Merciful Pruning

I've avoided saying this directly for many months now, but I have finally decided to just disclose it.  I guess I was holding it close out of a myriad of reasons: self-protection, fear, a sense of privacy, habit, and who knows what else.  Probably this will come as no surprise as I've alluded to it enough, but Bryan and I have been trying to get pregnant again since November.  Well, that's not exactly accurate.  We were trying to get pregnant again until my thyroid news forced us to put our plans on hold.  In fact, the only reason I know about my thyroid is because 3 months went by without us getting pregnant, and that was unusual.  With Caleb, Joel, my two miscarriages, and Samuel we got pregnant immediately.  Three months without a pregnancy was strange, and I had noticed that something in my cycles had changed, so I went to my OB to do some bloodwork.  That's when my hypothyroidism showed up -- something very influential in fertility. 

Since learning about my thyroid, I have been very, very anxious to get everything in order so we could get pregnant again.  Every bump in the road (and there have been several) has felt like an enormous hurdle and a huge disappointment.  There is a correlation between untreated thyroid issues and miscarriage as well as high thyroid levels and poor fetal brain development, so obviously it's something we need to get under control.  But it has taken much longer than I anticipated. 

At first I was told that I would need to wait two cycles, and that sounded like an eternity.  I prayed and prayed for my numbers to come down, and numerous things suggested my levels would be good at the end of those two months.  But they weren't.  I had to wait another cycle.  I was deeply disappointed and had some hard days, but I surrendered another month.  Then I had to wait another month.  More disappointment and frustration. 

As the waiting has dragged on, I have had to surrender over and over again my hopes for the future.  And I have had to learn a lot about trust, about my heart, about my reluctance to let God work in His own timing -- or in His own way.  I have felt like God was asking so much of me.  Not only did I have to surrender Samuel, I had to lay down my picture of our family.  Each month I have felt the grief of our family not growing on top of my grief for Samuel.  For two years now, we have been trying to grow our family.  Right about two years ago we got pregnant with the first baby we miscarried.  And now, two years later, I still have only two children in this house to raise and love.  It has felt like a grief upon a grief.  Of course I grieve Samuel and the baby boy I sat by, sang to, prayed over, and read to.  I miss him all day, every day.  But I also grieve the family we aren't, the children we don't have and aren't expecting.  They feel like two related but separate griefs.  And some times it feels like too much.

Ask my friends, and they will tell you how challenging this road of not getting pregnant has been for me, how much it's on my mind, how desperately I long for it, and how frequently I talk about it.  It has been the theme of my journal entries and a focus of my prayer times.  It feels like so many more than 7 months have passed since we began to meet with disappointment in this arena.  I have struggled and struggled with this season of infertility.  I have wrestled and wrestled with God.  I have wanted to buck the doctors and take things into my own hands and throw caution to the wind.  I have wanted to take back the reins and blaze my own trail and do it my way.  I have not wanted to wait.

A couple of weeks ago, Bryan came home from work, saw that I had had a hard day, and sent me to Starbucks for an hour to be alone and recover a bit.  While I was there, I pulled out my Bible and started reading John 15, a very familiar passage.  Though it's a chapter I am well acquainted with, I had never thought about it in terms of Samuel or this road of waiting to get pregnant.  But that evening, it struck me afresh, and it was a pivotal paradigm shift for me.  I read the first few verses and then got out of my seat to ask the barista if he had a pen I could borrow so I could mark the passage: "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.  He cuts off every branch that doesn't produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more.  You have already been pruned for greater fruitfulness..."  For the first time, I saw this road of suffering as God pruning me.  I thought of Samuel and how through Samuel God has already pruned me for greater fruitfulness.  And then I thought of this constant struggle in wanting more children and being denied again and again, and I thought that He is pruning my "branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more."  For the first time, I saw this road we've been on as merciful.  This suffering is God's mercy in my life.  It is Him pruning me so that I can bear more fruit.  It is His loving gardener's hand wanting what is best for the sprig that is my life.  It is Him giving me more life, richer life, fruitful life, deeper life, abundant life.  It is His mercy.  And for the first time I felt grateful for this fire we're walking through, this period of infertility.  I am grateful that He loves me enough to prune me.

Honestly, reading that passage changed everything for me.  I am peaceful about this road, about the uncertainty of life ahead, about my longing for another child and having to wait who knows how long.  It is all His mercy, His kindness and love.  And though I still desire another child more than any other earthly thing, I am content to trust Him and let Him work how He wants to.  I don't need to usurp His authority in my life.  I can rest in Him, the perfect Gardener, who guides and feeds and prunes and loves this soul that is His handiwork.

The Comforts of John

A few weeks ago for his bedtime story, Caleb picked a children's Bible.  We have one children's Bible that we absolutely LOVE (The Jesus Storybook Bible) and one we really don't care for.  He picked the one we aren't too fond of.  Then he proceeded to pick a story that I wouldn't choose for my 3 and 5 year olds: Cain and Abel.  Talk about a hard story to explain and ideas I don't really want my two little boys to have.  :)  At the end of the story, Caleb asked a couple of questions.  He asked Bryan, "Daddy, why wasn't Cain's sacrifice pleasing to God?"  I had always grown up thinking it was because Cain didn't give God his "first fruits" -- the best of his vegetables, but apparently the Bible doesn't actually say why his sacrifice was displeasing.  Bryan knows this from his seminary classes, and he told Caleb, "You know, Caleb, we don't really know why.  The Bible doesn't tell us."  Bryan could see Caleb processing this information, and he could tell it was unsettling to him.  Bryan continued, "But Caleb, you don't have to worry about whether or not something pleases God because we have the Bible which Cain and Abel didn't have.  It tells us what makes God happy.  We know what honors God."

Something about that statement -- that we know what honors God -- scared me a little.  I started to think, "Do I know what honors God?  For all my desperate desire to honor him in my grief, do I really know what does please Him?  What if I have it all wrong, and I'm making assumptions about what honors Him?  What if I've just settled on something that feels comfortable to me?  I like the idea that God would be honored by my faith, by my longing to please Him, by declaring His goodness to me.  But what if that's not it?  What if it's something harder than that?  What if God is not so compassionate and loving as I think but something more stern and exacting?  What if my sacrifice is ugly to Him like Cain's was?"  I kind of panicked inside, fearing that I don't know my God as well as I thought I did.  I resolved to start reading the book of John to try and learn about Jesus, about God, about what truly honors the God I serve.

