J Girl asked me on Monday morning …. “Mommy, are you going to have another baby?”
Ouch.
My breath caught, there was a little hitch in my voice ….
…. Do you have a particular sin or emotion or issue that you feel like you have surrendered …. but really it’s a daily walk, a simmering undercurrent looking for any avenue, any fissure, any crack in the composure, to creep out and stop your breath?
Stop your gratitude?
I do. Mine is grief and even anger over the loss of what I had planned for my life. Plans that crumbled and disappeared in a cloud of rubble when I said goodbye to baby H., when we left J Girl for a year, when it took time to make the Wee Man.
I was really angry.
It took me two years and some months to let it go, to truly love and be all-the-way-deep-down-grateful for the hard things and unwelcome timing. To love the lessons.
The gifts …. I had to lose H. to have my beautiful J Girl. I had two and a half years of hard waiting for my Wee Man. Separation from the J Girl to learn my own heart, to surrender. Would I do it again knowing the heartache AND the blessings?
In a second. A hard, tear soaked second.
But still my sin swirls, eddies in the dark places, waiting for a lapse, a moment where I take my eyes off Him and turn self-ward …. When I rail at the losses, dwell on the might-have-beens, grieve the lives not lived and the moments missed.
When I take my eyes off Him and sink on the water’s surface.
So He said, “Come.” And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. 30 But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink he cried out, saying, “Lord, save me!”
And immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and caught him, and said to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”
~Matthew 14:29-31
There are days, weeks, months even, where the wind is boisterous and my heart rebels and I am grateful every sin-darkened moment for the outstretched hand of my Savior.
Even now, when sweet J Girl wants a sister, and I want to be pregnant with Bug right now instead of starting over, hoping each month for a plus sign …. my resentment seeps out in the sigh, puddles up in the tears pooling …. and I have to breathe in, breathe out …. compose myself, whisper prayers ….
…. tell the J Girl that God gives us the most perfect baby for our family in His time ….
…. gives the most perfect grace …. amazing grace …. in His time ….
…. hug my gifts extra hard.
~M.
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