The house is completely quiet. I am laying on the couch literally breathing in the silence. This is what my heart needed today.
Rest. Quiet. Perspective.
I just spent the last hour reading over old blog entries. Laughing. Crying. Remembering the goodness of the Lord. His faithfulness in all seasons of my life. Writing and blogging has been a great outlet for me over the last number of years but over the last three months I have had no desire to write. I have started a couple entries and deleted them. Written several more in my head. But I felt like the words always felt flat and empty. And sometimes I simply didn't have the desire or emotional energy to even sit down at the computer.
But today I sit at the keys knowing that pushing on them touches something in my heart. As the words flow, the perspective comes. And it is good.
The journey started last winter. After I was pregnant with Eden I felt like I was done having kids. D-O-N-E. But over the winter through a number of different situations the Lord grabbed hold of my heart and attention and called me to surrender. I did what I often do, fought for several weeks. During this time I had pulled something in my back and was in a lot of pain spending a lot of time on the couch. It reminded me of the last several weeks of my pregnancy with Eden and I felt like this was just confirmation that I was indeed done. But the pain did not go away. So one Sunday at church I cried out in surrender, giving this area of pregnancy over to Him. The next day the pain was gone.
Several dreams and random prophetic words later God continued to get our attention. In early October I found out I was pregnant. I was excited but also freaked out. Six kids. That's half a dozen. Oh my...
I then spent the next 8 weeks in a hole. I started to not feel good battling nauseousness. At the same time I had these weird headaches and pressure behind my eyes. I was stressed out and not sleeping. I would wake up in the middle of the night with anxiety attacks. I felt depressed like the life was being sucked out of me.
Yet there was still the pressing needs of a bustling household of seven. I was trying to keep perspective. Trying to trust the Lord. Trying. Trying. But feeling like I was failing miserably inside.
Two weeks ago I went for my first ultrasound. I was 11 weeks along in my pregnancy and feeling very pregnant. I was starting to feel a little better and had high hopes for the ultrasound joking with people that maybe there would even be twins. But as soon as technician started the ultrasound I knew. Something was wrong. There was no kicking moving baby. Just a big sac with something small in the corner. I was 11 weeks but the baby was only measuring 5 weeks and there was no heartbeat. They did not tell me for sure that day we were losing the baby but my heart knew. We waited another week before the final confirmation but by then we had already started the letting go process.
This time was hard. My heart felt hard and numb. And I hated it. It was hard to grieve and let go when I still felt pregnant and clearly had a growing abdomen. It was hard not to be frustrated that this happened again. It was hard to make sense of all the confirmations God had brought along the way only for it to end like this. It was hard not to feel completely overwhelmed by what was to come either miscarrying naturally or having another surgery. And all the while feeling nauseous and crampy and having five other children demanding my attention. I went into survival mode just doing what I needed to do to get through the day. Some days better than others. And the Lord was faithful to bring encouraging words and prayers when I needed them. But I still felt like my heart was far away.
Yesterday I went into the hospital for a D&E surgery. I was now close to 13 weeks and my body still had not naturally released the baby. It was time. I had done this surgery twice before when I was pregnant with the twins but it still did not make it easy. Going under anesthesia freaks me out every time.
I woke up crying. Sobbing really. In my grogginess of the anesthesia I thought I heard the sound of a newborn baby crying. I woke up a little more and listened again. It was a baby and I heard a nurse say it was a boy. I began to weep. I knew this was the Lord helping me to get in touch with my heart and I welcomed the tears. We felt like the baby was a boy and hearing those newborn cries helped put me in touch with the reality of our loss. My womb was empty. I am always amazed by that after a miscarriage, how empty it feels inside. But where I was unable to grieve before while I was still carrying the baby, with this new emptiness came the space to began to grieve.
And that is what I am continuing to do today. In the quietness the tears are flowing, healing, touching places in my heart. Reviving the life in my heart that has felt so cold and dead these last few months.
And with every loss of life God has breathed something new into us and I am believing for that. For new things to be birthed into my heart. I can feel it already.
" God doesn’t allow pain unless He’s allowing something new to be born. And there are a thousand ways births can happen unseen to the naked eye but it’s the eyes of the heart that see the delivering mercies of God."
~ann voskamp
"I waited patiently (and sometimes not so patiently) for the Lord. He turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire. He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.
He put a new song in my mouth a hymn of praise to our God."
~Psalm 40:1-3