So I did.  Though I've been consistently reading my Bible since I was eight years old and have read the whole thing at least 5 times, John struck me anew this time.  Sometimes my habit of reading the Bible can be pretty rote.  I grew up with Christianity, with Bible stories, with church.  It's all so familiar and such a part of my entire life that sometimes I'm a bit impervious to the words of Scripture.  They don't really sink in if I'm not careful to truly pay attention while I'm reading.  This time through, the words sunk in.  John has quickly become one of my favorite books of the Bible.  Not only is Jesus the Savior I thought and hoped He was, He is more.  He is deeply compassionate, kind, loving, gentle, righteous, sacrificing, and full of grace.  He is steadfast, wise, generous, and the bearer of true hope.  I am so glad I had my moment of panic because I am so glad to learn anew who this amazing God is that I love and serve.

And something I wasn't expecting happened in my reading of John.  I saw for the first time just how much Jesus talks about eternal life.  I haven't really paid that much attention in the past because it wasn't particularly important to me, but after Samuel's death, eternity in Heaven matters a lot.  I want to spend eternity with my baby boy, and I want Samuel with Jesus now.  I want Samuel to be whole and full of ultimate joy.  John has comforted me immensely in this regard.  Jesus talks over and over about eternal life.  It's not just his disciples who talk about it; it's my Savior Himself.  In my journal I started writing down all the verses that talk about rebirth, eternal life, and Heaven.  So far I have three pages, and I'm only through chapter six.

I am so grateful for a God who allows us to know Him, who tells us what honors and pleases Him and doesn't leave us guessing, who saves us by His grace and not by our merit or our good works.  He is a God I want to serve, a God I long to honor, a God I delight in loving, and a God I seek to know more and more as He grows and refines me.  He is a GOOD GOD I follow.


"They replied, 'What does God want us to do?'  Jesus told them, 'This is what God wants you to do: Believe in the one he has sent.'" John 6:28-29

"There is no judgment awaiting those who trust him."  John 3:18

"I assure you, those who listen to my message and believe in God who sent me have eternal life.  They will never be condemned for their sins, but they have already passed from death into life." John 5:24

"I am the bread of life.  No one who comes to me will ever be hungry again.  Those who believe in me will never thirst...And this is the will of God, that I should not lose even one of all those he has given to me, but that I should raise them to eternal life at the last day.   For it is my Father's will that all who see his Son and believe in Him should have eternal life -- that I should raise them at the last day."  John 6:35, 39

"Jesus replied, 'If you only knew the gift God has for you and who I am, you would ask me, and I would give you living water...but the water I give them takes away thirst altogether.  It becomes a perpetual spring within them, giving them eternal life." John 4:10

Picturing Samuel

Yesterday was nine months since Samuel died, and today Samuel would have been ten months old.  It's hard to believe that much time has passed since we were sitting by our son's side in the CICU. 

This past weekend we went to see my grandparents in Arizona, and we had a lovely time.  On the flight back, we were on the tarmac with a woman who was clearly overladden with a baby, bags, and baby gear.  I asked her if I could help, and she said, "Yes!" with such enthusiasm and gratitude.  She clearly could use a hand or two.  I took one bag, Bryan took another, and she held her baby girl.  I asked her how old her daughter was, and she said "Nine months."  That's pretty close to Samuel's would-be age.  The boys were enamored with the baby as they usually are.  I kept thinking, "That baby looks familiar to me," but that felt like a bizarre thought.  How can a baby look familiar?  Hours later it hit me that her daughter reminded me of Samuel's first neighbor in the CICU.  He had been next to a bright-eyed baby girl who was adorable.  Her parents were seldom there.  In fact, we never saw a dad, and we may have only seen her mom once when she came and sat ten feet away from her and didn't even look at her.  I don't know what happened to that little girl though I'm fairly sure she moved to Step-Down a few days after we arrived at Egleston.  I wish I could remember her name so I could pray for her more personally. 

Seeing the baby on the airplane certainly made me wonder what Samuel would look like now and what he would be up to.  My niece who is 16 hours younger than Samuel is pulling up on things and trying to walk.  Would Samuel be doing the same?  Sometimes I get tripped up when I try to imagine Samuel if he had lived.  I don't know how to imagine him.  Do I think of him as the boy we never had -- totally healthy and a "normal" 10 month old, or do I think of him as the Samuel who would have survived all his defects but still been living with the reality of a weak heart, defective vasculature in his lungs, and consequences of longterm intubation and TPN feedings?  Do I picture a plump baby like Caleb and Joel were, or do I picture a baby who is underweight and possibly tube fed?  Do I imagine a busy, active boy, or do I imagine a boy who is developmentally delayed because of his rough start to life?  I don't know, and I get so confused that I can rarely picture anything at all.

Yesterday was Caleb's 5th birthday, and he declared at breakfast that no one was allowed to be sad on his birthday; we all had to be happy.  He got out of his seat and went to the fridge where he turned all our emotion faces to happy.  (Judy, our grief counselor, suggested we cut out sad and happy faces for each of us, so we can put up a face to let the family know how we're feeling that day or hour.)  Thankfully Caleb's birthday made it easy to be happy on one of my thirty-firsts. 

Here are a few pictures from our time in Arizona.  The boys LOVED seeing their great grandparents and especially loved our first family hike in the mountains. 

A Promise of Empty Graves

Sometimes I think I'm passed unexpected outbursts of tears and sorrow.  I think I'm in the stage of grief when I can tell sorrow is welling up inside me and will want an outlet, when there isn't a risk of me breaking down out of nowhere into uncontrollable sobs.  Apparently that's not true.  A few nights ago at dinner, Caleb started talking about Samuel.  It had been a couple of weeks since either of the boys had mentioned Samuel's name without me or Bryan mentioning it first.  On Wednesday, however, Caleb started talking about Samuel being in Heaven and how he first knew Samuel was in Heaven when he saw the "little white box he was in."  He was referring to the casket.  Then he proceeded to talk about the Pooh bear he picked to go in the casket with Samuel.  He asked why we put an animal in there with him when Samuel was in Heaven and not really in the box.  Caleb turned his big, brown eyes up at me and asked again, "Momma, why did we put Pooh in that white box with Samuel?"

It had been a long, long time since I had thought about Samuel's casket.  I hate thinking about it, and I have purposefully avoided going there in my mind.  Seeing it when we went to the graveside was one of those moments that will be forever etched in my mind, walking up to the plot and realizing my baby was in that tiny box.  Euh.  It turns my stomach even now.  And the thought of his body in there is almost unbearable for me.  For several months I felt haunted by the image of Samuel in varying degrees of decay.  In fact I had horrible, horrible nightmares about it for awhile -- ones that nearly made me throw-up in my waking hours and still physically bring on shudders.  Samuel's body in that box is just one of the things I don't think I will ever be ok with.  It's one of the reasons that visiting his gravesite is so unappealing to me.  I prefer to remember my baby boy as I knew and loved him in his best days -- or even in his worst and sickest days over thinking of him buried under the ground in that tiny coffin. 

