Mallie "Luv Luv" Phelan

Well, of course I would much rather be writing a post with good news than bad, but I do want to share the latest Phelan Pham news which brings grief and sorrow to our souls. We found out we were pregnant a week and a half ago. We were QUITE surprised as we were trying to not get pregnant. But, we of course welcomed with great joy the unexpected miracle bestowed upon us by the Lord. We had just talked over our 12th anniversary dinner about the possibility of a 4th Phelan, and we both felt like God has a 4th child in our phamily at some point, just not yet. We also felt like we needed to keep praying about whether God would lead us to adopt again (we LOVE adoption, of course:) ) or if we would go for pregnancy again. Well, we were pregnant at that anniversary dinner and God already knew He had given us an 8th Phelan little one (one precious son out of womb, 2 healthy little girls in womb, and 5 little ones taken to heaven before we could hold them). We have been so excited for the short week and a half that we have known, and Ford and Milly have been, too. Before we told Milly and Ford, Milly asked, "Mom, when are you going to be pregnant?" (She's been telling me that "Jo Jo (as Ford and Mill call her) is too big for her now and she wants another baby in the family.") We took her question as the cue for when we should tell them. Ford did a fist pump in excitement and Milly, our questioner, asked, "Really? There's a REAL baby in your tummy? YEAH!! How is the baby going to get out?" (She has asked that question several times and I have just told her, "Why don't you ask Daddy about that?" Milly then decided we should call the baby "Luv Luv", so that instantly became the baby's womb name. We made a shirt for Virginia Grace to wear around the house out of one of Ford's old white undershirts that said, "I'm a BIG sister!" It was so cute to see her running around the house in the shirt, clueless about what the shirt declared:) Mallie Drew, a fellow Mountain Brook High School grad, was an intern with our church for the past month, and she was the HUGEST blessing to all 6 of our phamily. Ford, Milly, and VG LOVED "Mae Mae". They preferred her over Mama many times :) She spoiled 'em good. Milly is still talking about how "Miss Mallie" gave her chocolate chip pound cake for breakfast. Luv Luv loved Mallie as well because Mallie was the first person we told about his/her life. Mallie was staying in our office for the month, so we instantly wanted to tell our wonderful Mallie our great, surprising news. Tears of joy filled Mallie's eyes when we told her and she immediately began praising God and praying for Luv Luv. Stephen and I also LOVED the gift of Mallie for her many gifts she bestowed upon our family, upon our marriage (she kept the kids after we found out about the pregnancy so that we could have a celebration date. She had a box of Ghiradelli chocolate squares on my pillow when I got home to satisfy my pregnancy cravings.), and upon our disorganized home. As Stephen told her, "Our home has never had this much Shalom due to the order and organization." Several friends said that they never had seen the top of my desk until Mallie helped me clean it off and organize the clutter:) THANK YOU, Mallie, for your amazing faithfulness, for the way you served and loved and prayed and spurred me on to abide more and more in Jesus! Mallie recommended two books, "Come Away My Beloved" and "Hinds Feet On High Places", that have helped me through the grief of this miscarriage. As you can tell, Mallie has blessed us and our pregnancy greatly. So, we wanted to name our 8th Phelan "Mallie Luv Luv Phelan" after precious Mallie Drew.

