  I guess one cannot criticize some one if you haven’t been through what they have been through.

It just breaks my heart to know she is not feeling good and it’s all due to the chemo, and I also cannot forget about all the other problems she’s developed due to damage being done to her colon and bone marrow from her first stint at radiation, and her one leg is swollen due to the last radiation, and caused by problems with the lymph drainage from her leg, so that makes me wonder what damage will be done from these treatments.  As it is, one of the theories for the spots on her liver is that it was caused by the last sessions of chemotherapy she’s had…

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14 Weeks:

Yesterday I was 14 weeks and I must say the second trimester is a lot better than the first!  The morning sickness is better, although yesterday I was nauseous again.  Fortunately I’ve only vomited once and that was at exactly 12 weeks.  So I guess I’ve had it easier than most and I am really grateful for that!

My newest symptom is heartburn – it’s not too bad yet, and so far drinking half a glass of milk works most of the time.  The only thing is I’ve never really liked drinking milk much, but I guess it’s easier to drink the milk than to suffer with the heartburn.  I’ve also been getting quite a few headaches lately which I don’t often get anymore, and I don’t like that much!  I’m trying my best not to take any medication but I’ve had to take 1 panado on two different occasions.  Fortunately, because I’m not used to any medication the one pill helped a lot both times.

One symptom that I have not mentioned up to now, but I’ve had it since about 5 weeks is a blocked stuffy nose at night.  Fortunately it’s not all day, and I just have to make sure I have something to blow my nose with next to the bed if I wake up.  I have also had some sleeping problems once I wake up – it sometimes takes me hours to get back to sleep.  So now I stop drinking fluids at about 18h00 or 19h00 at the latest and go to the loo as many times as possible before I go to bed, in the hope that I don’t have to get up in the middle of the night.

It seems to me that my belly has popped out suddenly in the last few days!  I’ll post some belly pictures for you under pregnancy pictures.  Then you can see for yourself…  Both those pictures were taken in the mornings, before I had breakfast, so my tummy is at as flat as it can get.  During the day it gets a bit bigger as I eat and drink stuff…

Last weekend we were at a family party and there was this one lady who said that she felt her babies at 14 weeks already (2 singleton pregnancies), so I’ve been trying to feel if I can feel something… Wednesday night I felt a very slight feeling of some bubbles and no, it wasn’t my intestines that I felt – I know what that feels like and this was nothing like that, it was a lot fainter and quite a lot below my bellybutton right in the middle.  Last night I felt some of those bubbles again and I took DH’s hand and put it on my tummy, as he was sitting next to me, but he couldn’t feel it.  I think I feel it more inside me that with my hand on my tummy.

It is becoming more and more real now, and we are both getting more and more excited about our little Nunu!   DH’s sister is also quite excited and very impressed that our due date is close to Christmas as she lives far away from us, but she will be here over Christmas time and she thinks we timed it perfectly for her to come and enjoy her little nephew when he is born.  It warms one’s heart when others are just as excited as we are…

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KT is 1 today!

Today is KT’s birthday and I can’t believe she is a year old already.  She is such a character and she gives us so much pleasure.   It feels like she knows that today is her birthday because she’s been looking for special attention since early this morning.  Something that she never does…

First she woke us up early – fortunately only 10 minutes or so before we usually get up, not too early, with a bone she dug up from the garden and she dumped that right in front of our bedroom door.  (What a mess she made – there was mud everywhere, but fortunately we don’t have carpets so it was easy to clean…)  Then she tried to play on the couch, which she’s not allowed to do, and when I called her she came racing into our bedroom, jumped on the bed and wanted to play with me there (she is also not allowed to do that…)

DH gave our fish some food a bit later, and she was watching him, and terrorising the fish.  She acts as if she tries to bite them and they can actually see her through the glass of the fish tank and they don’t like that at all!  Then she started licking the glass of the fish tank, and they don’t like that either!   I can’t believe how fascinated she and Nandi are with the fish.  They actually sit in front of the tank and watch them quite often.

Since then she wanted to go for quite a few walks, she’s brought us a few more bones and in general she just tries anything so that we must play with her…  I took all these pictures this morning.