A couple of months ago, after the nightmare that was probably the worst one of my life (and that's saying something), Bryan and I talked about Samuel's body on one of our walks.  When it was time to make arrangements for Samuel's funeral, Bryan and I were in such shock and so stunned, that we didn't really discuss burial or cremation at any depth.  In absence of time and energy to really talk and think about what to do, we went with what seemed the most traditional and least likely to come with regrets.  And Bryan made a good point at the time about how he wanted a place to go back to, a place we could visit to help us remember, a place the boys could see and have a more tangible understanding of.  But after my dreams, I started to really second guess our decision and to wish we had chosen differently.  Bryan, however, had some well-thought out reasons in the time since Samuel's death that reinforced his preference for a burial.  As we walked, he talked about the beauty of the resurrection and a resurrected body.  In his seminary studies, he has studied the resurrection, and though we believe Samuel's spirit is in Heaven already, the Bible talks about how one day our bodies will be resurrected, and though God can certainly resurrect ashes, Bryan loves the picture of an empty grave.  It was a helpful conversation for me and eased the fear and stomach-turning I was feeling about Samuel in his coffin.

So when Caleb turned those beautiful eyes up at me and asked about Samuel's casket, I burst into tears.  I put my face in my hands and sobbed.  The boys haven't seen me do that since October, probably.  Though they've certainly seen their fair share of tears and crying, they haven't witnessed much full-out sobbing.  When I collected myself enough to look up, I saw that Caleb was absolutely on the verge of breaking down.  Bryan said, "Caleb, I can see you're feeling really sad.  It's ok to feel sad and to cry," and with that Caleb burst into deep sobs.  I pulled him into my lap and held him while he cried and cried.  After awhile I wiped away his tears, and we told him, "Caleb, honey, you didn't do anything wrong by asking about Samuel.  And it's ok to cry.  In fact, Mommy and Daddy love when you ask about Samuel and talk about him.  And we need to cry sometimes.  If our tears don't come out, then all the sad feelings come out a different way.  Sometimes they come out as frustration or maybe yelling or maybe being impatient, and those aren't what we want.  It's good to get our sad feelings out in tears."  Caleb said, "Miss Judy told me about that."  He remembered talking to our grief counselor about how important it is to cry, and he seemed comforted by us talking about it as a family.  In some ways, Bryan and I both felt grateful for the chance to be with Caleb in his grief and by the opportunity to show both boys ours.  We want them to know that we continue to miss their baby brother, and we want them to feel comfortable talking about him and missing him too.  It was a precious time as a family, even if our dinner was growing cold in front of us and even if it meant lots of tears.  I am grateful for the chances to be sad together as well as happy. 

This journey of grief in so many ways is a privilege.  I feel honored to walk this road and to learn more about my Savior and about my family.  I feel blessed to have loved Samuel so much that his absence is deeply painful.  And I feel so inexpressibly grateful for Samuel's life.  It is among the greatest gifts of my life.  And I think this road will be perpetually refining, and for that I am also truly thankful.

Time Away...Hooray!

As you may have deduced from the pictures in the last post, we spent last week at the beach.  (I never feel comfortable announcing on the world wide web that we're out of town while we're actually gone.)  Thanks to a friend of a friend whom I have never met, we got to have a week with the family enjoying the beautiful ocean right outside our 25th floor condo.  It was wonderful and much needed and so well-timed.  We had just come out of a crazy stretch where Bryan had the end of a seminary class (which is always a hectic time) and North Point's DRIVE Conference; plus it was a rough Mother's Day, so a week away was a true blessing.  We needed some time together to just refocus and breathe a little, so THANK YOU, THANK YOU Sharon and family!

A couple of days before we left for Florida, I spent an evening rereading our blog from August.  It had been months since I'd gone back and revisited those posts and all the kind, amazing comments people left us.  I cried nonstop for three hours or more.  There are still days when I can't believe this is our life, and Samuel really lived and really died, and we really endured that month of joy and agony, fear and peace, intimacy and isolation.  I look back and wonder how we survived it, but then I read about God's amazing presence in those days, and I am in awe all over again of how abundantly He cared for us and carried us and provided for us.  And I read all the comments people left us, and I am humbled anew at how people loved and served us, how people carried our burden with us, and at how people allowed themselves to experience our suffering out of love and compassion.  It is a time in my life that will always challenge me to love others with such abandon and such tenacity.  Thank you for loving us and serving us in ways we would never have thought to ask for.  I get choked up just thinking about it.  And our time in Florida last week has left me a bit speechless because neither Bryan not I have met the family who gave it to us, and they don't even own it.  They graciously gave us the week they had bought and planned to use themselves.  That kind of selflessness astounds me.

While we were gone, Bryan and I spent one evening out on the balcony, listening to the sound of the waves 25 floors below us and talking about Samuel and how we're doing.  We both miss him terribly, and we both feel like August was so long ago and like it gets farther and farther away from us with each passing day.  Samuel feels far away from us, and the time we spent with him feels surreal in many ways.  Neither of us like that.

But we also talked about how God has grown us and deepened us and taught us so much about Him.  He continues to grow us as He asks us to surrender new hopes and new dreams in the present.  I feel like it's been a loooooong season of intense growth for me, and even though I learned to surrender Samuel, I am still struggling to surrender the things I cling to each day.  Surrender has been a painful process so far, and though I've seen its benefits and its joys, I find it immensely difficult to lay down my dearest hopes.  But because I love God far more than I love my dreams, I am continually trying to unpry my fingers and to open up my hands, lift my palms to Heaven, and say, "They're Yours, Lord.  I give them to You.  I trust them to You.  And if You want to take them from me and never grant me the things I long for in life, then that is ok with me.  I want You most of all.  And I want what You want.  Help me to surrender all that I hold dear."  I hope that God will give me back what I lay down, like He did with Abraham and Isaac, but I can't lay it down just because I think God will then give it back to me.  I have to really, truly put it on the altar before God and really, truly be willing to give it up.  I'm working on this...intensely.  I still have a long way to go.  And I know God is not searching for ways to take things away from me.  He's not unkind or selfish or vengeful.  But He does want my heart -- all of it -- and sometimes the things I most want in life keep me from giving myself fully to Him.  Like I said, I still have a long way to go.

