I updated my About page — and thought I’d share with you my family’s testimony.
So here it goes

Hi. My name is Matt Higgins.

I grew up in the church, quite literally.

My parents hosted a Bible study when I was an infant that eventually grew into a church. Most of my memories as a kid involved being at church while my parents were serving, having people at our home for Bible Studies or spending time as a part-time missionary kid in San Quentin, Mexico. I thought that was normal — to grow up with a family that served the Lord.

As a teenager, I went to a Christian high school and had the
benefit of being in a godly environment with some really great people.

In the college years — I half-heartedly attended a local community college (I eventually graduated) while playing with local bands and interning with a church as a youth worship pastor.

At 21, I married Jen. Together we began an incredible course of life
and ministry that would take us further and deeper into “the good land”(as Tozer puts it) than we would have dared to go on our own.

I think it really all started before we were married with two prayers:
One Jen prayed by Blaise Pascal:

Give to me, or take away from me, only conform my will to yours.

And something I often prayed (and continue to):

Lord, I don’t want your blessings — I want You.

And really out of those two prayers, God began a work in us.

It started shortly after we were married.
Jen was pregnant, and we were ecstatic.
Our son, Ethan, was to be born on October 22nd, 2002.

At first the pregnancy went well, but then complications arose.
The doctors closely monitored the pregnancy though and things
seemed to be going just fine.

On October 21st, Jen went to the doctor for the last check-up.
About 9am, she called me from the doctor’s office:
the fetal monitoring didn’t detect a heartrate.

We met at the hospital and the news was final — our son, who was
full term (due to be born the next day) was dead in the womb.

“Give to me, or take away from me, only conform my will to yours.”
“Lord, I don’t want your blessings — I want You. ”

God had taken our son from us — but was conforming and shaping our will to His.And from an outsider’s perspective we weren’t experiencing blessings at that moment- But in reality we were — because He had let us know Him in those moments.

Ultimately — we were blessed with a perspective on life and God that you can’t learn anywhere but tragedy.

So, with a solid foundation of tragedy, we plunged into youth ministry at our church –assisting the youth pastor. Time moved forward, and Jen became pregnant once more and God gave us a lovely little girl named Gemma.

Soon enough, we moved to another city and another church, and once again became involved in youth ministry — leading a small group of teenagers and building a youth ministry by trial, lots of error and God’s grace from the ground up.

Eventually the church hired me to be the youth pastor and run a small low power FM radio station. Our schedule was full, with conferences, speaking, travel, missions leading worship and lots of discipleship. Jen and I both had opportunities to speak at Mens and Women’s retreats. In that time, a college ministry was birthed as well.

It was a wonderful season of ministry
And in it we learned much about how the Lord works.

In July of 2008 — we stepped out of vocational ministry in obedience to the Lord — not really knowing what the future held.

Once again those prayers were being answered.

“Give to me, or take away from me, only conform my will to yours.”
“Lord, I don’t want your blessings — I want You. “

And once again God was at work in our hearts:

He truly is a God who gives and who takes away — but He continues to shape, to mold and to move us towards His plan, which is far better and greater than we could ever imagine.

God has given us vastly more.
He has given us Himself.
He is our portion and our inheritance.
Not children, not ministry, not stuff.
It’s Him.

Unfailingwords is a place to share some of these thoughts, insights and exhortations to you — the Bride of Christ, His lovely church.