Even though she is a year old, she still hasn’t come on heat.  I’m sure all the boxer bitches we’ve had previously came on heat somewhere between 9 months and a year.  I’m not too bothered about it though because Shumi is not the only male here that is not neutered and we certainly don’t want any mongrel puppies.  Originally we thought we would book her into a kennel when she comes on heat, to prevent her from getting pregnant, but this way so far is off course the cheaper option…  I would love it if she could have puppies at least once, but later off course.  Not now, she is still too young…

While I’m telling you about KT I want to give you a quick update on Shumi too.  He is doing much better again.  Just after I found out I was pregnant he went through a bad patch.  He was incredibly thin and the vet was worried about that.  We decided to give him some special attention and feed him not only the dry dog food that he used to get, but to boost him with some canned dog food too.  I can’t believe what a difference it’s made.  He’s back to his normal weight, he is lively and playful again and he even plays with KT again.

The snot is also better after a strong course of antibiotics and that is at this moment his only symptom, except for his blocked nose of course…  When DH went to fetch the antibiotics from our vet he told him that Shumi is back to his original weight and the vet said that is a good sign.  The vet is now convinced that Shumi’s tumour must be benign because he says it is incredibly difficult for an animal with cancer to gain weight.  I know that about a year ago we were told it was definitely cancerous from the smear the other vet took from his nose.

So DH and I are convinced that Shumi has already been cured of the cancer – both vets are certainly very surprised that Shumi is still alive, a year and 3 months after his symptoms began.  I am also confident that he will be completely healed soon.  At the moment it is the middle of winter here and we have had some cold weather (OK cold for South Africa – probably not cold for those used to living in colder climates) and the cold weather does not seem to affect Shumi much.  Until very recently he still slept outside in his kennel, but we’ve felt sorry for all of our dogs, so they’ve been sleeping inside for the past few weeks.  They are enjoying that a lot and they are really getting spoilt – something we’ve never really allowed in the past.  O well, they must enjoy it while it lasts – I’m sure that it will stop again when our baby arrives…

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My Mom Got Bad News Again….

My mom went for another CT scan a week and a half ago and although the para-aortic glands seem completely dead and shrivelled up they found some spots on her liver.  Both the oncologists that have treated her (the chemo and radiation oncologists) looked at the results and they were both dumbfounded.  Apparently neither of them has seen anything like that before.

So they referred her for a biopsy and a week ago they removed a bit of her liver via a laparoscopic procedure to analyze.  Last Friday my mom was told by the chemo oncologist that it is once again cancerous and that he wants to do chemo again.  They just want to compare the results to the analysis that was done from my mom’s uterus as they aren’t sure if it is some of the endometrial cancer on the liver or if it is in fact liver cancer…  It is important that they know which it is as there is a difference in the chemotherapy that is needed for the two different types of cancers.  Apparently liver cancer is much more aggressive and needs a much stronger dose.

So she should find out this week which treatment they will go ahead with and actually get her first chemo treatment at the same time.  Shame, her hair had just grown back nicely and she’s only recently been able to cut it in a decent short hairstyle and now it will all start all over again…  I’m a bit worried about these next chemo treatments as last time she wasn’t on a strong dose, but she had to stop early as her blood platelets took too long to regenerate.  But the doctor still wants to try again.  He said that if the chemo doesn’t work again then she will go back to radiation treatments…

I had really hoped that she was completely cured from cancer but it seems that it is not the case.  I’m not going to stop believing in full and complete healing for her though…  She is getting her first grandson in December and he will need his granny…  She did say last week that she knows she needs to fight this, especially for her grandchildren’s sake, so I hope that will be enough motivation for her…

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Receiving Through Grace and Faith:

I heard this message from And.rew Wom.mack and I want to share it because I think a lot of people really don’t know how grace and faith impact their life.  I get the idea that a lot of people think that to have faith means that you just say you believe and then you sit back patiently and wait that God will move in your life.  Or others believe they must do things for God, to prove that they are good people so that God would reward them.  I certainly thought that was how it worked for many years, and was guilty of both, first with passivity and later works of the flesh.

When I still did not get pregnant, I made excuses, like “maybe it’s not God’s will for us to have children,” or “maybe God has a different plan for us,” or “God is probably teaching me something…”  I did not have any idea how wrong I actually was, and I am so grateful the Holy Spirit gave me revelation on this not long ago.

And.rew Wommack says: “Faith does not move God.  All Faith does is appropriate what God has already provided by grace.  If grace hasn’t provided it Faith can’t get it.   Faith doesn’t move God – God moves totally by His grace, and that means unmerited, unearned, undeserved favour.  God provided things for us completely independent of our performance, but does that mean our performance has nothing to do with our receiving?  No, you performance does because your performance is how you release faith. But faith just reaches out and appropriates what God has already provided by grace.