When we got home from the beach, a gardenia plant someone gave us when Samuel was born had its first blossom.  The plant hasn't done so well in my care though I've tried to help it thrive, and I didn't think it would bloom.  Previously every bud it had grown would reach a certain size and then fall off, I assume because it got to be too heavy for the sickly branches to support.  But I walked in the door and almost immediately saw the fragile white blossom and smelled its amazing fragrance.  It made me think of Samuel right away.  During the stretch when Bryan and I slept at the hospital for 10 days straight, my mom brought us a ziplock baggy with 2 gardenia blossoms in it from the boys.  I think they were from a bush in our yard though I'm not sure.  I would open that bag and smell it over and over before I'd climb in the tiny cot for the abbreviated night's sleep next to Bryan.  The blossom made me think of how life is beautiful even when it's broken, of how life was going on at home even though we weren't there, of how smells could be lovely and full of life instead of sterile or foreshadowing death.  The blooms always broke my heart a little, but they also gave me a picture of life to come -- of beauty still ahead some day.  And so something in my spirit broke while something else soared when I saw our Samuel gardenia in bloom.

Ok, this is a disjointed entry, but here are some pictures of our time away.  Once again, thank you, friends, for loving us so well.

Mother's Day Missing a Son

Mother's Day was a whole lot harder for me than I anticipated.  Several people had told me ahead of time that they would be praying for me, and I thought to myself, "I think I'll be ok.  I don't think it will be too bad."  Turns out they were more right than I was.

I woke up sad.  Really sad.  And the morning was downright painful.  We had actually decided ahead of time to celebrate Mother's Day later in the week because a lot of family was in town for my cousin's college graduation from UGA, and Bryan was working on Sunday.  So, I woke up with Bryan already at work and feeling very blue.  I went to get the boys up, and Joel was a booger as he often is these days.  (The threes are a tricky age when kids try hard to declare their independence and therefore push boundaries at every turn.)  By breakfast Joel had had at least 3 timeouts.

I felt teary and fragile all morning.  By the time we got to church, I was on the brink of tears.  After delivering Caleb and Joel to their rooms, I sat down alone in the auditorium, way before the service was ready to start.  I started praying and thinking about Mother's Day and how it's hard for a lot of people.  I've heard stories of people who struggle with infertility and dread Mother's Day, who dread the "Will all the mothers take a moment to stand so we can applaud you" announcement at the start of church service.  I thought about moms who might be estranged from their children, of moms who have a child off at war, of would-be moms who have miscarried.  And then I thought about me.  And about other moms whose child has died.  It feels so wrong.  A day focused on me as a mother feels so painful, so broken, because the picture of me as a mom is so incomplete.

By the time Bryan got to church, sat down next to me, and put his arm around me, my tears were spilling over uncontrollably.  I wiped at my cheeks frantically in an effort to erase all evidence of my tears, but they just kept coming.  I couldn't stop them from brimming over.  It took a good way into the service before I finally felt peaceful inside and wasn't trying to master my emotions.

The rest of the day we spent with my extended family, and I kept telling myself, "it's not Mother's Day.  It's not Mother's Day."  I wanted to be able to enjoy my relatives and not spend the day in a funk, especially considering I don't get to see some of them more than a couple of times a year.  At the end of the day as we were heading home, my aunt Jeanne gave me a hug and told me that she was sure it had been a hard day, that I had been missing Samuel terribly, and that she was so sorry.  Those kind words of course made me cry again, but I was so grateful for her willingness to broach a difficult subject and for her compassion.  It was a bright moment in a hard day.

On Wednesday we celebrated Mother's Day as a family, and it was a blessed day.  I was able to enjoy my two sons here with me and to love our day together.  It wasn't so fraught with pain and heartbreak.  I missed Samuel when I came out to cards from Caleb and Joel, and I missed him when they gave me their presents, and I missed him as they said, "No, no, no, no!  You can't do any work today, Momma!" and I missed him as we went out to dinner, but mostly I felt gratitude in my heart for how God has blessed me with my children, for how I get to me called "Momma" everyday by two little boys, for how I get to kiss away booboos and cuddle away fears, for how God has made me a mother to three precious and amazing sons.  I have a lot to be thankful for.  And I continue to trust God with my story.  He has written it this way, and this, exactly this, is the story I want to be living.  Whatever chapters He pens ahead, I want to live those too -- even if they're not the way I envision them and hope they will be.  Again I pick up my sorrows and joys and say, "Lord, I am Yours.  I trust You.  I will follow where You lead.  After You, my King."  I pray He gives me the grace and faithfulness to do that afresh every day of my life yet ahead.  And for the chance to be a mother, I cannot begin to thank God enough.  It is the greatest privilege of my life.

Beautiful Caleb

Ok, I just cannot resist posting these pictures.  Caleb's preschool brought in a professional photographer, and we could spend $20 to get our kid's picture taken.  Man, that was among the best spent $20 ever.  I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this boy and his tender heart, his kindness, his encouraging words, his sweet love for God, and his unselfishness.  Caleb is so much more unselfish than I am.  I have so much to learn from this kid.  How I love my oldest son!

Celebrating Joel's 3rd Birthday

Yesterday Joel turned 3.  It was a great day celebrating our middle son.  We played hard and laughed a lot.  We smiled until our cheeks hurt.  We jumped and climbed on indoor inflatables at Jump!Zone.  We ate cake and had a birthday dinner and watched a birthday movie.  We opened obscene amounts of presents.  We had a wonderful time.  But underneath it all, I felt a little bit sad.

I kept thinking about the morning Joel was born and my labor and delivery.  I was a little horrified that at first I couldn't remember any details; all I could recall was Samuel's birth day.  After probably ten minutes racking my brain for memories of May 1, 2007, I finally remembered our special day when Joel came into this world.  I smiled thinking about those glorious, breathtaking, purely joyful minutes of first holding our baby after a painful and surprisingly fast labor.  I smiled remembering the doctor saying, "It's a boy!" and thinking, "I knew it!"  I smiled thinking about those hours after Joel was born when we just held him and stared at him and deliberated about what we should name him, when I got to nurse him and cuddle him and proudly show him off to everyone who came to visit, when I got to introduce him to his big brother for the first time and place him gently into Caleb's little arms.  All those memories made me smile.  But they also made my heart cry a little.

