Wait? What? Down Syndrome? In a moment life was changed forever…again. As we listened to the midwife and nurse speak, our hearts sank. The world froze. It was in a moment when it felt as if all the peace we had quickly turned to uncertainty. The midwife and nurse left us to process. Right before we were getting ready to pack up and head out. Now here we are. Still. Anxious. Unsure. Confused.

Seconds being left alone, we began to weep. We will never forget that moment for the rest of our lives. We will never forget holding our daughter in our arms and embracing each other as our tears found their way to our newborn girl who is to now face a life of down syndrome. It’s in those opportunities of life you realize what is inside of a human. You realize what they truly love. What they truly believe. Who they really are. Where they find hope. It was almost as if we had lost the very life God just gave us. Everything was drastically different. Our hearts, broken and confused, began to bless the Lord. We knew nowhere to go but Him. We could only run to Him as our refuge. The compassionate One. The one who created our tears. The one who sovereignly anticipated comforting the very tears we were crying since creation. The one who creates and sustains all of life. He is our Hope. He is our Rock.

Fortunately, God was so merciful to have immediate family in town from the second Shiloh was born. As I walked to the waiting room, with the heavy news in my heart, I asked my family to come back to the room so we could share something. It was in that split second I caught eyes with my mom. I knew she knew. Tears were inevitable as we all hugged and cried our way back to Maria and Shiloh. Grieving what we knew was lost and yet somehow weeping tears of joy, knowing God had such a great purpose in it all. God’s grace had never been so evident in our lives before. Through the confusion and pain we declared His goodness and walked in truth.

Now we want to share our hearts after two weeks of processing. crying. laughing. praying. worshipping. We realize without clearly communicating our hearts we are not serving you well and empowering some of our closest friends and family to both love us and even more, to love God. We have been learning so much from the Father. We are in awe of His kindness. Our hearts of full of hope as we reflect on the beauty of Jesus. Our lives are so rich with the nearness of Holy Spirit. We would never want anything to be different. It’s amazing to have the grace to already start seeing God’s purposes in our family.

What we ask of anyone who reads our story is to examine your own heart. What we ask is for you to not have pity on Shiloh or us. What we ask is for you to have pity on yourself. We live in a society that exalts physical appearance and intellectualism. We live in a society that finds its hope in vain ideas of success and acceptance. We ask as you read our story and the many chapters to follow, that you would know God more. That you would repent of your sins. That you would come to know what love is. what the Kingdom is all about. How God feels about you simply for who you are and nothing you’ve done or could do. That you would realize true beauty is found in the Most High. We pray you would not look at Shiloh as the one diseased, but yourself. Oh God have mercy on us that it would take a disabled human or the next dying cancer patient for us to groan for Your coming! For you to return and make all the wrong things right. As if we are okay and clean. As if we are not sick and don’t need healing. So we yearn for the hope we have at the resurrection. Not for Shiloh’s sake. But for our own. For we are all in need of healing and wholeness. Jesus’ promise to return and restore is all we have. Shiloh just gets to join in on the groan we’ve all been missing.

Shiloh is not hear to learn. She’s here to teach. She’s here to show us what the Kingdom of God is about. She’s here to teach us the Father’s heart and His joy for His people. Whether Shiloh grows to live on her own, graduate college and work a full-time job. Or whether she is never able to accomplish anything our society finds identity in. Whether she out lives us or we out live her. We rejoice! We rejoice in the life God has sustained and given to the world. We rejoice in the fact none of us are promise life and the life we have is a vapor. We rejoice that our hope is secure in the one who gives life eternal. We rejoice that He uses the foolish things to shame the wise. We rejoice that God cares more about us loving Him and bringing him glory than our own comforts. God teach us to love. Teach us to love what matters and to repent of the idolatry we’ve deceived ourselves into believing and finding false hope in.

We hope you are challenged as we have been. We hope you rejoice as we rejoice in the precious gift Shiloh is. We hope you love in a deeper way as the Father deeply loves us. We pray you will bless God for his goodness and leadership. We pray you will walk in more compassion for what our society says is a waste and to tune your hearts to what God says is worth living for. This is our family! This is our ministry! These are the days we’ve been longing for!

