Tonight's Topic: Life, Death, and The End of Everything. Cheers!

I let Eden watch Charlotte's Web several weeks ago. She had handled the drama that is Bambi with oblivious delight and dearly loves farm animals, so I thought, why not Charlotte's Web? The talking and singing barnyard beasts will be right up her alley, and apparently, the significance of death is still far from her radar.

And I was right, she loved it. She still loves it, in fact, despite this conversation that we had at the end:

E: "Mommy, where did that spider go? Why is the pig crying?"

S: [Caught a little off guard because WHERE WERE THESE QUESTIONS DURING BAMBI?? and yet, desperately trying to sound completely casual and nonchalant] "Well, baby, she got old and died."

S: Oh no. That had to be way too blunt. Where is the well-spring of mother-wisdom that is supposed to miraculously appear at these moments??

[Long pause.]

E: ME????

S: Nooooo. She can't be... it's not possible... she doesn't mean....

E: ME AND MOMMY DIE AND GET OLD????

So, to recap.

Parental To-Do List:
1) Scar child for life.

Check.

**********

I went for a walk in a big cemetery recently. I love cemeteries. I think I've mentioned all this before, probably more than once. I know it's weird, but I just think they are utterly fascinating places. When I was a kid I always wanted to live next to a cemetery when I grew up. In fact, I thought for a long time that one of the coolest jobs in the world would be being a groundskeeper at a cemetery, keeping everything beautiful and tidy and well-loved.

The cemetery that I visited a few weeks ago is fairly large. As I walked through the front gates and made my way down the path toward the older section near the back, I noticed how the lifespans recorded on the gravestones progressively shortened. Not so very long ago old age must have seemed a gift, a family unmarked by the death of the young and the seemingly strong must have seemed a marvel.

I stood for a long time at one small family plot in particular. It belonged to a man who over the course of eight years lost a two-year-old son, his thirty-four-year-old wife, and finally, the last remaining person in his immediate family, a five-year-old daughter. He then lived on into his eighties. His grave was next to theirs though, and there were no others. I spent a long time wondering about his life. The Before and the After and the What Came Next of his story. I wonder what he thought of his own personal longevity and what he did with the rest of his life. I wonder what he thought of his story and if there is anyone living who still knows it.

On my walk I saw one phrase repeated again and again and again: gone but not forgotten. And next to more than a few of the gravestones bearing these very words, were other gravestones, so old and weather-beaten that all inscriptions had been completely worn away and only the presence of the rocks themselves bore witness to the fact that someone once had lived and died and been buried there. I kept wondering if there was anyone left alive who might still know those names - who might still say, you are gone but not forgotten. Or, with the eventual death of friends and family, and the power of wind and rain on rock, had their very existence been obliterated from the memory of the world? How many, in that cemetery alone, were both gone and forgotten? How many, in all the ages of this world, have come and gone in a blink?

**********

A friend of ours from college, an extremely talented musician, is on the brink of releasing his second album, The Cymbal Crashing Clouds. One of his songs - "A Last Time For Everything" - keeps circling through my mind over and over. I'll post the lyrics here someday hopefully, once I make sure it's okay. But three miscarriages in four years have left me thinking a lot about last times these days.

On Saturday, I threw a birthday party for my sweet little girl, and despite my utter lack of crafty-supermom-Susie Homemaker-skills, I worked as hard at it as I could to make it beautiful.

She's three. She won't remember.

But this may be the one and only three-year-old birthday party I ever get to throw, and I will remember.

**********

So, that. I'm no longer at all sure that we will have any more children. I've stopped planning it out. And it's not because I'm being melodramatic or depressed. It's because I've been brought face-to-face three times now with a reality that all those people who died a century or two ago probably never had the luxury of forgetting. There is a last time for everything, and by and large, we don't get to decide when that last time is. A last birthday party, a last child, a last breath. Our life is a series of last moments, the vast majority of which slip by without us even noticing, and sooner or later we each experience them all.