Ephesians 2:8-9 (NIV):  “⁸ For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith— and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—⁹ not by works, so that no-one can boast.”

This verse says that you are saved by grace through faith – you aren’t saved by grace alone, and you aren’t saved by faith alone.  You are saved by a combination of the two – grace through faith.

1 Corinthians 15:10 (NIV):  “¹⁰But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them— yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.”

Paul, here, was talking about how he was not even worthy to be called an apostle, because at one time he had actually persecuted Christians and put them to death and he says, “I don’t deserve anything, but by the grace of God I am what I am, and his Grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain.”  He is implying that just because God extends grace towards you does not mean that you are necessarily going to prosper, because you have to mix faith with that grace, and so therefore he said, “I laboured more abundantly than they all.”  In other words it was just totally the grace of God that called Paul to be a Christian and then enter into the ministry instead of killing Christians.

Justice would have demanded that God kill him, but God by grace extended mercy to him, but God’s grace had a greater impact in Paul’s life and through Paul, than many people, because he laboured, he also added to the grace of God his faith, and this is what it’s talking about in Ephesians 2: 8.  It is God’s grace that saves us, but your faith is how that grace impacts your life.

Here is another way of saying it:  Over in Titus 2: 11 (NIV):  “¹¹ For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.”  It says that, “the grace of God has appeared to all men,” now if God’s grace alone saved you than every single person would be saved because God’s grace that brings salvation has appeared to all men.  Now this right here ought to prove to you that it’s not just up to the grace of God, whether you receive or not.  God by grace provides things, but then faith reaches out and takes hold of what God has provided by grace and faith brings what is real by grace into physical manifestation.

God by grace has already accomplished everything He is going to ever do, but it doesn’t automatically come to pass in your life, you have to access God’s grace by faith.   Romans 5:2 (NIV):  “² through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.”  So you aren’t saved by grace alone, you aren’t saved by faith alone, you are saved by a combination of the two.  God, before you ever had a need has already provided everything by grace, but that grace won’t release its power in your life until you appropriate this grace by faith.  See, if it’s a true step of faith in God’s grace that it’s already done, then you will see a supernatural supply.

So this scripture I was using of Ephesians 2:8 that says, “you’re saved by grace through faith,” not one or the other but a combination of the two, now if you go back and apply this to Titus 2:11, it says, “the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men,” if grace alone saved, if it wasn’t necessary for us to have a positive response of faith on our part, if it was just the grace of God that whoever got saved, then you know what, every single person on the face of the earth would have been saved, because the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared onto all men. But we know through Jesus’ own teaching that He said that there would be more entering in by the broad gate of destruction than onto the narrow gate of everlasting life…  Jesus said that the majority of people are not going to receive salvation.  Why, because God hadn’t provided it?  No, the grace that brings salvation has already appeared onto all men.

The atonement has been made for every single person.  In 1 John 2:2(NIV) it says, “² He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.”  Jesus has paid for the sins of the whole world, the grace of God has already paid the debt, the grace of God has purchased salvation for every single person, not only those that God foreknew would accept Him, but every person has had their sins paid for.  The grace of God has bought that salvation and appeared onto every person, but not every person receives, as a matter of fact the majority of the people don’t receive, not because God’s grace isn’t there, but because they didn’t put faith in God’s grace.  Man that is one powerful truth!  This teaching has changed my life.

I don’t know if you are getting this because the things that I’m saying it’s so easy to say but it seems that it’s harder to comprehend because we don’t have a real example of grace and faith in our world.  Really the only person who treats us with grace on a consistent basis is God. There is nobody else that does this and so because there is not a role model, a physical person that we can see, most people just can’t grab this.

You have to meditate in these truths, take the word of God and allow the Holy Spirit to just show you these things by faith and you have to grab hold of this but most people struggle with this because it’s just so contrary to their normal existence, but God has already done everything by grace, before you were ever born, Jesus died for your sins, before you ever got sick, Jesus bore the chastisement for your healing in His physical body.  You were healed 2000 years ago, before you ever existed, before there was ever a sickness to be healed of.  Before you ever have a financial need, God has already made Jesus poor so that we through His poverty might be made rich (2 Corinthians 8:9 (NIV):  “⁹For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.”)