Romans 11:36 – For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

Here we are. Attempting to articulate into words the very heart of God. Attempting to articulate a story of a beautiful addition. Attempting to articulate the gospel at its most raw form. As you are aware, our beautiful gift, Shiloh Grace arrived on the scene January 15th, 2012 early in the morning. (She’s an early bird like her papa). What a journey it’s been so far. Today is the two-week mark of celebrating God’s kindness and celebrating life.

Driving to the birthing center at 2:30 am our hearts were eager to see the daughter we’ve prayed about, thought about, and stayed up talking about. We drove through the quiet streets of south Kansas City headed towards the place our lives would be forever changed. After arriving (before our midwife) to the birthing center we labored in the parking lot. In the quiet. In the dark. In the cold. With God. It was one of the most beautiful moments we’ve experienced together.

Once the midwife arrived the doors were opened, the lights turned on and our spirits at peace. This was it. This was the moment. As our minds scrambled to remember the words from the birth classes, the books, the wisdom from friends and family we were struck with the reality that this was the day we would stare at the face of our firstborn. As a father, this is the day a face would be given to the mental pictures of daddy/daughter dates. As a mother, this was the day the warm little body dreamed of cuddling with would become a reality. As parents, this was the day we would kiss the lips of the one who would soon call us mama and papa. The emotions are truly indescribable.

We labored for only about three hours once setting ourselves up in our room. As Maria began to face the hardest moments in her life all we could do was pray and serve her in any way. It was in these moments the heart of the Father was manifested in a deeper way. As I watched my beautiful wife suffer pain and agony, I could only hang on to the promise of it producing life. It was in these moments I felt the heart of God as He watched Jesus endure the suffering and agony that had to be endured to produce the promise of life. As Maria’s spirit man cried for the help of God, instantly the Spirit of God filled the room and she began to uncontrollably pray out in tongues and pain began to decrease in her body. She knew her prayers were of thanksgiving and worship. We both began to cry from the nearness of God in the darkest moments. He really never leaves us.

Moments later it happened. Shiloh Grace was here. We no longer had to rub a belly to feel little legs kicking back and forth. We were staring at them. We heard the cry of our child. We smelled the fragrance of her skin. Maria did it. We did it. God did it. Life was sustained since conception and life was ordained to be in our arms that beautiful morning. As the sun began to rise we would soon leave that room with our child. Hours before leaving and headed home to start our family fresh, we received the news…

Shiloh Grace Tenery was born with down syndrome. (continued in part two)

Well, life at the Tenery’s is simple, yet very eventful!  Oh how I enjoy waking up every morning to Kyle Tenery, packing our lunches, making breakfast, reading God’s word, and enjoying my beloved before we split our ways.  It’s always so hard to leave him. It always leaves me thinking “I must think of a family business, so we can work it together and be with each other all the time!”  So I have been asking our Lord to give me a business idea!  Nothing yet, but when it comes, I will share with the world!

We of course are preparing for our first little one to come into the world January 27th, so they say.  Having a baby is work yet most great things come with lots of work.  Being pregnant is the most unusual road I have ever experienced and I am only at the beginning of motherhood! I love it!

The only thing that could make it better is a good book. Luckily Mr. Postman knew we were making chili tonight! Yep! The new treasure has arrived. Tim Keller just put out a new book with his wife entitled “The Meaning of Marriage.” It’s so refreshing to read from men who make you feel more like a human and not a disney character. Praise God for real love. The kind that is hard. The kind that sanctifies. The kind that makes you cry. You know, the bible kind. Marriage is beautiful.

I re-created my early morning coffee mug today as a reminder. Ha. It’s little reminders like this that keep me focused on Christ’s love for me. It’s little mugs like this that keep me focused on the gospel and its power to transform.

I think I talked Maria into typing a post tomorrow so look out. Goodnight beautiful friends and family. Grace and Peace!

The Owl

The Early Bird

Much Love to you today. Grace and Peace!

Our heart as a family is to faithfully proclaim and lead people to the cross of Christ. It is our only hope. It is our mission. It is our ministry. We pray this blog will encourage you as you live with us in our struggles and our victories through God’s grace. It is our hope that you will look to the One who is capable of sustaining you. We recognize our ministry to the world as our poor, broken and sinful marriage carried by the strength of Christ and not our own. We look not to create idolatry for people to imitate a “successful” marriage but to look to God alone who creates, sustains, and builds families through his redemption. He is a good good Father and He loves His children!

We look forward to sharing our lives with you! Grace and Peace!