Will and Grace

For a long time I've thinking about Will and Grace. It's not what you think. What I mean to say is Free Will and Divine Grace, not the T.V. show. That is - the freedom we have to choose and the grace God provides when our hearts become rebellious toward Him and we do something stupid, i.e. sin. Lately I have been concentrating mostly on grace, how I express it to others, and the amazing lengths God has gone to show it to me.
   Now I want to tell you a story. There was once a young girl, beautiful, smart and full of passion for the things of God. She was a leader in her church among the youth and everyone had high expectations of her. This young woman did all the right things and said all the right things to all the right people. But somewhere in the mix of the world she allowed her mind to go astray. She began thinking wrong thoughts. And soon after, during her last year of high school she met a handsome man. This man fell in love with this girl and she fell in love with him too. But because the young lady's mind was already compromised and her heart was full of rebellion, she soon began to give in to temptation. Her lust for the young man turned into fornication. She was a genius at hiding it...... lying had always been an easy specialty for her so no one need be the wiser. But the Bible is always right and it promises in Numbers 32:23 "..... be sure your sin will find you out." And so it did, the young woman became pregnant just weeks before she gradated high school. So ended a respected reputation and many other things. It is now 4 1/2 years later, and God has been so good. She married her handsome man and has a new and better relationship with Christ built on truth and trust and much grace.
     Recently the young woman heard of a leader in a nearby church who's sin has found him out also. He and his wife are going through a divorce and their are rumors of an affair. Several affairs actually on the part of this man. As far as the young woman knew this was rock solid marriage between two Godly, Christian people. But like her own past life, it has been a facade for many years.

Now I get to the juicy parts..... the young woman is me (many of you already know this) and I do actually know a man in this position but he needs not to be named. We can all think of someone with a similar story. So insert whatever name that immediately comes to mind for you.

When I heard this story I was instantly 1)Shocked, 2)Angry, 3)Judgmental. That's right, I pointed the finger with the rest. And I'm ashamed for having done so. Out of all people I should have been the first to pray for repentance and healing for this family, I should have been understanding and full of grace. How quickly I had forgotten just what God brought me back from and where he has carried me to. What this man and his family need and will continue to need is not harassment or whispers or wagging of tongues, but compassion, grace, and prayer. They need kindness and forgiveness and to be able to come to their fellow Christians, even in their brokenness and find love. My daughter has a book with a poem in it that goes like this;

Little words can mean so much
When out hearts and lives they touch
Once little word none can replace
This little word is Grace.

It means no matter what you do
God's love is reaching out for you.
So if you've been bad today
God's grace is just a prayer away.

That is the best definition of grace I have ever heard. It is not making excuses for sin. It is not ignoring it. It's not condoning sin. It is not even allowing someone to continually hurt you with their sin. It is loving the person in the midst of their sin. No matter what you do, God's love is reaching out for you.

I saw Mr. Insert Name out shopping just the other day. He didn't have a cart, so he wasn't there to grocery shop. And he was walking around sort of aimlessly it seemed. If I were going to guess.... I'd say he was lonely and bored and just needed to get out of the house. And then I thought about the likely hood of his having spent Thanksgiving alone and how he will also likely be spending Christmas alone. There is always consequence for sin. This man would hardly look me in the eye and would barely speak to me, trying as best he could to avoid me. This is the brokenness and death of sin. I told him I was praying for him, but I wonder does he understand that my prayers are for healing? For those around him to show compassion, kindness, and grace? That someone will come along side him and reassure him that God still wants him, wants a new, better, deeper relationship with him? And even wants to one day use him again? I know that when people used to tell me they were praying for me I always thought they were patronizing me. Or were asking God to make me stop sinning, to be a "good girl" again. But maybe some of them were asking God to heal my heart and bring me back into a passionate relationship with Christ. Maybe some of them were asking God to show me how captivated He is by me and how much He loves me.

I am so thankful for my Free Will to choose Grace instead of condemnation. I am thankful that God allows me to choose to show others the love He has faithfully shown me. For what is love if it is a forced love?

Critical Mass and More Change

I haven't blogged for a while for several reasons... the first being this was a hard week, the second being I (almost) single-highhandedly blew-up a perfectly good day, the third being there have been several changes in plan pertaining to this pregnancy that I wanted to get ironed out before sharing here.

