today

The message this morning was so amazingly applicable! Tom, our Sunday School pastor was talking about joy amidst trials and struggles - wow!!! He might as well of said that this is for the Castro family, but why don't the rest of you listen in! I'm sure that there are many others in our group who are going through their own trials, this just happened to hit so close to home for us.

I Peter 1:3-6

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials

Tom was saying that Christians can greatly rejoice because of three things found in this text:
1) God grants us joy

2) God guarantees joy

3) God guards joy

We have seen, first hand, God showing His mercy to us and we have been able to experience true, lasting joy.

I've been thinking much about trials and what God gives to us and was thinking about Job - a precious man from the Bible - he was a wealthy man, he had a wonderful family, had many animals - by the world's standard he "had it all" - in a moment it was all taken from him!! Job 1:20-22 (after finding out all that he had was gone) "Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. And he said, 'Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.' In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong." At the end of chapter 2 (verses 9&10) he says this: "Then his wife said to him, 'Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die.' But he said to her, 'You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?' In all this Job did not sin with his lips."

The example of Job has been an amazing one! He is right - why should we only expect good from God? God is good, but without trials we wouldn't know what we really believed! We can say that we love God and believe that there is a God, but when you walk through fire that is when you have to "put your money where your mouth is" so to speak!

Do you know what you believe? Why do you believe it? Many people believe in God - do you know that James 2:19 says You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe - and shudder.

If I have learned anything from the life and death of our son, it is that there is no time like the present to make yourselves right before God Almighty, Creator, Redeemer, and Saviour!

Jude 24-25

Now to him sho is able to keep you from stunbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

grace and joy

When I started my blog last year I decided to name it after my girls . . . little did we know that their middle names would be so meaningful!! God was gracious to give them to us and they have provided immense joy . . . but today, those names have so much meaning - more than I could have ever imagined. According to dictionary.com grace means "the freely given, unmerited favor and love of God" and joy means "the emotion of great delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying; keen pleasure; elation". It is because of the grace that God has bestowed upon us that we are able to express true joy through the loss of our son, Jackson.

In the past two weeks, actually since we found out about Jackson's initial heart condition, we have been asked how we are doing - our answer has varied slightly - today we have moments that are harder than others and moments that are really good, moments of joy and moments of tears, but all in all we are doing good! I was talking to a friend today and she was asking how we were doing and before I could fully answer she said probably as good as can be expected and I thought for a second and said no, I think we are doing better than that - only because we have hope in God. Our Jackson is not here, but he is perfect with Our Lord, the Creator of all things - the Creator of sweet Jackson!!!

I got a call yesterday morning from my doctor, Dr. Frields. It was two weeks from meeting our son. He called to tell us that he had just received the preliminary report from the autopsy. He is still waiting for results from the heart and kidney, but what we did find out is that Jackson suffered from triplody - a condition where he had an additional set of chromosomes. If you think back to high school biology you will remember that we each have 46 chromosomes - if there is any variation in that there are liable to be some problems - well Jackson had 69 chromosomes!!! My doctor said that babies with triplody don't usually make it past the first trimester and rarely survive outside of the womb for very long. I am grateful that our son survived as long as he did and that we were able to meet him - it was not how I had wanted to meet him, but there is something very comforting to this mama to have a face and a name attached to this precious baby in heaven!

You can ask us how we are doing - you may get tears, but that's ok with me! I love to talk about my sweet little boy and would love to share his footprints with you. Thank you for praying for us - we are completely overwhelmed at God's goodness. Jeremiah 29:11 says, 'For I know the plans that I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. God's Word is true - I can tell you first hand that when He promises to never give His children more than they can handle - He means it - so, I know that His plan is to give me a future and a hope! That is AWESOME!! Unlike me, what God says He WILL do - I may flake on you, I may forget, I will disappoint you, but GOD NEVER WILL!!

All that to say, it is because of God's grace that we have joy - true joy!!!

a week . . .

Yesterday, it was a week - a week from meeting our first son and saying goodbye to him. It was quite a day, October 10th, 2008 - and one week later we are still being carried by Our Precious Lord and Savior! I know, without a doubt, that there is NO WAY on earth we could have gone through the past week without God sustaining us, without your prayers! God is good! I cannot say it enough and yet I don't want it to become trite, but HE IS GOOD to His children!!!

