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PERFECT TIMING

Watermark: Cradling Hope

By Zsa Zsa Palagyi
The 700 Club

CBN.comLISA RYAN: Let me ask you about a season in your marriage that might have been a little more painful.

CHRISTY NOCKELS: We started trying to have a family in 1999–it was January of ’99–and we didn’t really think through things. I think I was pretty much controlling over it–you know, I had all the days counted out, and this is when we should get pregnant, and he’ll be this age when we do this, and I’ll be this age. We lost that first baby at 7 weeks, and it was very painful physically, actually. I had to go into the emergency room, and Nathan drove all night in an ice storm to get back to me. I was just terrified. I just couldn’t imagine. My doctor in Houston was not very understanding and wasn’t really explaining anything to me. He was like, 'Oh, this is common. One out of every three pregnancies is a miscarriage' and was just really matter-of-fact about it.

LISA RYAN: So many women experience miscarriage and yet we talk about it so little. It’s like what your doctor did, 'Oh, it happens. It’s natural. It’s really for the best' and then almost go on like nothing happened. Yet you’re dealing with a huge loss–loss of a dream, loss of that knowledge of life within you–and there’s a grieving that has to take place.

CHRISTY NOCKELS: It was so hard for me. I think I had a harder time with it, with the first one, because I really think it was all so new anyway to Nathan that I don’t think it really hit him as hard as it did me the first time. Then it took us a little while to get pregnant again, but again I was just, 'OK, we’re going to try again. We’re going to get pregnant.' I got pregnant in July of ’99 and lost that baby in late September. That one really hit Nathan.

NATHAN NOCKELS: It was kind of like out of bounds and out of my hands. I felt like all I could do was pray. All I could do was to tell God, 'God, help us through this. I don't know what to do.' It was a really dark time, but at the same time it is strange because I look back on that and I remember that being a very spiritually enlightening, very bright light time. I think it was because everything was stripped away, just like that, and there was nothing except for us and God.

CHRISTY NOCKELS: We’ve experienced grief for the first time and learned about that process, but I think through grief, God just showed me some places in my life that I needed to surrender. I needed to surrender control over timing and when we were going to have a child. Now I look at Noah and I think I’d never have Noah. God’s timing is perfect and ours isn’t. He’s in control of when our bodies don’t do what they’re supposed to and our fragile little bodies don’t work. He’s in control of that. I look at Noah and he’s just such a blessing.

LISA RYAN: What has God taught you about Himself and about yourselves through Noah, through this little tiny person?

NATHAN NOCKELS: He’s moving out of baby and getting into toddler, and we’re getting into discipline stuff for the first time. It’s just scary. We get irritated with him, like, 'Noah, you need to listen to Mommy and Daddy the first time. Listen the first time.' We can just hear God saying, 'Nathan and Christy, I just need you to listen (laughter), to obey the first time.'

LISA RYAN: The first time.

NATHAN NOCKELS: The first time (laughter).

LISA RYAN: Obedience, kids.

NATHAN NOCKLES: Oh yeah.

LISA RYAN: You see the heart of God when you begin to parent.

CHRISTY NOCKELS: It’s just like the unconditional love thing. It’s like you start understanding that. We can’t possibly have the unconditional love that He has, obviously, but I do know that there’s nothing that Noah could do to make me love him any less. I know how God feels about me, probably for the first time.


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