Day Nine

Hi! My name is Lauren Musser and I’m beyond thrilled to share God’s story in our lives with you. As I’m sharing this, I recognize that each of us has our own hardship in life. No one’s is harder or worse… just different. I am hoping that regardless of where you are in your story – that you are encouraged by the Truth of God’s character and His revelation of that through His work in our lives.

Our story is three fold. Yes – God has worked 3 very obvious and amazing miracles in our lives in the past 6 years. 

It started out with my husband and I having some very difficult years of marriage in our first years. My husband struggled with pornography and I struggled with control and unforgiveness. My husband sought out counseling several times but was shut down in one way or another each time. I eventually shut my heart off to my husband because I was in survival mode. I just couldn’t take one more deep wound. About four years into our marriage, we decided to have children. It took us a few months, but we were able to conceive. However, 10 weeks into the pregnancy we had an ultra sound that revealed that the baby was no longer living. I had to have a surgery to get all of the tissue out as my body was not doing it on it’s own. About two months later we were able to conceive again and this time it was a healthy, baby boy! I gave birth to Noah the following Springand he’s been our decisive, go getter ever since! He is 6 now!  :-o

When Noah turned 9 months, I began to have some very odd health issues. I had been strong and healthy all of my life – but one day that just ended. I became disoriented, dizzy, confused, I began having blurry vision that eventually took over my entire eye sight. I was hospitalized and tested for everything under the sun. To no avail. They found nothing. I lived with these health issues after that – they happened several times a month and I just powered through because I didn’t know what else to do. At Noah’s one year old birthday mark, we found out we were pregnant again! During this pregnancy, my health issues seemed to fade. The following January I gave birth to another precious baby boy. Joel Thomas Musser. Up for anything – happy go lucky little boy. My little lover. He’s 4 

4 months after his birth- my health issues returned with vengeance. I was having incredible migraines with aura’s about 3 times a week. I felt incapable of taking care of my two baby boys. Life was rough. Really rough. And during that time our marriage continued to decline. I was constantly exhausted and fatigued and I just didn’t have it in me to fight for our marriage anymore. So I just survived. I would be as kind to my husband as I could – but my heart was closed to him. I just couldn’t bearto let him in. It was too painful. Around this time, God was doing an incredible miracle in my husband’s heart. My husband decided to reach out for counseling, despite the dead ends he had encountered prior times. He decided that as a child of God, he was not to be held captive by sin. He began to heal – I was seeing undoubtable changes in his heart.  But I was stuck.  Stuck in by distrust toward him and stuck with my closed, hard heart toward him. So finally I began counseling too. I remember crying out to God to heal my heart. I didn’t understand how He possibly could… I felt that I was damaged beyond repair. And God spoke as clear as day to me, “Lauren – I CREATED you!  I most certainly know how to heal you!!!  Just let me do the work and stop trying so hard.  Just let me.”  And I released it to Him.  And let me tell you – He healed our marriage.  He changed both of our hearts and made them new!  Also around this time, we became pregnant again. We were surprised and overjoyed. Nervous too – but happy! I was about 14 weeks when I began spotting. And cramping. And I could literally see my belly dropping. We went in for an emergency ultra sound only to find that our baby had stopped growing around 12 weeks and had no heartbeat. The doctors didn’t know what was going on or why this had happened. They did genetic testing to try and figure out what caused this. They did not find a reason, but did find it was a girl. My first daughter. And I didn’t even get to cuddle her. They told me I needed to schedule a d&c and I said I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to let go of my precious baby girl. I didn’t want them to take her from me. But they told me I needed to because I was too far along and the risk of hemorrhaging was too great. So we scheduled the surgery. The day before my surgery- my mom just happened to stop over.  She found me crouched over in pain, grabbing my stomach. She insisted I call my husband home from work and get to the hospital immediately.  My husband came home just in time for me to pass the baby and begin bleeding….. Heavily. Very heavily.  On the way to the hospital, the bleeding became so bad that we had to call an ambulance. They got me to the hospital safely – but I was so traumatized. Not only had I lost my baby girl that day – but I was lying in a hospital bed hemorrhaging. But my husband did not leave my side. Not once. Not even for lunch. Not even to use the restroom. He held my hand through every minute. That day I realized the man beside me was a changed man. A new man with a new heart. I saw him as a new creation – one that I could trust. I told him that on the way home and he said that back when we were struggling in our marriage – he asked God to do whatever it takes to heal our marriage. We named our daughter Faith Caroline. Because through it all – we clung to our faith. It wasn’t easy – but God was faithful – you will see….

After losing our daughter Faith – my health issues returned again – to an even greater degree. I pressed into them more this time because I was certain that whatever was going on had to have caused the loss of my daughter. My hormones were a mess and even my cycle was becoming almost nonexistent. Everything just added up. God finally led me to my nutritionist where she found that I had Lyme Disease, which later was confirmed by blood work. I followed everything she said to a T and prayed like I’ve never prayed before.  I knew, from experience, God could heal! He healed my broken, hard heart…. I KNEW He could heal my body. So I prayed with confidence and passion. I needed to be there for my children and husband. After working with my nutritionist for several months – I had a health experience that I knew was not normal. I was pretty sure my body rid itself of the Lyme bacteria. Which was the plan because I was not eating sugar or carbs – therefor starving the bacteria. I went back to my nutritionist – and sure enough – the lyme bacteria was gone! I stood there in that office in complete shock and awe of what God had done! That was 2 years ago and I am still healthy! God is in the business of miracles! 

We decided to try to conceive again and were able to. However – at 8 weeks – there was no heart beat. I did not understand. How can God be so good but allow so much pain?  This was my third baby that I was not able to meet here on Earth. I threw a temper tantrum at God, let me tell you! I wrestled with God so much during that time. I felt so confused how He could heal me and be so faithful in one area and then completely drop us in the next. I remember just praying “help” because I could not utter another word.  I was so weary and hurting from losing my precious babies. About a year later – we finally got the courage to try again. This time…. THIS time….  God gave us a precious baby girl.


Ainsley Paige Musser. Her name means “a clearing in the woods.”  And let me tell you…. That she is! She is 15 months now 

She is a constant reminder to me that even when we shake our fists at God and wrestle Him in the depths…. He never changes. He is GOOD. Even in the hardship. I don’t understand His ways. I just don’t. But I do know that if we hadn’t experienced great loss  - Ainsley may not be here today. And she is supposed to be here. To be a part of our earthly family. And my heavenly babies?  I can’t wait to hug them in Heaven. I often ask God to tell them how much I love them.  

Life is just not easy. But through the hardships and pain – God comes through. Maybe not in the same way for each person. But He is there walking with us. Even when we cannot see Him. When we do not understand His ways – We can always trust His unchanging heart!