Jay and I married in June of 2003 and were living in seminary housing since Jay still had 1 1/2 years of Mid-America left. We were hoping to have children after about 2 years (after Jay graduated) so I was on the "pill." I had been on them for about 6 months or so when I had a very rare occurrence happen. We were on staff at Longview Heights at the time and were teaching seniors in high school and were getting out of the car at church when all of a sudden one of my eyes got extremely fuzzy looking and I could only see out of the other. It is kinda like when you get up really fast and you kinda black out for a second and then it comes back....except mine didn't come back. Not after 2 minutes, 2 hours or 2 days. After lots of phone calls and deliberation about what to do...since it was Labor Day weekend and no one was open, we were getting really worried. Jay prays about what to do and then within minutes, pulls out the phone book and is just going to start calling eye doctors. The first number he dials is an eye doctor in Olive Branch and he "just happened" to answer his phone because he was moving into his new office that day. By the way, it was no coincidence. It was definitely a God thing. Jay told him of our situation and he told us to immediately come up there and that he would check it out. We arrived within minutes and he started looking into my eyes. After several tests, he basically (long story short) told me that I had had a stroke in my eye due to the pill. I was to get off of them that day and NEVER take them again. SO i did. He gave me some drops, saw me every 2 days for weeks and told me I had a VERY slim chance that I would ever see again in that eye. After several weeks my sight was not only back, but my vision was BETTER than it was prior to this happening and before the stroke, I had 20/20! I now could see at 40 feet what others saw at 20! God totally healed my eye and proved once again that He is the ultimate physician.
All that to say that it wasn't very long (about 5-6 months later)...we had only been married 8 months, that we found out we had a sweet little baby on the way. We were shocked, yet thrilled about the Lord giving us such a gift and blessing. Excuse the bluntness here....but I was working at EPMS and was talking to a good friend of mine on my team (Lori) and mentioned to her that I was a day "late." She immediately said, "have you taken a PG test?" I said, "NO! I am only a day late!" She got all excited and said, "Let's go get one and you take it!" So we left school (during our planning period...shame on us) and went to Walgreens. I took the test in the school bathroom (yikes!) and put it in my pocket and went back to my classroom. When we got there, I handed it to her to look at because I couldn't do it! She immediately started screaming and yelling, "YOU'RE PREGNANT!" I started crying...excitedly in shock...and didn't have a clue to what to think or say. I knew I had to leave and tell Jay (he had no idea what was coming!). I left half-a-day and told Jay to come by the house on his way to work. When he walked in, I had the test in hand and balloons. He was of course just as shocked and excited as I!
Over time, after we found out it was a girl, we began looking at names and trying to pick one out (such a tough job)! We wanted something with a biblical meaning and Jay happened to be in Greek class in seminary at the time. We really liked the name Grace but so many people were named that so we wanted to stay away from it. Also, we felt that it was only God's grace and kindness that allowed me to regain sight and soon after, be pregnant with this child. So we looked up biblical names similar to Grace. The Greek name for Grace is "CHARIS." We loved it immediately but wanted to change the spelling. So we changed it to Karis and gave her the middle name Taylor (no significance we just liked it). Hence the name Karis Taylor Lemonds.
Karis, we are so thankful that God has given you to us and will cherish every moment He allows us to spend with you. We consider it a privilege to be able to be your parents and guide you in the Lord.
No comments:
Post a Comment