I have a memory of my daughter, and yet, she never was.
We weren’t supposed to be able to have children. Doctors told me when I was 13 and dying on the hospital bed from eating too little that I probably wouldn’t ever conceive, and then, when I relapsed as a young married woman and starved myself again for three years, I knew it was so.
We still tried for a year and a half, and nothing happened, and then I was prayed over–on national television–by a man whose own mother had been told she would never give birth.
And within that year, following our first miscarriage, we conceived Aiden Grey.
I should be infertile, yet the womb of God carries all children and when he speaks life, all we can do is laugh like Abraham’s wife, Sarah, and wonder.
We’ve had two boys now and this past spring, the vision of a daughter and then hearing God tell me I was pregnant and a test, afterwards, confirming I was.
Followed by a miscarriage, two months later.
And our family feels like it’s missing someone.
Each month we try, and each month my body empties. And I cry in the bathroom for the memory of her.
Because you know when someone’s so real, even when they’re a dream?
All chubby cheeked and brown hair and you can hear her laugh? And meanwhile, your friend is three months pregnant again, for the second time this year, and contemplating her third abortion?
The Lord gives and he takes away and I’m not angry. Because in spite of the grieving, and feeling God’s promise for a daughter and not seeing it fulfilled, and in spite of all of my questions, and the sorrow, I’ve never felt so loved as I do, now.
I am learning to trust God in the ache of not knowing, or having. In the wide-open emptiness of my questions, He is the answer.
I don’t have what I want. I don’t have a baby. But God has me. He’s got my heart and I trust this. I trust him.
The other night I was lying in bed, just lying there. Just resting and I sensed the Father’s presence so very tangibly, cupping me in his hand, and I’ve never felt so safe. There are no answers right now. There’s just a lot of empty space, a lot of Why?, a lot of crying, and yet, somehow, the serene, absolute sense that I am desperately, unmistakably, loved.
This week I took another test, and again, it turned negative, and then a friend wrote me. She said: “You’re on my heart this morning and I wanted you to know. Lifting you up for joy. {hugs}”
I wrote her back and told her about the negative test, and she responded with, “I thought that this morning. … (God) wants you to know His love for you more fuller than ever through this, sweet friend. Might He give you rest and peace. And might your trust for the Now be ever wider. This ‘Now’ matters.”
Yes. This Now matters. More than we’ll ever know.
May all of our sorrows give birth to the greatest gift ~
Joy.