The God Part

So. The God part of this story. This part is difficult to write because I'm still working my way back into being comfortable with being near Him. I'm anxious and that makes writing about Him like everything is OK and back to normal feel like a lie. So, just know as I say all of this it is true but it is still a struggle.

After Christmas I began to feel myself coming out of the fog I'd been in since before Thanksgiving. We had begun making changes and plans for changes and I was feeling good about it. Until, all of a sudden, I wasn't. We had decided to adopt, but we lacked focus and a specific plan. It became frustrating and unsettling every time we tried to talk about it, or any time I thought about it.

I knew why. He wasn't part of it. He wasn't part of it because I was unwilling to trust Him enough to allow Him to be. We had trusted Him with Lydia's life and He took her away from us. We trusted him with our plan for a family and were left now with aching hearts and empty arms. All I could think was, "If I trust Him now, what other hurt does He have in store?" Even His blessings can bring pain...how can I trust?

I was happy to have Him keep His hands out of our business and just let us take care of everything. Ha. As if He would do that.

I know too much to believe that any true, joyful and lasting thing could ever exist without Him. I was at an impasse. If I trust, I get hurt. If I don't trust, I get hurt.

Still unsure, we cautiously filled out the paperwork, believing that somehow the other pieces would start to come together. As I finished up the paperwork, we realized that in order to apply, we had to send in $25o for the application fee, which we were expecting, as well as $1750 for the home-study fee, which we were not expecting. I proceeded to have a significant meltdown. We don't have money for this. We have to get money before we can even START the process and I want to start now!

We furiously wrote down every cent we had in savings and figured out ways to pull money from every possible place to figure out how to make this payment. We sent e-mails and text messages to our friends who had adopted or were in the process of adopting asking for information on how to get money from people. We looked into adoption grants and loans. We (well, mostly me) were panicking.

Before we went to sleep that night, Micah got a message back from a friend whose family has recently adopted two little girls from Swaziland. His message was helpful and insightful and ended by assuring Micah that they found as they moved forward in His plan for their family, God provided. In my head, I snickered and said, "Yeah..except I'm not asking Him for anything."

We went to bed having a rough plan of how we could throw together a $2000 payment. We were disheartened, but we had a plan.

The next morning, I called a friend who was going to write a letter of recommendation for us and I needed to double check her address. She asked how the process had been going so far and I told her about the panic that had crashed down the night before and how we were scrambling to find $2000 to send in for our initial payment.

There was quiet for a second and then she said, "OK. I'll be over later today with a check."

Stunned, I tried my best to stammer out some kind of response.

"Yep. We'd already decided to give you between $2000 and $4000 and if you need the money now, I'm bringing it over."

I told her I'd have to call her back, hung up the phone, sat down on the floor and burst into tears.

We didn't ask Him for anything. We couldn't. He provided anyway. Our sweet friends who have walked this difficult road with us wanted to be a part of helping us build our family and this was their opportunity. They took it without hesitation.

We didn't ask Him. He provided anyway. I couldn't believe it. I called Micah in hysterics. I had nowhere in all of my categories and ideas about God to put this new information. I called my friend and tried to explain what I knew she already understood.

This made me want to try to trust again.

I can see it. He's bringing all the pieces together, even now as we move forward with unsure steps. He's saving the life of a sweet child from somewhere who needs to be loved and He's saving my life too. The beautiful thing is that I know He's not just doing this for me.

This gift, this adoption it's not just about me, just as Lydia's life and death was not just about me. There are pieces here that I don't see and don't understand but He's fitting them together, making the broken things into something beautiful.

I'd be lying if I said I've been able to keep this perspective in the past weeks. I've still had my doubt and my anger to reckon with. But I saw it. For a brief, glorious moment, I could see it.

Trying to Find My Way

Wrestling. It’s what I’ve been doing a lot of lately. I’m working hard to try and reconcile two things that don’t seem to want to be reconciled. God is love, yes. But there’s this other thing that rises up in my mind that also says God is...not hate...not evil...but maybe pain? Suffering? Everywhere I look I see that the two are inextricably connected. There is no great suffering unless there is great love.