We have been blessed beyond measure - we have two beautiful little girls, I have a wonderful husband who is so caring and loving, we have family who has surrounded us, and we have tremendous friends. Over the last week we have received meals, flowers, cards, phone calls, emails, and hugs - thank you seems so insufficient for the immense gratitude we have for all of your thoughtfulness. Thank you, thank you, thank you for loving us and our family so much - we are blessed and tremendously grateful! We pray that God will bless you richly for being so compassionate towards us! I honestly wish that we weren't the recipients of such kindness right now - that would mean that we were still awaiting the birth of our precious son, but we know that God had other plans for Jackson - we know that with our heads, but our hearts still ache for him. My arms ache to hold a little boy - I will have to wait to get to heaven to see my precious son - I know he is with Our Lord God Creator, but I selfishly want him here!

Lamentations 3:21-23
But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
"The Lord is my portion," says my soul, "therefore I will hope in him."

We love the Seeds family worship cd's and my girls love the song "Crushed" - I LOVE the verses

Psalm 34:18-19
The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.
Many are the afflictions on the righteous,
but the Lord delivers him out of them all!

God alone has seen us through this week and will continue to carry us through the weeks ahead, He alone deserves the glory and honor for any strength that we may show. Because of Him we have been able to take Ellie to school, go to the market, go to the pumpkin patch, and do other relatively normal things. I am so grateful for our girls who "force us" to continue with a somewhat normal schedule.



We had a great surprise yesterday, God was good to plan it for then. We were going to have lunch with our friend Joyce and her two precious daughters Jessie (Ellie calls her Princess Jessie) and Amanda - we were looking forward to seeing them and hugging them - Ellie could hardly wait she was so excited. They came and along with them they brought a HUGE surprise - our dear friends, Walter and Carol Crutchfield and their daughter Rachel - I was blown away - they had flown in from Arizona to see us!! I still can't believe that they were here! It was good - I needed that - I needed to see them, hug them, and cry with them. They have had a tremendous impact upon my life over the past 20+ years. Thank you guys for coming - it was just what we needed!!! I could never fully nor properly express how much I love all of you! God knew that I would need you guys yesterday - yet another show of His loving faithfulness to His children!!! GOD IS SO GOOD!!!

Ephesians 3:20-21
Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think,
according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in
Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Jackson Christopher

I don't want to forget a single thing from the last few days and at the same time I wish they had never occurred - Flavio told my mom Friday evening, "this was one of the most difficult days of my life....but I wouldn't trade this one for anything."

I don't journal, but I do blog, so this is probably more for me than anyone else . . . so please bear with me as a mother shares the birth of her precious son, perfect, complete, lacking in nothing!

Thurday, October 9th was our follow-up appointment for the perinatologist, we were, naturally, running late :o). It was Flavio, Lily and I, my mom had taken Ellie to school and was going to work in her classroom for me since we had this appointment. God had been preparing my heart in some way - I knew that there was something wrong. I had even toldFlavio the night before that I just felt like something wasn't right - I couldn't put my finger on it, but there was something amiss. . . little did we know. We were ushered in to the doctor's office and sat on the table to prepare for the ultrasound. As soon as he started I KNEW something was wrong - if you have ever seen an ultrasound picture - there is movement - we saw none, but he didn't say anything - he went about taking a few measurements - I couldn't really see the numbers, but I could tell that they seemed to be off from how far along I was. Then he measured the femur - it was measuring about 19 weeks . . . I knew that wasn't right - I even asked Dr. Mullins, "did that say 19 weeks?". At that point he asked if he could speak to me alone, since we had Lily, again I KNEW something was really wrong. I can't remember if he said it first or if I did, but it was apparent that there wasn't a heartbeat! I was completely at a loss for words. It is one thing to "think something is wrong" and a complete other to KNOW something is wrong!!! We knew that this was a possibility, but again, not the same when it actually happens! It was a feeling I pray I will never have to know again!!! The doctor eventually asked if it wasok to bring my husband and baby back in - he was very sensitive to the fact that Lily was with us - I thought that was very thoughtful! I toldFlavio - we cried!! Up to this point we didn't know the sex of our sweet baby, I wanted to know, NOW! Dr. Mullins told us what I had expected, it was a little boy! That was hard!!! I love my girls to no end, but the thought of a son was just . . . heartbreaking!!!! I desired a sweet little boy, but know that God needed our precious Jackson more than we did is of immense comfort! The doctor asked what we wanted to do - we said that we wanted to see Dr.Frields (my OB) as soon as possible - he wouldn't let us leave his office until he had spoken with Dr. Frields - he just wanted to make sure that Dr. Frields and his office were aware of what was going on and would usher us immediately in.

