Fasting and Death and January

I broke my Facebook fast on Friday. I found out that one of my high school friends had passed away in his sleep. He was struggling with addiction, but oh he was a kind soul. He was my friend way back when it really wasn't cool to be my friend. He loved Jesus and he struggled. He struggled in a different, more apparent way, and I am heartbroken that he's gone but grateful that Jesus loves all of us, even the addict. If you think of it, please pray for his family. He has two little boys. It's insanely painful to lose your dad, no matter what age you are. So I broke my fast. I went on to pay my respects, to share some memories and a photo from 16 years ago.

January is hard. It feels so cold, and barren, and I'm wondering what in the world is going to grow from this dank, sad month. My connect group has been studying Habakkuk. It starts with a guy basically yelling at God, asking him when he is going to move. When he is going to wake up and make things better. I feel like that sometimes. I don't always see what God is doing. I guess I usually don't. It's easy to feel God when you get a shiny new baby or your husband gets a promotion or a friend tells you how great you're doing at life. But what about the years with no new baby? What about the years when you are quite literally counting the days until pay day? What about when a friend dies in their early thirties?

This is what January feels like. Cold, but no Christmas. Quiet, too quiet, wondering when the miracle will come. Wondering when the joy will show up and surprise us all.

Ann Voskamp likes to say "Eucharisteo always precedes the miracle." We are to keep giving thanks, for the hard, for the incredibly sad, for the winter, for the in between. I am the first to admit that I suck at this sometimes. I retreat, I bury myself in my books and in working out and in seeking out alone time. I want the time to pass quickly because joy is better. Joy is fun and shiny and people celebrate with you. People don't generally celebrate ordinary, sad, January days.

I'm going to try. January gives me this beautiful opportunity to change. I choose today to be grateful for the hard. For the sad quiet. For another month of no.

Spring is coming.

A Week Without It

I mentioned in my last post that for the month of January, I am staying of Facebook and trying hard to focus on the word personal. To stop the comparison and the insecurity and the madness. Ironically, this blog is automatically set to post to Facebook any time I update.

It's been a little over a week, and I've noticed some changes, as well as some habits that seem to be deeply rooted.

 This week, rather than distracting myself with what you've had for lunch, or what restaurants you and your friends are checking into, or how many more of you are pregnant, I've allowed myself to sit with this sadness. I've been really afraid to do so. But I'm learning that I can't run from it, I must face it if I am to conquer it. Ironically, this was the week to take a pregnancy test. Or three. They were all negative.

This week, I've been honest with God. Told him that I feel so very alone in my spiritual journey, and that while I know he's with me, it sure doesn't feel like it. That I feel he's too busy solving the world's problems to listen to my pleas. I've gone on bike rides. People watched. Done yoga. Found solace in cooking and cleaning and even potty training my two year old. I've avoided friends and sat with my stomach aches and wondered where God is when I can't feel him.

I've felt really, really small this week. But I'm learning that this doesn't have to be a bad thing. I'm reminded of the motto from my youth group, many years ago. My youth pastor always used to say "I must decrease so Christ may increase." This week, I've cut out a lot of the junk. The noise that wants to steal my joy. What I am left with is this empty space. I don't know what God is going to do with it. I don't know if he will heal my heart or if I will always be a little bit sad no matter how much I fight for joy. I don't know. I can simply give him this space and wait. And against my better judgement, keep hoping.

Personal

Every year around this time, I choose one word that I am going to focus on for the upcoming new year. Last year my word was content, as in, I wanted to become content with the present rather than obsessing with plans for the future or dwelling too much on the past. Full disclosure, that was a really hard one. 2015 was rough. But I remembered my word and carried it around like I needed it.

2016 starts in just a few days (what?!?). I chose my word this morning, after careful thought and prayer. My word will be personal. As in, I am going to try my best to focus on how God loves me personally, rather than obsess and compare with how he is blessing my friends.

Here's some raw honesty. Most women that struggle with infertility, whether they admit it or not, feel the painful sting when loved ones seem to get pregnant easily (and sustain that pregnancy until they birth a healthy baby). Ben and I have struggled with infertility not once, but three times. Years and years. It is our number one struggle in our marriage, hands down. We've lost five pregnancies. I hate talking about it, not because I am embarrassed but because people say hurtful things, and I don't have the thickest skin. But here's my weakness. When it seems so easy for others, and so very hard for us, I doubt God's love for me personally. It's awful, I know. But it's true. I question why my pregnancies fail. I question why hers don't, and I think maybe he loves her more. It's a bitter pill, friends. I just don't want to hurt anymore.

So my experiment for January is to focus on looking for God's love. For me. Not for you. Some days will be harder than others. I have about twenty five friends that are pregnant right now. I need to realize that they are no more special to God than I am. I am deleting my Facebook app, just for January, because I have to stop the comparison madness. I get on that stupid website and am reminded of my failures. I feel less than. Less of a woman. It's dumb and I want to stop the toxic comparing of wombs.

I covet your prayers. I long to know God's love for me. I know it, in my heart and my brain, but I don't always feel it, you know?

Thanks for letting me be so raw. This is tough territory, but I am ready to tackle it. I want to change.

Happy New Year, loves.

10

This Thursday marks ten years since the boy from Chemistry class married me and changed my name. Ten years ago, I was an idealistic little twenty year old that thought that marriage would be easy, my happily ever after. The boy and I quickly learned that marriage would be one of the hardest journeys ever.

Ben is quiet, and gentle, and to be honest, I've only heard him yell maybe three times in the thirteen years we've been a couple. I grew up in a tumultuous, angry household, and I think maybe my spirit knew I should pick a man that was different. Peaceful. Safe.

