Here Comes the Sun...

It's a beautiful day outside.  I am in bed for a moment of calm during nap time.  The sun is shinning, the birds are singing, the waters and sparkling across the water of the pond.  The trees are starting to bud and the air is pleasant enough to open the windows up and take it all in.  This is the kind of weather I was created for.  This is my element.  70 degrees plus and sun.  Despite being flat on my face yesterday and down on my knees for what seems to be like an eternity, I have found the sun is my constant reminder of hope, renewal, new beginnings.  Sometimes just the sunshine on a warm day is enough to make all of the despair of anything feel measurably smaller. 

I am not sure why there needs to be darkness in the world.  Sometimes I think, "God, you made all this.. why have a world with sin or pain or love and loss?  Why have a world with cancer?  Why have a world with infertility, drug addiction, mental illness, sexual abuse, hunger, poverty, sex trafficking, pollution, greed?  Why do we have to even experience this cruel world?"  I feel like as a parent I fight every day to keep my child from things that would make her feel bad.  I watch for sharp objects, I feed her yummy food, and I cloth her in warm and comfy clothes, but then I wonder, why doesn't God do that for us?  What's the point of this little rat race and why does it have to be so hard some times?  If he could give us a life of sunshine and spring and warmth, why wouldn't he?

Most of the people I see in therapy are wrestling with that, too.  Someone young dies or a child has severe autism.  My response is never, well, if God really loved you he would give you all sunshine and flowers... The way I respond is empathy, it's sadness because I know all to well and have never quite understood why the God of the world would let people go for sometimes even their whole life time smothered by brokenness.  Some people never see the sun.  Some people only know pain from birth until death.  Why is that?  This dichotomy when you look at human lives can span infinitely but no one is exempt from any pain, loss, or brokenness.  No one human being gets the peace of only having sunny days... no matter how bright their world is...

I admitted to myself recently that I might not have another child.  Because in the big scheme of life, having one child is not a loss, its just not getting everything I want.  The sun will still shine in my life.  There will be countless spring days until my life is over and I can hide away and ignore that sunshine and the joy it brings, or I choose joy.  It's amazing how much joy (and sorrow) children bring to your life as a parent.  She can be a sunny day or a tsunami.  She can be sweet and loving and do cute stuff or she can come in like a Tasmanian Devil and turn our world upside down.  She, too, is so much sunshine and yet seasons of drought, but I could never ever trade a day, even the bad ones, and give her away.  And I like her, am probably not always a peach to have as a parent.  Several months of having a mother on hormone therapy is surely going to scar this child in some way :)

I get hit with waves and emotion... sadness, hopelessness, fear, anxiety, pain... and sometimes it's breathless and lonely but sometimes I choose to sit in it.  Sometimes I choose to be in pain because I want to grieve what I don't have.  Sometimes I eat.  Sometimes I sleep.  Sometimes I isolate.  But I keep realizing that grief day in and day out doesn't lead to acceptance until I am ready.  Until, I choose to open up the curtains in my life and see the sun, it exists, but I choose not to see it.  And sometimes the sun is hidden by clouds, but it is still there if I choose to see it.  And sometimes in the middle of the night, when it's hours until sunrise, it can feel like it will never shine again, but it always does.  No matter hold cold the winter, no matter how rainy a season, the sun always returns.  Eventually, joy and peace and love is restored by our Creator, always...  always...

I read over the last year of struggle in the midst of the four seasons, and today, I am still sick with a cold and still grieving loss of no pregnancy, but I still notice the sun.  And for today, I pick myself up off the ground and I choose to see the sun.  I choose today to push past as much of the stuffy nose and cough as I can and just embrace the day as beautiful as it is.  I am going to try and forget the losses, the sickness, the yuckiness of this world, and just be embraced by the sun.  Not because sitting in the sun with make me pregnant or heal my heart or give me the desire of my heart, but because I don't want to sit in the darkness while I await for my heart's desire.  I don't want to keep feeling unloved by God.  I want to seek His face.  I want to know His presence.  He is here, He is alive, and He is so desperately wanting me to run to Him for His love.  Like the sun, His love is always there even when we don't feel it or choose not to see it, or instead it appears like darkness, but it is there.  It's always there, always.