We left in a haze! And yet, there was always the grace of God around us - I can't tell you when or how, but we knew that God was supporting us through this! I was immediately thankful that God had, in some small way, prepared me. He is so gracious!!

Dr. Mullins' office is at St. Joseph's in Burbank so we got in our cars (Flavio was going to go straight to work after the appt.) and Flav headed down Alameda - I wasn't so sure what he was doing - he found a shopping center, left his car there so he could be with me and Lily! I was so thankful for that! I didn't want to drive to Glendale Adventist Medical Center (GAMC) by myself and I suppose he didn't either! We had talked before about what to name our baby and once we found out that he had a heart condition and may be in need of some help I had toldFlav that it was really important to me that our baby's name meant something - so on the way to
GAMC I told Flav that I wanted to find out what name meant something along the lines of a gift from God.

We arrived at Dr. Frields' office - if you know anything about him he is an excellent doctor and therefore he is BUSY (understatement of the century) - they were so kind and rushed us right in so we didn't have to wait with everyone else. Our doctor came in - we talked - He is one of the many gifts that God granted us! What a blessing to have a doctor who fears God! He told us to go over the Labor and Delivery where we would get started on all the things that were to take place.

God took care of EVERY detail - things that we would have never thought of - one was in the form of Flavio's best friend Jon. Jon and his family moved to Chicago a few years back - he was here for two days on business, Wednesday and Thursday!!! That was not a coincidence!!! God planned that - my husband needed his dear friend! Along with Jon, Heath came by - what a blessing to have these dear friends by our side at this time - we did our fair share of laughing and crying together! We love them so dearly!

Another precious gift was our nurse on Thursday - Bethany! She had been one of my nurses with Lily - her husband is studying to be a pastor and attends The Master's Seminary! Again, not coincidental that she had had to call in sick on both of her regular days because her little girl wasn't feeling well and when they asked her to come in on Thursday she was available! She was awesome!!

Because I had delivered Ellie Grace via c-section and Lily was a vbac (vaginal birth after cesarean) we had a choice to make - how was I going to deliver? (Side note - in the state of California if you deliver after 20 weeks it is considered a stillborn - we had a lot to learn.) This was a rather difficult decision to make - do we take the one that would result in a quick birth and yet have a long recovery or do we take the potentially longer approach of inducing labor (this could take anywhere from 6 hours to 3 days!) with the shorter recovery. Flavio was up for the c-section he didn't want to see me in any pain and wanted to "be done" and move on to the next step - I was torn! I could see his side, but I didn't really want to have to endure the after effects of major surgery. My dad had the idea that we should start with the induction and see what happened - my doctor had said we could change our minds at any time if we wanted - so that seemed to be the way to go. After about an hour or so of deliberating we asked our sweet nurse, Bethany, to order up the medication and get the anesthesiologist here ASAP! Under the circumstances I wanted to feel NO pain!!!

Again, we could see God's grace abounding! My cousin, Susan, who is really more like my sister and best friend, was able to be there the entire time - she and her husband have five children - her parents and brother and sister-in-law and nephews were in Europe leaving her with no babysitter - until she called her husband and found out that he was on his way home for the day and going to be home on Friday as well!!! Is God awesome or what?!?!?! She was with us the entire time!

One of the most precious moments during this entire time was right before our baby was born - Dr. Frields had said it would be about 30 minutes longer - my parents, Susan, and Flavio gathered around me and my dad prayed - a precious prayer from a father watching his daughter and son-in-law go through something so excruciating and the prayer of a sweet grandfather waiting to meet his grandson - that was a special time! Susan began singing "How Great Thou Art" - a time that I will treasure in my heart forever!

