Seeing through to God

For Christmas my parents got me this book, "One Thousand Gifts" by Ann Voskamp. My mom said I would like it so of course one night I started reading it before bed and the first chapter jumped out at me. Caught me off guard and screamed "THIS MAKES SENSE!" But first let me back up a bit and share a little of what has been happening in my life...

In January 2012 I was excited to find out I was pregnant again. Although my little B was just 12 months old I was excited. That joy of new beginnings, where your mind instantly starts picking out names and wondering if it's a boy or girl. You immediately start planning the next 9 months, nursery bedding, rocking chairs... your mind starts running with ideas you never knew were in the dark corners of your thoughts. But I had been down this road before, twice actually, only to end up with disappointment a few weeks later when everything comes crumbling down and you are left with a body that is just you. No baby. Just you and an empty longing womb.

So I tried to curb my excitement and think realistically. So far in the game of babies I was 2/2. 2 beautiful daughters running in my home on earth and 2 never met babies in my heavenly home waiting in the arms of Jesus. This time my early weeks were filled with Dr appointments, blood tests, hormone supplements, everything to keep this baby growing and thriving inside of me. Each day was a sigh of relief when I would wake up with no signs or symptoms - one more day. We had made it one more day. At 6 weeks we had an early ultrasound and I will never forget the heartbeat that was present. That beautiful little flicker on the screen. The sign of life. And again, I breathed a sigh of relief. One more day. I had made it one more day. Throughout the first 3 months I worried, prayed, begged that everything would be okay. And each day I woke up fine and feeling great.

At our 12 week (3 month) ultrasound there was an active beautiful baby on the screen. Already it was stubborn and wouldn't cooperate for measurements and I sat there happy to be watching the baby move and wiggle inside my growing belly. Life was inside me. A baby, a beautiful precious baby. A sister or brother to the girls at home. "Everything looks great!" says the lady doing the ultrasound. Again I sighed with relief. The danger zone was over and everything looked great! I had made it! We told the girls about the baby - Sommer being very excited and Britton not understanding anything was going to change.

Everything went well and over the next 3 weeks my belly got bigger and at 14 weeks I had butterflies in my tummy. Nothing major, no kicks or punches, just little flutters I could feel when I sat down at work or laid down for bed. Just little reminders of life inside me. Then one morning at 15 weeks I started spotting. Assuring myself that everything was fine and normal I tried to calm myself down. Google reassured me that this happens in many pregnancies and it turns out to be nothing at all. Yes, that's what was happening to me. Normal spotting that would stop in a few hours. But it didn't and by the next morning I knew I should call my Dr.

I headed to the ER where a Dr got me in to a trauma room and brought in a portable ultrasound machine. Scanning it over my belly she says, "And there is your baby." I ask if she can see a heartbeat. "Yes, I think so... I think it's right there... I think it is beating... I think it's okay. But let's get you over to the ultrasound place and make sure everything is good." I tell myself that everything is fine. After all, she is a Dr and saw the heartbeat. But inside my heart I knew it wasn't going to be okay. Just that sickening feeling that something is wrong. That mothers instinct that haunts you and warns you to be prepared for the worst case scenario.

After laying on the table in the ultrasound room with the technicians that are paid to have poker faces and speak in medical code I knew the end had come. The phrases they used were medical and unfriendly. No words like "baby, perfect, beautiful, heartbeat." Words that make your stomach flip flop and your mind go numb. Oh those technicians have a hard job but at the time I saw them as hard hearted people who had the information I was searching for and wouldn't share it. Just tell me if my baby is okay? I don't want to wait for a Dr to come and see me. I want to go home.

A few minutes later that Dr who thought she saw the heartbeat came in with that look of pity on her face. "I am sorry. There was no heartbeat" she says to me. Numb I nod my head and squeak out the words, "What happened? Everything had been fine?" "I think it was just shitty luck" she says. Excuse me? Did you just say shitty luck? Those were not the words I wanted to hear... those are words that don't offer any help, any solutions going forward, any reasoning. I just want to go home to where my girls are, where my bed is. I want a shower. I want my baby. They are explaining how my baby is too developed to pass on my own, yet not developed enough to hold and cuddle and deliver in L&D. It must be removed from me by a surgical procedure the next day... I nod my head and lean back on the bed and cry. I tell James we won't have more kids. My heart can't handle anymore disappointment and heartbreak. I can't keep doing this.

As hard as all this was to hear I kept thinking one thing over and over in my "You give and take away. You give and take away. My heart will choose to say, Lord, blessed be your name." Where did those words come from? How could I possible have peace about this? How could I loose my baby but sing praises to a God who allows stuff like this to happen to people. But I did. I said it over and over again - "You give and take away. You give and take away. My heart will choose to say, Lord, blessed be your name." Deep down I knew God was there. I have a strong faith but honestly I surprised even myself how in my darkest time I threw myself at the feet of Jesus and said I trust you. I will praise your name.

It has been in my darkest times that I have grown the most in my relationship with God. It is times when some people would turn away, yell at God that he doesn't care or love us, and start doing life without Him, that I ran to Him and learned so much. There was the time after Sommer was born that we lost our first baby after trying a year to get pregnant. While at first I thought God was playing a mean joke on me I soon realized that God is faithful. I needed to keep trusting in him. And 6 months later we were pregnant with Britton. A long almost 2 years of trying for a baby but I learned so much in that time! There was the time when I was told I was pregnant in November 2011 but it didn't look viable and I lost the pregnancy soon after. And finally the devastating time when I lost the precious baby that I carried for nearly 4 months. All these times it would be easy to turn away mad but I didn't. I couldn't. I asked God to carry me through and show Himself to me and teach me something.

And that's where this book One Thousands Gifts hit me. You are introduced to Ann's story of watching her sister die in the yard at her house after being run over by a delivery truck at age 3. You meet her brother in law who has buried 2 infant sons from a genetic disease. But Ann writes this in the first chapter:

"With memories of gravestones, of combing fingers through tangled hair, I wonder too... if the rent in the canvas of our life backdrop, the losses that puncture our world, our own emptiness, might actually become places to see. 

To see through to God. 

That that which tears open our souls, those holes that splatter our sight, may actually become the thin, open places to see through the mess of this place to the heart-aching beauty beyond. To Him. To the God whom we endlessly crave." 

I love it. I believe it. People have asked my how I have such a good outlook on these hard times I have been through. How I can hold other people's newborn babies, throw baby showers and be excited for them. And now I can tell them that for me it has been through the losses that punctured my world that have allowed me to see through to God. For that I am thankful. I will not wish those losses, emptiness and hardships on anyone. I don't want to go through them again myself. But in those dark times I saw God. He taught me so much. And He brought me through safely.


Thanks for reading this long, random and maybe confusing post. Maybe it made no sense. Maybe you have some insight and if so, please share.