God is not a father who only springs wells of happiness upon us.  How would we truly depend and love him if he just showered us with joy? We would blissfully dance in the rain and only think about ourselves if that were the case.  We would selfishly want more and forget what we have.  We would be like fat, lazy kids who never want to move out and get a job to feel the pride of our days work.  We would take for granted the people He has given in our lives.  It would be sunny but there would be no joy after awhile because we wouldn't know how wonderful we have it.  After being through such a long winter, it feels so good to see the sun again.  And overwhelming how just these quiet moments remind me how broken I choose to let myself feel. It's hard to admit but I recognize that so much of my brokenness is of my own doing.  Even if I never get the desires of my heart, even when He says "no" in big large letters, He still loves me.  He still pours on the sun, and I have to choose to see His provision and His plan even though I so desperately want mine.  Like KK wanting M and M's for breakfast, and when I say "no", it's for her provision.  It's because I love her that I say "no", but I still provide her breakfast.  I still make those pancakes and bananas with love.  And if she wants to choose to sit on the floor mad because she can't eat candy and miss out on the banquet I prepared for her, I can't force feed her those little cakes... I just have to sit by and try to remind her that I love her so very much.  I love her so much that I know down the road she will thank me for not giving her candy every day for breakfast.  And God is doing that for me... Maybe I just have to remember that when I only lay on the floor in sadness, I can't see the breakfast He is preparing for me.  

I am thankful that I have a choice, that I have seen the sun, that I know joy and love and peace.  Because I, too, know what it is like to be lost and in pain and unable to see any sun.  So today, I lift my head, my eyes and my weary heart to the Lord.  For in my brokenness, I am only made whole through him.  No matter how dark this seems to be, I lean on the understanding that some day, maybe even after this life, I will be filled, full, and know what it's like to be in true Paradise where the sun always shines and there is no more pain.  Today, I cling to this sun as it reminds me of all of the goodness, all of the joy, and all of the hope that comes in Christ. 

Celebrate God all day, every day. I mean, revel in him! Make it as clear as you can to all you meet that you’re on their side, working with them and not against them. Help them see that the Master is about to arrive. He could show up any minute!

 

^6-7 Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.

^8-9 Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies.

^12-14 I’ve learned by now to be quite content whatever my circumstances. I’m just as happy with little as with much, with much as with little. I’ve found the recipe for being happy whether full or hungry, hands full or hands empty. Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am.  -Phillipeans 4:4-14

Facedown in the Sand...

The Lent season is almost ending.  40 days is a really long time when you're in the midst of it.  I had no idea just how much effort it would take to change our eating habits and our lifestyle back to being "clean".  I feel like an Old Testament Hebrew elder talking about being clean and unclean sometimes :).  We failed a few times lately.  Like nose dived off a cliff into fries and lots of bad greasy foods.  I got a cold and relapsed on a trip. I say relapsed because I swear to anyone who tries to cut out carbs and sugar, you will relapse in moments where you're mindless and hopeless back into a world of terrible food choices.  I didn't just eat a sandwich, I had so many terrible treats that I am embarrassed to mention them all.  I'll admit that some of my vices have made it back into my life like coffee creamer (I am having much less though...).  We have had good days and bad.  We have made progress and lost it, but at the end of the day we're still making way better choices... I think...

The biggest factor that changed it all was sort of a slippery slope.  Another month without a pregnancy was pretty depressing to walk through last week.  The ovarian cysts dissolved on their own and we were cleared to start fertility treatments, but there was this sad few days where I had to accept that it's not happening on our own will.  We timed conception and I followed all the rules, but to get to last Monday and find out that we were still not pregnant, well, the wind just kind of stopped.  I had a busy week, so I just kept working, moving, being, but then I got a cold the next morning and it grew in intensity all weekend.  And now, here I am a week later and I am thinking about how I got so far off track with only a few days left of Lent and I realize, it was that other blow.... that other "almost this time" that brought me back to my knees.  I let myself get hopeful, and then it blew away again...

I have gotten to a place in this dessert where my face is to the sand in defeat.  I can't seem to make anything happen right.  This weekend was supposed to be a four day family getaway, and instead, it was a mess.  I was sick, forgot my make up and all of my important things, got my period, was probably the sickest I have been, KK was sick, the two things we wanted to do were too full for us to get in, we picked bad places to eat, were late to events, and just a slew of unforeseen issues came up on our "getaway".  I was so sick Sunday, that my face was swollen, my eyes were almost swollen shut when I woke up.  I was up all night at 3am with plugged sinuses ruminating over when I would fall asleep.  I just started praying...

Seriously God??  I can't get away from this suffering.  When I commit to doing well, you allow me to be shown I am still weak.  I can't breathe, I can't live, and I can't follow my dreams.  I am stuck.  I feel alone.  I feel like you're not even with me.  I am trying so far to stay faithful, but all I feel is a naive wanderer.  A boat with no harbor.  A homeless, lonely, soul trying to find shelter and it's just not happening...

