God still does the miraculous
God still does the miraculous and sometimes, as in our case, they have names - Ella and Owen. Three years ago, on the very month we set out to begin the process of planting a new Jesus-centered, Bible-believing, gospel-loving church, we received the news that we were infertile. At the time we already had two children. However, due to previous pregnancy complications and three lost children (in utero) we were told, by two top Seattle doctors, that we were done having kids. We wept. Providentially, we received this news right before the very first informational meeting we held for our church plant.
As weeks passed, we grieved, prayed, sought counsel and eventually decided to adopt once the church became a bit more established. So, as we set out to move downtown, we sold our kids' baby gear which we were saving for our future children. For us, it was the ultimate acknowledgment that things were going to look different than we anticipated. Every sale brought with it a reminder of the loss. We moved, but the grief came with us.
Fast forward two months and our family was living downtown in an 850 square foot apartment moving ahead with our church planting plans. Then, on one afternoon in August, Jen came up and told me she thought she was pregnant. Neither of us believed it, but all preliminary tests pointed that way. So, we went to the doctor. Pregnant. We thought it must be a fluke, so they ran additional tests. Pregnant. They were concerned it wouldn't be viable. More tests. Pregnant.
We didn't know what to think. It felt like we were living a Bible story out in real time. We were optimistically suspicious. More time passed. More tests. More doctors. We had a viable pregnancy on our hands. We were shocked. Then we received a phone call from our insurance company who thought we were committing insurance fraud as they saw OBGYN appointments posting to our account but Jen was flagged "infertile". That was an awesome phone call.
Nine months later, just one week after our church's public launch, our daughter - Ella Faith Sinnett - was born. And just this past May we welcomed our fourth child, Owen. We call Ella and Owen our church planting babies. We believe these kids are object lessons for us from our good and gracious God - seeing a new church thriving downtown is just as unlikely as an infertile woman having children. The doctors still aren't sure how to explain it, but we do. God still does the miraculous.
“Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.”