When I first got married, my husband and I had agreed that neither of us wanted to have children. We were 18 & 19. We were still kids ourselves. While my husband had a relatively great upbringing, My childhood was less desirable. We deployed very shortly after we got married and we spent a lot of our time in Iraq watching how horrible humans can be to each other. We decided that we didn’t want to bring a child into this world because of that and because we were both very consumed by our careers. I had a goal to be a Sergeant Major. Then we both had too many close calls in Iraq. When we returned from our second tour in Iraq, we decided that we would like to try again.
In 2009 after we had a couple miscarriages, we finally got pregnant again. We did the normal pregnancy tests and lab work. That is when we found out that we had to go see a specialist. When we saw the specialist, we were told that Our baby had trisomy 18. Trisomy 18 is when a child has an extra chromosome. This disease causes severe abnormalities and ¾ of all children born with the disorder are still born. The 1/4th that survive birth have all died before the age of 18. There is only one that has survived to 18. The doctors suggested that we abort the pregnancy. This was a hard thing for me to learn. I was already three months along in my pregnancy. I remember just laying in bed for days crying. We decided to wait and get a second opinion. I finally got a second opinion a month later. A month after I was supposed to have a scheduled abortion. When we got the second opinion, the doctor informed us that he was glad we waited because he discovered that our child had been misdiagnosed. Our child was currently very healthy.
My Calvin was born on his due date. September 14th 2009. He was beautiful. He was Just under 6lbs with dark brown eyes. I don’t have any memory of the two weeks after his birth because I was in a medically induced coma. I didn’t get a chance to bond with him until he was about six months old. I had a severe case of amnesia and the lack of bonding had created a separation from Calvin and I. The first thing I remember saying about him was, “Is that Kevin’s baby? Did he have another kid?” (Kevin is my little brother.) That is when I was informed of the reality of what all had happened. Then everything just clicked at 6 months and I couldn’t imagine my life without him.
When I said yes to Discipleship in my life, I had no clue what it would look like. I thought that I would start to understand a little more about the Bible. Then the longer that I walked with Rachel, I began to understand the termination theory. The termination theory tells us that as long as we continue to pass on the knowledge we have been given, some of those who receive the knowledge will then pass it on to others. I remember sitting in someone’s living room when I first learned about the termination theory. I remember being asked what the theory meant for me and my life. I looked over at the women who had spent almost a year poring her life into me, the woman who had cried with me and helped me understand what the Word says and what the Lord says about me. The woman who invited me into her life before she knew what I mess I was. The woman who I had watched fight cancer for months. The Lord had revealed to me through the story of Tabitha, that my dear friend and spiritual mother’s body would not survive cancer. I cleared my throat and managed to tell her that, “If we were the last people that she ever discipled, I could not let that be in vain.” I could not let the things that she taught me, die with me. From then on I knew that I had to start looking for the women that the Lord wanted me to walk with in the process of discipleship. The Lord presented four women to me. I walked with those women for two years. I am now walking with another group of four women. I have this hope that all of them will pour into other people. They may not walk with women in the same way and they may not all start groups of their own. What I do know is that through this process all of these women have been transformed to look less like the world and more like Jesus. While, they may not all start groups in the same way I did, I have personally seen them all pour Jesus into their friends and families. I know that I followed the Word when I chose to walk with these women.
The things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others. 2 Timothy 2:2
2 Timothy came to mean something vastly different to me last week. When I picked my son up from school last week, he was clearly distraught. He was stressed about the number of tests that he had coming up the next day. I remember telling him that school is not the end all be all of his life and that his test scores in fifth grade are not going to follow him the rest of his life. I had debated letting him skip school the next day. Take a mental health day. He seemed like a different kid the next morning. He woke up early and was ready to go well before his sisters. I started to think that he was much better because he had gotten a good nights sleep. I was wrong. I had sent him to bed a little early the night before. I figured that he just went to sleep. I was wrong. Apparently he stayed up and listened to worship music while he sat in the Word.
My son keeps an abide journal. On the first page he has:
“people were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them, but the Disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them. “Let the little children come to me. Don’t stop them because the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it” After taking them in his arms, he laid his hands on them and blessed them. Mark 10:13-16
This is one of his favorite verses. If I look through his book, I can find notes from every sermon that he has sat through. You can find words like chesed: Covenant love, Logos: The divine Word- Christ, words become a mirror in your life, horeo: perceive with inward spiritual perception, a list of grain offerings the Lord has brought him, as his admission of faith and Christ’s Lordship in his life. When my son got home from his test day, I asked him how his day was. That is when he informed me that the night before, he sat in the Word and the Lord reminded him that he is in control and he is going to get him through his tests, and he is the one who gives him hope.
When Paul wrote 2 Timothy 2:2, he was letting leaders know that they have a responsibility to train up more leaders. They had a responsibility to reproduce. I am reminded that the Lord first gave us the direction to go forth and multiply. When Rachel told me that I would be reproducing other disciples by walking with other women, I thought that would be my only job. I never even considered the fact that while I may be making Disciples with other women, my main disciple making duties will be done inside the walls of my home. The Lord has blessed me with three beautiful children that I don’t deserve. Three children that I plan to Disciple to Jesus, for the rest of our lives.
Disciple making looks different for everyone. Sometimes it looks like walking with a group of adult women, sometimes a group of teenagers, sometimes one on one, and sometimes your own children. You may walk with people twice your age, and you may walk with a five-year-old child. What matters is that you make an effort to pour Jesus into everyone in your life. If you believe in Christ and the truth and love that he brought us, you will never regret sharing that with people in your life. When my son told me that his hope is found in Jesus, it gave me hope for not just him and the women in which I walk. It also gave me hope for the people that my son walks with; his teachers, his best friend, and his sisters. My son shares the light of Christ.
Who do you pour into?
What does the termination theory mean to you?
What is it that you are reproducing?
Grace and Peace
-Chorley