 

My immune system is tanked and despite vitamins and healthy diet, I am still getting sick about every other month with a two week long cold.  We are almost at a year of trying to have another baby.  I am still struggling with my weight.  The blood panels all say I am healthy but I feel terrible.  I have the security of the last of my treasures but so much feels insecure.  I couldn't make it through the desert without giving into those old comforts.  And at this point, I am yet again feeling far from God, not because I am not pregnant, but because I just feel alone.  I show up and I feel nothing.  I care for others, yet I feel no one caring for me.  And I don't even know if I am in a place to receive it.  Don't even know if or how or what I am doing because every time I feel like I am moving forward, I find out it was no progress or back tracking...

In two days, I start fertility treatments.  I have surrendered my body over to drugs because it's so out of whack.  I feel like these days I know more people taking fertility meds to get pregnant than I do those who are just lucky to get pregnant on their own, but it doesn't make it much easier.  There is nothing normal or joyful about shooting yourself in the stomach with needles for a week to try and help your body along.  There is nothing more humiliating then taking your pants off every week to have people invade your body.  I have come accustomed to dropping my yoga pants and moving down another inch or two....  I have had more blood draws this year than I can count.  Hundreds in wasted pregnancy tests.  And it's literally led us no where.  Just as this next phase could lead us no where.  And I can't help in the midst of all of this to occasionally want to just drive into Panera and eat an arm's length french baguette (with a side of one of the creamy soups).  But I can't keep gaining weight either....

Today, I am in bed.  I have acne all over my face from the hormones from last week.  I am day 3 on my cycle.  I gained five pounds over the weekend as of yesterdays measurement, so I really have no desire to take on the world.  I have a pen of meds I am about to shoot myself up with in about 48 hours.  I have a cold... a cough like an old lady with emphazema.. and the last thing that I feel is loved by God.  And that's a hard reality to swallow but it's how I feel.  Logically, I know that's not true and I can read the Word to challenge myself, but today, I don't FEEL it.  Today, I will put myself together for the other people in my life who need support, but at this point I am at a low in my Lent journey.  I am face down in the sand.  I am waving my white flag.  I have given up so much, lost so many things, and each step is getting harder.  That along with several rounds of progesterone are enough to make anyone feel crazy but I think after the year I have had, I get to have a few moments face down in the dust crazy.  I think after so many weeks of trying to hold it all together, I get an hour to fall apart...

I am sure in the next few weeks I will heal from this cold and become accustomed to shooting myself up with Gonal F and Ovadril, but today, I feel like I just walked for miles in the desert up a hill to see there are probably several more miles of mountains before I get to a place of rest... but none of that rest is certain, none of the safety has a concrete end in sight.  And to me, I am not willing to lay here forever and give up on myself and my family, so I will rise, but right now... I am going to just be here and alone... and quiet... and surrendered... because I need to figure out how to rise and continue on...

The Necessary Detox

It's a 11pm, and I'm up late"r" than my family by a good hour plus now.  This detox is a blessing because I have a ton of energy.  I started running again this past week.  Bad news is that combine it with anxiety and stress from work and I am WIDE AWAKE with no real desire to go bed.  Started emails and notes for work and now I am more alive.  I guess I love what I do.

Our weight is starting to plateau on the detox.  We have 3 days left and I am down 8 pounds but 2.5 inches off my bust and hips and 3 inches off my waist.  I feel better, skinnier, healthier and most of the time happier.  I realize now I was fat, bloated, and drunk on sugar.  MMMMmmm sugar.   Can't say I don't miss my carby diet.  I thought it would disgust me after almost 2 weeks of detox and 3 weeks of eating clean, but not so much.  I guess carbs will always be in my heart.

I am starting to fear what's next.  How do I keep moving forward with all of this?  Part of me wants to just cave in, but more of me wants to add a few foods back in to make our lives more manageable.  I definitely want to keep being active.  I realized how much I missed the feeling of being physically sore.  I missed the sense of accomplishment from pushing myself.  I missed praying God to help me make it farther, faster, easier...

I read a facebook post from five years ago about wanting to live more simply.  At church, we are talking about in my mom's group about our "best yes" which is only committing to the things God's calling us to.  And my heart is desiring to scale back, reflect and enjoy all we have been given as a way to refocus on what we have.

I've been donating extra stuff, decluttering, and cleaning.  I am losing extra weight and trying to simplify our busy life by saying no to more things.  It's been really hard.  It's been kind of lonely.  The practice of self-denial eliminates more than excess, it opens up space.  In that empty space, I have started to see just how busy I make myself so I don't have to deal with certain things.  When I stopped the swim lessons, the extra library trips, the guilty lunches out with grandma, and the extra fast food runs, what I found is that life got pretty quiet.  I started to realize how much extra noise I put in my life, so I don't have to talk to God or even be real with myself.  I "coast" and cruise control...