God has moved through Jesus, through Jesus by His own free choice and volition, He chose to provide healing, prosperity, salvation, deliverance, all of these things.  He’s already done it; He’s already released His power, that’s grace – independent of you.  It didn’t have anything to do with your goodness or worth because you didn’t even exist when Jesus came and provided all of these things.  So does that mean that by grace God has already provided it, that everybody is going to be prosperous or everybody is going to be healthy or everybody is going to be saved, everybody is going to be delivered?   No, because you have to appropriate God’s grace by faith.

Now if you can understand this, this is tremendous, because I used to think that, “well I’ve got to speak the word of God, I’ve got to pray, I’ve got to study the word, I’ve got to do these things and when I do enough good things then God sees that and my faith moves God and God will respond and grant me my finances, my prosperity, my healing, deliverance, whatever…”  But no, that’s not true – God has already done it and what I have to do is study the word not in order to affect God’s grace or His heart, I study the word to affect me, to make me more sensitive to God.

If you don’t understand what I’m saying right here, if this doesn’t make sense to you, this is one of the reasons that you aren’t seeing the power of God manifest much more.  If this is like speaking a different language, it’s not communicating to you, then that means that you haven’t really got a working revelation of the grace of God and you’re still under this mentality that you do one, two and three and then God responds and does this.  I’m telling you God does not respond to your faith – here’s another way of saying it – that true faith is not something you do to gain a response from God, but true faith is your positive response to what you believe God has already done by grace.

Now, if you ever get that confused and if you ever start feeling like, man, I’ve got to start confessing the word and I’ve got to pray, I’ve got to go to church, I’ve got to pay my tithes and if I’ll do these things then maybe God will do this… See that’s not true faith, what you call that scripturally is legalism, works mentality and that will not release the power of God, as a matter of fact that’s really about the only sin that will stop the power of God.

Your sin of not paying your tithes and not reading the Bible and lying and stealing and any of these kind of things – that doesn’t affect God’s grace – grace means it’s independent of your performance – but the one sin that will stop the power of God is the sin of self righteousness, the sin of trusting in your works and instead of trusting in the Saviour and looking at what He’s done for you.  You are going to try to make it happen, because “I paid my tithes!  Now God’s got to give it to me!”  That’s not faith – that’s works!  That’s legalism and I guarantee you that will stop the flow of God quicker than adultery will.

Now those are some strong statements – I know that I just bumped into some religious traditions, that there are probably people very upset, but that is the absolute Gospel truth… That is the truth!   That God loves you and He’s already provided all of these things by grace, but they don’t just automatically come to pass, you need to study the Word, you need to pray, you need to live holy and do all of those things so that you can be in faith, instead of fear and unbelief and then that faith will appropriate what God has already provided by grace.

But don’t ever make the mistake, don’t get this confused and think that, “my actions caused God to do this,” because that is no longer faith, if you think that.  God does what He does by grace, your actions have zero to do with what God has provided.  By grace God has already provided your need before you ever had one, but faith is just a positive response, it’s things you do in order to receive what God has already done, not in order to get God to do something.

If you ever get confused on that issue, and if you start thinking, “well if I pay my tithes, now God’s got to bless me, because I paid my tithes.”  You know what, in a sense you are trying to manipulate, to control God, you’re using faith like a pry bar, a lever on God that will force God to do something and that will stop the power of God in your life in a heartbeat.

You know I get people coming up to me in the thousands saying things like, “well, how come God hasn’t healed me, I prayed, I studied the Word, I pay my tithes I’ve done this and this…  How come God hasn’t healed me? ”  Well, you told me why God hadn’t healed you, because you didn’t point to what Jesus did for you by grace, but you’ve pointed to what you’ve done and you have the mentality that this is going to make God heal you…  “If I do enough right things…”

See you think faith is something you do to move God, I’m telling you that is absolutely wrong.  God has already moved by grace, He’s already provided everything and your faith just reaches out and appropriates what God has already provided by grace.  This concept is something that I find missing in most people’s life, they just haven’t figured this out, and I’m not trying to criticize anybody else, it took me a long, long time – decades before I got this figured out.”

I can testify that shortly after I got the revelation that Jesus already paid the price, that He already finished it and that I am healed, even though it didn’t feel like that or look like that, and once I started praising Him for healing me and making me pregnant, I actually got pregnant.  When I prayed, I didn’t beg or ask for anything anymore, I just thanked Him and praised Him for already making me pregnant, even though I wasn’t yet.  Every time I said things aloud I spoke about how it’s all been done, how Jesus work is finished!  I totally assumed that I would get pregnant, and that it would happen soon.

