I shared with you recently my story of the in-betweens of early miscarriage. How the unknown can frighten us. How it can make us numb and we can lose heart while trying to maintain hope. That baby bean now lives with Jesus, and I am so delighted to one day meet him or her. My beautiful child is with the Father—well, actually, all three of the little ones I’ve lost are with Him. My family spans the universe—what an incredible thought!
Loss is not easy. The pain is real, and it cuts deep. Grieving well is really the only way through. To feel the depths of sadness and know that God is in it with you. Some people think that it’s “God’s will” that their children are taken from the earth before they are born. I think the enemy really enjoys it when we think like that. When we try and paint the sovereignty of God onto dark and sad situations.
The truth is that God is always—ALWAYS—always for us and never against us. He is always for life and never for death. He aches for His creation to function the way it did in the garden before there was sin. He made a way for us to get back to Him, and ever since the veil was torn, humanity and creation have been groaning against the enemy, pushing the earth back to Eden.
Our wombs are no different. Our bodies are marked and sealed with the Holy Spirit, but we are stuck down here in the fallen. The push and pull affect our bodies, and sadly, some of our children are caught in the middle and pay the price.
After losing my last baby, I decided to dig a little deeper into my own biology. I ran my genetics and discovered a whole host of mutations that have been affecting me for a long time. I realized that I was estrogen dominant from a mutation on the COMT gene. I realized that my blood was prone to thickness and clotting due to a mutation on the MTHFR gene. I won’t go into these here—that’s not what this article is about—but I will say that if you are prone to loss, then please dig deeper and research. These two issues alone (low progesterone and thick blood) are two of the main reasons for early loss in pregnancy.
The Lord led me through an eight-month process where He began opening my eyes to DNA and how genetics work. How do genes become mutated to begin with? It’s incredibly interesting. You see when He created humans, there were no defects, no genetic mutations, no diseases, nothing of any kind that would cause His creation to not function within its original design. Sin came in and with it a whole new way of being. New fights and struggles for people, new stresses and a form of living that touched darkness in ways humans were never designed to. Our bodies just weren’t made for it.
I’ve talked some about my family’s past in “Finding Roots in Green Gables” and “Feel the Feels” (and in several others), so you may already know a bit about my earthly lineage. I’m not shy to say that I come from human lines smattered with darkness, mental illness, poverty, abuse, neglect, and crippling addiction. Generational curses do exist, and they affect families for a long time. In Exodus 34:7 (NIV), it says, “Keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation” (emphasis added).
In the season where God was showing me genetic mutations and hereditary sin and their consequences, I feel like I had a new lens through which to understand this verse. Not only habits and mental patterns are established in families, but our genetics are also passed down. Could this be part of the ‘generational curse’ that we so often talk about? While researching genetic mutations, I began to understand that genes are mutated when a person’s body is overwhelmed and stressed. It can be functioning in this state through bad habits, negative mental patterns, life circumstances, or even genetic mutations that are all causing stress to our cells and our body systems. Generation after generation, these mutations can build upon one another, stacking the odds against us—if we let them.
We are more than our genetics. We are more than our families’ past. We are more than the consequences of our ancestors’ actions and even our own! As we grow to understand the truth that we are new creations in Christ and that He is working in us to make all things new, we hold to that truth as we guide our existing bodies to health.
One way I have helped guide my body into health, which came about as a result of my genetic discovery, is that I started using a progesterone cream and a supplement that would detox the extra estrogen out of my body. I also started taking baby aspirin to help my blood, and WHAM, we landed pregnant. I am ecstatic to say that I am currently 19 weeks along (nearly halfway!). We find out the gender in only two weeks. Can you believe it!?
The main point is that while we live here on the fallen earth, and as we believe and push for His Kingdom to come fully, we live in both—the fallen and the heavenly. It saddens the Father’s heart to disown the earth and the wisdom that can come from the Lord in how to manage and steward His creation (our bodies). He can move mountains and do miracles, but even when He chooses not to, we still have a lot of power in our own choices. If I had not looked into my own genetics and taken control of the wisdom He was showing me, I don’t think this little growing baby would be here with me.
The Lord is so very very kind to us, helping us navigate this fallen world and take heart in Him, knowing He has overcome it. He guides us through the murky waters to find clearer seas. He leads us when things look dark and hopeless into lands flowing with milk and honey. He could snap His giant omnipotent fingers and make everything right in the world, but instead, He chooses to partner with us to bring our world closer and closer to Eden. This requires listening ears. This requires obedience. This requires that we lay down our lives and choose to pick up His life in place of our own.
This baby is a sweet and very welcomed reminder that God can do all things. That His light does trump the darkness. That the enemy has not won and that the Lord contends for us in spiritual realms even when it comes to hereditary sin. He truly can overcome anything.
Featured Image by Pixabay
