A few weeks ago, Kasey and I had the opportunity to share our testimony with our new church family. In preparation, we put together, a brief but somewhat detailed story of how Judah graced us with his presence and forever changed our lives. Many of you know the story, as we've had the privilege to share it often, but for those of you who don't I wanted to share it with you. My hope and prayer is that God would be glorified - that His grace and mercy would shine through Judah's story and ultimately that it would cause others to turn to Him.
Judah's Story
In December of 2012, we found out that I was pregnant. As you can imagine, we were ecstatic. My ambition to be a wife and a momma was soon to become a complete reality. I spent the first trimester on the road and it was not the piece of cake that I thought it would be, to say the least. But, nonetheless, I was thrilled that God had chosen to give us the blessing of a baby.
This picture was taken on Sunday, April 7, 2013.
I had an appointment on April 11th to find out the gender of the sweet life growing inside of me. I woke up that morning with lots of bleeding and immediately knew that something was very wrong. As we rushed to the doctor’s office, we called our family and asked them to pray for the baby and for whatever we would be facing in the hours to come. After a quick examination, my doctor informed me that I was in the middle of having a miscarriage and needed to go straight to the hospital.Once at the hospital, the doctor on call did another examination and confirmed our worst fears – I would more than likely deliver our baby within the next 24 hours. At only 21 ½ weeks, its lungs were not yet developed and it had no chance of survival.Later that day, we learned that we were having a little boy. He was perfectly healthy, but due to medical complications, my body could no longer carry him. I was on complete bed-rest for the next 24 hours. I remember laying there in the hospital bed, praising God for His sovereignty in the midst of our unknown. And it was laying there thinking about how great our God is that caused me to say, ‘God, if you only allow us to have our son in our arms for a few short minutes, then I will praise You. And if you allow us to walk out of this hospital with him in our arms, I will praise You all the more.’ God had truly overwhelmed me with His peace and it was only by His grace that I was able to praise Him throughout that time.The next morning, by God’s providence, my doctor was on call at the hospital. She came in to speak with us and informed us that, for medical reasons, I needed to deliver the baby that day. She gave us some time with our family to process everything and prepare for what was ahead. My prayer through all of this, was that God would just give me the strength that I needed to do what had to be done. As a mom, there is nothing more heart-wrenching than knowing that by giving birth to your baby, it’s going to take his life. But there’s also nothing more comforting than knowing that ultimately, his life was in God’s hands. Not only had He ordained the time of his birth, but He also ordained, the time of his death.
Judah Blaze Horvath was born on April 12th, 2013 at 1:14 pm and passed away in my arms at 2:55 pm. God had blessed us with a perfect baby boy and taken him away from us, all in the same day. There has never been time that Kasey and I have felt so much joy and so much pain all at the same time. God had brought us to knees and completely broken us, all the while, pouring out His grace upon us, all for His glory.2 Corinthians 12:9-10 reads as follows,
“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weakness, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”On April 12th of this year, these verses became real to us in a way that they never had before. Since that day, the Lord showed us that His grace is sufficient for us and His power is made perfect in our weakness. And because of that, we can not only boast of our weakness, but we can learn how to be content in the midst of our hardships so that the power of Christ may rest upon us and He can be glorified in us.
By His Grace,
Katie
