Laboring and Grief

     I feel like the Lord gave me a picture of this season in my life. I was lying on the floor next to Sonora’s bed waiting on her to fall asleep and I saw it so clearly. Jake was having quiet time, and I had just gotten the baby to sleep. Daddy was at work, and though this weekend was supposed to be a restful one I cannot help but to feel overwhelmed. As I was reflecting on the events that have unfolded over the last several months, and even weeks, I got a picture of labor in my mind. I feel like I am in a spiritual sort of labor, one contraction after the other. I am so worn out. I am so tired. I am tired of all of the things that happen in one day, how grief causes even little hiccups to seem like really big, avalanche-like, my-world-is-crashing-down-on-me mentality type moments. If I am standing back being rational, it isn’t so bad: Sonora Grace wouldn’t eat lunch today. Jake won’t sit and do anything quietly for his quiet time so I gave in and let him play with my phone. The baby just woke up 30 minutes early so I nursed her back to sleep instead of making her cry. My days look nothing like intentional structure, they look like contractions. Some worse than others. And it hurts, and sometimes I just want to back up and pray that it stops. The thing about labor is that it doesn’t stop, and it won’t until you accept it, give in to the pain, and co-labor with what the body is doing...with the natural process God has put into place long before any of us experienced it. The process of birth. The process of pain. The process of grieving.
I have written so much in these last couple of days, but I can’t seem to get my head wrapped around how I actually feel. This season has been difficult because I miss my mother in law so much. This morning I had a crisis and I wanted to call her because she was someone who would have understood my heart. She would have gotten it. I miss her. I see her pictures and I think of hundreds of memories, all different ones and I am so sad that 100 years from now I probably won’t remember them all.
I feel like in my spirit I am just holding to my contracting uterus, waiting on the “baby” to come, that promise that God is going to redeem all of this, that He will make it good. But I am aching now, nauseous and shaking all over, simply too tired to push. I am too tired to keep praying. In the final minutes before Cori’s arrival I wanted to give up, but as any mother knows in that place, the only answer is to push through the pain. If  you want the pain to be over, you have to surrender to it. Even if you don’t, the show must go on. So today was that day where I said “no more Lord, make it stop,” and the Lord gave me a picture of a birth and I realized the only way to make it through this season is rest on his chest, squeeze his hand as hard as I can, and cry.
The biggest contraction happened this morning, our roommates asked us to give up our dog, Rush. He is truly a horrible dog. He is a dog from the shelter with multiple issues and I have thought numerous times to myself, 'A dog runs my life! This is ridiculous!'. But our roommates shouldn’t have to keep living their lives around Rush’s finicky ways and I wouldn’t ask them to (in short, he would like to kill their dog). So we have to move, right now, because I cannot and I definitely will not ask Paul to give up our dog after everything he has lost. God told me when we moved to Redding I could keep my dog (getting to Redding…another painful birth I remember well!). I am OK with this decision, and I have loved my roommates dearly. I understand. And I am actually excited to find a new place and buy Craiglist furniture and make a home for my family out here. Maybe it is part of the birth, the new life that God is bringing. I don’t know. Right now though, it’s just so painful and the fact that my life is going to look completely different in February than it does right now is a scary thing. It’s all so much, but I am surrendering now because I know God is doing something big in our lives.
Whether it feels this way or not, birth is an intentional process. God is moving us forward.  I can remember once looking to people who were hurting for my source of strength. It seemed like they would have a special access to God because they had no other choice but to hold to Him as they walked through cancer, or death of a loved one. It’s true. God is close. He is faithful, and I love Him dearly. But loving God doesn’t take the pain away, and the fact that my precious friend and mother-in-law is in Heaven makes me angry, not happy. I hope I haven’t shattered your perception of what it looks like to love God and walk through a dark trial. The truth is, Jesus cried too, He wept.  And I am sure that no one is judging me (in fact, I am probably the guilty offender here), but just wanted to say that in this season God has been faithful, He’s given us a promise, He’s called this next year redeemed, and it isn’t over yet. Sometimes though, I get so lost in the pain and I forget about the new life coming. Please continue to carry me in your prayers, my whole sweet family.