I have already written about how God increased my faith in January 2016 through the death of our first cat ‘Faith’ in my story ‘Crazy Cat Lady’. She was like our first baby really, as my now husband and I had just settled together in New Zealand after a lengthy long-distance relationship with nowhere to put our roots down. He had just been granted his first partner work visa and we had decided to make another commitment by adopting a cat. Tragically she was killed by dogs within a few months. We were distraught and grieved heavily for the loss, but a few days after her death God gave me the scripture Psalms 4:8 – ‘In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety’. I knew it was about Faith because it came up on the TV screen under a picture of a cat lying down peacefully. I was comforted greatly by this scripture and always remembered it. There was more to that ‘Faith’ story, but that was the relevant part.
Fast forward to December 2019; a month after we had finally handed in our NZ residency application (that whole process is another long faith story)! My husband’s son was here in NZ for the summer holidays and had recently told us that his girlfriend back in Thailand thought she may be pregnant and was too scared to take a pregnancy test. If she was, it would mean he would not be able to get residency with us. She kept us all hanging for a couple of weeks before finally finding out that she was not, at around the same time that I surprisingly found out that I was! We were really happy and, after a bit of research, found out that it shouldn’t affect our residency eligibility which is what we’d feared. We believed that God had blessed us with the child instead to protect our son’s future.
I found a Christian midwife recommended by my boss’s daughter who told me an amazing story about how the midwife had had a vision of a birthing problem she would experience. The midwife did not tell her as she didn’t want to worry her, but she was able to put plans in place at the right time as she was anticipating the problem already. She told her about the vision afterwards!
A couple of months later, I was at 11 weeks and due to have my first scan the following week. We had told most of our friends and family already as we were so excited, but I started bleeding so went for an early scan. On that very morning, my best friend in England (who is a nurse) called me to see how I was doing. We don’t speak that often but whenever we do make contact with each other it is often as if we have some kind of sixth sense and is at a time of need. The scan revealed it was not meant to be this time and my friend had been through the same thing a few years ago at 11 weeks. We were devastated, and the next 2 days were awful as I miscarried. Again though, God comforted us with the same scripture the next day when it popped up on my phone as the ‘Word of the Day’! I knew it was for the baby this time because we had already decided to call the baby ‘Faith’ if it was a girl.
On top of this, I had received significant prayer from friends during and after the pregnancy. At my new church I met and instantly connected with a lady very early in the pregnancy and she was the first one from church that I told. On getting to know her better, she told me God had revealed to her some years ago that her gift/calling would be to pray for women who had problems getting pregnant or during pregnancy, and she shared some of the experiences she had had since. I don’t think she had sensed anything wrong with my pregnancy but had prayed for me throughout and was just as shocked as me at the outcome. She had however told me some names she had been given in relation to me, which did not tally up with our chosen name ‘Faith’. This has helped me to believe we will have another girl in the future.
I had also prayed with this lady about a friend of mine whose wife was pregnant at the same time, but they kept getting bad news each time they went for tests or scans. They were close to getting an abortion at times as they were scared something was really wrong. He is not a Christian but had suggested for me to pray. Each time the bad news was overridden by better news right up until the birth. They had been flown to Auckland expecting the baby to need heart surgery as soon as she was born, but this again changed and she was healthy and did not need any surgery in the end! While staying in Auckland my friend happened to see ‘The case for Christ’ movie on TV which I’d recommended to him ages ago but he never finished watching. They named their daughter ‘Hope’ as a last minute change to the name they’d previously planned, which is a name I had commented earlier that day to my husband that they should call her. My new friend and I have also prayed for my nurse friend in England who has still not been able to conceive again, so I still have hope for her.
The week after we lost Faith I also got prayer from my ladies bible group, 2 of whom said they saw visions of a little girl in heaven – one as a baby and one as a young girl – and that her purpose was in heaven, not earth.
Finally, when I went for another scan to check everything was back to normal again after a couple of weeks, I was alone this time and was feeling upset as it brought back memories of the last one. A couple of minutes after I set foot out of the room, as I was just about to break into tears, a lady from church called me as she had just found out the news and wanted to offer her condolences and see how I was doing. I thanked her and God for calling at just the right time!
I have other stories of ‘God-incidences’ during times of death and grief in my family, like my dad’s and my auntie’s passing, but these again are stories in themselves. God is all around us and works through His people – if you have eyes and ears to see and hear Him you will always find His comfort in times of need.