In May of 2022, at age 41, I found myself staring in joyful shock at a positive pregnancy test. My husband (age 47 at the time) and I were thrilled to have this unexpected surprise enter into our family in roughly 9 months. We separately thought we were having a girl and that her name should be MonaJean in honor of our mothers who are no longer with us.
Our joys were met with terrible sorrows, though, as we watched our barely-three-week-old daughter take her last breath far too soon in life. Her life was robbed by a chromosomal abnormality, trisomy 18.
It’s an experience I would never ask to walk through again, but it was a life-changing, faith-solidifying, worship-inducing kind of gift. God used MonaJean’s life to open up my eyes to His goodness wrapped in the package of suffering.
You can read more about her life through the tab where I’ve posted many of our caringbridge posts. I’ll probably write more about her in this space, but if you’re here for the first time, just know the brief life of our daughter is one of the things God used to prompt me to worship Him more deeply than I ever have before. He has purpose even in a life we would define as “too short.” He brings beauty from ashes. Joy from sorrow.
Worship Opportunities 