 
I didn't get to do any of those things with Samuel.  There were no purely joyful moments after his birth.  They were fear-filled and quiet and oppressive in some ways.  I was so glad he was here, but I wanted to hold him.  I wanted the doctors to stop working on him in the corner, and I wanted someone, anyone, to tell me, "He's ok!  He's going to be great.  Just wait a minute, and we'll have him in your arms."  I wanted to hear him cry, and I wanted to see his face, and I desperately wanted to know if he had Down Syndrome.  I wanted to stop shaking all over my body, and I wanted Samuel in my arms.  They were difficult minutes followed by more difficult hours followed by horribly difficult days.  Yesterday, on Joel's birthday, I kept thinking, "It's been three years since we've had a totally joyful birth day.  I wonder if we'll ever have one again."

And throughout the day I missed Samuel.  I wanted him to be there with us.  I wanted to be passing Samuel back and forth between me and Bryan so one of us could go jump with Caleb and Joel while the other snuggled our 9 month old.  I wanted Samuel on my hip while talking to our friends and in my lap while singing "Happy Birthday."  It was hard to have Joel's birthday without his baby brother there.  I didn't dwell on it yesterday, but during all the celebrations, Samuel's absence was very noticeable.  I miss my third son.  I always will.

A couple of weeks ago during our bedtime routine, I was lying on my back on Caleb's bed while Bryan read a book to the boys.  Joel plopped down beside me on his tummy and propped his elbows on my stomach, resting his chin on his hands.  In that moment I was overwhelmed with love for Joel.  Sometimes the love I feel for one of my children comes in concentrated doses, and I feel washed in a flood of love and gratitude.  As I looked at Joel's blond little head resting on me, I also felt a wave of sorrow.  It was one of the moments when I knew what I was missing with Samuel.  I was missing the little joys, the daily surges of love in my heart, the getting to know my child day in and day out, the simple pleasure of reading a book together, the evident love between a mother and son.  In some ways having other children makes grief harder because I know what I'm missing with Samuel; I'm missing this amazing abundance of love and connection and joy in spending each day with my son.  I'm missing so much.

Though yesterday had an underlying sadness to it, it was a deeply joyous day.  And we're now inundated with Star Wars toys, books, coloring books, and even sheets!  In fact, my aunt and uncle even gave me a Star Wars cookbook: Wookie Cookies and Other Galactic Recipes.  It's hilarious, and this week we'll be dining on TIE Fighter Ties and Yoda Soda.  Look out Star Wars, here we come!

And because I simply must, here are some pictures from last week's pancakes and Joel's birthday:

 Chewbacca pancake

Han Solo pancake

The wonderful Thiels dressed in orange because it's Joel's very favorite color.

Joel requested a Han Solo birthday cake.  Bryan decided to add a Tauntaun to surprise the birthday boy.  These are based on the Star Wars lego figurines.  For the record and the Star Wars aficiondos out there, we know this is not Hans's correct outfit for riding the Tauntaun, but Bry decided to go with the more recognizable Han outfit.  Isn't Bryan something?  I keep telling him it's too bad all his artwork is edible.  We need something we can frame!

Joel's Thoughts about Heaven

I haven't posted in awhile because I haven't known how to.  I have felt...choked up inside, I guess, and I haven't know how to get anything out.  My mind and heart have been a jumble of emotions and thoughts, and I've felt lost about how to put those thoughts and emotions into words and on our blog.  So I haven't written anything.  Everyday at nap time, I think, "Maybe today I can blog.  Can I?....I don't know where to start.  Maybe tomorrow..."  So today I simply decided that I'm starting somewhere.  I'm starting with Joel.

A couple of days after Easter, Joel and I were watering the Japanese maple we planted in memory of Samuel.  We call it "The Samuel Tree."  It's beautiful now with deep, rich red leaves.  I love looking at it, and watering it is something the boys and I often do together.  As I was tipping the watering can over the tree and Joel was splashing his hands in the pouring water, he looked up and asked me, "Is Samuel alive?"  I have learned not to be alarmed by Joel's repeated questions regarding Samuel's death.  Judy, our grief counselor, taught us that until children are around 6 years old, they cannot grasp the finality of death; they believe it is reversible.  So I wasn't bothered by the question though I was curious about its inverse order.  Usually Joel asks if Samuel is dead, so asking if he was alive was new.  I told him compassionately, "No, honey, Samuel is not alive.  Samuel is dead."  He paused and looked back up at me: "But is Jesus alive?"  I was pretty stunned by the connection he was making.  Joel had understood something of the story of Easter.  Jesus was dead, but He didn't stay dead.  He rose from the dead and is now alive.  Joel followed that and connected it to Samuel.  If Samuel was dead, did he have to stay dead when Jesus didn't?  I was speechless for a minute because it had never occured to me that Jesus' resurrection would confuse my not yet three year old, but it makes perfect sense.  I had just never seen it from that perspective before.   I tried to explain how special Jesus is and how it's a miracle that Jesus didn't stay dead.  But the concept of a miracle was harder to explain than I'd anticipated.  I didn't want him to think it was magic, and I am not at all sure he followed what I said.  He did, however, seem to understand that Samuel is still dead even though Jesus was resurrected.

At the breakfast table a few days later, Joel said to me with a shrug in his shoulder, "Momma, I don't know how to get to Heaven.  How do you get there?  Do you walk?  Take a car?  What?"  Again, Joel's perspective had never occured to me.  In his mind Heaven must be a place like Italy is a place or Turkey is a place.  Just as my cousin has gone to Italy for his final semester of college, and my mom is in Turkey for four months, so Samuel must be on a trip to Heaven.  All three people he loves are "gone," and he can't distinguish the difference between a journey and death.  I am grateful for these moments that help me understand what he's thinking and that enable me to try and explain, however inadequately, about death. 

As a result of Joel's literal mind, I have learned not to use with him (or really with anyone) the softening language we tend to prefer in America like "lost."  Samuel is not lost.  He is the exact opposite of lost.  I don't know why we even think lost is a more comforting term than dead.  Imagine being lost for eternity.  That sounds horrible.  "Gone" is equally undesirable in my opinion and confusing for children.  Why are we so afraid of the truth?  Why are we afraid to say dead? 

The other thing Joel has asked numerous times lately is, "Are there toys in Heaven?"  He clearly spends time wondering what Samuel is up to and if Samuel is happy.  I told him what my mom told me when I was a kid and was worried that my pets wouldn't be in Heaven with me: "Joel, I don't know.  But I do know this.  Heaven will have whatever we need to be truly happy."  Joel decided that there are, indeed, toys in Heaven. 

I am still surprised by how often Samuel is on Caleb and Joel's minds, but in some ways it comforts me.  I am glad they think of him as part of the family and want to know that he's happy and cared for.  I want to know that too.  And I'm so thankful that I can know it. 

