Blessed be Your Name

Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped, And said, naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.

   Job 1:21-22    

Today I went for a walk during my lunch trying to get my toosh in gear and motivated. I popped on my headphones and turned on Pandora... first song: Blessed Be Your Name. If there is one thing that I have learned through the last year, I am not as pious as I am like to want to believe. We all know the words to the song, I've even heard it on "secular" radio stations like Star 94. But it is one thing to say "On the road marked with suffering/ Though there's pain in the offering/Blessed be Your name"; it is entirely another thing to really mean it. The Bible says that Job had been blessed with much. He was a father of ten, he had a mighty household, even going so far as to call him the greatest man in the east. All that Job had was taken from him, and yet he would not curse God; instead, he praised Him.


Confession time. When I heard the news of the miscarriage from my doctor, "blessed be your name" were not the first words on my lips, nor were they the first in my mind. It was something more like "God, no. Please no. Don't let this happen." So how do you become someone who praises God through it all, no matter what? That my friend is a good question.


Today, a friend of mine from high school had her miracle baby! Her story is one of such utter heartache, but even more it is a story of faith. Last spring, at her twenty week appointment to find out the gender of her baby, she found out that she had been pregnant with twins, but that one of the babies had passed earlier, and that the second had also passed. A- TWINS! Twice the love, twice the pain, twice the heartache. B- 20 weeks! I cannot imagine. But what was her response? "'Be still and know that I am God' Psalms 46:10...tonight I pray that I may have rest and peace knowing that God is in control.... no matter how hard things are, because He never promised it would be easy, only that He would be with us always." Wow! Such a beautiful testament to her faith and how she fully relies on the Lord everyday. Thankfully, she quickly became pregnant again. When commiserating with me, this was her comment, "I rest in the peace that the Lord is in control and knows His ultimate plan for our family. This go round has been more peaceful from the beginning because I know all I can do is pray and trust." Resting is just not a word I would use to describe myself in this journey... more like frazzled, stressed, overwhelmed, disheveled, anxious, etc.


My prayer is that come what may, no matter what the future holds for us, be it pregnancy, miscarriage (please no), or adoption, that our story would shine a great big spotlight on the beauty and majesty of God. But to do that, I've got to fully trust what the bible says:

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."

Romans 8:28  

And I've got to be able to honestly say:

"I will say of the Lord, 'He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.'"

Psalm 91:2

Praying that in the days ahead, I can learn to more fully rest in the Lord and believe that He, not only has a plan for my life, but that His plan is far more perfect than mine.

Helpless vs. Hopeless

So first off, to all of you ladies out there who have been reading along keeping up with my TTC journey as you travel yours, let me be the first to tell you, you are not alone. When I first started walking this path, I felt so, so alone. Luckily, I was kind of sheltered from too many pregnant ladies directly in my path as here in Augusta, most of our friends are in their early twenties and in some form of graduate school. But this isolation also made it so that all I ever heard were the happy stories from friends back home, it seemed as if I was the only one to fail at starting a family.

Since releasing my news, I've had an outpouring of well wishers, but also many notes from those of you who are right there with me for one reason or another. So again, let me tell you, you are not alone. There are many of us in our mid to late twenties who are struggling to begin our families. So take heart, you're not so unique after all!

Recently as I've been corresponding with some ladies who are in the midst of this dilemma, I've been thinking a lot about the difference in the emotional status of those who have experienced a miscarriage and those who have experienced infertility. A rare few have the misfortune of both. I myself am one, but I can distinctly separate the feelings of each.

Helpless. This is the best word I can use to describe my feelings during and soon after my miscarriage. My head was a swarm of different thoughts, my brain literally felt overloaded until I was numb. I remember thinking some truly ludicrous thoughts, praying some wildly insane prayers because I felt so helpless. In those minutes, hours, and days I wasn't thinking about getting pregnant again. I wanted that baby. I wanted to save her, and I was helpless to do so.

Hopeless. Those of you who have never conceived will probably have learned this feeling somewhere along the line. For me it came after the helpless faded and I realized that this wasn't quite as easy as I had heard. When there were no more double pink lines, the hopeless feelings rolled right in. It's hard not to feel hopeless when every month is another heartbreak, another let down, another expense, and nothing works and eventually the hopelessness settles in like a dark cloud over your heart and soul.

I'll be honest some days I feel like a great big bundle of both. I feel helpless because nothing I do works and I lost the only one I've had. Those feelings plus the hopeless ones from all the pee sticks, charts, and negative tests lead to one great big ball of misery. Other days, when I'm feeling more in control, or more productive like after a visit with the doctor, my feelings of empowerment cancel out all the negativity and I feel glimmers of hope.

That's what I'm looking for in the next few months. I know I'll still feel hopeless. Wherever you are in your journey, know that it's okay. You'll have good days and bad. But I'm pushing on looking for more glimmers of hope clinging to the promise that the Big Man has it all under control. I'm believing that he wouldn't have given me the desire to be a mother if he didn't intend to make me one... and that is one big glimmer of hope!

Wishing

Today would have been the big day. I don't know why I remember this from eight months ago, but today was her due date. I can't really put all of my emotions into words. Mostly, I think I am just mourning what could have been.

To my little one: I wish I could have held you close, felt you skin to skin. I wish I could have kissed your nose and counted your fingers and toes. I wish I could have seen you smile, heard you laugh, and watched as the days passed us by so quickly. I with I could have known you.  ~ With love, your Momma

Tame the Mane

This is kind of a silly, purposeless post, but it's on my mind a lot lately, so I thought I'd put it out there and see if there was any feedback to be had... I'm planning on cutting my hair. (I said it was silly.) If you haven't seen me in a while, my hair is long. Not high school long, or wedding long, like an inch from my butt long. So I'm planning on chopping off the long locks and donating to Locks of Love again. Ten inches is the minimum donation, but I'm thinking about trimming quite a bit more.

My dear husband is a unique man in that he abhors my long hair. I guess he thinks it's pretty enough, but mostly he finds it annoying. In his own words, "It's everywhere." And I guess I have to agree. I can't sit on it yet, but it is constantly under his arm, or being pulled out in some other way. So he is all for a short look. He actually fell in love with me right after I had donated the first time, when I looked something like this:

Interestingly enough, I really don't like my hair in the medium range. The above picture was more than a year after my first donation. While it's certainly easier to take care of than it's current length, I spend the entire time wishing it was longer or shorter. So it's one or the other, long or short, no middle ground. Here's what I'm thinking:

This obviously goes back to a side swept bang, instead of the current traditional bang, but I could stay with the bangs and go with something like this:

Decisions, decisions... I have been wanting to cut it for a long time, but secretly I was waiting to get pregnant for my "mommy haircut". Alas, my hair might be to me knees if I keep waiting. So debuting sometime this summer these long locks will be history!