I suppose at its core, I’m asking the age old question - why is there suffering? More specifically, though, I want to know why I have to suffer. Not that I feel I should be an exception to pain, I just want to understand.

These things are ever and always in the forefront of my mind. Dwelling on them has caused me to ask questions I’ve never asked and doubt things I’ve always had faith in. Is God really real? If He is, is He really as good and loving as I’ve always believed Him to be ? What gives Him the right to do with me whatever He wants? How do I trust Him when all of my trust has been shattered?

Even if I can answer all of these questions there is one that is ever lingering - Do I even want to follow Him? Wouldn’t it be so much easier to pretend like He doesn’t exist? That all of my pain is the result of science gone wrong and freakish, random chance?

It seems like it would just be so much easier. So much less agonizing over things I cannot comprehend.

It is difficult because I feel, ultimately, that I know what my conclusion will be. If I want to follow, all the struggle and frustration and anger really boil down to one thing: If I want to follow Him I have to accept that He is who He is whether I get it or not, He’s going to do what He’s going to do whether I like it or not. I sounds harsh, but notwithstanding His love and patience with my struggle, I have to get in line behind Him or walk way. Knowing that I do still desperately need Him, I know what my choice will be in the end. But it is a long and difficult road to get to the end and I feel somewhat trapped inside an endless maze.

I talk myself in circles, but I hope and believe that one day, like Alice in Wonderland, I’ll open up a before unseen door that will lead me at last to the glorious and freeing end of my struggles. Meanwhile, to find that door, I must keep talking and continue questioning. So, here goes.

This is what I know. I love God. He loves me. The purpose of my life is to know Him and glorify Him. By whatever means necessary He will work towards achieving that goal in my life. That is what I know. Now the circles begin.

I love God - most of the time. More than I love Him now I recognize my need for Him. I dislike that I have this need and very often wish that it was simply a need of my own devising. There are times I would gladly say, “I don’t really need Him. I’m only using Him as an excuse or a crutch.” I would love to say that. The problem is that I will always know, deep down, that I’m wrong. There is an emptiness in me that can only ever be filled by Him. I could pretend but I will always know the truth. I could hide from it for a time, but it would be time wasted, for I would always return to Him.

So. OK. Fine. That’s settled. I do now and will always need Him. I don’t love this, but it cannot be ignored.

Now, as to “He loves me.” This is simple and yet more difficult. There is Scripture that cannot be ignored, places where I am told over and over of His love. There are songs that resonate as truth to my soul that tell me of His love. There is all of my past and His many answers to prayers and expressions of love that serve as a reminder of this truth. There is the unavoidable fact that He sent His son to die for me - the greatest expression of love I could ever imagine. But more than that is the knowledge in the utter depth and dark places of my soul that He loves me. Every new day, every hour, moment and breath speak to me, whisper of His love for me.

Despite all of this (yes, I see my arrogance in even hinting that I could argue with all of this), there is an ever unmoving complication: He let my daughter die. He took her away and left me, like an amputee, limping and hobbling my way through the rest of my life.

When I look to Him now, I see the cause and source of great joy and sweet healing, but I also see the cause of my suffering. How can it be that He is both? How am I supposed to look to Him for healing when, as far as I can see (notwithstanding the sinful world I am part of) much of the responsibility for my life’s greatest pain rests squarely on His shoulders?

If it is love, I do not understand it. But whether I understand it or not, the evidence of His love cannot be ignored. So then, the love and the suffering must be able to be reconciled somehow. This, it seems, brings me to my final knowledge and the only explanation, however unsatisfying I might find it, that makes enough sense to fit. The purpose of my life is to know and glorify Him. I would add, too, that He wants me to know as much as I can the depth of His love for me.

If, as I believe, everything that I am and everything that happens to me is part of God's plan for me to know Him better and to glorify Him, it means that Lydia’s death and my current suffering was meant to teach me to know and love Him better and to give me opportunity to glorify Him. This feels impossible, but I cannot ignore it.