Hoping in God Alone

It's been a hard couple of days for me.  One of those stretches where babies and pregnant bellies and passing families with 3 kids open up a pit in my stomach, and I think I'm going to get sucked inside a vortex of grief.  I don't like these days.  They are days that challenge my dependence on God, my trust in His unwavering goodness, and my patience with His ways and timing.  They are days when all I really want to do is climb in bed, cry, and sleep.  Thankfully, they are no longer normal days for me, but they sure sting when they come.  It's been awhile since I've had a day as hollow feeling as this one.  I had forgotten how bottomless they feel and just how bad they are. 

This morning after I got out of the shower, I was remembering the hours after Samuel first died.  I remembered how we finally walked away from his body and went to the sleep pods to collect our stuff.  We had gotten a wagon while at Samuel's dock to put all his stuff in as well as the plethora of grief material the hospital brought us shortly after he died.  I remembered walking down that long hallway to the sleeping area, pulling the wagon and being numb and in a daze and mostly feeling lost and confused and so, so heavy-hearted.  For some reason this morning I thought of the woman's face who ran that area of the hospital.  She had seen us everyday for 9 days -- asking for a lottery number for the rooms, checking if we got one, putting our stuff in a room, dragging it back out the next morning.  She knew us a little, and as we walked toward her area, she was standing at her desk with tears in her eyes.  For some reason, the picture of that made me break down sobbing in the bathroom.  I am often surprised by what elicits tears these days.

I'm learning that much of my hope lately seems to be on a picture of our future in this life.  My better days are when I think our future looks promising, even though it doesn't hold Samuel.  When I think God really might grant us more children who are healthy and well, I walk lighter and smile more easily.  But when something makes me doubt that vision of what's ahead, I find the ever-lapping waves of grief grow mighty and pull me under, and it takes me a few days to surface again. 

I have misplaced my hope.  I know in my head that true hope, hope that will definitely be satisfied, can only be found in Christ and His death and resurrection.  All others hopes are insufficient, bound to be disappointed in some facet, and distracting from the ultimate hope of Heaven and eternity with Christ.  But my heart seems to be lagging behind my head, still clinging to earthly hopes and still anchoring itself on temporal dreams.  I'm not sure how to redirect my heart to something that feels so far away when I am so hungry for God to satisfy my earthly dreams.  I guess recognizing the problem is a start.

When Samuel was in the hospital, a friend gave us a Matt Redman cd.  I didn't really listen to it and pay attention to the lyrics until January (probably my worst month of grief) when it was my turn at the wheel on our trip to Disney.  I was immediately drawn to one of the songs in particular, and when I'd go running (something I hate to do but it seemed to help with my anger), I would play this song over and over.  A few weeks ago, our church performed the same song on Easter, and then we sang it the following Sunday.  The words are relevant to my misplaced hope and the real, lasting hope of Christ.

"Who, oh Lord, could save themselves,
Their own soul could heal?
Our shame was deeper than the sea
Your grace is deeper still

Who, oh Lord, could save themselves,
Their own soul could heal?
Our shame was deeper than the sea
Your grace is deeper still

You alone can rescue, You alone can save
You alone can lift us from the grave
You came down to find us, led us out of death
To You alone belongs the highest praise

You, oh Lord, have made a way
The great divide You heal
For when our hearts were far away
Your love went further still
Yes, your love goes further still

You alone can rescue, You alone can save
You alone can lift us from the grave
You came down to find us, led us out of death
To You alone belongs the highest praise
To You alone belongs the highest praise
To You alone belongs the highest praise

We lift up our eyes, lift up our eyes
You’re the Giver of Life
We lift up our eyes, lift up our eyes
You’re the Giver of Life

You alone can rescue, You alone can save
You alone can lift us from the grave
You came down to find us, led us out of death
To You alone belongs the highest praise
To You alone belongs the highest praise
To You alone belongs the highest praise."


I keep finding such truth in "Who, oh Lord, could save themselves,/ Their own soul could heal?"  I am so glad that God is the giver of life, that He can lift us from the grave, that He alone can rescue, that He has led us out of death, and that He has made a way, the great divide He's healed.  He is the ONE in whom my hope should rest, regardless of circumstances, regardless of sorrow, regardless of grief.  To Him alone belongs the highest praise.  O, Lord, help me place my hope in You alone, and heal this soul that I cannot.  You deserve my praise, and I freely give it.  Thank You for rescuing me and for lifting Samuel from the grave.  Thank You that one day You will lift me too, and my hope will be satisfied.  Give me courage to hope in You and faith to trust You no matter what life holds.  Anchor me to You alone.  Amen.

That's How the Light Gets In

Last week Bryan and I went to grief counseling for the third time.  Judy, our counselor, shared a quote with us from a Leonard Cohen song called "Anthem."  I've been thinking about it ever since.

"Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in."

I guess there are multiple layers to this that I keep returning to.  The part that draws me most is "There is a crack in everything/ That's how the light gets in."  It's so true.  In my life, the parts of my story that are cracked are the parts that show Christ most brightly.  Where I am broken -- be it by my own doing or by someone else's -- that is where Christ shines brilliantly.  Without fail, the times when I have seen God's faithfulness the clearest and most vividly, where He is radiant and most compelling, are the times when my world is cracked.  Life without Samuel is broken at its very core, but I can see God's light with more clarity than ever before.  His light casts rays over everything; even in the darkest of days, God's light shimmers over me.  He glows with goodness, kindness, peace, faithfulness, and love.  In the darkness, His light shines the brightest.

And as God's light filters through the cracks in my broken heart, it shines on what is rotten and sinful.  It illuminates the dark parts of my heart I couldn't see before.  In these days I can see -- with appalling clarity -- my pride, my selfishness, my resistance to direction from others, my reluctance to open my hands and lay what I treasure before God's throne, and my tendency to be defensive.  God's light, coming through the cracks of my broken life, pronounces sin for what it is -- not as the harmless idiosyncrasies I sometimes like to think of them as.

I like the first two lines of Cohen's verse as well: "Ring the bells that still can ring/ Forget your perfect offering."  I am not perfect, and I cannot offer God a perfect me.  As much as I want to honor Him in my grief and in how I respond to the tragedy in our lives, I know I cannot do it perfectly.  I fall short all the time.  But that doesn't mean I shouldn't try or that I shouldn't proclaim my faith in Him.  It doesn't mean I shouldn't blog until I have the answers and until I can state my faith flawlessly or represent Him with perfect accuracy.  I am so far from the woman I want to be, but I can still ring the bells for God.  I can still shout out my love for Christ and praise Him with what I am and where I am.  I'm not the me I want to be, but I can offer God who I am right now.  He will meet me where I am, and in the cracks of my heart, He will shine His perfect light and begin to change me into that woman I wish I was.

