More Okay Than Not

Thank you!!!  I don’t think I can accurately describe how much your sweet notes of encouragement have meant to me.  Just being able to put words to the events and emotions of the past two weeks was like a breath of fresh air or a weight being lifted off of my chest.  Thank you for caring, thank you for reminding me that I’m not alone (I forget this frequently ~ slow learner here), and thank you for letting me be honest.

 

That honesty thing is like a tightrope walking act, at least for me.  Even now, a part of me is concerned that I have caused others to worry.  I want to be real, but so many factors make that difficult.  In no way, shape, or form do I want to air out dirty laundry that would cause other people to be hurt.  In trying to be sensitive to those closest to me I sometimes feel like I give off the wrong impression of having things more together than I really do.  Bad things happen here too and sometimes life is exhausting.

 

Living with things that can’t or shouldn’t be talked about is almost unbearable.  I honestly believe that it’s one of Satan’s most overused tools.  Once we feel isolated and alone, we become incredibly easy to defeat.  We’re like sitting ducks once we believe that “nobody else could possibly understand” or even worse yet in the church, “real Christians couldn’t possibly struggle with this.”  Part of the reason I wrote the last post was that I spent months feeling lonely and discouraged after I lost our third daughter just 10 weeks before delivery.  There is much more to her story, but I knew I didn’t want to walk that road again.

 

Like I mentioned before, I also needed people to understand.  I needed them to understand why I hadn’t found time for our usual phone calls, or why I skipped out of church so early my first Sunday back, or why I wasn’t volunteering to help out with different functions.  Simply uttering the words “I’m sick” just didn’t seem to suffice when I felt like I was dropping the ball left and right.

 

For those who are still concerned about how I’m doing, I can honestly say I’m okay.  I had to reach some level of togetherness before I was even able to write the last post.  I’m not just trying to sugarcoat things.  The past week was truly one of my worst in recent years, but I’m not there anymore.  I guess that’s the good thing about putting one foot in front of the other; it’s impossible to stay put, no matter how slow it takes to move forward.

 

To be more specific, I think the actual process of waiting for and then enduring this miscarriage has been way harder physically than emotionally for me.  There was definitely an emotional component that seemed magnified by weak physical health, but having lost Catelyn gave me a perspective that's different than most.  When I was pregnant with her I was given a very up close and personal look at what having a child with disabilities would look like.  We spent hours upon hours analyzing, discussing, and preparing for her birth and then subsequent treatments and surgeries.  We were ready to whole-heartedly embrace her needs, but the thing that scared me most was how I was going to adequately also care for the two children I already had.  So while I’m sad to have lost this little person that I eagerly read development updates about each week, I have peace that this was not meant to be.  Contentment doesn’t always mean having things exactly as hoped for or planned.  For now I’ll rest in the knowledge that the One who holds the future has never left me or forsaken me.

 

Romans 8:37-39 ~ Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.