But Ben's song reminds me that there are other lasts worth noting. Time is winding down on more than just our lives on this earth. And one day, when we have finally set aside all the temporary things of this mortal life, something else will come to an end. "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." (Revelation 21:4)

Last tears.
Last mourning.
Last pain.
Last death.
There is a last time for these too.

**********

July 30th was my Judah's due date. For awhile, there was a part of his life that had me looking forward. Now it is all looking back. Despite what this long post on death might lead you to believe, I'm actually feeling okay. I think, maybe, the worst of the grief has passed. Those sharp pangs of heartbreak and anger are fairly rare now. The depression seems to be lifting. It's never quite the same though, is it? You recover from an illness, but how do you ever fully recover from the death of someone you loved? I miss Judah, and it makes me sad that he isn't here. And he's never going to be here. So, as long as I live, how can there not be some part of me that remains a little sad? I'm not sure how to recover from the missing him. I'm not sure how to let go of the great big dream of the how and the when and the where of my own children. I had a plan. It's not remotely coming to pass. And I'm coming to terms with that.

**********

One last song, and I'll call it a night. :)

I've mentioned before that I love JJ Heller's album, When I'm With You. In her song, "Olivianna," (which is, of course, about death) there are the lines:

You're going home love
Where you belong

I've heard the song many, many times, but I really heard those words for the first time the other day. I think, so often, that Judah and my other two babies are supposed to be here, with me - that here is where they belong. And it's true - we do belong with those we love. They do belong with me. And that, of course, is why their absence is so painful. But we are all only here temporarily. And soon we are all going home to be with the One we love, and the One who loves us. So, they are now home where they have always belonged. And one day, someday, whenever my last day comes, I will be too.

**********

I'm so very glad that no matter what our gravestones look like a hundred years from now there is Someone who knows us all by name.

From The Middle of While We Were Yet

Pregnant.

One tiny word in one tiny test stick window. We'd given up on the squinting, doubt-filled, is-that-a-second-line-or-isn't-it kinds of tests years ago, even before Eden. The digital tests are more expensive, but they remove the uncertainty, the questions.

Pregnant. That's what I was, not just three months ago, but also a week ago. I'd already had some suspicious symptoms, but it took the test to completely convince me. Pregnant for the fourth time.

And then the next day,

I wasn't.

Again.

Sometimes I wonder why I post the things I do on this blog. Sometimes I wonder if I will look back in several years when I'm older and hopefully wiser and regret what I've put here. Or, if not regret it, at least shake my head at my choices. I wonder if being honest and open in the moment is the right way to go. Maybe the right thing to do is to wait till it's passed, wait till the depression is conquered, the sadness and grief is overcome, the victory is won, to share the experience. Then, with the perfect clarity of hindsight, I can tell the story the way it should be told, with the emphasis on the end, not the middle, on the glory, not the pain. I wonder this often, especially now, when the "middleness" of my story is so very obvious. I don't want to do myself or my family a disservice. And I especially don't want to diminish the power or glory or goodness of God. He deserves all praise. Always.

But I find myself compelled to come here again and again and again. Partially, probably, it's a release to give words to my experience and these posts may very well be stepping stones in the healing process. But I honestly think it's more than that. I come here, and I lay it all out for all eyes to see because I know this is the middle and not the end, and I want everyone to know not only that I have been redeemed but what I have been redeemed from.

Because this, this right here: the anger and the doubt and the sadness and the questioning and the struggle is what the Good News is for. This is it. This is where faith is made real and where all the Sunday school lessons and Bible studies find their purpose. If I can't speak of these experiences in the hour of their agony then my God is not the God of the lepers and the barren, of tears and sweat like drops of blood. But He is! He is exactly that. Time and time again He reveals it. He is the God of the broken and diseased, the outcasts, the confused, the doubters and liars and betrayers and sinners one and all. My God is the One who came not for the healthy, but for the sick. My faith is real and strong not because one day it will be easy and happy. It is real and strong because of this very moment when it is not easy and not happy - it is this moment for which it exists. And, I think, maybe, it is this moment when it is most powerful.