So though I have fleeting moments when I'm tempted to wish for an unblemished and easy life, I know there is no such thing.  And I know without the hardships and heartbreaks of my life, I would not be able to see, by contrast, the amazing brilliance of God's perfect light.  In my sorrow and pain, I can still "ring the bells that still can ring."  Losing Samuel has in no way squelched my love for or trust in God.  It's done the exact opposite, in fact.  I can declare God's truth, love, and faithfulness with this broken heart of mine.  And though I am not perfect, I can offer who I am.  In my imperfections, and in the imperfections of the world around me, God's light can radiate and offer real hope and real joy and real peace.   So, I will:

"Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in."

A Week of Anniversaries

The last week has been full of significant days.  We marked 7 months since Samuel died, 8 months since his birth, a year since we found out he was a boy and had heart defects, the day on which we remember Jesus' death, the day on which we celebrate His resurrection, and a year since we saw the pediatric cardiologist for the first time and got our first of numerous varying pictures of what to expect once Samuel was born (according to the diagnosis, Samuel would need surgery within a few days of birth, but the success rate was 95%).  It's been a little daunting to dwell on each of these days and to let the significance of them really sink in. 

When I think about a year ago, this past week was the one in which I most prepared to have a son who would die.  Once we found out Samuel had a heart defect, we did not do any investigation to learn more about the diagnosis.  We knew that the initial diagnosis from my OB's office was a best guess, and the perinatologist seemed very unconvinced that her differing diagnosis was accurate.  So Bryan and I decided to wait until we heard from the pediatric cardiologist to do any research, to google anything, etc.  We didn't want to go down some road we didn't have to travel.  So we waited.  In those 6 days of waiting, I was prepared for the worst.  I was aware that my son could die.  I was aware that he was not mine but was God's.  I was aware that I had to have open hands.  And I trusted God to see us through whatever was ahead.  I am deeply thankful, looking back, that I had those 6 days to prepare my heart to lose my son.  I don't think I would have had the courage to dwell in that place if we'd heard right away that there was a 95% success rate, and in all likelihood, we'd be bringing home a healthy baby after a few really rough weeks at the very start of his life.  Those days, more than any other, prepared me for the life we have found ourselves living.

On the desk in front of me is the one picture of me holding Samuel, just the two of us.  I find my eyes keep drifting up there.  Bryan took it about 45 minutes after he was born.  I bet I had him in my arms for less than a minute.  I barely got a look at him.  I didn't know I would never again get to see his living face unencumbered by tubes and tape.  And little did I know that those would be the only moments of hope-filled holding I would do.  The next time I would hold my son, he would be the size of a 6 month old from all the swelling, covered by tape, tubes, and a dozen wires, and on his way out of this life and into the eternal hereafter.  How short our time together was.

On Good Friday, I kept thinking about Jesus dying and how God chose it.  God willingly gave up His son for me, for Samuel.  When I think of the agony we endured in August, watching our son die, my heart falters imagining God opening up His hands and sacrificing His perfect son for a very imperfect and fallen people.  He gave up the one He loved for the beings He created -- the very beings who rejected Him, betrayed Him, doubted Him, cursed Him.  I can't begin to imagine giving up my son for anyone, much less for a people who were cruel, broken, sinful, and full of pride.  Jesus' death means more to me than ever before.  He died on that cross for me and for my sons.  And God's sacrifice as a father...it humbles me and brings me to my knees before Him.

Just as Good Friday has grown in significance for me, Easter also holds more meaning and joy than ever before.  Jesus' resurrection is what I pin my hopes on.  Because Jesus rose again and conquered death, Samuel will rise again, and someday I too will rise and see my sweet son once more.  Though the hope of Heaven has always been a part of my faith, it's personal now.  There is someone in Heaven I can't wait to see again.  Because of Jesus, Samuel is more a part of my future than of my past. 

It's been a big week, and I think it will be a few more weeks before I'll be able to really let the significance of these anniversaries settle.  They all still feel astir in my soul.  And though it's been a hard week in many ways, it's also been a good week.  Easter feels kindly timed to remind me of the hope that is ahead.  And we had a great Easter in many ways.  My cousin, Emily, joined us for the weekend, and that helped lift our spirits a lot.  She is a joy, and Caleb and Joel are crazy about her.  When she left on Sunday evening, I immediately felt myself deflating.  All the energy that buoyed me up while she was here vanished as the door closed behind her.  I guess that's part of grief.  Every high is followed by a noticeable low.  I felt the weight of grief crashing back down.  But these days grief feels more manageable than it once did.  Though I was burdened, I didn't feel like I was suffocating, and that's major improvement.

Truly, our weekend was full of smiles.  Here is some proof:

 Bryan made a scavenger hunt for the boys to find their Easter baskets.  They had a ball!  One is Caleb on his way to his next clue, and the next is Joel finding his clue.

And just because it seems wrong not to post these, here are Bryan's latest pancake masterpieces:

R2D2

Admiral Ackbar

Yoda

Storm Trooper (I think his name is Davin Felth?)

From My Journal a Year Ago Today

On April 2, 2009, I wrote the following in my journal:

"Today we found out we're having another boy!  3 boys...WOW.  And we found out he has a heart defect -- it's called Transposition of the Great Vessels.  And he may have VSD (a hole in his heart) as well.  This morning when I woke up, I was so anxious about this ultrasound.  I felt so uneasy and unsettled.  I got there before Bryan and went back to the ultrasound room before he arrived.  The sonographer looked at baby very briefly and then left to see if Bryan was here yet.  At that point I felt quite uneasy, but I prayed, and my heart quieted.  I spent the drive praying too.  After we saw lots of things and found out it was a boy, the sonographer told us she saw some things she wanted to talk to Dr. Lambert about and to sit tight.  Though I knew that wasn't good news, I felt total peace.  I wished Dr. Siegel was there, but other than that I felt calm and unruffled.  Dr. Siegel came in to my surprise and told us he'd meet us in a room.  Normally, he's in surgery on Thursday, but he happened to be in the hall and overheard the news.  B and I waited a bit longer, and Dr. S came in and told us the news.  He walked us through it, drew diagrams, and was very kind.  Basically our son will need heart surgery sometime in the first few months after he's born.  This is not something I ever thought I could endure.  I've often thought the one area I didn't think I could be tested in and truly rest in God and be okay is the health and life of my children.  I already know I was wrong, for I have felt total confidence in His goodness NO MATTER the outcome of this trial.  Our stories (B and me) have not been easy thus far, and I am grateful for that.  I am grateful for God's story in my life -- for how He's molded and shaped me through the hardships and heartbreaks, and I look forward to who He will make me to be on the other side of whatever is ahead.  I know it will be a refining road.  I know it will hurt and require great faith on my part, but I know my God is worthy of all my faith and praise.  I rest in Him.

