Welcome to Weeds Seeds and Beautiful Things
My name is Constance Lawson, but you can call me Connie. I am 39 years old and recently moved from Oklahoma City to Manhattan, Kansas, with my husband, Jerry, and two young daughters, Eden and Ivy. My husband and I have been married for over thirteen years. He brought two precious children, who are now adults, into our family. Adam is 21, and Victoria is 20. They still live in Oklahoma City. Our son, Adam, recently married his love, Amber, giving us another daughter-in-love.
As a bit of my backstory, at age eleven, I contracted an autoimmune disease called PANDAS, which stands for Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal Infections: a huge mouthful! This illness was relatively unknown at the time, and therefore I was not given the antibiotics that would have treated it. As a result, I was incorrectly diagnosed with an illness I did not have and, for over 20 years, was prescribed heavy medication which caused weight gain. Because of this, I developed an unhealthy relationship with food, and through the ups and downs of life, it became my comfort, but also my enemy that brought me great pain.
Back to the present: in 2017, a great miracle took place in our family. After struggling with infertility, I became pregnant with twins: a beautiful son, Jeremiah, and a daughter Eden. Sadly, we lost our son only sixteen hours after his birth. We will always miss him and wish he was still with us. Our daughter, Eden, is a happy four-year-old who brings much laughter into our lives. Following this, In 2019, I went through two miscarriages and decided to have surgery to deal with my infertility. To our joy, late in October of 2020, I got pregnant with our “rainbow baby”, Ivy, who was born in July of 2021.
The following June, after much thought and prayer, I had a gastric bypass. This is a procedure to assist in weight loss for certain people. When I lost my son, followed by the miscarriages, I just couldn’t cope with the ensuing grief and depression. My weight and my dependence on food felt like an insurmountable obstacle. However, God in His goodness, led me into an understanding of my struggles in this area and gave me the gift of deliverance in the form of weight loss surgery.
Receiving a gift from God doesn’t mean that it becomes easy. Going through the process of weight loss surgery was immensely painful. It changed me in so many ways, and none of them were easy. God’s grace covered me with all tenderness and led me very firmly, yet gently, into a new place of hope and healing.
I have wanted to be a speaker all my life, and these things I have experienced relate to a wide diversity of people. My story is one of great pain and greater redemption. I am called to share the hope that God has so graciously given me as well as practical encouragement for better living and coping with difficult issues, including overcoming trauma.
There are many truths I share through my speaking and art ministry. My consistent message is that not only can you follow Jesus in the midst of your struggles, but you can learn to be faithful, and the struggles can deepen your faith. Following Jesus does not spare us from serious suffering, but this has absolutely no bearing on the faithfulness of God. God is faithful and good, no matter what hardships we go through. Sorrow can be an open door to know God in a real and sometimes costly, yet infinitely valuable, way. One of the truest blessings we can receive is to grasp a faith that has been wrought through our dark times, rather than the typical feelings- based faith so popular today.
My love for God and His word have been birthed in the fire. If you were to remove my sorrow, you would also have to remove my closeness to the Father. I would never have chosen my life as God has written it, but I am so thankful that God only does what’s best. This assures me that He is trustworthy, and I lean on what I know to be true about Him, rather than basing it on mere feelings. I want to help you walk through this life by encouraging you to choose Jesus no matter the cost and continue to take the next step to mature faith and a closer relationship with Him.