Most of you are already aware that we reached the one year mark last Saturday. Saturday was November 12th, the day Asher died, he was born early the next day. Saturday was sunny, windy and basically beautiful. I didn't feel a huge sense of sadness.... in fact I was happy all day.  I wanted to be sure the day was one where we celebrated the life God gave us to love... even if it was only for a painfully short time.  This is the part where I tell you I acted like a psycho and basically ruined the whole day.  Our plan (my plan that everyone else agreed to because they love me and they love Asher) was to take sky lanterns (see Disney's Tangled - it was my idea first, they stole it) and sparklers (not my idea, I stole it from another mom who had to bury her own son 8 years ago) out to the grave site just before nightfall. I wanted to draw or write messages on the lanterns and set them off and then do the sparklers. The whole day went fine until I needed to wake Nolan up (he works nights and hadn't gotten much sleep - 2 hours- that day) to leave. I had a really hard time getting him out of bed, and then when I did it took him awhile to actually wake up and get motivated to put shoes on and get ready to leave. So we were running about 30mins behind. Well... at some point I blew a gasket and went postal on him. Like the ugly, hateful, screaming insanity you see on Jerry Springer. It was pretty close to Carrie-style ridiculousness. So here we are finally in the car and I am letting Nolan have IT and I'm not slowing down anytime soon. He tells me to take him back home but I yell back "You can WALK!" So at the next stoplight he gets out and walks home which makes my pissed meter shoot through the roof. 

By the time I make it out to Garden's of Memory I was at critical mass levels of irate. I stopped the car and got out with the intention to be calm and normal. That did not happen. Thomas (my brother) got out of my parents van and said, "Do you need help?" I yelled back "No! I need a new husband!" And then I just started ranting again. I was crying and raving and shouting. At one point I yelled at Nolan's dad..... not one of my best moments to say the least. Later that night, after I'd calmed down, Nolan and I were talking and he very sweetly said "Don't you think you overreacted?" At first that made me aggravated again, but he quickly followed with "What would have happened if you hadn't gotten mad? We'd have been late, but there would have been no fight and I'd have went with you to the cemetery." So then I cried.  I didn't want him to be right. I wanted to be right. So I pouted..... I might have a hidden 14 year old inside - maybe. But eventually I saw that he really was right and that I had a lot of apologizing to do.

Moving on to Sunday - mostly because I don't want to elaborate to you anymore how nuts I became. Sunday was actually much sadder than Saturday. Sunday was Asher's birthday. I never even got one birthday with him. Sunday at church so many amazing women knew just what I needed; prayer, hugs, sitting with me. And one young woman knew that I just really needed to be somewhere else at that time. So so asked me if I wanted to go for a drive. It was wonderful.  They knew what I needed and gave freely.

I am blessed to have so many understanding people around me. Which brings me to my next announcement. We've decided through lots of prayer and research to switch care providers. This decision doesn't have anything to do with the care I was getting with my Midwife (she's been wonderful, and I will actually be seeing her for my post-natal care), but has everything to do with the fact that we decided we wanted a hospital birth because of the availability of on-the-spot interventions should I or Eden need them. We are healthy and there is no reason to suspect we will need them. But for our own peace of mind we have decided this is what we want. I looked at several hospitals and I decided I like Methodist because of their willingness to support natural birth. So I can have the natural birth I want with the medical stuff at the ready. I still hope to one day have a home birth..... but for now this is where things stand. I would love to know many of you are praying for a smooth, wonderful birth. And for labor to begin at or just before 40wks - again, peace of mind.

February can't come soon enough.

Being Real, Pride, and Many Hands

At first I wasn't too sure about posting this..... but it's part of the journey. Last Thursday morning Nolan and I had what should have been a tiny tiff, but in my head it was HUGE. Now I can't even remember what it was about, but I do know that I cried for the hour-long drive to see my chiropractor because I was so upset. And then I put on a happy face and had my appointment, when we left I cried for the hour drive back home. This was not a once-in-a-great-while thing, this sort of ragged sorrow had been raging for about 3-4 wks, maybe longer. And I was so anxious I started to question every decision I was making and even questioning some my core beliefs..... which is just NOT like me. Once I make a decision I stick to it - good or bad.
    When I came in the door I just put on an icy frontier and went about cleaning the house as normal.... but I just started to cry again. My poor husband was so bewildered. I told him that how I looked on the outside (a crying, freaked-out mess) was how I was feeling every minute of every day on the inside. I told him I couldn't take this anymore. We decided it was time to talk to someone and ask about an antidepressant. I was able to get a prescription sent to my pharmacy for Zoloft. As far as antidepressants go it is about the only one that would work for my symptoms and be semi-ok during pregnancy. There are certain risks that go along with just about every drug and the same is true of Zoloft. I was pretty nervous about taking it, but I also knew I could NOT go on feeling the way I was feeling. Feeling crazy, and so very sad and anxious ALL THE TIME was not good for Eden. It was also really starting to hack away at the relationships with my family. So I decided to take the pills. I took them for two days and had a weird side effect. I started shaking, like the kind of shaking you do when you shiver violently from the cold - except that I wasn't cold. I couldn't sleep because of it and (after much more research on side effects) decided not to take it anymore. It took another day for the shaking to totally stop.  I started taking extra B-complex vitamins and really upped my Inositol. These measures have really helped and I feel so very much better.
   I feel/felt so ashamed about saying that I was not in a good mental place. It was hard to even admit to myself that something was truly not right upstairs and that maybe I needed help. In the past I've been the level-headed, reasonable one. I've always been so proud of keeping it all together. But maybe then I wasn't being real with those around me. Maybe it was a front..... heck, I know it was a front and I know that I got really good at fooling others into believing I had it all under control. I think I was even proud of that....  Proverbs 16:18 - "Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall." And so I fell, hard. Lucky for me I have many hands waiting to help me back up.