The month we found out I was pregnant – that whole cycle – I just knew in my heart that it would work, because it was so much more than a belief by then…  It was reality – I knew Jesus paid the full price for me, by grace.   I wasn’t bothered much by what I had to do, and I was totally waiting in anticipation for the proof of what I believed, that I would get a positive pregnancy test.  I was almost like a child before his birthday, counting the days before I could test and to get proof of God’s mighty works.

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Fetal Assessment Scan:

Our scan yesterday was totally amazing!  DH and I both amazed, overwhelmed and totally in awe at what we saw.  It was so nice to see our little one moving, drinking amniotic fluid, stretching, but sleeping most of the time.

The first thing the doctor said was, “today it seems to be just boys.”  We didn’t realize immediately that she was saying that we are expecting a boy, because she had him on the screen for seconds.  I thought she meant the patients she saw before us, because our appointment was late in the afternoon.  But no, right after that she showed us the little penis sticking out behind the legs and we knew that she was talking about our baby.  We are having a perfect little boy!

The first nuchal fold measurement was 1.10mm, but she wanted to double check and measured it again and this time it was 0.90mm.  She told us that she always tells her patients that a reading of less than 1.00mm is impossible, yet she got one with us.  She mentioned that the nose bone is clearly visible and that is usually a good indication that a baby does not have Down’s syndrome.  The absence of such a bone is not an indication of Down’s syndrome, but the presence of one is a good sign.  In the end these readings together with my blood tests that I had done at 10 weeks reduces my risk from 1:74 on my age alone to 1:1489 which is equal to the risk of that of a 15 year old pregnant girl.  That is such good news to us!  The risks for trisomy 18 and 13 were even lower.

After this she proceeded to show us the little hands – he had his hands clasped together at first, but later we saw the hands separately with the 5 fingers, He also moved his one arm up and behind his head, then she showed us the brain, the bladder, the legs and little feet, and eventually we could see our little boy drinking amniotic fluid and then we could see his stomach too.

He was a real lazy little boy, sleeping for the first part and just gently moving around a bit, until she woke him up by poking my tummy a lot.  But it seemed he just rolled over and went back to sleep again. His crown to rump measurement was 60.2mm which falls in the 95 percentile and measured at 12w3d although I was only 11w6d yesterday.  He’s probably going to be a tall, like his mom…

This doctor also weighed me, since I had no idea what I weighed (I don’t own a scale and the last time I weighed myself last year was when I still went to the gym and then I weighed about 71kg.)  She said I weighed 73.8 kg’s, but I think I was a bit heavier just before I got pregnant than last year, and I had so much clothes and boots on, because it was a really cold day yesterday, so I guess I
must have picked up about 2kg’s maximum so far.  I’m sure most of that weight is in my boobs, as they are huge!  Some of my pants are actually fitting better than before I got pregnant, especially around my thighs, so I think I must have lost some weight or centimetres there.

My tummy is still small, other people can’t see a baby bump yet, but DH and I can see it’s popping out a bit just above my pubic bone.  DH took 2 pictures on his phone (9 weeks and 11 weeks) and he’s actually showed it to some people (I almost freaked out when I heard that!)  Those people insisted however that there is nothing to see, so that’s mainly the reason I haven’t posted one on this blog yet…

We are absolutely over the moon with joy that everything looked so good yesterday!  We are so grateful for our perfect little boy and we cannot stop praising God!  All the glory must go to God!  He has blessed us abundantly!

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Acting Upon Your Faith:

I heard an amazing message again this weekend from An.drew Wom.mack from his Finan.ce se.ries, but I just want to mention a part of it that deals with faith.

An.drew Wom.mack says, “You need not only say that you trust God, that you have faith, and that what you believe will happen – you also need to act upon it.”

James 2:14 (NIV):     “¹⁴What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him?”

He used the following scripture as an example:   1 Kings 17: 3-6 (NIV):   “³Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan.    ⁴You will drink from the brook, and I have ordered the ravens to feed you there.    ⁵So he did what the LORD had told him. He went to the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan, and stayed there.    ⁶The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook.”

When God told Elijah that he needed to go to the Kerith Ravine, and that the ravens would feed him there, God had already made provision.  It was already done – the instruction was given to the ravens to bring food to a specific place.  Elijah had to act upon it to get the food.  He had to go to the right place to receive the food that God had already provided.

If Elijah said he had faith that God would provide, but stayed right there where he was, he would have starved from hunger.  He had to be obedient to God’s instructions and act upon what God wanted him to do.  If he didn’t do it, God wouldn’t have provided where he was, but that could not be blamed on God…  It could only have been blamed on Elijah because he didn’t do what his instructions were.