To stare at it and reduce it to its simplest terms, the question becomes this: Which do I want more - to know and glorify Him or to have my baby here and whole with me. I’ve struggled with this from before Lydia’s conception and indeed long before that. Always the same question - is He enough? The difficulty is that for every other time I said He was enough, it was a “victimless crime” in the sense that no one but me had to be sacrificed. If I never get married, You are enough. If I never get pregnant, You are enough. But...if You take away my girl...I don’t know.

I don’t want to accept it. To say He’s enough is to say that it’s OK that she suffered while she was on the earth, that I had to watch as she died in my arms, that I had to bury her sweet body in the ground and live my life without her.

None of that is OK with me.

But then, the love. Stubborn and belligerent as I am, it starts to seep in. He will do anything so that I will know Him better. His love for me is so great that He would let my child die so that I could understand another facet of Him that I have never known before - that He would let His child die so that He could show His love for me. And then, finally, I turn my eyes back to His face, I see tears in His eyes because He knows my grief. He suffered this great grief so that I could know Him...and to know me was enough of a reason for Him to watch His son die.

What I long to say though it feels like it costs me everything - if my child is dead and I must suffer that loss, God, You are enough - He says it about me. His child died and He suffered that loss and I was enough of a reason for Him to do that.

It’s staggering, the knowledge of His love. And deep in my soul I know and I understand it now in a way I never would have unless my own child had died. I feel so much like this should be it - the door out of the maze. But it seems it’s merely the door into another, smaller maze with a door to another smaller maze and on and on until when? Heaven, I guess, when the veil will be lifted from my eyes and I will see in full what I see now only in part.

It makes now so clear to me the longing in the words of the hymn... "Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight.”

The Room

I've been thinking a lot about when the right time is to change Lydia's room into something else. In eight days, it will be six months since she left us. So far, I've only done a few little things. My dad got me a beautiful cedar chest to keep some of her things in. I've cleaned out her dresser and closet of all her clothes and separated them. Some clothes I donated or gave to friends. Some I put in bins to keep for other possible children. Some I gave to Micah's mom who is going to make me a quilt from them. And some I've packed into boxes and put into the cedar chest. Doing her clothes wasn't too bad, because I know that if she were here and healthy, I would eventually go through all of her clothes and do the same thing.

The rest of the room is proving more challenging. I love her room. It was a joyfully laborious process to pick every little thing out - paint colors, furniture, quilts - it is my favorite room in the house. But I know it can't stay the way it is. I also know that to change it all at one time would probably be my undoing. I've started a process - I keep a small box on the changing table in her room. When I'm feeling strong, I go in and put something into the box that I want to keep for her. Once the box is full, I'll put it into the cedar chest.

Before I started this process, however, I decided that I needed to take some pictures of her room. I can't imagine ever forgetting how her room looked, but I took some anyway, just to make sure. I wanted to share some of them with you.

This Weekend

This weekend we went to the farm in Maine. My favorite place. We brought Lydia there last Christmas and this was the first time we'd been back since she died. We had a wonderful time cleaning the barn, making apple cider and spending time together. As ever when the family is all together, I'm acutely aware that she is missing. But, I carry her memory in my heart and keep her name around my neck. I wandered up to the big open field and took a few minutes to be sad and to make her part of my weekend in the small way I could.



And my sweet Grandpa Roy and Grandma Flo gave me a pumpkin picked from their garden to bring home to Lydia. Don't you love the curly stem?


On a somewhat related note, if you think of it, please pray for my Grandpa Roy tomorrow. He has his first round of many, many rounds of chemo. Pray for strength, health and good days for them both.

Anger

Perhaps you’ve noticed I haven’t been writing here lately...a smattering of whatever now and then but nothing really besides that. This is my fourth attempt at writing a post about what’s been happening here and I’ve made up my mind not to get up until I post something...except to get my tea.

OK. Tea acquired. Here we go.