Trying to Get Lost.

If memory serves me correctly, today was my due date with Asher. Or maybe it was the 28th?? Ask my mother-in-law, she will know. She remembers every date of every thing that ever happens (it's like a super-power.) I can't remember because I don't put a lot of stock in due dates..... and so I wasn't super focused on a day as much as I was a block of time. This is when everyone around me started getting nervous....... somehow they all knew something wasn't right. But not me. I was basking in the glow of my son. I distinctly remember how very nervous Nolan, my mom, and Nolan's dad - Jim were. They had no real reason to be.... I was feeling fine, Asher was acting fine, the ultrasound I had the Monday before I had him said everything was perfect.
These last few weeks have been hard. I feel angry and sad and happy all at the same time. Having these intense emotions has caused me to start shutting down emotionally. I can detach emotionally and go into autopilot mode if I need to. However........ at some point during the week it all comes crashing down and I  am a mess for hours. Last Saturday I started to drive home from my in-laws, but instead drove way, way out into the country. I drove for almost an hour down narrow country roads trying to get as lost as possible (I cannot get lost, even when I try). I just kept driving. I kept thinking that I wanted to go somewhere that wanted me. I didn't want to be with people...... people need something from you...... and i had nothing left to give. But heaven didn't want me, if it did I'd be dead. My empty house didn't want me. I had been a wreck to be around all day and felt like my family didn't want (to be around) me. So I just kept driving. Who wants an emotionally volatile, grieving, exhausted, pregnant woman????? I wondered, and wondered: mentally and physically. The sun was to my back and it lit the dry corn and bean fields with that long, golden autumn light, which hints at the cold winter to come. I turned down every road I could turn on - purposely not looking at the road signs. Eventually I came to a tiny, old church with a small, old cemetery right next to it. At first I was going to go into the church.... but then the weather-beaten headstones of the oldest graves began to beacon me. They said, "We want you. Come see us." It's so difficult to describe..... part of me is buried in the ground with Asher. Part of me will never be satisfied with this life, always longing to go to my real home, my forever home. And part of me is in every cemetery that I pass. I know that an untold number of tears have been shed in each one. I know the sane insanity of disbelief when standing over a tombstone you picked out and paid for. I know the draw to walk near the body of the one you put in the ground.
As I walked around reading about those who had been buried I gravitated toward the back where the really old graves were. I discovered among them a sad, and terrible trio. The headstones told the story of 2 little girls and a baby boy from from the year 1834. I like the way they marked the stones back then. Nanny Cull died August 27. 1 year, 3 days. 1834. Next to her was her twin sister who died the next day. And next to her was their 12 day old brother who died one week later. So a mother gives birth to a son, 5 days later both of her twin daughters are dead, and a week after that so is her son. Three babies in the ground in less than 2 weeks. Did she loose her mind?? Did she ever have any other children?? What happened?? Who held her hand as she stood exactly where I was 177 years ago?
I left soon after my discovery. Knowing that others have stood where I was and cried and were angry too was helpful. I am not the first mother to loose her baby to an early grave, and I will not be the last. I got in my car and drove back to my in-laws..... never did get lost.

"I Miss My Brother, Asher"

Tonight I held my baby girl while she sobbed into my chest. She said, "I miss Asher. I miss my brother, Asher. Can't Jesus give him back to me??" Don't tell me children don't understand death and loss. Don't tell me their little hearts aren't broken.
I told her we will see Asher again when we go to heaven. She said, "I don't want to wait, Momma. I miss Asher."
Me either, Baby, me either.

When I Need to Laugh......

Some days I just need to laugh. I go in search of whatever sorts of things I can drown out the noise of the day in and just let out a hearty-har-har. There are lots of things I do...... without further ado (in no particular order).

Number One. Awkward Family Photos. Many of you already know about this little gem.... go ahead spend an hour. Giggle.

Number Two. People of Walmart. Now, I also recommend actually GOING to a Wal-mart just to people-watch. It's free and entertaining.

