Thankful

Made it to my 39th today!

So very much has happened since I last posted, and I won't try to defend or explain my absence or even to catch everyone up in one post! All I can think about today is how grateful I am for the path that my life has taken. Especially when I thought it would look different at 39.

I thought I'd be married in my early twenties....I'm so grateful to the Lord for keeping Eric and me single until our later years. Cannot imagine another person who would compliment, love, and challenge me as he does. (He's been after me to pick up writing again for a long time now!)

I thought I'd have several children by now (biologically of course and then we'd have adopted)..... Thankful to be able to say that the very painful path to our two beautiful daughters was so very worth it. Worth the heartache, tears, and loss of many years to wake up now as momma to these two gifts. Each of their adoption stories has been full of beauty, heartbreak, and learning to have open hands.

I thought I'd be living in the mountains....Nashville has been a place of such growth and deep, deep friendships for me. I bought my first house here, I've been at the same church for nearly 10 years, and I've put down roots. I've accepted life-giving dares from dear friends here and came out on the other side of those challenges more free. (Although I secretly still hope for a mountain retreat someday in the future :) ..... that's ok, right?!)

I thought I'd have the same "good" relationship with the Lord that I'd always had...... Humbled that He would chose to put me through fire to experience a more "real" relationship with Him. He is more tender and lovely than I knew Him to be.

Those are the biggest ones. I hope to be writing more often.....we shall see :) ....

A New (out)Look

Maybe because it's looking like spring, maybe because there's a slight lifting of the cloud (for this moment at least) that has followed us for a year or two, maybe because it's sunshiny today ..... I miss writing and I miss thinking "aloud" on this blog ..... so, here I am again.

First of all, with a new look for the blog. Spring is just hopeful, there's no way around it...more hopeful to me most of the time than the season of New Year's. My daffodils are up in February and it's going to be 60 degrees and sunny today. So, a new pretty yellow color and flower to lighten things a bit....in honor of the "buttercups", to quote my grandmother.

Second of all, a new view of Lent for me. While I have given up tangible things in the past years, I'm realizing this year that this is too easy for me. It is easy for me to resist my craving for something that I can control whether I partake in it (eating/drinking/reading/watching TV, etc). For I am about control in my life (aren't we all?), and fasting for me can lead to legalism. So much so, that even when I decided yesterday to change the focus of my Lent, I still fasted from the original thing (drinking carbonated drinks) when I had the choice. "I need to keep my word, I need to follow the rules, I need to sacrifice!"

I am not saying that there is not a place for fasting and for sacrifice. But if the goal is to cause us to turn to Jesus and recognize our need of Him and Him alone, how does my skewed view of "I must do this or bad things will happen?" honor Him. Did you notice all of the "need's" in that sentence above? Jesus is all that I need.

What I have a hard time controlling lately is something that I absolutely cannot control on my own. Seems obvious enough, I know. But this Lent season for me is going to be about giving up fear. I'm not even sure what that looks like right now, but it really seems like I'm supposed to do this. Will I name them, face them, define them in light of Scripture? We are told "do not fear" so many times. What does that look like? I only know that it is not something that I can do on my own, and this will bring more reliance on Him than anything else I might give up.

So, this morning, I am toasting my newly-opened soda (in the freedom of Jesus) to you and your Lent....whatever that looks like for you :) ..... may He cause us to reign things in, give things up, or walk a little more freely this season, because He is enough.

How In The World

How is it possible to grieve so much for someone you've never met, never seen, never touched, never kissed......? How do you honor the potential of a life that was alive, even for a brief moment? How do you mourn something so intangible and so real at the same time? How do I wait for my lifetime to meet these I can't seem to take my mind off of?

Our first three would have been due in November and I am feeling their absence deeply these days.

Buechner Quote--Can I Believe It All Again Today?

Every morning, you should wake up in your bed and ask yourself:

"Can I believe it all again today?"

No. Better still. Don't ask it until you've read the New York Times, till after you've studied that daily record of the world's brokenness and corruption, which should always stand side by side with your Bible.

THEN, ask yourself if you can believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ again for that particular day. If your answer's always "yes" then you probably don't know what believing means. At least five times out of ten, the answer should be "no" because the "no" is as important as the "yes", maybe more so. The "no" is what proves you're human in case you should ever doubt it.

And then if some morning the answer happens to really be "yes", it should be a "yes" that is choked with confession, tears, and great laughter.

--Fredrick Buechner

Re-Landscaping

It's been a while since I've written....a lot going on. Feels like I've been (and still am) in survival mode. But writing has always been an outlet for me. I've hesitated to be too personal on this blog, but I've been stripped of many things these past weeks. One being my concern for asking "is this ok?" about every action I take. What we've been through is known by enough friends that I feel freed up to write more honestly now. I am not ashamed of what we've been through, so what is the shame in writing about it?

We are wading through the aftermath of our second failed IVF attempt. We have 5 babies (and yes, we consider the embryos our children) that are now with the Lord. Saying, or writing this, still makes me weep.

I hope to write more to process just that thought, that reality.

Today, I'm thinking on something that I've been reading. Slowly working through a book on grief called A Grace Disguised by Jerry Sittser, recommended by a friend. Really, really good. He writes about the fact that, after a "catastrophic loss", we are different people than we were before the loss. He compares the loss to a tree that was cut down in his yard where the stump remained, an ever-present reminder of what used to be there. Right now it's hard to think of anything but the tree, the loss.

Here is what he writes about it:

"Eventually, however, I decided to do something about it. I landscaped my backyard, reclaiming it once again as my own. I decided to keep the stump there, since it was both too big and too precious to remove. Instead of getting rid of it, I worked around it. I planted shrubs, trees, flowers, and grass. I laid out a brick pathway and built two benches. Then I watched everything grow. Now, three years later, the stump remains, still reminding me of the beloved tree I lost. But the stump is surrounded by a beautiful garden of blooming flowers and growing trees and lush grass. Likewise, the sorrow I feel remains, but I have tried to create a landscape around the loss so that what was once ugly is now an integral part of a larger, lovely whole."

Lord, I'm asking for faith to believe that You can, and will, landscape this gaping, aching hole in my heart, in our life. Give me strength to make it to the time of enjoying the beauty that You have integrated around it. Give me hope that You are writing glory into even this story when darkness seems to have the upper hand.

Hope on the Wind

Thanks Ann Voskamp:

"And no wind ever blows so hard that it doesn’t carry hope, that it doesn’t blow in blessings too."

Out of the harsh winds of the past months came blessing and hope yesterday. No guarantees but encouragement nonetheless.

Blessings

The Lord is so kind to give us what we need exactly when we need it.

One day this past weekend, I had two separate friends tell me about the song "Blessings" by Laura Story. Finding myself sleepless tonight, I looked up the lyrics and listened to it. What a balm for my soul, for my aching, fearful heart. (see the lyrics below)

Lord, use my sleepless nights and this pain to heal my heart....however that looks.

More of You, Jesus, more of You.

We pray for blessings
We pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering
All the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love us way too much to give us lesser things

Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

We pray for wisdom
Your voice to hear
And we cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt Your goodness, we doubt Your love
As if every promise from Your Word is not enough
All the while, You hear each desperate plea
And long that we'd have faith to believe

Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
And what if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

When friends betray us
When darkness seems to win
We know the pain reminds this heart
That this is not, this is not our home

Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
And what if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
What if my greatest disappointments
Or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy
And what if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are Your mercies in disguise