How I’ve been lately can really be summed up in one word: angry. Part of the reason I’ve had such a difficult time writing lately is that my anger tends to come out all whiny and feeling sorry for myself. That’s not how I feel, but often it’s how it sounds. I make a slew of “I” statements (I feel sad. I feel angry. I feel like I want to take a sledgehammer to my whole house and start over somewhere else) and it all sounds like complaining. I don’t want to complain. OK. Well. Sometimes I want to complain. But I hope that’s not what you’ll hear.

What I’m feeling now is the kind of anger towards something that happens that you know had to happen but you didn’t want it to and you can’t change it. I know Lydia had to die. I didn’t want her to and I can’t change the fact that she’s not here. Of course, I wouldn’t bring her back now to suffer in this world, but sometimes I think I’d give everything I have just to kiss her one more time. The fact that I can’t and the fact that I don’t understand why I can’t makes me angry - deeply, soul crushingly angry.

That anger is naturally (and unfortunately) directed at God. I point my finger and say, “You did this. You took her. This was YOUR plan.” It’s not pretty. It’s not right. But it’s what it is. I just can’t understand it.

We were speaking with our counselor the other day and he put words to something I have been feeling but haven’t had words for. We were talking about how when Lydia was alive, it was so much easier to claim and hold on to the true things. God gave us the exact child He wanted us to have .She was created the way God wanted her to be. She was made for a purpose. He would use her life for His good. He would bring glory to Himself. It was so easy, when looking at my girl who had one foot in heaven all the time she was here, to believe these things. There was a purpose. I knew there had to be a purpose.

But now as every day goes by and I get further and further away from remembering the sound of her breathing or her scent, I cannot see the purpose. I see it in the past when I think of her and what we went through, but now as the emptiness stretches out in front of me, I cannot see a purpose in my emptiness. How could there be purpose in such a wretched, broken feeling?

And there’s more too. I want so much the feeling of closeness with my Savior. I want to be comforted. I don’t want to be angry. But it’s just not that easy. Now we have all of our future ahead of us. Before Lydia was conceived, we gave all of our planning and the life of our future child into His hands. When I was pregnant, we gave her life to Him. When her brain wasn’t perfect and we weren’t sure, we committed her again to His keeping.

Then, when she was born, everyday we gave her back to God, believing He had her best and ours in mind. And He took her. We offered her up and He took her. I don’t know why this surprised me or makes me angry now, but I guess I thought all along He wouldn’t take her. Now, as we look into the future, trying to understand what to do next, I don’t really want Him to have any part of it. We gave Him Lydia’s life and He took her away from us. Does He honestly expect that I’ll trust Him now? Seriously?

It’s so complicated. Even in the middle of my anger, I still know the truth. I know, in the end, we cannot go forward unless He goes with us. I will not find answers unless He provides them. I will not know peace or healing unless I let Him near me. I have no other hope but Him.

Sometimes it seems like a cruel joke that the source of our suffering and the healing from it should come from the same place. Cruel too that so often our healing only comes from more pain.

At the end of the day, after I’ve fought and cried my hardest and demand and beg for an answer, when the calm comes again I understand only that I don’t understand. In those moments, I utter the only prayer I’ve been able to pray for the last months.

Help me believe.

On Moving Forward

Well, I'm going back to work in less than a week. I wasn't sure until a week ago if would, but things have fallen into place and I'll be teaching part time this year. I had some long discussions and some late nights trying to make a decision. I'm a horrible decision maker in general, and this one was particularly difficult.

How do I go back to the place where I worked before Lydia was born and not have it feel like she was never here? It feels like that often enough but staying quiet and sad in my house reminds me that I have something to be quiet and sad about. To go back to work threatens to feel like pretending nothing ever happened.

I weighed the pros and cons with several of the very wise people in my life. At one point I had decided 100% to go back. Three hours later, I knew it would kill me if I went back. The next morning, I talked to Nancy and finally felt a measure of peace about going back. Turns out, you shouldn't try to make huge life decisions at 2am. Lesson learned.

Nancy and I spoke about the importance of moving forward. She told me moving forward is not moving on - moving on is to leave behind Lydia and all that she meant. Moving forward is to bring Lydia and the past year of my life along with me and to figure out what life means now.