                    Also this related classic. Enjoy.

Number Three. Call grandma. Give the phone to your toddler. Sit back and listen. Good for at least 30mins of entertainment....... maybe more if there is a grandpa in the room near the grandma. :) This also works well as free childcare if you have a chore around the house that needs done and you need your toddler to be entertained.

Number Four. Watch old reruns of The Cosby Show. You'll thank me later. Also watch Psych. Very funny.

Number Five. My husband works with all men. All these men tell him dirty-ish jokes. Occasionally he'll tell me one or two. And it makes me laugh. He told me one this very morning. No! I'm not going to tell you. You'll have to ask your OWN husband to tell you dirty jokes.

Number Six. Swap "Poop" stories with other moms of toddlers.

Number Seven. Swap "Crazy Huge Mess" stories with other moms of toddlers.
     (These last two also work well if you have children of any age with other moms.)

Number Eight. Get out your mom's wedding pics from the 80's or later. Again, you'll thank me later. Also ask her for Prom pics. : ) (I realize some of you who read this ARE the ones who are IN these golden-oldies pics..... but the rest of us just can't help but laugh.)

Number Nine. Find a teenager. Ask them to tell you about high school. This time with my brother and sister make me laugh so much.

Number TEN!!!! Think of all the funny things your toddler does.
  Example. Vera comes to me holding a new block of soap with a rubber duck stuck in the middle that she received from her Aunt Emily. I'm on the phone with my mom.
Vera (standing and staring at me): "Mom. I need a tell you sumpin. I tinken'."
Me (slightly confused, but she's so darn cute anyway): "Ok, honey, you just keep on thinking. Thats a good job." I continue to talk to my mom.
Vera (stands next to my chair for another 30-45 seconds): "Mooommmm, I said I tinken'!!!!!! Can you put me in a baff wiff my new soap???"
Me: "OH! You STINK and you want a bath! (then between laughter) Ok, go take your clothes off. I'll start the water."

Try some of these if you need a good laugh. Get your endorphins flowing. Laughter induced belly ache guaranteed.

I Surrender All

   I was reminded this morning of a hymn we sang at Asher's funeral. I asked for it to be sung after my sister-in-law told me she had been singing it and praying for us. She said she was asking God to help us surrender everything we had dreamed of for our son. All our hopes and wishes, all the good and blessing we had anticipated. Before her note I had never looked at this song in this light. I had always thought of surrendering the bad things..... the unhappy memories. Or surrendering the life I have now for a better one  in Christ. It never occurred to me to think of surrendering my right to blessing and joy in place of God's sovereign will, in place of suffering.
   I sat next to my husband and while other's sang Nolan and I sobbed along with our families on both sides. I know that was one of the times the Holy Spirit prayed for me because I could not pray..... I could only sob.
   I got a fresh lesson on surrendering on Saturday. Nolan and I spent the day celebrating our belated 4th anniversary (It was really on Thursday). He went hunting in the morning while I finished up some homework, then we went out for lunch. After lunch we drove to the cemetery together for the first time since Asher's funeral. I held my dear Honey's hand as we walked around looking at the headstones of many new and old (some as old as 1943) baby graves until finally we came to our own baby. I had to surrender it all again. I cried into Nolan's shirt as I have so many other times this past year. He held my hand as we walked back to the car and barely choked out, with a lump-in-your-throat voice, "That sucks." Which is not something we say in jest or lightly anymore.....

These are a few pictures of his headstone that Nolan picked out. Every time I look at it I think of how much thought Nolan put into picking this one. And how he made sure to get one that had a vase because he knew I would want to bring flowers out there. I took these on the day I wrote the Cornflowers and Queen Anne's Lace post back in July.

   The second stanza of I Surrender All is the one (for now) I most identify with and it goes like this:
             All to Jesus I surrender;
                Humbly at His feet I bow,
                Worldly pleasures all forsaken;
               Take me, Jesus, take me now.
      Refrain:
               I surrender all,
               I surrender all;
              All to Thee, my blessed Savior,
               I surrender all.

A few days ago my sister-in-law (she's so wise) sent me a link to another blog. This particular post was about cutting the bungee cords of the past so you can live in the now and not be continually bounced backward. I have been thinking about this and I know that I want to really live in the now. But I also know it is not as simple as just "cutting the bungee cords". I think it has more to do with surrendering. Surrendering my sadness...... my pain...... my longing to hold on to every little detail of Asher. And surrendering my fear of the future. It's easier, in a way, to live in the past. I already know what happened.... nothing to surprise me and turn my world upside-down again. I don't know what tomorrow holds or next year or in 10 years. I guess I will just keep surrendering and ask for the strength and courage to live in today. In His presence I daily live.