Redeeming into Beautiful Things

Has God ever given you a deja vu moment?

I came home from getting my hair trimmed and a quick run to the grocery store to see Josh and Addy coming toward me from their bike ride. Addy was wearing an old outfit from Cheyenne, our foster daughter, and the same helmet Chey use to wear while riding her Hello Kitty bike. I had to look twice because Addy looked so much like Chey.

I had a little lump in my throat and quickly swallowed it.

But I couldn't help my mind from thinking of the ways God had and has been redeeming the past.

Cheyenne had our hearts. She called us "mommy" and "daddy" We were captivated by her for ten beautiful months.

That December when we transitioned her back to her bio mom was difficult to say the least. Christmas was awkward to celebrate and nothing felt the same. A few months prior to her return, we had a miscarriage. And a few weeks before she returned, we decided to get our beagle, Cocoa. I knew I would need something to snuggle.

Lately, I'm reminded of how much of the past pain and heartache God has been redeeming, over and over again.

Honestly, I'm overwhelmed by it.

A few months ago, we found out we were expecting again and just yesterday, at 21 weeks, we found out our little one is a little man. Addy is thrilled and so are we.

On the days I feel overwhelmed as a mom (and they are many), I try to remind myself of what God is doing through our lives. I try to remember my blessings, little and big. 

We told many of our friends and family we were pregnant, but not early on. And I know it was hard for many of them to not see it on Facebook right away. I just want you to know, we were really enjoying telling people as we could, face to face. We felt such a joy being able to see peoples reactions and have them share in our joy. You can't fully capture those moments over social media, now can you?! 

Also, having gone through loss ourselves, we are ultra sensitive to sharing this news with others, especially over social media. We by no means want to cause further grief to those already suffering enough. But thank you friends for being gracious in our news and sharing in our joy. 

Cheyenne use to love singing the Gungor song "Beautiful Things" and to me it captured so much of her little life and soul. 

Right now, it encompasses so much of my heart. Even through my unknown, fear-ridden days as a mom, carrying another little life inside of me, I need to know that He is continuing to make beautiful things out of me...out of all of us. 

Everyone's story is a beautiful depiction of God's redemption being woven into and through our lives. Sharing in each other's pain and joy is a way of showing others a glimpse of God at work, whatever part of the journey we are on. 

Sharing our joy in the midst of loss

Since our miscarriage just over a year ago, I have found myself ultra-sensitive to how I share about my pregnancy and now about life as a mother of an infant. I know what it's like to loose one sweet baby, though I have no clue what it's like to have lost multiple. I learned through our loss that people, sometimes the people you least expect, can say some really stupid things in the midst of an individuals grief and healing. Christians, in particular, from my experience say some super stupid things. Sometimes all I wanted was to be quiet. Sometimes all I wanted from others was to just listen. Sometimes I wanted to scream at God, at people, at my friends, at my family. I was mad at God, mad at circumstances out of my control. I was irritated that I could be left alone and I was tearful when no one tapped in. Mostly, I was a mess.

And I also learned that spouses can grieve differently from each other. What was a big ordeal for me to overcome, was not as big to Josh. How I communicated my grief wasn't necessarily the same way Josh communicated his grief. To say that he didn't grieve is a misguided understatement. Of course he grieved. He grieved with me and sometimes the say way as I did; sometimes not. I couldn't lump his healing process into my same box, expecting it to be the same.

I'm no longer on Facebook and I rarely check or post to my Twitter account. I've heard from friends who have lost and are trying to get pregnant that reading their friends constant posts about their family and kids and pregnancy can be difficult. It can also be difficult to have so many friends pregnant or having kids, while you are still trying to get over the loss of baby number 1, 2, 3, etc.

I know I had to arrive at some sense of closure with my loss in order to move on to what else God had for me in life. I know that is a constant choice I must make every day, sometimes throughout the day. As I sit here typing this words with the breath of my baby girl near my face and her warm snuggles surrounding me, I know that I feel so very blessed. I feel blessed in the realization that she is a miracle. Her health is a miracle, her life and her existence. I know that she is the Lord's, not mine. She is merely mine and Josh's to love and teach and take care of. Ultimately she's the Lord's. Someday I may find myself wondering why she may be taken from me before I breathe my last; I hope to God I don't have to experience that. But for now, she's here and she's a gift.

I try to be sensitive when sharing about my new life as a new mom with friends who I know are grieving their losses, maybe their losses of their adult children as well, not just their baby's. Loss on any level is so difficult and it really does try our souls and tugs on all of our emotions.

I hate the why question and I'll just never understand the answer to it. Maybe I can't know the answer in my lifetime. Will I be okay with that? I know that grieving and healing is such a fundamental part of our lives. It's really part of our DNA. We exist, we live, we loose, we grieve, we heal. To others we live, we die...that's it. No hope, no purpose. I can't imagine a life like that. What's the point? There just isn't a point. I cling to the hope I have in the Lord everyday. I know that without that I am truly nothing. Sometimes I need to remind myself of that and the purpose I have in this life. I know that I am not alone. I know that my loss is sometimes similar to another person's loss, but also different. I know that others have lost more than me and that at times I've lost more than certain people. But do I really need to keep track? At the end of the day loss is loss and joy is joy. What is one person's season of letting go, might be another person's season of accepting something new. And how do we live in the in between?

We're told in our churches to "do life together." What does that actually mean? It's a cute little phrase that we like to throw out that shows our unity and our purpose. But is it more than a phrase and if so, how do we actually live that? Being a part of someones healing process is just as important as sharing in their joy. One shouldn't  really outweigh the other.