Just Some More Thoughts

So. It is a new day. It is also Day 32 since our miscarriage. We are still okay. In fact, there are times that I would even dare to say we are good. That being said, I have been disappointed to find that the anger and the temptation to bitterness have lingered on, seemingly indefatigable reminders that all is not well in our world. For a long while the anger made me feel guilty and confused. I felt confused because I still couldn't identify the source for my anger (at least not in such a way that I could then rationally talk myself out of it) and guilty because anger is supposed to be such a bad emotion and its presence in my heart felt like a charge against me, a red flag that I am, in fact, a bad person. Worse, I hated (and felt even greater guilt over) the way that it would not stay contained in my heart, but would instead periodically erupt from within, spewing pain all over those around me - often those I love best and care about the most. I mentioned several times to Peter and other close friends that I thought there should be a time of confinement for those who are grieving, just as there used to be for women advanced in pregnancy in previous centuries. I want a safe place where I could hide away and work through my grief honestly but without the constant fear of hurting innocent bystanders in the process.

Despite my wishes, this place of isolation has not materialized. But for the most part I have ceased to feel so guilty and confused. Many mornings I would wake up, feel a sense of being physically unwell, and start running through a mental checklist: do I have a headache? a stomachache? What do these feelings add up to? And I would repeatedly come to the same diagnosis for the lump in my stomach or the vice in my chest or the ache between my shoulder blades: it's anger. I'm just angry. Somehow, in some strange way, this initial recognition of physical symptoms (instead of emotion) helped. After all, when we are recovering from a sprained ankle, do we blame ourselves for the swelling, or the redness, or the pain? Anger remains a frustrating reminder of this wound in my heart, but it has lost much of its power in being reduced to just a symptom. On those mornings when I recognize its presence I have stopped focusing my energy on trying to eradicate the emotion and have instead prayed for grace: that in my anger I would not sin. And instead of guilt and confusion I feel a form of peace and a capacity to endure.

***

The other night, in yet another attempt to delay her bedtime, a pajama-ed Eden curled up in my lap and requested a story. Tired and not particularly wanting to read the same picture book for the thousandth time, I suggested that she ask her dad to tell her a Bible story. She did and he, of course, obliged, choosing the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. He described how the three men refused to worship the god created by King Nebuchadnezzar and as a punishment were bound together and thrown into a fiery furnace. And then he told of the miracle: how King Nebuchadnezzar looked into the furnace and saw not three, but four men walking unbound and unharmed in the midst of the fire - and how the King described the fourth man as looking like "a son of the gods."

Honestly? Sitting, listening to that story, all I could think was: how odd.

How odd that God would choose to demonstrate His deliverance in such a way. Why did He let the men be thrown into the furnace in the first place? Why did He wait so long to demonstrate His power? If He was going to save them from this death, why did He do it in the middle of the fire? Why didn't He stop it from ever getting that far?

***

Then later in the week I found myself reflecting on the season of Lent in which we now find ourselves. I was thinking about how it is supposed to be a time of sorrow and repentance. And my mind wandered to the fact that it also in a small way supposed to be a time of knowing Christ through "the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings."

And suddenly, I wanted to laugh.

What sufferings? What suffering does the God of the universe endure? What suffering can be experienced by the One who is, and is surrounded by, Love, Truth, Beauty, Joy, Peace: everything I long for and am drawn to? What sufferings?

Mine. All mine.

***

So. It is a new day. I wake up and I recognize that though things are better they are not yet well. I pick up the burden of my sorrow, of my grief. I say a prayer that I would not succumb to the anger and bitterness that day or even just that moment. I look out the window at a Spring that is not what it was supposed to be, and I shoulder my suffering and I look for my deliverance.

And I don't know why He waits. I don't know why He doesn't step in to set things right sooner. I don't understand.

But if I'm going to trust someone, anyone, how can I help but trust Him? The One who gave up Heaven, gave up everything that I wish I had, to come down and share in my suffering. The One who sat with me, just me, in an apartment bathroom and grieved. The One who over and over again, for our sake, exchanges not sadness for joy, but the other way around. The One who made deliverance possible when He gave up immortality for a mortal body and then suffered poverty, racism, oppression, rejection, betrayal, and death.

It doesn't make any sense to me. I do not understand. But He is present with me in the fire. And I am free.