Lately, my faith has been growing because as we are stripping our diets, lifestyle and budget to a more minimum place, I feel like God is blessing that slowly.  I feel like we keep getting little moments of peace and security in those quiet moments.  I feel like we realize just how excessive our lives were becoming.  I started to realize that this was more than a excessive eating problem, it was excessive spending, collecting and busying my life so I felt less pain problem.

I believe we're all addicts.  We all have a vice.  My child is addicted to her blanket and paci, but it makes her feel safe and calm.  Once I started taking away my security, I realized that I wasn't secure, I was just pacified.  Every burger, every little shopping item, even Starbucks was a "pick me up" to a greater sense that I wasn't fulfilled.  And the more naked I become in this process, the more I find a strength.  The easier it gets to just say no and the more peace I am getting to be able to say no.  I'm finding it easier to protect my heart and embrace my own value system.  I find it easier to speak my mind but let people go at the same time.  And while my anxiety is still present, it more of just busy thoughts of the day, of what else I can do or be for God's kingdom rather than what I "should have done" or "could be doing if I tried harder". 

A lot could change in the next couple weeks for our family.  I find myself growing quiet in prayer that it's God's will.  That's all I can do.  I have to let it go.  I have to lay down my cross, my dreams, my selffish wishes.  I want so many things, but each day I am finding moments of surrender where I just have to stop fighting this need to have it together and truly let it go.  It's a controlled surrender, not reckless and mindless.  My quiet surrender is becoming more and more intentional as I crave to live and more simple and God centered life.  I feel like a blooming tree with buds of potential but I need more time.  Lent is a little over half over and I feel so small and humble. 

I suppose my prayers and my heart for Lent are coming true.  I am finding out so much by giving all my treasures away.  I have given up the excess spending and food and laziness for intentional spending, living, and eating.  I am a better parent, partner and provider.  I have so much more energy.  I guess I am turning inward and selfishly holding onto that energy though.  I am healing from my inside out.  Self-denial isn't all dreaded doom and gloom.  It's elegant, quiet and simple.  It's uplifting and freeing.  It's hope.  It's change.  It's so necessary. 

What do you need to let go of in your life?  What are you addicted to?  DVR of your favorite line up?  Your phone? Food?  Idolizing your kids?  A relationship?  A designer? A Job? Running stupid road races?  What if that thing disappeared?  Who would you be and what would you do?  At the end of the day, all of our vices could be removed from our life and we are left with our soul.  And if we aren't truly at peace, how will we be able to handle those losses?

Sometimes self-care is actually a need to remove things from one's life and realign to what's really important.  The food was a barrier, the spending, the sugar, and clothes.  And I'm not quite there yet, but I see the benefits coming in.  I have Hope... I have peace... So I will just keep walking...

The Dreaded Detox

I got a few days into Lent, still addicted to sugar and craving it bad.  The simple carbs that I could have I had little self control over.  Chris and I decided to do this detox for clean eating that our friends successfully did.  Saturday went spent about 5 hours grocery shopping and prep cooking.  And today is Day 3. 

"Why in the world would you want to do this?" my mother and father asked me.  "Anything to an extreme is bad" my father chirped in.   I say chirped because I think sometimes my parents want to be this discerning force of protection to keep me from pain or discomfort, but they know I am probably going to do it anyway at this stage in my life, so they don't push too hard.  I think our decision to do the detox was fast, overnight really, which is usually our policy if we do anything as a couple.  Discuss, pray, discern, and then text it to each other at work :)

But what my husband reluctantly agreed to was probably one of the best decisions he has made for us as a couple in a long time because little did we know how much closer it would bring us, how much hope we would gain from it, and how much better we both would feel.  When you are trying to conceive a baby for several months at a time, you get very focused on trying to "make a baby".  It can weigh your thoughts and mind down and be quite depressing.  Want to or not, you start to dwell on what you don't have, why you don't have it and what you might be doing wrong in life.  That was me before Lent.  A sorrowful case of the "poor me's" that pervasively made it through my days, nights and weekends.  And when I got sad or had a bad day, I treated myself to a coffee with fancy creamer or all you can eat pizza for dinner (and cheesy bread sticks... which are pretty much my heaven in my mouth).  As much as I tried to stop focusing on getting pregnant, I couldn't. 