Hebrews 11: 6-8 (NIV):  “⁶And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.  ⁷By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.  ⁸By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.”

An.drew Wom.mack said’  “Faith reaches over and receives what God has already given you.”  He also said, “Faith produces actions – the actions themselves may not be faith, but they have to be generated by faith.”

Matthew 14: 29-31(NIV):  “²⁹Come, he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came towards Jesus.    ³⁰But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, Lord, save me!    ³¹Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. You of little faith, he said, why did you doubt?”

One example that comes to my mind is when Peter stepped out of the boat to walk on water.  The actual stepping out of the boat was an act of faith for Peter.  Anyone can jump over the side of a boat, but they will end up in the water and drown if they were in a similar storm.  They wouldn’t be walking on water, because they did not have faith that they can in fact walk on water.

What I love about this example is that, yes, Peter stepped out in faith; he walked on water, but only for a little bit.  Then his faith waivered, but he cried out to Jesus to help him and Jesus was there, and he saved him.  I found this to be so relevant in my life.  Believe me, I have stepped out in faith and waivered shortly afterwards many times, but Jesus was there every single time to catch me.  Every time I cried out for help He was there!  So don’t worry about whether you will waiver or not, just remember to call upon Jesus when you are in need.  Step out in faith and get out of the boat – Jesus is there for you, just call upon Him when you are in need and He will help you.

Last year November I realized that somewhere deep inside me there was this hope that should God not give me a natural miracle pregnancy within a specific time that I could maybe go back to my FS and that he might be able to give me some treatments – if not IVF then maybe another IUI with Intra.lipids or something like that.  And then I realized that while I kept that option open in my mind, my faith was not in what God could do.  My faith was once again in my own abilities, and the abilities of my FS and medical technology.  That was why I had to decide that I will not ever go for fertility treatments again.  While I had that option open, my faith was not strong enough that I could believe that God would heal me completely.  It was not easy to make this decision; everything in me screamed that I could not make such a vow, but I knew it was the right thing to do.  It was what I had to do.

Let me give 2 other examples:  I’ve always hated to POAS.  I always got negatives, until the day we found out I was pregnant with my last IVF.   That day I was impatient and couldn’t wait until the afternoon to find out and we decided to test after I went for my blood test.  That was the only time I had ever gotten the elusive 2 lines.

After the decision in November I decided that I would start buying HPT’s again and test every month.  I usually started spotting a day or 2 before AF was due so I decided to test with a HPT at 12dpo.  In December I tested for the first time while we were on holiday but it was negative.  The next 3 months I started spotting before I could test twice, and one month I got a negative again.

So in April I decided to see how early one can test.  I searched the inter.net and I decided that if I could get a sensitive test that I can test at 10dpo.  It seemed like the earliest day to get a BFP, so I looked for a sensitive HPT and finally I found one at a local pharmacy.  The next morning I woke up at about 6am with an urgent need to relieve myself, so I got out the sensitive test and POAS.  Within a minute or so I saw a very, very feint pink shadow where the second line was supposed to be.  After a few minutes it was just a little bit darker, but it did look to me like a very feint second line.

I waited until DH was up and then I took the HPT to him and asked him if he too saw a feint second line.  DH was not convinced there was a second line – he thought it might be my imagination.  But the next day the line was there and darker and I went for a blood test and the beta came back at 50.  I was pregnant.  So, you see it was totally out of character for me to test so early.  I’ve never done anything like that before – never, ever.  But it was a way for me to act upon my faith.

I also bought some stuff for our babies before I was pregnant (I bought 2 of everything because I want 2 children.)  I bought some clothes every now and then if I was at a shop that sold baby clothes.  It wasn’t much and it was always cheap stuff, but I bought it and that was the important thing.  I was acting as if I expected to get pregnant soon.

Now this was what worked for me – I think each of you must search your minds and see what is difficult for you to do.  What do you usually avoid doing and use that as your act of faith.  I always avoided POAS unless I was about 3-5 days late, I never bought stuff for a future baby and like I said it was incredibly difficult for me to give up fertility treatments for ever, but since we could not afford any more treatments, I had no option – I had to believe God will make me pregnant naturally.  I realize that not everybody is like me – there are certainly people that POAS every month and some of them start early, so that might not be your act of faith.  What is it that would be a real act of faith for you to do?

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