As Bobby and I prepare to break from blogging during this Christmas season, we want to extend our sincerest appreciation to all of you who have journeyed with us this past year.
Thank you for continuing to pour out your prayers and generous kindness to us as we have endured all of the difficult and painful “firsts” that have accompanied us in mourning the death of our son, Parker David Gilles, who was stillborn on October 21, 2012. Thank you for rejoicing with us as we celebrated his first birthday with a Resurrection Party at the cemetery where he is buried. Thank you for believing God with us and for us. Thank you for pointing us to Christ through your prayers and words of encouragement. Thank you for lending your hearts and tears in weeping with us for the brokenness of this dying world. Thank you for sharing in our family’s story and the waiting that we’re enduring even still.
God has been immeasurably gracious to us and we have been greatly comforted and experienced tremendous relief from the sadness and grief we felt in 2013. God has fought for us as we endured intense spiritual warfare in the aftermath of burying our son. God has sent His Word to silence our enemy time and time again.
Satan would have us resign our faith, suspend our work, and surrender our hope in God. But we have been encouraged to keep sowing the seeds that God has entrusted to us, the seeds of His kingdom. We have been reminded through His Word that those who sow in tears will reap with shouts of joy. Those who go out weeping, carrying their seed for sowing, will return singing with arms overflowing with the harvest (Psalm 126).
We have been humbled as we trust and remember that children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from Him (Psalm 127). We have heard Jesus say to us, “Satan has asked to sift you like wheat. But I have pleaded in prayer for you that your faith would not fail” (Luke 22:31-32). And as we’ve waited on the Lord, we have been strengthened with unfailing faith born of His great grace.
We are encouraged as we wrap up recording ten songs that God gave us in the last year. We are eager to share these worship songs with you, so stay tuned for more news about the April 1, 2014 release of this album.
In this Christmas season and the coming year, we invite and encourage you to continue hoping in the Lord with us as we all look forward with great longing for the return of our Savior King Jesus. As we wait, we will surely be confronted time and again with our vanquished foe. Let us remember that he is conquered by the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Our expectation must be in the Lord alone. Those who hope in Him will never be disappointed. We must rely on Him to give us strength here in the waiting for His sure and blessed return. He WILL come again and save us. Until then, we will not fear but will trust in the Lord and praise Him for what He has promised. Although we are weeping, we will keep on sowing for the day the Lord will reap the seeds of His Kingdom.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from our family to yours—we love and appreciate all of you!
“Those who wait for perfect weather will never plant seeds;
those who look at every cloud will never harvest crops.
You don’t know where the wind will blow,
and you don’t know how a baby grows inside the mother’s womb.
In the same way, you don’t know what God is doing, or how He created everything.
Plant early in the morning, and work until evening, because you don’t know if this or that will succeed. They might both do well.”
Ecclesiastes 11:4-6