Then Lent came around.  Our church isn't really formal in its process of Lent.  Right now, they are planning to expand our church into several other campuses and going global, so while they are doing that, I feel like I have been on my little sojourn to find myself.  I wanted this period of time of the year to be changing.  I wanted to stop, think and really make a change because grieving loss is not something that was helping myself or my family.  I was slow and tired and sluggish and not motivated.  I was taking naps instead of working out.  I was buying crap at the grocery store again.  Food that two years ago we decided to stop eating was making it's way back onto our shelves.  And not just an occasional taquito, but a slew of frozen pizzas, mac and cheese, chicken nuggets, hot dogs, pre-made mixes for rice or noodles, lots of pasta, BOSCO sticks (if you have never had them you really should), and my beloved breakfast pizzas.  These were not items we should have had every meal.  We were also dinning out a lot.  Spending half our mortgage in dinning out money and another half mortgage in groceries.  I was self-soothing.  I was escaping.  I am a sugar addict.

The Detox
That brings me today.  "Hi I am Kerrie.  I am a recovering sugar addict.  I have 3 days clean".   I have lost 2 pounds so far in addition to the 3lbs I had been losing since lent started.  Only about 30 more or 40 to go to get where a BMI chart would have me be to not be considered "overweight".  Like most addictions, I had to get to a "rock bottom" of my post pregnancy weight to realize that I was out of control.  It makes me sick to know that I let myself gain back nearly 30 pounds.  It's actually crushing to me, but I try not to focus on that part.

What I have felt in the last 3 days (besides the incessant cry of hunger), is energy.  All of these foods I am eating are SUPER green and SUPER healthy.  Some I can live without, but some are tolerable and I have even liked a couple.  Not Crazy Bread, but it's good food.  I am spending a ton of time in the kitchen, a ton of time with my husband, and a lot of time being active with the little squirt. 

These two weeks are a sacrifice for me because I am having to let go of my comfort.  It's just FOOD, but it's food to me.  Unless you truly struggle with sugar addictions, I don't think you can understand this.  I used to CRAVE sugar.  And I used to give in.  Now with this plan, I have my items to eat and that's it.  There are tons of food.  The volume of vegetables I eat is making my jaw hurt.  I realize now I was probably nutritionally bankrupt and yet calorically overindulged.  4 oz of protein is my new size of meat and it's much smaller.  1/2 cup of quinoa is my serving of carbs in a meal, and that's WAY smaller.  But at the end of the day, I am not hurting or suffering, I feel good. 

I actually feel better in this desert than I did in the land of plenty.  I have done a lot more praying.  A lot more thinking.  A lot more hopeful thoughts about the future.  This is two weeks for the detox, and lent is forty days, but I am changing day by day.  I feel my body shrinking, the bloating going down.  I feel my energy pick up and I, best of all, have stopped craving sugar.  I could have kept down that path of self destruction, but I stopped and asked God to help me change.  Each day we pray as a family for that change because neither of us want to live and create a legacy of self-loathing in what we don't have.  We are a very blessed family.  Sometimes I think we are too blessed and maybe that's why we got put in this desert in the first place.

We are faithful that God will allow us to have another child.  We are hopeful we will be obedient and deny ourselves our comfort foods, and we will continue to strive to take care of these vessels that He has blessed us with.  And some day when we get the weight off, we might go back a little and have an occasional treat, but we hope this reset continues to make us better and better at living a life style that uses food for fuel and God for our comfort.

 

Feeling Full in the Desert, a Prelude to Lent

I have been thinking about Lent, Jesus in the desert for 40 days.  He must have known to some extent the 40 days was just a period of suffering.  He must have known the ups and downs of his life, death and resurrection lead to glorious victory, however, sometimes I wonder how the Son of God handled being alone, suffering, and without.  I know my life experience is nothing to compare with life in an actual desert.  I have to deny myself certain foods for Lent because I am becoming dependent on them for emotional comfort.  So I by no means want to say that dealing with infertility and all the emotional/hormonal issues has any comparison to the Lord's 40 days, death, and persecution. 

I do however feel like I have been in my own metaphorical desert.  And starting the Lent season when you already feel like you have been wandering alone for the last 8 months, doesn't motivate me the same way it used to.  Lent to me used to be a challenge to show my faithfulness in a fun way.  I would add some devotionals into my life, stop eating sugar, maybe give up soda, and then gleefully go about my life.  I think our "first world edition" of Lent is often that way.  Give up a tiny idol from our alter and joke about missing it for 40 days.  But what if before those days, God allowed many of those idols to already be destroyed?  What if you come to the desert already thirsty?

