God healed my body...

I'm pregnant!!

Yes, it's true!!

I'll let that soak in for a minute... it took me a minute too :)

I've been asked a lot about when I'm going to tell the world, meaning Facebook (you know because that's how you tell the world these days).  I've wrestled with this question, as this is such a greater story than Tim and I having a baby, therefore posting "I'm pregnant" seems to take away from what God did!

There's an amazing story of how God healed my mind (click here to read) and then my marriage (click here to read) and then we got pregnant!  If you read the other two posts you will understand the magnitude of what God did.

The short version is that we were told we couldn't have kids and as a result Tim and I walked through quite a hard journey!!  It caused me to become depressed and tension in our marriage.  But after a extremely hard and yet amazing refining period God did it!  God did it only as God can.  And as I look at it I am so grateful for it coming now.  It all makes sense... our marriage is better than ever,  I have a stronger confidence in who God created me to be, it really is the best timing.  I sincerely give ALL glory to God for what he did.

So now a baby is on the way... he or she is due on December 3rd and we are THRILLED!
No - we are not finding out the gender... I know some of you think this is mean.
Yes - the baby is giving a fist pump!
No - we are not naming him "Tim Beck Two" if it's a boy (despite Tim's desire to).

Please note that this is not always the way things work out!  I know this!!  In some ways it's too "happily ever after".  I don't tell this story (all parts) to say that if you follow Christ he will make everything right.  Why I tell this story is because I am CONFIDENT that God, the creator of the universe, wants to interact in our lives and he does!!  

God healed my marriage...

Last summer I was quite depressed and a large part of it was because Tim and I were walking through the hard journey of infertility, after several years of looking into adoption.  It seemed as if our last door to become parents was shut.  If I'm honest it was harder on our marriage than I could have ever anticipated!  Prior to this Tim and I had been through a few rough seasons that came and went over the course of several years.  So infertility was the straw that broke the camels back.  It was the most difficult season of marriage we have been through.

As we were slowly healing from the difficult summer, I became severely depressed.  Several months later God miraculously healed my mind!!  (click here to read about this crazy story) Following my mind being healed, God clearly told me to have a particular guy I knew pray for me.  This was bizarre as I didn't know him well, but since it kept coming to my mind I finally sent him a message to ask if he could pray for me.  He was gracious and willing, despite barely knowing me!  As we figured out details it made sense for Tim to join this night of prayer!

The night came and I didn't know what to expect.  But as we walked out of the room that night, it was clear that God wanted to heal our marriage during that time!  It was as if many of the lingering hurts and experiences we had walked through the previous 15 years of marriage were erased.  Our marriage was renewed and it was good!  It is in God's plan to redeem and renew and that's what He did... I'm still in awe of this!

A couple days later there was a reunion night planned for First Glance.  We reunited all FG students and volunteers from over the years.  It also was a great way that Tim and I reunited.  That week Tim and I spent a lot of time praying and talking about the night and doing ministry together once again.  It was during that week that God made it clear, through Tim that I should share the story of how God healed my mind.  And so from the stage of FG I shared my story, with Tim at my side.

I can say that the past several years have been hard, and ones I NEVER want to relive.  But at the same time I can confidently say that Tim and I are better than we ever have been.  It was a hard, refining process, but I'm so grateful for where we are at the end of it!

God healed my mind...

I started this blog because I have to tell this story... I have to tell the story of how God healed my mind, my marriage and my body.  

Last year was a hard year, some may say that's an understatement, I was depressed for a good chunk of the year.  Some of the depression that came was due to outside circumstances that I just needed to work through and as I made it through the summer into fall the depression was lifting.  Unfortunately in November a much deeper anxiety and depression hit.  One that didn’t make logical sense and was deeper and darker than I had ever experienced.   

At that point I was fairly happy with life, my marriage, my job, First Glance, living in Kenmore, etc.  I could articulate that I really liked life, but at the same time was having anxiety attacks and felt suicidal (for no good reason).  I battled hard in my mind, for months.  I genuinely believed the world would be better without me.  I did EVERYTHING in my power to make it better.  I committed to counseling every week, I went on both depression and anxiety medicine, I committed to working out (for my mind more than my body), and I spent time with God FIRST thing.   I knew something was off and I kept telling Tim, I know I shouldn’t think this way, but my mind is broken.  That’s how it felt, so very broken.   In all honesty the default of my mind was suicide... if I had alone time, a few extra minutes unplanned, etc. I was looking up ways to kill myself.  It took EVERYTHING I had to keep those thoughts at bay.  I could stay afloat, but was fighting hard to do so.

Finally I found an intensive counseling place.  Four straight days 9:00-4:00 of one on one intense counseling.  It was expensive, but I was desperate and wanting to try anything.  I was hopeful this would work... I needed it to work!!  I went Monday through Thursday and when Friday came I was home and I hit a wall.  I wanted to feel different, I wanted all of my broken mind to be fixed and it wasn’t.  So that Friday I went into a major depressed state, the darkest day of the whole year of depression.  I begged Tim to take me to the hospital because I wasn’t safe and I knew I wasn't.   After navigating that night my friend Alicia, who saw me during it, was concerned something Spiritual was going on.  So she gathered our friends to pray for me that Saturday (February 14th).  These women prayed and instantly my mind was healed.  I knew it in the moment, and my friends knew it who prayed for me!!

Although the healing happened instantly, it still took some time to trust my mind, to feel comfortable being alone again, etc.  After a couple months I went off of my medicine, and slowly everything went back to normal.  Today marks 150 days since God healed my mind!  I can say honestly and truly that that is what happened.   I have not battled depression, suicide or anything of the sort since.  I still have sad days, my life isn’t perfect, but I am healed.  And it is because of God that I am!

I have wrestled through depression before and believe me I know it doesn't always turn out this way.  But I also have seen time and time again that God, the creator of the universe, wants to be part of our lives.  He was part of mine!!  He healed my mind and I am forever grateful for it!!

(Below is a picture of the app on my phone that I use to keep track of God healing me. The picture is from when I told my story to my First Glance students a few weeks later.)