On Friday, October 10th at about 2:15pm we welcomed our first son Jackson Christopher Castro! He was, in our eyes, PERFECT! He had ten fingers and ten perfect tiny toes! He was PERFECT! He was 9 1/2 inches long and weighed 10 ounces. He was a tiny, perfectly put together little boy!

We are grateful to Our God and Father for giving us 5 1/2 months with our Little Jackson and praise Him that he is running on streets of gold rather than suffering here on earth!

This was awesome . . . Flavio had liked the name Jackson - I had constantly said it was too popular! I knew that the name "jackson" meant "son of Jack", but get this - Jack is derived from John and guess what John means??? Given by God! So amazing! See, God took care of EVERY detail! And Christopher means Christ Bearer! His name seemed so perfect! God planned this pregnancy and not us! We weren't planning to get pregnant at that time, but God's ways are higher than ours - His plan is perfect!!

I am sure that I have forgotten some things - maybe another blessing from the Lord!

We don't quite know how to thank all of you who have been and continue pray for us, who have called, emailed, sent text messages, or come in person - you have a special place in our hearts and are so grateful for each and every one of you! What a gift you are to our family!

Psalm 139:13-16
For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there were none of them.

We do not know why God chose to take our son home with Him, but we DO know that His ways are higher than ours and that He gave us our little Jackson as a gift, for a time! Our prayer is that, if you do not have a personal relationship with the God of the Universe, Almighty God, that YOU WOULD!!! Life is short and we have but one opportunity, this lifetime, to choose to serve God or not to! If you choose not to serve God then your eternity is bleak! It is separation from a merciful God and it is eternity in Hell! If you choose to know God, honor God, serve God, have a relationship with God, then your eternity is bright! It is an eternity in Heaven! John 3:16 is clear that God sent His one and only son, Jesus Christ, to this earth to die for OUR sins - yes, ALL OF OUR SINS! We are all sinners! Romans tells us that we have all sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God! We all deserve death, but God, in His graciousness, sent His son, Jesus, as our sacrifice - to take away OUR sins! That is awesome! There could be nothing greater than to know because of our sons death you have questioned your eternity and chosen to make Jesus Christ the Lord of your life! If you have ANY questions about the Word of God and what it has to say about your eternity we would be honored to talk to you!

Romans 11:33-36

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscurtable his ways!
"For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?"
"Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?"
For from him and through him and to him are all things.
TO HIM BE THE GLORY FOREVER. AMEN.

Romans 8:28
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

Thank you for praying for our family!

Castro Family Update

Hello, this is Lynn Leonard with an update on my precious friends, the Castro family. Yesterday Flavio, Michelle, and Lily went to the perinatologist for their next scheduled visit. During this visit, the doctor told them that the baby no longer had a heartbeat. After hearing this sad news, they waited to meet with Dr. Frields. Since Michelle is 5 1/2 months pregnant, she will have to deliver the baby. She was induced last night at Glendale Adventist at around 9:00 pm. As of right now (Friday afternoon), she has not yet delivered, and is progressing slowly but surely.

Even though they are obviously grieving, it was absolutely amazing to hear them talk yesterday. Michelle spoke a lot about the peace she had from the Lord and just the assurance that God is in control, even in this. She was rejoicing in the fact that their little baby boy is already in Heaven with Jesus, and "the streets in Heaven are so much more wonderful than the streets down here!" (her words!) It is evident that they want to use this sad and unexpected situation to bring glory to God by recognizing that their comfort and strength is through Him alone. It was such a testimony and an example to me and I know it will be to many others too.

Please pray that Michelle's delivery will go quickly and as pain-free as possible. The doctor was supposed to be giving her another dose of the inducing medication this afternoon to help speed up the process. Please keep them in your prayers as they go through the next few days. Also please pray for their little girls, Ellie and Lily, as it will probably be difficult for them to understand, but again, Flavio and Michelle are such an example of God's grace and strength to them too.

Psalm 62:1-2 "For God alone my soul waits in silence; from Him comes my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken."

39 years!!!!!!!

Today is my parents' 39th Wedding Anniversary! They have been a tremendous example to us of Godliness, faithfulness, devotion, love, and so much more! We are so blessed to have wonderful role models!

We love you mom and dad! Thanks for letting us help you celebrate your anniversary in Lone Pine - nothing but the best for you guys!!!!