I have been hungering to feel God in the midst of all of this loss and pain.  Last week's fertility appointment led to us delaying our fertility treatments due to two large cysts discovered on my right ovary.  I was so hopeful that Chris and I discerned the right thing.  See a month ago, I went alone to my first visit back to the fertility doctor who treated my endometriosis before having KK.  A talk of fertility medication was discussed but not decided on.  In talking with my sister, we discovered that the $1500 medication that I needed to purchase for these treatments was the same one she used.  And ironically there was a full unused dose of it in her refrigerator.  Insurance had paid for it last year and it was still good to be used.  It left Chris and I with very little expense to try this route and the prayers we had been lifting up felt answered. 

Then at church, they asked for an offering.  We decided to give the $1500 to the church because here we felt we had an answer about using the medications.  I felt so hopeful last Sunday, and so hopeless by Monday afternoon...

It's not that the situation is hopeless.  There are two walnut sized sacs sitting in my right abdomen keeping us from getting pregnant the last few months.  It explains why I felt crazy, oily, hormonal, crampy, and even pregnant at times in the last few months, but it is a road block for our family growing.  I never realized just how much I could want something until I got pregnant with Kaylie.  When I found out I was having a healthy baby girl at 20 weeks, my heart opened and exploded with love.  And now all I really want out of this phase of my life is to continue to create more of that love.  It's a hunger like nothing I've ever known before.  I am so hungry...

And then I realize this is only a taste of what Jesus experienced.  Because He knows my brokenness, and yours, and everyone elses, He carried that burden and died to redeem it.  If we even know just a hint of Jesus's life and the Gospel is true, our suffering is a mere grain of sand to the emotional and spiritual warfare that He endured for us.  And not only am I humbled, but I am on my face in reverence.  I am quiet with my prayers for a moment.  I have one area of brokenness in my life, but God has endured them all. 

I realize in day 2 of Lent that there is a purpose to this suffering.  Hind sight will be 20/20.  These days of hunger and fasting do in fact show our faithfulness, but sometimes our Lent season is not one we create, it's one created for us.  And I am trying my hardest to not get tempted in the desert to go back to my old idols for comfort, but sadly, I have started to realize that I am going back to them, all the time, every day because for a moment they provide a tiny bit of joy.  I have gained 25 pounds since my miscarriage.  I am back to what I weighed after I had KK, and it crushes my heart.  Because it is a physical symbol that I am hurting and looking for comfort in physical things.  It's the reality that the effects of that comfort are only temporary because for the last 8 months I kept going back and back for more and more of it each day.  Yet, it has provided no real comfort or joy.  It's effects are fleeting but yet, I surrender to the more and more as time went on.  I would have moments where I regained control, but then another hard day would hit and I would "reward" myself with food for "making it through the day".  And I kept growing larger and larger.  Now my post pregnancy pants are tight, and I humbling ask myself in the mirror, "when are you going to realize that this isn't working for you?"  It's not peace, it's a distraction to coming to God.  I need a desert.  I need to be stripped of this comfort.  Because if one things goes wrong in my life, and I can't come to God with it, then what is my faith really consist of?  Am I only going to truly experience you when I get my way?  Am I only faithful when I am full?

So now I have decided that for Lent my journey is to think about that.  I have stripped away those comforts, added in self care, but mostly, I have tried to start turning to God for that hunger.  I have started once again to surrender my sin of over indulgence and tried to lift up my hurts rather than eat them up.  And so in a sense, I am doing whatever one else is, "I am giving up carbs, processed food, coffee creamer, milk, fried foods, sugar, pop, and flour", but what I am really giving up is my earthly security blanket.  I am trading my sorrows for God's peace.  Because if I learned anything about Jesus's life is that He heals, He honors, and He redeems even the most driest desserts.  Sometimes not with what we expect, but in time I know I will get out of this desert and start to move forward.  Whether that means we have a baby or we start the adoption process or we become at peace with the one little, miraculous angel baby that He provided to us.

40 days is a blink of time if you think about it.  In the moment we can focus on what we aren't having, or we can try to zoom out and think of the big picture.  This practice of self-denial whether it be intentional or given to us is refining our faith if we allow it.  We just have to move all those easier- to-worship idols out of the way to find the real comfort, the real peace, and the real hope which is Christ.  

So fellow Lenters (if that's even a word), I hope your journey through the desert is plentiful, not necessarily in getting what you want, but finding peace with God amongst the darkest and most difficult moments.  It's day 2 and I am already feeling some fruits of that fullness. 

Breathless and Empty

And I sat there numb.  Wanting out.  Wanting to be anywhere but where I was.  And I realized in that moment that I am in this place frequently.  Like I showed up for work, an appointment, or with a friend, and I am there but I am not.  Like all the emotion is sucked out of me, and it's not that I don't care, but I don't care.  If I had to pick anywhere else I would be, I wouldn't have an answer.  There isn't this secret obsessive dream I am having where I am on a beach or in a coffee shop.  I just don't want to be here.  There is no reason to feel this weak, I just feel like the life blood has been sucked out of me, and I some how still show up, but I came in an empty shell of a body.