I won't lie. Moving forward is a scary thing. I've liked this quiet, safe, alone time where I only had to let in the few people I really felt like being with and could shut the rest of the world out without much care. I know I can't stay there and I know the longer I do, the harder it will be to ever get out.

So, I'm moving forward. There won't still be bad days (much like today, in fact) but I need to keep going. I need to fix my eyes on Jesus and move forward, towards Him and in His plan.

In another forward moving attempt, I've started another blog. This blog is for Lydia and for me dealing with God and with Lydia things. It's important to me and I won't stop writing here. But there are more things going on now and my desire for creative outlet is increasing and (for better or worse), those are things I feel I want to share too. I truly believe it's part of my healing but I don't want to use this space to share pictures of other children or of things I've made that have no connection to Lydia. I want this space to remain hers and mine for now. So, I've started a blog to share the creative things (baking, felting, photographing) I've been doing.

I titled the blog Make Me New.

"And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of
God is with men, and He will live with them.
They will be His people, and God Himself will be
with them and be their God.
He will wipe every tear from their eyes.
There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain,
for the old order of things has passed away."
He who was seated on the throne said,
"I am making everything new!"

Revelation 21:3-5

This isn't the new heaven and new earth yet, but I know He is working now as I look ahead to the day when my tears will be wiped away. Until then, I'll bake. I'll felt. I'll take pictures. I'll teach. I'll keep moving forward.

Moments of Clarity

God is good. In the midst of my sorrow and my times of weeping for what I've lost, there are moments of clarity when I can look at my life, my situation, and see things for what they truly are. Now, we all may have a different idea about what "true" is. But for those of you who have been reading my blog for a while, you know that for me, true is Jesus. Truth is looking at my life through a lens of the eternal, knowing that what I do and what happens to me has more to it than just what I can see on the earth.

I had a moment of clarity last week. I went to visit a friend of mine who has a daughter currently suffering from a fatal syndrome. Her body is degenerating. She is in pain. We have been able to have many honest conversations about where God is in the midst of these things and I always walk away from the time with something to think about or be thankful for.

Last week, we were having lunch along with my friend's oldest daughter. We were discussing the purpose of what we suffer and the frustration that comes when people say, "Your situation has taught me..." or "I've learned......from your difficult times." There's a real sense that we all recognize in which you just want to look at them and say in the most sarcastic voice you have, "I'm SO glad that MY horrible life is doing something for YOU." In my humanness, I confess, that is often my response. When I'm having a particularly good day and can think and see clearly, I can look at these kinds of comments and say, "Thank you God for using me." I don't always like it. I don't always understand it. But I've been able to come to the conclusion that says if my life and sufferings, or Lydia's life and sufferings can play a bigger part in bringing people to knowing Jesus, I'll take it.

Again, I keep this perspective as often as I can. There may very well be a time you come up to me and tell me that and I'll say, "That's great and all but can you learn from something else and I get my baby back? Thanks."

We spent a while talking about that and later went to the living room so my friend could sit and hold her daughter who was in so much pain that putting her down was out of the question. As we sat quietly together, she looked at me and said the words that I said in my heart and with my mouth so many times as I watched Lydia seize, "I cannot stand that God allows her to suffer like this."

It's so difficult to reconcile this thing to God's goodness. The allowance of pain in general is difficult. I am much more ready to accept my own suffering than to watch my child suffer in a way I can't understand - I think that would be true of any mother. I can take God using the situation to teach people. I can accept that death is coming. But I cannot accept the suffering. The question "How can You do this?" was often on my lips. How can He make my child suffer in this way and make me watch as she does?

I don't remember exactly when the answer was whispered softly to my heart, but I remember the realization clearly.

He let His only child suffer. He watched as His only Son died. Yes, He knew the plan. Yes, He knew what the end goal would be. But I know it didn't hurt Him any less. He knew the pain of being separated from His child. And He allowed Himself to know that pain for me.

