A Month Has Come & Gone

Looking at today's date, I realize it really has been a month since we miscarried Rogers' Baby #3.  It's hard to believe that if we hadn't, I would be creeping up to the end of our first trimester.

*sigh* 

I dislike reminders that there is no longer a child growing and thriving in my womb.

For those of you who have gone through this, or struggle with other battles such as infertility, I wanted to share a poem a dear friend, and our daughter's namesake, wrote:


A Flower for a Friend

I don’t know what you’re going through.

But I know how it feels

to grieve without a funeral,

to ask “why?” to the ceiling,

to miss someone you’ve never met.

I have felt the injustice

of reckless insensitivity

of comments that pierce like knives

of children abused, unwanted, abandoned.

I know what it means to carry around an invisible grief on your back every day,

a grief that feels

like it should disable you,

like you should be in a wheelchair.

I’ve memorized all the faces of suffering–anger, fear, jealousy, despair.

People say, “It will get better.”

Which isn’t exactly true.

But you will learn to live with it, like someone who’s lost his right arm learns to live with just the left.

Dear friend, I don’t know what you’re going through.

I’ve never walked the path you’re on.

But I have walked the one beside it.

-Emily Wilson

"When I Am Silent"

"Who will sing my song, when i am silent?
Who will count the colors of the dawn?
Who will follow the lark's flight,
Who will hear it's song,
when am I silent,
who will sing for me?

Who will scent the fragrance of a flower?
Who will laugh at snowflakes on the tongue?
Who will dance barefoot in the grass?
Spinning and twirling,
and spinning and twirling
to welcome the warmth of May.
Who will dance?

When I dance no more....

When I sing no more...

When I am silent, silent...

Who will cry for me?
Who will cry..."

By Joan C Varner; written after a trip to the Auschwitz concentration camp.

It is applicable and says what my heart feels today on the 10th anniversary of September 11th.

Picture by Leah Anderson Hartman

Focus on the Who

So in light that my husband just posted his 300^th blog, I was actually reminded that I have a blog.  It has been a busy time and a very long summer.  We’ve moved in June as Jonathan took a pastorate position in a small Baptist church in southern Georgia, nearly lost our 3 year-old daughter in a swimming accident over the 4^th of July, miscarried our 3^rd biological child in August, and somewhere in there are dealing with balancing marriage, parenting, ministry, a small business, home schooling, and a plethora of other things.

Truth be told?  My heart hurts.

I’m used to change; I’ve always craved it, as I have more than just a strong dash of wanderlust running in my veins.  Blame it on touring the country in our old Winnebago towing the race car as Dad became a successful drag racer, or family mission trips that turned into individual consecutive summer jaunts around the globe (I had been on 4 continents by the age of seventeen), but in the midst of the change swirling around us, I crave peace during the storm of change.

This summer has taken my relationship with God to another level… if you have known my struggles over the past 2 or 3 years, I have battled with feeling obligated to love Jesus, but how messed up is that?  Being duty-bound to love the sweet Savior of my soul?  So for over two years I have battled against it:

Gnawing at the bars of my internal cage,

Eager?  No.

Desperate.

Hammering my head,

My heart,

My soul,

Against the lock that has no key.

Why?

Where?

Fear.   

Choking and all-consuming fear.

Fear of intimate joy being forever gone.

That was a something I wrote awhile back describing the caged relationship I battled with regarding my personal relationship with God.  The honeymoon period long gone, and the daily war for peace, joy, and contentment was literally that:  war.  Every day.  Multiply times a day.  For one who feels so keenly, going through 2+ years of an emotional block with my Savior felt suicidal.  Yet in that, this summer I’ve started to see glimpses of light, the bars slowly starting to bend apart.  I’ve had a day-by-day lesson in faith and perseverance, to believe even when your heart does not feel.

 I struggle against questioning God.  Why?  What was the object to the last two years?  What lesson did you and are you wanting me to know through this?  But I am reminded of the tiny quote of wisdom a former professor counseled me with when God closed the doors on my future with Wyclife Bible Translators:

Don’t lose yourself in the battle of the why’s; instead focus on the Who.

The Who?  My Who… my sweet Savior… my Jesus… Alpha and Omega… Lord of Lords... Kings of Kings… my Papa God… Adonai… Yeshua.

God.

King.

Father.