He loves me fiercely. He protects and provides and he's a great daddy to our two boys.We are so different, opposites in many ways, but the one thing we agree on more than anything is protecting our family from the forces that would love to tear it apart.

This year has been the most challenging for the two of us. We're really open about that, not because we're proud of it but because we believe that honesty and openness can heal a lot. We've been through hell and dare I say we've come out of it better.

I love this man I grew up with. I had no idea, when I went on a group date with him on that cold January night thirteen years ago, that he would end up as my husband. Usually you don't end up with the person you start dating at seventeen.

I know this post isn't mushy, there aren't a lot of frills, but this is our story. Through many struggles, through five miscarriages and years of infertility and doctors and family heartache and the loss of my dad and six tattoos, through financial uncertainty and broken hearts and severed ties, through thirteen Christmases and ten years of filing our taxes together, through five moves and one mortgage, we've made it through. I love this man fiercely. I'm not sure of a whole lot, but I am really, really sure of us.

Hope

The little ornament above is one my son brought home from Sunday school last week. Our church is big on Christmas, as any good church should be.
This little paper decoration hit a nerve.

I've given up the notion of hope this year.
Hope means vulnerability. Disappointment. Pain.
Hope is for suckers.
Right?

But, God tells us to hope. This little ornament reminds me that God's promises are supposed to fill us with hope. Dare I venture down this road again? Dare I risk being hurt again to open my heart to what God has for me? It's so scary. But God promises not to leave me on this road alone.
He doesn't promise easy.
He doesn't promise pain free.
He doesn't promise material wealth or good looks or all the babies my mama heart desires.
But he promises hope.
It's his gift to this broken soul of mine.

Merry Christmas, dear ones. May your December be filled with hope.

Joy

We were fortunate enough to get to travel up to Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina last week to experience an actual fall, complete with multi-colored leaves, cooler temperatures, and unique fall-themed activities. We stayed with Ben's grandmother, who was kind enough to open up her home to us for four days. She's really fun and such a trooper to host our wild little bunch!

I'll confess something. The main reason I wanted to go up North was to find God. I haven't been sure of much lately, but I always feel closer to God when I'm in his beautiful creation. Not that Florida isn't beautiful in it's own way, but after living here thirty years, I'm used to it.
So I wanted the mountains, I wanted the beauty. I wanted to be reminded that God makes beautiful things.

When I was a little girl, I'd go stay with my Gran in Franklin, North Carolina, just a few miles away from where we just were. When things were bad at home, Gran was my safe harbor. I spent so many summers up there with her, experiencing all of this beauty and realizing that there must be a God, because places this beautiful couldn't be an accident.

My heart got to heal a little on this trip. I saw fall, I lived and breathed fall, and I was reminded of God's magnitude. Sometimes it's healing just to stand on a giant mountain and feel small. What a perspective changer. I was able to experience joy, something I have been praying for fervently ever since we stopped trying to grow our family. I have been so incredibly sad. But this trip made me feel excited about something. It made me realize that we can do this again. And two kids is easier to travel with than a whole van full. We can go places, we can experience new things, the four of us. And that's something to be excited about in it's own way. I've been in a mourning period for a while now, mourning my hopes and dreams that must change. But being back in my favorite place reminded me that just like God's word promises, joy indeed comes with the morning. I'm going to keep praying for this joy.

I still don't exactly know what the future holds for us. I don't know if we'll keep homeschooling next year or if I should go back to work or what God wants from me. But I pray I'll experience his joy on the road to figuring it all out.

A new season

My heart is healing. Some days are still hard, but all in all, I'm doing better.

I feel like we're entering into a new season of life. Away from the baby stage, and into full fledged childhood. Logan is 5 1/2, and Levi will be 2 (!!!!) in just a few short weeks.  He's been asking to use the potty, and while this is great, it makes me a little sad. Once the baby stuff is gone, it's gone.

We've decided that enough is enough with this trying for another baby madness.
At a certain point I realized that my spiritual health, my view of a loving God, my outlook at the world, was all being severely tarnished each time I miscarried. It took away my joy, my hope. It feels really bizarre not to hope anymore. And yet, it feels right. I still pray, because I don't know how not to pray. I still love Jesus, as confused as I am. I am thankful for passages of scripture that highlight others struggling with their creator. Job is a personal favorite right now.

I know I am like a lot of other Christians, struggling to make sense of why God allows what he allows. I was so terrified to admit my doubts to other Christians for so long, afraid they'd label me a heathen or tell me to stop talking. Instead, when I've shared my concerns and questions, what I've gotten is a "me too" 99% of the time.

So in this new season, this season of trying to find God and trying to feel joy and trying to make sense of my pain, I'm focusing on just a handful of things.

My kids. My miracles. These two little people that drive me to exhaustion every single day. I love them more than life. They remind me that good still exists. That God is real. Because He made them. And they came from me. Which, according to doctors, is a really big deal in my case.

My best friend. My husband. Ten years this December. He's been playing the role of listener for the most part, not offering generic advice but listening as I voice my confusion, my uncertainty. He's been a rock to me during this tough season.

My church. A whole bunch of people that love God but that aren't afraid to admit that they have their own doubts. Their own hurts. Their own set of hard questions. They sent me these flowers the week of the last miscarriage. They've been praying for us for years, ever since this journey started long ago. They've given me hugs and notes and shoulders to cry on.

So my prayer is different now. I no longer pray to grow our family. I pray instead for a new dream. A new passion. I have no idea what that will be. I have no expectations. But as we enter into this new, beautiful fall season, I'm deciding that it's time for me to embrace it. Whatever it may be.