Of all the hurt that God has ever known, I always forget that He has known this one more deeply than I can understand. He knows, HE KNOWS how I feel. And no, it doesn't make me hurt any less because He knows how I feel but, oh, the comfort it brings me to know that He understands my broken heart.

He knows how it feels to watch the child that you love beyond words struggle to breathe. He knows how it feels to watch as that child takes it's last breath. He understands the deep pain of separation.

It doesn't fix it. But it changes something in me. I'm not desperately clinging to a God who has never experienced the death of a child. He knows. When no else can understand the groaning in my heart, He knows. And just as God always knew what Jesus' life and death was destined to do and so willingly sent His son to willingly die for me, so I can stand and say, with a little more courage each time, that I know the life and death of my child means more than just her life and her death. Obviously, Lydia is not Jesus, nor will her life and death ever, ever mean what His did. But if God could send His son (His SON, people. A perfect, perfect being) to suffer and die to bring life to the world, what excuse do I have to want to hold Lydia back and say, "No. You can't use her life and death for something else"?

Please, please don't think that I'm saying this out of an attempt for mock holiness or spirituality. I wrestle with this. I fight with God. I yell. I curse. I am indignant. HOW DARE HE?! And I don't understand. Even as I try so feebly to put all of these thoughts to words, I still don't really understand them all, nor do I like them.

But I know the truth. I KNOW THE TRUTH. And the truth is, my life, my death, your life, your death, Lydia's life, Lydia's death, Jesus' life and His death - it's all to point people to God. And if God wouldn't hold on to His own Son and would choose to watch Him suffer and die so that others could know Him, what argument do I really have?

That is one moment of clarity. Talk to me tomorrow and I'll say something completely the opposite of all of that.

Fear and Faith

Grief is a funny thing. I've been describing it like there's a switch somewhere out there that is not controlled by me. I'll be merrily(ish) walking around or reading, minding my own business and then *FLIP* The pain of it all takes my breath. It sneaks up and there are moments I can see it, hovering, waiting to swallow me up. Sometimes I let it. Sometimes I force my mind to think of other things so I can keep it together. All the time I feel an ache in my chest that misses so much the feeling of her soft body pressed into it.

I've been experiencing the full spectrum of emotions. I'm angry. I'm thankful. I'm sad. I'm happy(ish). I want to be alone. I want people around me all the time. I appreciate what people say to try to comfort me. I want to punch every single person who talks to me in the face.

One emotion that I was unprepared for, that has slowly started to seep in and all around my thoughts, is fear. In moments of clarity today, when I could see things for what they really are, I've wanted to talk about it. I believe so much that if I talk about it, I can see it for what it is. If I can see it for what it is, I can allow myself to deal with the truth. So, here's the truth, people.

I've never been to heaven. I've never seen what Jesus looks like. I believe there is a heaven. I believe that Jesus is there and that He is all of the things I have read and learned that He is. But I've never been to heaven. And I've never seen what Jesus looks like.

I had to send my eight month old daughter to a place I've never been and to a man whose face I've never seen. So, while I know Lydia is safe in heaven with Jesus (and I greatly appreciate the people who remind me of this), every now and then I start to feel afraid. Because I don't know what it really means that she's in heaven. And while I believe that wherever she is she is safe and whole and happy, I have not been where she is.

I also know that fear is a weapon Satan would use to bring me to a place where I no longer trust the one thing I KNOW has brought my daughter eternal life.

For all I know that the fear is not from God, it doesn't take away the fact that I still have no evidence that I can hold onto that tells me of what I so desperately want to see for myself.

I guess that's what faith is. Funny. I thought it would be easier. I mean, it sounds so simple.

Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

Can my faith fix everything? No. Does it take my fear away entirely? No.

But I know what the truth is. If nothing else, even if I'm holding onto it by a stub of a pinky toe, I'm going to hold onto what I know is true. And for the times where what I know doesn't cut it, I'm going to believe in the God who has never left me or forsaken me. If He's sticking with me, I know He's sticking with my girl. And I know that wherever she is, if He's there, that's all she needs.