Do you love beginnings or hate them? Look forward to them or fear them? Truly, I oftentimes love change, but my preference is to be past that beginning and right in the middle of the challenge of it.

I’ve been thinking about what to post first on this website, SoulfulBeing.net, fully intending it to be something academic, dealing with writing and reading and the importance of critical thinking in life today. I have journals full of writings I want to share, poems written on everything from restaurant receipts to church bulletins, reflections about my past, my present, my hopes and fears and, well, you get the idea. Where to do I begin? 

Over the last several months I’ve watched a young couple on a journey that no one should have to take, and this past week their journey culminated in a way that melded tragedy with glory, heartache with faith. And it happened in just the way they had handled their journey–with the majority of it right in front of the eyes of the community. My eyes were some of those that watched. Watched through the filter of tears. I have two choices: I can share my thoughts on their journey, or I can put off posting on this site for a longer period of time. They are on my mind and heart, and their story won’t leave until I tell just a bit of it.

In November 2014, Jordan, Chip, and their two boys announced they were expecting an addition to their family.    And only a few months later, they were told their son had Trisomy 13. Here is where an adventure of heartache and joy began. They shared this journey with an entire online community by continuing to post weekly pictures of Jordan with her growing belly, with Michael Dean developing inside of her.

And she smiled.    Even knowing her time with Michael Dean was limited, she smiled.

While educating the online community about Trisomy 13, she and Chip also educated their local community. They continued working, going to church, being active as a family, and even organized a 5K run to raise funds for Trisomy 13.         They raised awareness among many during the very time they were dealing with this heartache themselves.  They spent this time as a family, in raising awareness of the issue, in celebrating the life of this baby, and preparing as a family for all that was to come.

My heart felt their hearts beating and breaking and beating and breaking as they went through this, and i want to share my message to them with you here:

There is strength and faith, and then there is strength and faith at the level that my friends Jordan and Chip have exhibited. At a time when most of us would have pulled inward with our heartache, these two young people educated a community on Trisomy 13. We learned what they learned as they learned it. These two kept the spirits of two little boys/big brothers alive as they kept them on the journey with smiles and pictures and stories and anticipation of their brothers’ arrival. They showed a society full of many broken homes how a married couple works together and loves as a team. They showed their baby growing in her womb that he mattered–whether he grew only a few months or to full term, whether he lived a couple of minutes or months when he arrived–he is loved. Michael Dean is loved. He is loved by many of us because you two allowed us to be part of this journey. He is real, he is alive, he is your son. You were blessings for Michael Dean during the months he grew in your body surrounded by your family and in that 20+ minutes you held him and expressed your love to him, and you are a blessing beyond measure to all who know or know of you and your journey.I can think of no way to express my heartfelt love for you two than to say, when I grow up, I want to have a faith like that of Jordan.

For every breath taken by Michael and every beat his little heart took, his story reached more people. We heard the desire of these parents for Michael to be born, for their to be a live birth so that they could hold their son, feel his breath, and tell him they love him. They were given that chance, and they will never again doubt the importance of every moment of life. In that short time, Michael met Mom and Dad, his brothers, his grandparents; he had pictures taken so that family albums can be complete; he felt both the smile and the tears of his mother and the strong arms of his father; and he was loved and, I have no doubt, loved this family right back. He was a tangible representative of the God they kept faith in, and he was no disappointment.

I need to share one more thing, a verse that had been posted earlier in the pregnancy on their FB page:

My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.  ~~James 1: 2-3 (NKJV)

The verses were shared on FB again, in a different format, after Michael Dean’s birth:

 Jordan and Chip showed us what is meant by “perfect and complete”
at a time when most of us would have wilted in our energy, struggled in our marriage, failed as parents and lost our faith. In doing so, they gave Michael Dean his beginning with an identity that made him real to all of us who took even a small part of their journey with them. They have no doubt where his next beginning took him and where he is now, peaceful and content, joy-filled and in perfect glory. My hope for them right now is that they allow themselves to rest, to fall into the arms of one another and their God, and to revitalize their own spirits as they move on in this world–a world that needs the example they have given.

Blessings and rest, my friends.