I feel like a shell of who I used to be, and people say they notice.  "You're so calm" or "you seem to isolated".  And those wouldn't have been words I would ever used to describe myself, alas, it's how I feel today.  Maybe it's that I am taking hormones the last few days.  Maybe it's because I am at a loss of words to describe the pain it feels to want to get pregnant but I can't.  Maybe it's the mundane of this life that I am finally getting used to.  My life is no longer a series of unpredictable home visits or McDonald's trips with inner city youth.  But some how I highly doubt that even if I were in the thick of adventure that I would feel like myself. 

I dread the lime light, the effort anymore.  I have been content to maintain my life at this point, but yet, I yearn for something more.  And I don't think that it's because I don't have a good relationship with the Lord.  I don't think I am clinically depressed.  I don't think I am falling apart or in need of something, but I am just different.  I am just empty.  I can put on a face and run the show, but I have struggled to find my joy lately.  I have struggled to be content.  I look at those cute little baby pictures of Kaylie and I am remembering those moments in the hospital where alone I fed her and listened to Adele while Daddy slept on the make shift bed. Those moments where I kissed her super soft little head and smelled that new baby smell.  Those snorts and short breaths that only come from babies were the only conversation we had.  Becoming a mother was like making a dream come true.  But as all mothers say, the time goes by so fast.  I look at my dancing, running, talking little person and while that love is still there, there is a longing to fall in love all over again.

Last summer, I heard that fast paced baby heart beat on the ultrasound and my heart jumped with joy.  I was scared and nervous to have two babies, but it felt like my dream life was continuing to unfold.  Marry a wonderful man, buy a house, adopt a dog, have a child, and start my practice.  It was like everything wonderful continued to unfold into my lap and I sucked it all up knowing each and every day was a blessing.  It just felt like pure abundance and it was so much happiness. 

To lose that, well, it was like the wind stopped blowing and the life of the room was sucked away.  And even when I think of it still, I have to catch my breath.  Because after so many moments of joy, I had forgotten what sorrow felt like.  And now, here I am, day 2 of some hormone pills and it all slams into my head like a distant memory coming alive again.  Yesterday was my baby's second birthday and she is a a beautiful edition of that tiny little babe I fell in love with two years ago.  I miss her snorts and that high pitched newborn cry.  And while I was so very intentional about enjoying every moment of her infancy, I still can't help but grieve that my plan of having another has not come to pass yet. 

I know I am not hopeless.  I know that months from now, this blog could be just a blip in time, but today, filled with progesterone, I am some what of a sappy, quiet, broken mess.  Quiet and still because I feel like how can I grieve when I have so much to rejoice over?  None the less, I grieve.  None the less, I feel like something is missing from my heart, all while knowing my heart is full.

So I guess I just acknowledge my hurt and my joy.  I guess I just remember and hold tight to what I know to be true.  I guess I stop ignoring the hurt and just hold on to it.  Not because by holding it that it helps, but because by denying it, it's also not helping.  At least then, I stop feeling guilty for not having it all together.  At least then I know that I am just sad because I lost something I thought I had.  While it doesn't mean I won't love again, and it doesn't mean that I don't love now, it means that I acknowledge that love that was starting to form just from hearing those little heart beats.  And whether that heart be a person, a soul, or just a group of cells that lived momentarily, I still experience those moments of emotion where they were something.  It's a moment I hope I get to experience again, that joy and fear all at the same time.  Because being a mother is the greatest gift, the greatest joy, and yet also the greatest sadness I have ever had. 

I know some of my momma friends who are right there with me.  Maybe their grieve is expressed differently, but it's powerful.  It's draining.  It's a longing.  It's a lament to God for a chance.  It's the longing my single friends passing the 30 year mark press on through.  It's the moments where you realize your parent is still dead, or that you failed a life long project.  It's a failed marriage or the reality that you messed up big.  It's raw loss.  It's powerlessness.  It's meager hope.  It's empty.  It's a vessel that you feel you become in those moments where the thing you're missing grow in significance.  It's the moment where you can't breathe.  It's wishing you were any where but no where at the same time.  And it's realizing that you have to keep moving, or you'll stop.  So you wrap up.  You put it back into a box, on the tallest shelf of your heart.  I had a moment of grief, but now I go back to life.  This is the depth of myself that no one sees, but it's always there.  Too painful to visit for very long, so I am going to tuck it back away again.  Until that next breathe returns, I grieve, I listen, I wait for God to come back in and fill that empty me with his Spirit.  Help me Lord to be filled...