We are so grateful that Luv Luv is in heaven with Jesus, yet we ache deeply, wishing we could've held our little one. (Milly and I thought it was a girl, Ford thought it was "both" - YIKES! Twins- and Virginia Grace replied, "Boy" when we asked her. Stephen just hoped for a healthy boy or girl.) God was so sweet to me last night as I lay sadly in bed, longing for Luv Luv. I felt him impress on my heart that He wanted me to feast on something in His Word before I ate my leftover pizza. So, He led me to 2 Samuel: 12:15-23, subtitled "David's Child Dies." As I read along, my heart smiled and became more and more encouraged as I digested the words of David, a fellow brother and parent who had gone before me. "David's servants said to Him, 'What is this thing that you have done? You fasted and wept for the child while he was alive; but when the child dies, you arose and ate food.' David said, 'While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept, for I said, 'Who knows whether the Lord will be gracious to me, that the child may live?' But now he is dead. Why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.' " Wow. That was so intimate and personal of God to speak to me through the Scripture like that. And God added comfort on comfort through sweet Ford this morning when Ford said, "Mom, we will see Luv Luv in heaven one day." The beautiful, simple faith of a child. Milly's still asking questions, wondering why Luv Luv wasn't healthy and if Luv Luv is still in my tummy. And Virginia Grace, our bundle of JOY (We prayed for her while she was still in womb that she'd be full of joy, and her Creator surely answered that prayer) is still just full speed ahead, bringing us smiles and laughter. This morning Stephen read Isaiah 14:27 out loud to me, and once again, His Word drenched me with peace. "For the Lord Almighty has purposed, and who can thwart Him? His hand is stretched out and who can turn it back?" He also used a framed verse in la casa de mi amiga latino, Lilia. (We were at her nephew's 6th bday party today. The doctor told me to go about normal life, so I did.) Psalm 135:6 shone out of the frame into my heart. "The Lord does whatever pleases Him, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all their depths." Obviously God has carried us tenderly and intimately through this miscarriage. He is faithful. Su fidelidad es grande! Stephen and I truly believe this. It might sound trite, but it is the deep belief of our hearts! He has proven Himself faithful and good, time and time again. As we look back on our journey of having children, how can we doubt that God is GOOD and that His Providence prevails, as my wonderful brother reminded me last night. The Phelan Pham would not have Ford, Milly, or Virginia Grace if our pregnancy road had been smooth. Our timing would have been different than His, but now we wouldn't trade His path for anything. "He has made everything beautiful in its time." Ecclesiastes 3:11 Thank you for your prayers as we continue to grieve and hope in Jesus.

May these excerpts from the Preface to "Hinds' Feet on High Places" encourage you as they have me:

• "'The voice of my Beloved! Behold, He cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills'" (Song of Solomon 2:8). When asked what the verse meant, she [the Arab nurse of this book's author, a missionary in Palestine] looked up with a very happy smile of understanding and said, 'It means there are no obstacles which our Savior's Love cannot overcome, and that to Him, mountains of difficulty are as easy as an asphalt road!' "
• "The gazelles bounding up the mountainside, leaping from rock to rock with extraordinary grace and agility, was one of the most beautiful examples of exultant and apparently effortless ease in surmounting obstacles as I have ever seen. How deeply we who love the Lord of Love and desire to follow Him long for the power to surmount all difficulties and tests and conflicts in life in the same exultant and triumphant way. To learn the secret of victorious living has been the heart's desire of those who love the Lord, in every generation."
• "We feel we would give anything if only we could, in actual experience, live on High Places of love and victory here on this earth and during this life - able to always react to evil, tribulation, sorrow, pain, and every wrong thing in such a way that they would be overcome and transformed into something to the praise and glory of God forever. As Christians we know, in theory at least, that in the life of a child of God there are no second causes, that even the most unjust and cruel things, as well as all seemingly pointless and underserved sufferings, have been permitted by God as opportunities for us to react to them in such a way that our Lord and Savior is able to produce in us, little by little, His own lovely character."
• "The Song of Songs expresses the desire implanted in every human heart to be reunited with God Himself, and to know perfect and unbroken union with Him. He has made us for Himself, and our hearts can never know rest and perfect satisfaction until they find it in Him."
• "The High Places of victory and union with Christ cannot be reached by any mental reckoning of self to be dead to sin, or by seeking to devise some way or discipline by which the will can be crucified. The only way is by learning to accept, day by day, the actual conditions and tests permitted by God, by a continually repeated laying down of our will and acceptance of His as it is presented to us in the form of the people with whom we have to live and work, and in the things which happen to us. Every acceptance of His will becomes an altar of sacrifice, and every such surrender and abandonment of ourselves to His will is a means of furthering us on the way to the High Places to which He desires to bring every child of His while they are still living on earth."
• "The lessons of accepting and triumphing over evil, of becoming acquainted with grief, and pain, and, ultimately, of finding them transformed into something incomparably precious; of learning through constant glad surrender to know the Lord of Love Himself in a new way and to experience unbroken union with Him - these are the lessons of the allegory in this book The High Places and the hinds' feet do not refer to heavenly places after death, but are meant to be the glorious experience of God's children here and now - if they will follow the path He chooses for them. 'The Lord God maketh my feet like hinds' feet, and setteth me upon mine High Places' " (Ps. 18:33 and Hab. 3:19)