I feel God working in the tumultuous time that is my life right now. I feel Him moving and shaping and pushing and pulling. He's doing things and manipulating time and space. I have this mental image of Him standing over my family, pushing invisible things around with immense grace and poise. It's calming to know that He is with me, covering me, sheltering me from the wind and rain.
I want so badly to look up and see the sun but right now it feels good to just sit and be. To wait.
You see, the last several months have been a series of highs and lows. In July I had another miscarriage at 9 weeks; my third pregnancy. Then in October we discover that we're expecting again. We waited, we prayed. In November things are still looking good and we're thrilled! We announce our news to our family at Thanksgiving. Then December begins with tremendous pain in K's brother being shot and killed. What a strange juxtaposition of life and death. This fresh, new life budding inside me while the outside world is tainted and stained with tragedy.
Can hope coexist with loss? Yes, with much prayer.
So do you see why it feels good to sit? Why it's refreshing to feel a little rain even when you're longing for sunshine? If my third pregnancy had progressed I would be due this week. I'm going to get really frank here. God knows what He's doing. I expressed to K recently that I feel sad for Baby Redus growing during such a trying time in our lives. Crazy, isn't it? But God had other plans and here I am now, nearing the third trimester of this fourth journey.
Here is where my heart is settling on the matter. My life is in the hands of my creator. When my third pregnancy began to follow much the same journey as my first we were so exhausted. Again, Lord? Really? I thought we were past this. I thought we learned that lesson. I thought I wouldn't have to walk that road again. But he carried us through, bound us up and healed our wounds. In a way, it was easier this time around because we knew what to expect. In other ways it was worse because it opened up new fears. We journeyed through it very quietly which I prefer. Now, as we walk a longer and harder grief journey, He's doing it again. More slowly this time, though, because that's what we need. We need Him to heal us with painstaking purpose. With so much weight and pressure yet so much delicacy and lightness. He's taking our hearts and shaping them and good gosh it hurts. It's uncomfortable healing, like contractions. The kind of pain that brings something good after a long wait, I hope.
So here I sit. Grieving yet hoping. Tearful yet laughing. Dying and living. Stuck but somehow moving. Closing my eyes, feeling the raindrops and the presence of God moving all around me. For the time being I'll stay here and wait.
