Jaimie's Story

Let me tell you about our little Jaimie. The story begins shortly after we moved. After settling in and doing some painting in our new house, we were overjoyed to be expecting our second child (May 2011). We were so excited! Excited at the prospect of having another child and excited that Micah would have a sibling! How wonderful. We were about 9 weeks pregnant when we started sharing the news with our family and a couple close friends.
At the time we were still searching for a church family. We had been to a few, but for some reason they just didn't feel like the right fit for our family. I was pretty lonely. Before we moved, I had so many different people that I would meet with, but now there really was no one except my parents. Then just after Canada Day, we decided to try the SEMC. It was the same denomination as our previous church - not something we are hung up on, but we hadn't found a good fit amongst the other churches we had attended, so we decided to try it. The people there were so welcoming and dropped whatever they were doing to talk to us and show us around the church. We immediately felt loved and felt like perhaps this is where we should be.

It was the Wednesday after that Sunday that we found ourselves being told by the ultrasound technician that the baby didn't have a heartbeat. Our precious little one had passed away.
What devistating news. This news brought all my hopes and dreams to a crashing halt. I had heard of miscarriages before, but I had never felt the emotional pain that a miscarriage brings. That and being one who dislikes hospitals and in general being in someone else's control and not my own also terrified me as I had to meet with a doctor I didn't know and was told I needed minor surgery. Something I really didn't ever want to experience...and it just felt wrong. Whether that was the right or wrong decision, I don't know. Apparently my body wasn't doing anything about my little baby that passed away and so there needed to be some medical intervention. What a wretched thing. Thankfully they put me to sleep for the whole ordeal, but I must say I was a wreck. Complete wreck. Thankfully Albert was my rock through that. I couldn't have made it without him. I never wanted to talk about it again after it was over. All I wanted was to be pregant again and have a baby. I had trouble sleeping and I constantly wanted to escape my life by being lost in a book so I could disappear into someone else's life.

Our little Jaimie's day was July 11, 2011.

Well clearly God was there through that as well. I know I wasn't relying on Him as I should have been through that time, but He was there nonetheless and took us to exactly where we needed to be. We went back to SEMC that next Sunday, and although no one knew what had transpired that week in our lives, (I balled in the bathroom during the singing), we felt loved and continued to attend.
As life continued on, as it always does even after you think it should stop, we kept attending SEMC. As I listened to the sermons my heart began to heal. I began to see my favourite verse in a different light. Jeremiah 29:11 - "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord. "Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future." Well you may notice that it's refering to God's plans...not my plans. My plans were to have a family - 4 or 5 kids hopefully and all less than two years apart... I know specific...but I had my reasons..., however, I have learned that I need to trust God for what His plans are for my life. Seeking Him daily for what His plans are, and when something goes wrong to know that He has it under control. I remember singing the song "All of my ambitions, hopes and plans, I surrender all, into your hands." How true it is and yet how hard it is. Hard to give God all, everything. Knowing that He knows best and when our ambitions, hopes and plans come crashing down, that He still has His plans, hopes and ambitions for our lives, even if they aren't what we had originally pictured.
As you can see we learned a lot through Jaimie. We became stronger, relying more on God and ready to share God's love and Good News with others.

Jaimie's legacy included Upward Basketball at SEMC.
That's a whole other amazing thing that came out of Jaimie's life (as brief as it was here on earth although is forever in eternity with Jesus). We started the Upward Basketball program at SEMC. Something that probably wouldn't have happened if Jaimie had been born in January as that was right during the busy time of running that first season.  We had about 50 kids registered for our first Upward season, which was such a blessing that we were able to show God's love to those kids and their families. I was even able to share my miscarriage story with our families at Upward -something I thought I would never be able to do. We were also so blessed to have some wonderful volunteers and half-time speakers to share how God has been and is working in their lives with our Upward families as well. Jaimie's life is still having an impact as we are beginning our second season of Upward Basketball at SEMC. If you would like more information, please go to www.sarniaemc.org ! Thanks! :)