Chords for HOPE: Keith & Tasha

_ _ I'm Tasha and [A] this is Keith [D] and this is our story. _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ For the entire time we've been married we've known we really want to have kids.
And one of the difficult things about that desire is that I've known for [G] probably eight years now
[D] that having kids for me was going to be a difficult thing.
_ [D] And that's been way harder than I really ever expected.
It affected me way more than I _ [C] could have [G] dreamed it would.
When I saw friends and family [D] who would have trouble conceiving a child I thought,
man [Em] that's hard.
But I didn't realize how hard that it would affect my self-esteem,
it would [G] affect things I thought about [D] myself,
even really what God might think about me.
That what did I do to deserve [Em] to not be able to have a kid and to be a father?
And I really didn't know what to do with that.
[G] _ So [D] when we got married _ I knew this about [Bm] Keith's story and _ _ [G] we talked about adoption.
_ And we were looking forward to that.
_ _ But I also felt like we were going to have a child of our own [D] too.
And some kind of miraculous thing was going to happen.
You know when Tasha would hope, _ _ when she would express how [D] she thought we were still going to have
biological children ourselves, _ that stung.
You know, hoping for that and [C] in a lot of ways giving up hope.
_ _ [D] To have someone hope for you, it's like, hold on, you don't know what I know.
And yet she kept hoping.
_ And really Tasha's hope [C] for me _ was painful at [D] first, _
but she was lifting her hands up on my behalf.
[Em] And I began to hope something different too and began to [G] trust God in a different way.
And really [D] had no idea if anything would change, but still had hope.
I had new hope.
[Em] And that was because of you.
So I just held on to that.
And at the beginning of [G] 2016 _ [D] we wrote down all the goals that we had for the year.
[Bm] I looked at our list and I just said, _ [G] I just heard so [D] clearly, you don't need my help for any of this.
[Bm] Just heard God say, you don't need my help for [G] any of this.
You can do all of this on your own.
And [D] so we re-evaluated our list and decided that we were going to come up with some things
that if they didn't happen it [C] would sting. _ _
And the three [D] things that we came up with were a new house, _ [Em] _ a trip to Africa for Keith,
because I love Africa and I felt like he [G] would understand me more.
[D] Going to Africa, my happy place.
_ And then a child.
_ _ We had [Em] pretty much just _ let Africa just be something that was written down on a list.
We had done nothing to pursue it, [D] nothing to move something forward.
It was just something that was a goal [Bm] that we just kind of left there.
[G] This summer we got a call and it was from a friend, Brad.
He asked us if we could go to Uganda and teach at the Wotota Worship Camp.
And we were like, [E] sign us up, we're going!
We end up teaching music and worship at this camp with [Bm] 15 other musicians. _ _ _
[G] And it was just awesome.
We had a really great time.
These kids were just _ [G] really amazing. So talented.
So talented.
Just totally unexpected.
_ _ [E] That was not the most unexpected thing that happened _ _ on that trip.
_ [D] _ _ So for about 10 years I've had this chronic back pain, lower back pain,
that would kind of come and go with intensity.
But one night we were leading worship and my back was just really _ writhing with pain.
So I got on my [G] knees and truth be told I was partially just trying to find a position that wouldn't hurt.
_ _ [D] _
But in kind of a symbolic act I took my trumpet, [D] which I was playing that night,
and I put it in front of me and just started praying. _ _ _
_ [E] And in an instant my back pain [C] went away.
_ _ _ [D] _ [F#] It's the kind of thing you hear of and it's almost funny that it happened in [G] Africa
because those are kind of the stories you hear of being in Africa maybe and getting healed.
Those are kind of the stories you hear.
But _ _ instantly there was no back pain.
And that didn't happen to me.
I have back pain.
That's the [Am] truth of my life is that I have back [C] pain.
And it instantly went away.
And [G] so I'm sitting on the ground trying to move my back into a position that would make it hurt again.
[E] And I start crying.
I couldn't believe this.
Had God really just done _ this in my life? _
Even if it was just for an instant.
_ But it wasn't.
[D] To this day my back is [D] still not hurt.
Not once. _
_ _ _ _ So we've had doctors tell us that Keith's infertility had to do with his back injury.
And _ [G] so after he was healed that night, [G] _ they _ prayed for [D] us that we'd be able to have a child.
And _ when we got back, we moved into our [C] new house, which was our [G] other thing on the list.
_ [D] And we were moving in and Keith was lifting [Em] all these boxes.
And I was like, is your back okay?
And he was like, it's totally fine.
It's never [G] felt better.
I [D] felt like a real man that day.
Like moving the entire box.
Yeah, so then in December we [Em] went to lunch with the pastor.
_ And we were telling him just all the great things that had [G] happened during the year.
[D] And also talking about the hard things.
Because it was a [Bm] really difficult year too.
Keith lost his grandfather.
[G] And just had a lot of things happen that were unexpected. _
_ And we were mentioning that we're two for three.
That we had [D] got a new house.
That we were both able to go to Africa.
_ And then, you know, we're just waiting on this baby to show up.
I wasn't waiting on the baby.
I figured God had done two out of three.
That's really awesome.
And I was going to give a lot of thanks for that.
That was [C] going to be really awesome.
But the unique thing about that conversation [D] is that Tasha was already pregnant.
_ Yeah, I was like, _ there's still two weeks out of the year.
And I was already pregnant.
So, _ it was amazing.
_ [D] All three of the things that we wrote down that we knew, [Em] if they didn't happen,
it would really hurt in some way or another.
[G] That all of them happened.
_ And that's been the story for us. _
_ _ Our pain has been [Em] our deliverance.
It's not the lack of pain that has turned into beautiful things.
It's the painful [G] things that God has turned into.
Giant testaments of His love for us.
His [Bm] willingness for us to come to Him with specific [G] things, specific needs,
[D] and truly like specific desires.
Things that [G] just I wanted in my heart that [G] on some level almost felt selfish.
I just wanted to be a father.
[E] That was really where that wanted to come from.
I wanted to be some child's [D] dad.
And to have taken that to God and been vulnerable with Him.
And to have Him have come back and given so freely like a father does.
What I love about it is that God didn't just give us [G] a baby.
We could have adopted a baby or stolen one somewhere.
_ _ [D] _ We would have gotten one somehow.
But _ [D] I love that He healed the thing that was causing it to begin with.
He [E] went and provided wholeness and healing, not just what we wanted.
_ [Bm] _ _
[G] We just wanted to share our story because we know a lot of people who have struggled with infertility.
_ Even just believing [D] God for things that seem out of reach.
And have been waiting a long time [C] for things to happen.
And losing hope.
_ [G]
We just want to say don't lose hope. _ _ _ _
_ _ [Em] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _