Today is our due date had we not miscarried. These 6 months have taken me places and into valleys I’ve never been in. They have been the hardest of my life.
We found out at my 12 week appt in February that we had miscarried. I knew then that God was taking me on a long trek.
I am not one for long journeys. I am the one who longs to just be Home.
I am in the middle of that story. Or rather His. And it doesn’t always afford much sight of what He is doing.
I have battled anemia, thyroid issues, and just achingly tired days. I have felt lost at times in mom groups full of young babies, multiple siblings, and pregnancies. The most common question I get (an innocent one) is, “Is he your only one?” I have wrestled hard with the fact that every woman in my immediate family will give birth this year. Except me. And while I am overjoyed for them, there is no shared experience. In the midst of working through all this pain- I have recognized a need to let go of control especially in our marriage.
Wounds sometimes deepen before they heal.
My dreams have felt cut off.
I have cried in every single worship service. Through every song I have listened to, I have ached for the reality of no more brokenness in this life.
I can accept the fact that our baby is gone to be with the Lord, her Creator. But I can’t quite face the future and what it might hold.
Or what I might not hold.
This part of the story feels unscripted, like something you would naturally leave out of a good read.
But the Author of this story has vision for things I don’t. And everything he is doing or allows in this broken world has eternity weighted behind it. His sights are on ALL of it. And He is doing the most in the seemingly unimportant, dull, tiring, weighed down moments of life.
So let me recount the good things He has done in the hard, impossible places.
God has shown me how to have more grace. For others and myself.
He has slowed my tasking hands, and steadied me to walk at his pace.
He has strengthened my marriage in so many beautiful ways.
He has given me an even deeper compassion for those who walk out life after loss.
He has helped me to pause, simply behold Seth, our son and the miracle he is.
He has reminded me of His great faithfulness. And His enduring love.
He has granted me friendships and community in a new place. And He is giving us a beautiful ministry here.
And He has strengthened my heart with this word from the beginning- “I have more family for you, Jamy.”
This seems monumental at almost 42.
Yet over and over He has affirmed this word- from walking out of the hospital chapel (after taking a wrong turn) and running into a pregnant woman to Scriptures of the promise of children lighting my face not even looking for it. Fireflies in all the places, when they weren’t even in season (my love wink from God). And even a nurse I talked to- reminding me of Abraham and Sarah’s story.
Their story (found in Genesis) of childlessness for 25 years is astounding, when you consider they were already past childbearing years when God promised them a son. For God to grant them a son and promise more descendants than the stars in the sky seems impossible.
It resonates.
Their story has always been my favorite-they were late bloomers like me.
And yet there’s more to Abraham and Sarah’s story. They had a middle part. A long one. They didn’t know that in their waiting, God was orchestrating the timeline for a Redeemer to come through their lineage. His name would be Jesus, through whom ALL the families on earth would be blessed and God would redeem us from the curse of sin and death.
“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”
John 1:12-13
Abraham and Sarah saw an empty cradle. God saw a Babe in a manger coming in the fullness of time to redeem mankind.
Think on this- Abraham couldn’t even see all the stars when God told him to count them.
When God tells us to look to Him, He knows we can’t see the whole picture. He does and asks us to trust Him.
And it’s a reminder that when you surrender your life to the Lord- it will look nothing like you planned.
And will be far better than you could ever have imagined. From beginning to middle to end.
The middle parts of our stories often look like wildernesses, deserts, dried up relationships, tired worn days, aching bodies, and aching hearts. They can seem like wasted days.
But there is GOD in the waking of your wake.
So often in life the very things that go wrong are leading us into the way everlasting. He is always accomplishing far more than just the thing in front of us.
“I will even make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” Isaiah 43:19
God is not done with our stories, friend. Not even death can change that. For it is never the end for Believers in Jesus. It is only the best, most brightest of beginnings.
“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” I Corinthians 2:9
Movement in a Mercurial World 