With Hope... Good Morning...

 

Back in the fall I wrote a blog about waiting for the seasons to change.  I had a bad summer, one filled with loss and sickness.   The past summer was such a contrast to the bountiful year I had prior with having a miracle baby and getting my business off the ground.  I thought some how that maybe the seasons of my life and the seasons of the earth would correlate, but that in a sense was wishful thinking.  It's been a rough summer, fall and even winter.  It feels like despite my effort to remain positive there are days where there is blow after blow.  So much is changing but feels like crumbling, not that season of change for the positive that I was hoping for.  And it's not one area of life or one situation, it's several.  But as I look at the lives of people I work with and mentor, I recognize we are all in that place.  That agonizing journey filled with moments of struggle, moments of joy, and moments of uncertainty.  It's not me and a bad season, it's that up hill climb.  It's that waiting place.  It's the reason I started this blog...

I called this blog Waiting for the Sun to Rise for a reason.  It was parallel to a trip to Hawaii where we climbed a really difficult hill in hopes of seeing the sun rise on the horizon at like 4:30 in the morning...  I thought I was in shape, but quickly became tired and hopeless that we would not make it in time.  We ran the bottom of the hill, quickly became out of breath and I struggled the rest of the way.  Meanwhile, for Chris it was a breeze.  He encouraged me, gave me space to pause and focused on helping me, but I was humbled that morning and realized how much life is a journey with few resting places and more twists and turns than it appears from the base of the mountain. 

And the reality is that it doesn't get easier to have day after day of disappointment and struggle.  It doesn't feel good to be in a place of ambivalence.  It doesn't ease the anxiety of ones heart to be still.  But sometimes moving forward doesn't feel like progress either.  It's a damned if you do and damned if you don't in some places.  Not sure if I am going up or down.  Do I try to lose weight or wait?  What do I let go for stress purposes but hold on to so I feel fulfilled?  Who is helping me and who is just taking from me?  It's a lot of thinking, a lot of just putting one foot in front of the other, and sometimes it's a choice to stay focused that this hill will yield the joy that I am climbing it for. 

I have been trying to get pregnant again for 8 months.  After a long dinner conversation with an old friend also struggling in this area, we sternly summarized this journey with "this just sucks".  With each passing month, each passing day sometimes, we don't know what our bodies, our God, and our lives will hold.  Maybe this month, maybe this time, maybe....  Another fork in the road or another dead end becomes a choice to give up or a choice to find new strength.  This endurance developed could be seen as a blessing but say that to the one on the road.  It's only in hind sight that we see the blessing in the struggle.  Only when we reach the top that we truly understand the big picture.  So what do I do with today?

I have been a long time fan of Maya Angelou.  I read several of her books and love the depth of her words.  Her metaphors are laden with heart filled meaning.  I remember logging into a computer program as a child and hearing, "with hope, good morning".  Maya wrote this poem, the Inaugural Poem, and the poem, especially the last part is so descriptive of where I am today:

I, the Rock, I the River, I the Tree
I am yours--your Passages have been paid.

Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need
For this bright morning dawning for you.

History, despite its wrenching pain,
Cannot be unlived, and if faced
With courage, need not be lived again.

Lift up your eyes upon
The day breaking for you.

Give birth again
To the dream.

Women, children, men,
Take it into the palms of your hands.

Mold it into the shape of your most
Private need. Sculpt it into
The image of your most public self.
Lift up your hearts
Each new hour holds new chances
For new beginnings.

Do not be wedded forever
To fear, yoked eternally
To brutishness.

The horizon leans forward,
Offering you space to place new steps of change.
Here, on the pulse of this fine day
You may have the courage
To look up and out upon me, the
Rock, the River, the Tree, your country.

No less to Midas than the mendicant.

No less to you now than the mastodon then.

Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes, into
Your brother's face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning.

 

This is where I am with this journey.  Where I am with continuing to feel like I am losing every step of the way.  But I have hope.  Every passing day.  I wake up with hope.  I hope that continues the rest of my days.  No matter the darkness, that I still am greeted by the light.   We are all able to stop each morning and chose to find hope.  But we have to find it, say it, proclaim it.  We have to find grace that our journey comes with pain.  We, and especially I, have to accept that God doesn't give me a big picture, a map, or even a cold water bottle half way up this mountain.  All I get is the hope of knowing that there is a top, there is an end.  God's grace won't be revealed until that time, so each coming day is just another step up that hill.  Sometimes I will see whats ahead and sometimes I will  just have to trust that His Grace of Sufficient... 

So... with hope, Good Morning, friends....

full poem :  http://poetry.eserver.org/angelou.html