Suffering and Joy

I just wanted to write the journey of the last few weeks my family and I have been on, so I can remember what God has done and what we have learned! Like remembering that it is in the dark that God is passing by. The bridge and our lives shake not because God has abandoned, but the exact opposite: God is passing by. God is in the tremors. Dark is the holiest ground, the glory passing by. In the blackest, God is closest, at work, forging His perfect and right will. Though it is black and we can't see and our world seems to be free-falling and we feel utterly alone, Christ is most present to us.

January 4th, Kyle and I were watching "The Office" I started getting emotional on a Pam and Jim scene and then ran to the toilet from Nausea...yep, red flag!  We went and got a pregnancy test and found out I was pregnant!  I was so scared, "Can I be a mom?" "Our life is about to change" "I'm about to gain so much weight"....Kyle was amazing! He was excited and helped me change those negative thoughts to positives  "There is going to be a tiny baby that we get to love." "This is the greatest adventure we have ever got to be apart of." It took about a week for me to come around to an incredible joy and excitement for a little one!  I was learning so much about the very miracle babies truly are.

Fast Forward January 18th, the heart breaking moment with the first sign of blood and cramping.  We were able to get into the Doctor right away and got an ultrasound and blood test, it was confirmed that I was miscarrying, but they needed to check my HCG levels to be sure.

Many people have gone through this, but no one can really prepare you for the emotion of it all.  Things I want to remember about this time, is that God is very near to the broken hearted....I know that through the years of being a Christian, so many verses have lost their meaning because of overuse or the weird Christian phrases and tshirts that pop up all over the place.  "As the deer pants for water, so my soul longs for you." As a deer is searching and yearning for water because it's about to die without it, it is the same with my soul, I am needing to drink water that satisfies and I need it soon or I will not survive.

Now we move forward to January 29th, my 27th birthday, and we find out that my HCG levels have been slowly rising indicating that I have an ectopic pregnancy.  Meaning that the fetus has attached itself to the wall of my Fallopian tube and had started growing outside the uterus. Many people don't find out they have an ectopic pregnancy until they are hovered over in pain in the ER because their fallopian tube has burst and they are bleeding out.  I am so lucky that the doctors were able to catch it in time before it became deadly to me. So, January 31st I had surgery to remove the fetus from the tube. The doctor said that it was very close to rupturing but they got it in time and saved the tube as well. So currently, I'm sitting here, 2 days later, hyped up on pain medicine recounting the past month.  I am remembering it because there are lessons God is teaching me that I would not have learned any other way.

I am weary, I am tired, this journey has been unlike anything I have ever gone through.... I would like to say that I never once doubted God, I never once said "why me?" but it's not true. I go through high moments of strength and excitement for the Lords plan and Gods character and then moments of low, weakness and doubt and discontentment and ready to be done with all this.... Even now, there are days I want him to come and redeem, I want him to come and restore things, but if I'm honest, I really just want him to come so I'll be comfortable. I want to be out of pain. In this I wrestle, because I fail to want him for who he is. My entitled little selfish heart wants all the pain to go away instead of wanting God, instead of looking at him as the object of my hope. 

The biggest lessons I have learned are about joy, hope and suffering  In the world's eyes these are extreme opposites, but with God, there is peace in suffering and joy and hope in pain.  Don't hear me wrong....happiness and joy are two different things. I'm not happy to be going through this, I'm not happy that I'm in pain, but I have hope of things so much greater than what I'm going through and so much greater than my pain that my hope results in joy. I am joyous that the one who goes before me and walks beside me is strong enough to hold me.  Strong enough to handle me doubt, strong enough to lean on.  I have peace and joy because I know that seeing God here and now, is better than anything this world has to offer.


 As long as thanks is possible, then joy is always possible. Joy is always possible. Whenever, meaning—now; wherever, meaning—here. The holy grail of joy is not in some exotic location or some emotional mountain peak experience. The joy wonder could be here! Here, in the messy, piercing ache of now, joy might be—unbelievably—possible! The only place we need see before we die is this place of seeing God, here and now.