This morning in church we sang Chris Tomlin's The Wonderful Cross, and the words just kept repeating over and over and over again in my mind. Oh the wonderful cross! Oh the wonderful cross! Oh the wonder of a God who created the heavens and commands the angels, but who, even greater and more amazingly, chooses to pour His glory into the darkest moments of agony and pain and shame. The God of the dead and the dying. Oh the wonder of a God who fulfills His glory in the weakest things of this world, in the weakest moments of our lives - not just once they have become strong, but in the very midst of their weakness.

I have now had 3 miscarriages in 4 years. My brokenness is undeniable, my frailty and limitations haunt me. I am weak, and I am full of sin, and I am struggling in so many ways. Sometimes I think, in every way. And I am determined to put this all out there for everyone to see because I want everyone to know the God who is the God of this moment - the ugly middle - and the God of me - the confused, angry, depressed me. He is a God worth knowing. He is a God worth trusting.

"But God demonstrates His own love toward us,
in that while we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us."
(Romans 5:8)

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.

Grief

Jesus wept. (John 11:35)

This is one of those posts that could get away from me very easily, but I intend to try my hardest to make it as short and to the point as possible. I've been thinking a lot about grief lately - partially because of some recent personal experiences, but mostly from watching new friends walk through a gut-wrenching loss. I have led a very blessed life. I've had sorrows and disappointments, but until a few years ago I'd never truly experienced grief. And then in July of last year Peter and I lost our first baby in a miscarriage at the beginning of the 15th week of my pregnancy. How we wanted that baby! We had tried for over a year to get pregnant and had excitedly and impatiently waited through the first trimester for the time when it would be "safe" to share the news with the world. We moved to a 2-bedroom apartment so that we could have a nursery. We started thinking about names. We spent time dreaming about what it would be like to be parents, wondering whose personality our little one would take after, which side of the family he or she would most resemble in appearance.

I don't intend to get into the details of the very long and horrible night of our miscarriage. Simply put, there was a moment when I sat alone in the very early hours of a summer morning and faced the horrendous realization that the baby we had loved and anticipated and planned for had died, and there was nothing, nothing, nothing I could do to take that back or change it. I remember that exact moment very clearly. It was probably one of the most difficult of my life so far. In what could only have been a second or two I tried to wrap my mind around this horrible information, and then was immediately hit with the thought that I now had to go, wake up my sweet husband who was sleeping peacefully in the next room, and break his heart.

The point of this post isn't about my grief in that moment, but actually what happened next. I remember thinking clearly (who knows, I may have even said it out loud), I CANNOT do this. I CANNOT bear this. But as soon as I said it I absolutely knew two things. First of all, I was not alone. The God in whom I trusted my life was there with me, loving me. Secondly, and in some ways more importantly, He grieved. My heartbreak was just a miniature reflection of His own. He wasn't just there bearing MY burden. He too grieved. For me. For my baby - His beautiful creation. For a death, a severing of relationship, that He never intended and never wanted. I firmly believe that the God of the universe, the Maker of everything, loved my baby enough to sit with me in a tiny apartment bathroom on an early Monday morning and weep.

It is in no way my intention to get into the problem of pain here. If you were to ask me that morning if I thought God could have prevented my miscarriage I would have said yes. I would say yes today. I don't know why He didn't. But I have no doubt that He loves my child, and I have no doubt that He weeps with those who weep and mourns with those who mourn - not just as a Friend, not even just as a Comforter, but as one who suffers, and as one who feels more than any of us the sorrow of death. As King David once said about his own lost child, "I will go to him, but he will not return to me." Someday I too will get to meet this first child of mine and all my wonderings and longings will be satisfied. Until then I know my baby is safe - more than safe - in the arms of Someone who grieves our every pain and who loves beyond all our imaginings.