100 days
Note: If you want to know the gist of this post without reading the whole long thing, check out the bolded portions. Thank you for being invested in Jacob's life with us.Update: If you'd like to share any answered prayer requests or stories of God at work, please visit this page: 100 Days of Prayer and contact us there!
Pregnant women and hopeful parents and adoptive moms and dads... we are so keenly aware of time. We know days and weeks and we often count by them. We know the difference a day can make and we're seeing things happen week by week that can make a huge difference in our family. I know this because I'm currently in this weird time warp myself.I'm towards the end of my second trimester (meaning I'm almost 2/3 of the way through my pregnancy). My baby's due date is February 4th. Today, I'm technically 25 weeks and 5 days into my pregnancy.I've known for ~20-21 of those weeks that Jacob's life existed. And I have 14 weeks and 2 days left until his due date. Give a few days or take a few weeks from that and that's how much more time we have with him on earth.There's a continual calendar running in my mind. A continual counting and new milestones every week and my tummy keeps stretching larger and larger, reminding me.With each week that comes we've gotten more time with Jacob. More time to know and love him before he goes Home. And with each week that comes there's one less that we will have. And that part makes my stomach sick. I can't even bring myself to begin to imagine what time looks like after February. But I know time will move differently then too.But I counted, and technically, we have 100 days between today and Jacob's due date.That means we have 100ish days left with my sweet boy on this earth. That thought both thrills me - Look at how much time we maybe still have! His birthday will be in 100 days or so! - and sickens me - My life is about to nosedive into depths I cannot fathom at this moment sometime in the next 100ish days.100 days. I think normally I'd start some sort of countdown today. I'd be making his nursery and coming up with plans for his new little life. I'd be eager and excited and cherishing John-Mark's and my last 100ish days together just the two of us.But this counting feels different to me. This pregnancy is special - unique - and I'm trapped in a different pull of time than I had once dreamed of.We have 100ish days until who knows what. ~100 days (or less) until it's back to just the two of us. ~100 days to celebrate his life with him and watch my tummy grow and read to him and sing to him and love him while he's here on this earth.It's a monumental task, these 100 days. It's a devastating reality. This moment, this reality of time, is the honest blend of every single thing that we're feeling and have been feeling for the past two months.I sit here with tears streaming down my face because my heart is so full of love and yet my heart is so full of anticipatory heartbreak.Will we have more time with this sweet boy of ours? Will we get to see his personality develop, even as an unborn child? Will we be saying hello and goodbye at the same time, or will we have more time? How am I going to use this time? How can we as a family use this time? What is there to be done and how can he be loved and where does God want me to be for the next 100 days? The next three months. The next 14 weeks?I want to make the next 100 days count.So, I've decided this...In spite of how empty as my prayer life has been, and as many prayers have already been said in the past two months, I've decided we're going to pray.We're going to pray for 100 days. And we're going to see what happens.Honestly, right now, I can't bring myself to even pray for things. I can't bring myself to mutter too many words to God beyond these four - Lord, help me, please. But I know that you all will and you can and you want to. And in the days where I can't, you will for me.I know that God hears prayers. I know that he cares. I know that he wants us to pray, and I don't understand how that works with his sovereignty and his plan and how he answers yes or no, but somehow it works and it matters to him.[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnaxpQa1Xyk[/embed]I dream of the things that God wants to entrust us with or the ways that he'll change our hearts when we pray. I dream of how God could use these next 100 days of my sweet baby boy's life to impact eternity or to impact your relationship with God himself. I wonder what things God wants us to reach out and ask for, and how he will use it.Will you join me in praying with us for the next 100 days? Will you celebrate Jacob's life with us in this way, and grieve with us in this way, for the next 100 days? And will you share with us when you see God answer prayers? We'd love to hear of God's work across the world as a result of these prayers.I don't have a clue what this could turn into. I'll list some things I'd love prayer for personally, but I challenge you to consider what you can pray for in your own life that seems too huge or unbearable or far-fetched. Consider thinking about or even praying about what one thing or what one person God would have you bring to him in prayer for the next 100 days. You don't have to pray for everything and you don't have to pray even daily. But maybe, God will change my heart at least, and maybe others', in this time.And maybe, just maybe, we will see the next 100 days of Jacob's life as he makes his journey to Eternity be ones of great hope and great faith and of our Great God who is above all and in all and through all things answer prayers that we can not even verbalize in our hearts.I can't wait to see the prayers that we sow for the next 100 days be answered. I'd love to have some way to share answered prayers and to celebrate, which I'm going to work on on this site. I'd love to see the days of Jacob's life here on earth matter, and maybe this way is the way that will matter the most. I'd love to see eternity changed in the next 100 days because people are praying. I'd love to see a legacy - of sorts - of the next 100 days built around trusting God to move and to act and to do things that just feel far out of our reach.Will you join me? Will you pray for something in your own life, for someone in your own life? Will you pray for God to move, for cities to be changed, for the small things and the big things? In humility I even ask - will you continue to pray for us in the next 100 days? These 100 seem like the biggest ones - in good ways and bad - that we'll have. We've so felt and needed your prayers the past two months and we will only continue to need them more.So, to close this long post... if you'd like to know how to specifically pray for us right now or in the next 100 days (and things may change but this is just as of today), here are some ways you can pray:
- Pray for God's will to be done in Jacob's life. Pray for God to sustain his life as long as he sees fit. Pray for these prayers to be fragrant offerings to God in this time.
- Pray for more time. We know we'll never be ready, but watching our son's body deteriorate is really hard. I want more time. Above that I want God's will to be done, of course. But will you ask for more time with me?
- Pray that we'll get to meet Jacob, alive, and see him take breaths on this earth. Pray that we'll get to hold him, that our families will get to meet him, and that we'll feel the warmth of his life in our arms.
- Pray for our marriage. We're doing well, but we have found ourselves starting to pull away from each other in the last few weeks, and we're fighting to depend on each other and rely on each other more instead.
- Pray for our relationships with God. I've specifically had a hard time spending time with him in prayer or reading the Bible, and I would love prayer for my heart to change more in how I go to Him.
- Pray for our families as we grieve together and as our families experience Jacob's life and anticipate his journey to Heaven together. Pray for their hearts as well.
- Pray for those that we'll encounter on this journey. I long for doctors and nurses and random people that we interact with to come to know Jesus as a result of Jacob's life. Will you pray for the impact that He will have? The legacy his little life will have on this earth?
Thank you, friends, for praying as you already have. Thank you for even getting to the bottom of the post here. Thank you for caring and for showing us that his life does matter. We're so thankful for you. Thank you for praying for us. Thank you for praying for these next 100 days of Jacob's life... I can't wait to see how God answers.