"As I opened my Bible for some time with Him (I am in Psalm 108), the opening verses were these:

              'My heart is confident in You, O God; no wonder I can sing your praises.'

"So perfect for today.  My HEART is confident in Him, and I can, in all honesty, sing His praises.  And my HEART knows He made my son's HEART.  He is a God of no mistakes.

"Thank you, Lord, that I can trust You, that this boy is in Your hands.  Thank you that You are God of all of this, of all that is ahead.  I TRUST YOU.  Amen."

A year later, and on the other side of "NO MATTER the outcome of this trial," I say with full confidence that God is indeed good.   My heart is still confident in Him, and I sing His praises with more conviction than ever.  I am thankful for this unfiltered outpouring of my thoughts and feelings from that day, for a documented glimpse of how God started to carry us from the moment we knew something was wrong.  He has faithfully carried us every day of the last year, and I can look ahead and say that NO MATTER what is next, He will continue to carry me, and His faithfulness will endure.  How grateful I am for a God who sent His son to die for me.  I can, in fact, rest in Him.

A Paradigm Shift on Prayer

I've been given a lot of books since Samuel died.  I've read some while others are stacked up on the floor by my bed.  I think an author's story is what has drawn me to read select books -- has the author lived through some horrific heartbreak that makes my ear want to turn toward him or her, that makes me perk up to listen and willing to spend time delving into the wisdom he or she offers?  I find I am willing to hear what someone who has suffered has to say.  Two of the books I have read have been by women who know the profound loss of the death of a baby.  One of them I finished just last week.  What made me open the cover and start to read it was an article a friend passed along about the woman who wrote it.

When her daughter was only a few days old, Nancy Guthrie found out her baby girl, Hope, had a fatal and very rare condition.  Hope's systems slowly shut down, and she died when she was 6 months old.  Since Zellweger's Syndrome is genetic, the Guthries decided to prevent future pregnancies by means of a vasectomy.  However, the vasectomy failed, and they found themselves expecting another child.  That child, too, had Zellweger's, and Gabriel lived just short of 6 months. 

When I read the article about the Guthries' story, I had a few really bad days.  I cannot -- CANNOT -- imagine living this all over again.  And the thought that it's possible -- that I really could have to live this grief and heartbreak twice -- was terrifying.  I was reminded that God does not work the way we expect Him to.  He's not "fair."  (Thank goodness He's not because I surely don't want what I deserve!)  I don't get a pass on future hardship just because I've already suffered.  Losing another baby could, in all reality, happen again.  How horrifying.

But reading about what Nancy has endured made me open her book, Holding on to Hope.  And it made me read closely and with a pen in hand.  My copy is very marked up.  Much of what she says, I too have said on this blog.  It was good to feel a kinship with her -- to know someone else could relate to what I've felt and experienced, to what has comforted me and what has served to deepen my pain, to seeking God's face in the midst of constant heartache, and to longing to honor Him with my pain.

Some of what she says, however, has really challenged me.   For the last week I've been thinking about what she wrote about prayer.  She writes:
           
                "Often, I see the body of Christ put so much into pursuing God for healing.  With great boldness and passion and persistence, we cry out to God, begging for physical healing.  And in these prayers, there is often a tiny P.S. added at the end where we say, 'If it be your will.'
                 "But shouldn't we switch that around?
                 "Shouldn't we cry out to God with boldness and passion and persistence in a prayer that says, 'God, would you please accomplish your will?  Would you give me a willing heart to embrace your plan and your purpose?  Would you mold me into a vessel that you can use to accomplish what you have in mind?'  And then, perhaps, we could add a tiny P.S. that says, 'If that includes healing, we will be grateful.'
                  "Isn't real faith revealed more through pursuing God and what he wants than through pursuing what we want?"

Wow.  I keep thinking about this.  I have expended a lot of energy praying for what I want.  When Samuel was alive, I certainly begged for his healing.  Since he's died, I beg for my healing.  I don't regret that or think I've done something wrong, but I am deeply challenged by Guthrie's point that we should spend effort beseeching God to accomplish His purposes rather than tacking it on to the end of the prayer -- almost out of habit.  If anyone else had written this, I don't know that I would have been receptive.  Probably I would have thought, "What do you know about pleading for healing?  Come back to me after you've watched your infant son suffer and die."  But Guthrie wrote this when she had watched the long and drawn out suffering of her daughter and, what's more remarkable, when she was pregnant with her son and knew she would watch it again.  I am awed by her courage and her faith.  I think if I was in her shoes, I would spend every waking moment asking God for a miracle, for my son to be born perfectly healthy afterall.  Would I have had the courage to pray instead that He would make me a willing vessel for whatever He had in mind?  And then, simply, without ado, mention that healing would be wonderful, if that's what He wanted?  I can answer with almost perfect assurance, no!

These days I don't have a sick child to beg God to heal, but I do have things that I desperately want, and I spend a lot of time asking God to grant them to me.  How much time do I spend asking Him to accomplish His purposes in me?  It's not even comparable.  I have begged God, for the last almost 7 months, to one day grant me another child from my womb who is perfectly healthy and strong, who will have a strong heart and strong lungs, who will come straight into my arms after birth, who will be in our hospital room with us, who will come home to this house and grow up with Caleb and Joel teaching him how to do the things they love to do, who will trust in Him and grow old serving Him. That is what I want.  Desperately.  But more than that, do I want what God wants?  If I search my heart, the answer is yes, but it's a really scary yes.  Can I trust God enough to lay down my hopes and desires and pick up His instead?  I can.  And I pray that I will.  As Nancy Guthrie writes:

           "...because I believe God's plans for me are better than what I could plan for myself, rather than run away from the path he has set before me, I want to run toward it.  I don't want to try to change God's mind -- his thoughts are perfect.  I want to think his thoughts.  I don't want to change God's timing -- his timing is perfect.  I want the grace to accept his timing.  I don't want to change God's plan -- his plan is perfect.  I want to embrace his plan and see how he is glorified through it.  I want to submit."

Lord, help me submit to your plan, whatever it is.  Accomplish in me whatever it is you want to accomplish.  Give me a willing heart to walk whatever road you lay before me.  Use me and my story for your purposes, and give me courage to lay my own desires down and to pick up yours.  I love you.  Help me to love you more with each passing day and to trust you more with every moment.  Amen.