Days of Our Lives

Yesterday was just another typical Sunday in so many ways. Scrambling to find Greyson’s one pair of matching shoes (seriously that poor kid lives in the house of Matilda Jane and doesn’t even get a second pair of shoes).  Arriving late to church. Greyson begging to go night night for naptime. Emilyn shouting she doesn’t need to rest while begging for the nearest sugar rush she can find.  Sometimes I’m just waiting for her to start throwing poop at us in anger like the monkeys she loves. I guess we have another 10 years before that teenage symptom rears its ugly head.

Sundays also mean Ben flying out to I’m not exactly sure where. Haha you all say. But seriously I never remember where. I just know he returns every Thursday night or Friday morning and Lord help that poor man and the fool who answers the phone at American Airlines if his flight ever gets delayed.

BUT THEN there are always God’s little twists in there.

Greyson celebrating his 2nd birthday.

Palm Sunday.

Four days into a miscarriage.

I had to stop and stare at that word a minute myself before typing again. It carries such weight doesn’t it? A subject I honestly hate talking about when it happens to friends. And it happens a lot. You talk to anyone and it either happened to them, a friend, a sister, a loved one. The very reason I decided to put my thoughts into words because it’s so common but still somehow supposed to remain so painfully personal and only discussed with the most intimate of friends.  But why?  That gives it some kind of bigger power.

I’ve got a little bit of a Suck it up, Find your big girl panties and Let’s move on mentality about a lot of things in life. Shocking I even have friends.  It isn’t because I don’t care. I just know that if you kept moving along, you would see the bigger picture. Don’t get stuck in this horrible moment I would think.

But this one got me stuck.

As soon as you see that double line on the pee stick and that other test with a plus sign and that other test that says “Pregnant” and the “not” never appears…yes, yes I took all three…you can’t help but start planning and making dreams. A Christmas with the snuggles of a newborn, watching your youngest move up in the chain to forgotten middle child, wondering so quickly if it’s a girl or a boy. Determined you know it’s a girl based on absolutelynothing. I forgot how quickly as the mom you’re attached. Instantaneously. You want nothing more than health and protection for this little baby from that very moment. And it consumes every single thought of every single day.

I was only about 7 weeks along, and I know so many experience the heartache of it happening so much later.  That must add an entirely different depth of pain than this. It was so early. I hadn’t even gone in for the ultrasound yet, so you’d think it wouldn’t feel like someone just sucked the breath out of me and left me lying there. But it did. And that’s what threw me off. How could something so common stop me who never stops??

It’s hard to describe what happens next. You have no capacity to process anything else happening around you. Everything just seems overwhelming. All that estrogen being dumped into you certainly doesn’t help matters. I know we want husbands to understand to the same depths we do, but I realized we’re asking the impossible. Because with every excruciating cramp and every time you feel nauseous, you’re reminded that what once was life you rejoiced in is now something else I’m supposed to still be rejoicing God in. How in the world am I supposed to do that when all I feel is sadness? So much physical and emotional pain and no sweet baby to hold in the end.  Again, stuck.

Introvert is never a word I would use to describe myself EXCEPT when it comes to times of trial. I draw inward. Lock my doors. Close my blinds. Turn off my phone. Took me a long time to realize I do that but in the process what I’m desperately trying to do is hear God and instead I know I often shut Him out too. I don’t want to believe He’s still there in the midst of sadness because it’s easier to think He’s abandoned me than to accept He’s allowed this to happen. That’s a lonely place to be though. No amount of friends and extrovertedness can cure the absence of God.

That lonely place is where I sat four days ago.

Then there it was at church yesterday morning. A hymn I later learned was written by Joseph Hart, a minister from London, written in 1795. Over 200 Years Ago and listen to how much weight it still carries. I’ve sung it countless times at church but today it carried a different meaning and somewhere in there I found some closure.

“Come, ye sinners, poor and needy,

Weak and wounded, sick and sore;

Jesus ready stands to save you,

Full of pity, love and power.

I will arise and go to Jesus,

He will embrace me in His arms;

In the arms of my dear Savior,

O there are ten thousand charms.

Come ye thirsty, come and welcome,

God’s free bounty glorify;

True belief and true repentance,

Every grace that brings you nigh.

Come, ye weary, heavy laden,

Lost and ruined by the fall;

If you tarry till you’re better,

You will never come at all.”

Those last four verses make me stop in my tracks every time. Why do we hold out so heavy laden trying to fix it first before we just fall into His arms? I don’t have to understand the why of my circumstances. Oh how, oh how, oh how I desperately want to, but I’m not promised those answers. He does promise to save me and embrace me and there’s My Hope. My peace. My comfort. My weeping desperate place. My secret hiding place. My all. He must be my ALL. THAT is the answer. Every single time.

So I will be standing there on Good Friday and Easter morning, singing praises for His faithfulness. Feeling thankful that He pursues me and loves me so much that He can use even the most tragic of things to draw me closer to Him. To remind me of His sovereignty.

That’s a soft place to land every time.

“And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” Colossians 1:17