I crashed to the bedroom floor under an unbearable weight of guilt and grief, rocking and keening, “I can’t lose another baby!”
Because Simon was gone, along with any hope of finding her alive.
For six days, I’d canvassed the countryside, calling her name. Calling anyone who might help. Every night, I found her in my dreams, savoring the sweet relief until reality slapped me awake in the morning.
She was lost, and it was my fault.
A week before, Roger and I had barely begun to celebrate the tiny heart of our 11-week-old baby hammering away on the ultrasound monitor. Then I felt the change. Telltale signs of two prior miscarriages. An ER doctor confirmed what our hearts feared most; that precious little heart had gone silent and still.
Religiously, I had followed our high-risk obstetrician’s instructions—injecting myself with heparin twice a day, popping a Progesterone lozenge every morning. But it wasn’t enough.
Imagine a worldwithout weeds! In a short time and with no effort, they smother nature’s beauty with ugly. Pull them all today, and they’ll be popping up again tomorrow. Why can’t the beautiful, useful plants I want to grow be so pervasive and self-propagating?
Blessed by plentiful spring rains, I made bold, ambitious plans to work at weeding my flower, strawberry and vegetable beds a little bit each day. Thinking I’d be keeping weeds from taking over as they always tend to do.
But, then came an exciting + exhausting week of vacation Bible school “music and motions.” Constant activity that rendered my 61-year-old body ready for nothing but rest each afternoon. Afterward began the slow, painful rehabilitation of my spine. Recent Xrays revealed a curve just above my pelvis and arthritis festering around my left femur. The result of falling off a horse at full gallop 40 years ago without benefit of health insurance.
I knew before I pulled into the high school parking lot that cap and gown pickup day for a “graduation” that isn’t even on the calendar would be hard. At the moment, I saw us merely going through minimal motions, pretending we’re “celebrating” without gathering and hugging and group photos. Nothing to toss your mortarboard in the air about.
Same as you, everything I’ve been anticipating blew up back in March of 2020 when COVID shut it all down. Along with a “normal” graduation and a long list of other senior traditions, my son lost his last pole-vault season, for which he trained and conditioned for more than 8 months and about which he’s left to wonder what could have been.
Just a few of the anvils resting silently on this Mom’s chest. Without even touching what would happen to his freshman college year this fall. All the things over which I have zero control.
Back at home, I smiled valiantly as the boys donned caps and gowns and wandered around in bare feet adjusting to the feel. Cheerfully, I snapped and posted their picture for posterity. Then I slipped quietly out to my car to cry out and pray through this fresh faceful of loss.
The woman whose front porch swing I wanted to run to left here for heaven last June. Meanwhile, I knew my husband, who was currently away at his regularly-scheduled work day, would likely lumber home late to stare at the TV or the internet and grumble about the monstrous global mess.
A long spin cycle of suffering…
So I reached out to the spiritual mother I’ve watched process a lifetime of hard with the Lord and to a Christian counselor; when neither responded, I texted an urgent prayer request to a friend’s work desk.
I hadn’t been sheltering in place alone, but I was suffering in this hard place alone; after months of living cut off from school, work and other connections, this day had gone off fully loaded with loneliness. The voice in my head said. Nobody sees you or hears you. Nobody knows you’re struggling. And nobody cares.
While the rest of the world watched and waited to see who our next president would be, I waged a secondary prayer war closer to heart. Covid positive and quarantined, I watched and waited to see if our symptoms would morph from mild to menacing.
A precious person in our community had been in and out of the hospital with Covid and back again with pneumonia. Several people said our symptoms could go south 5 to 10 days from the start. But my anxiety reached beyond my husband and me.
Because to an unknown degree, our 19yo son and his 92yo grandpa could have been exposed. Which could compound my son’s lonely college condition–hard to meet new people from a distance with half your face covered up–with total isolation. And for my father-in-law, exposure posed a much greater threat.
All day, every day, I prayed God’s mercy over my family along with God’s will for the Presidency.
More than ever, I also needed God’s wisdom to speak words and take actions that were thoughtful and careful, not selfish and fearful, concerning both COVID and the country I call home.
Waiting to vote in 2020 felt more painful than privileged for me.
For many months leading up to this election, I’d claimed God’s Sovereignty over Super Tuesday. Ignoring my own limited, human understanding. Avoiding ugly, heated debates online and in person and the fear they incited. “Christians” adamantly, and often ungraciously, defending their “God-given rights,” which are?
What rights did Jesus claim? What governments did he fear? At the end of his earthly life, when his enemies appeared to have everything their way, in reality, they only ever had things God’s way; isn’t that always the way?
Covid left me voting curbside on November 2; asking God what to do all the way through. Then, I drove away feeling…resolution? Absolution? Disillusion? I can’t genuinely say.
As in the days before, I prayed and cried through the rest of that day, asking Him for grace to wait on His will.
Still waiting for the counting to end, a girlfriend who hooked me up with Jesus 40 years ago called Thursday to lament her deepest fears. She’d watched conventions and debates, seen smug expressions, heard veiled threats, foreseen dire consequences. Persistantly, Anxiety asked her to dance.
Isn’t that why I’d recently closed off connection with a LOT of outside voices, even and sometimes especially the ones labeled Christian? Because my enemy uses anybody.
Because what I believe I CAN know to be totally true outside the words of Righteous Ruler Redeemer God…is not much.
So instead of wasting our time telling her what I think I might know, I recited for us both one of my favorite, desperate prayers from the lips of King Jehoshaphat recorded in 2 Chronicles 20: Lord, we have no might to come against so great an enemy; we don’t know what to do, but our eyes are on You.
Here’s what we DO know when we don’t let our fears block the Light:
God always makes a way for us to wait on His will without worry.
Now 6 days out of quarantine and free to move outside the cabin, I feel only humble and grateful. Our son remains Covid-free; my father-in-law is being watched carefully and prayed over heavily. And that precious person from our community now resides in the Kingdom of Heaven for eternity.
Election officials have named Biden and Harris the projected winners. But are there significant uncounted votes in key states? What about President Trump’s prediction that this election will be decided ”in court?” Or the growing clamor claiming this voting process was untrustworthy? Is a calamitous storm brewing nationally in the unseen realm, replete with large-scale violence and mobilized militia? Will America’s international enemies take advantage of our current vulnerability? And then there’s Corona…
How can we even hope to await our fate without worry?
This message from Proverbs 31 Ministries’ First 5 series titled The Answers to Your Deepest Longings prescribes 3 good ways to wait–for our 46th President to be ultimately named and for our Savior’s ultimate reign–without the excrutiating weight of worry.
Here arePaul’s three prescriptions from Galatians 6:
Maintain the posture of humility–not thinking too much of ourselves or leaning on our own understanding but rather seeing ourselves rightly through the righteousness of Christ.
Keep theperspective that we are responsible to publicly proclaim Jesus purely with our words and our actions.
Assume theposition that we will reap whatever we sow, be it kindness or contempt, faith or fear, anxiety or peace.
We can pace nervously, scour the news obsessively, sign petitions rampantly, rant loudly. Or we can plant our lives in the palm of God’s hand and take all our cues and calls to action from Him. Setting our minds and keeping them set on the absolute Sovereignty of God.
God gives us more and more grace to wait without worry no matter what…
My unused writing memory muscles have atrophied to the brink of death. While this website has been collecting cyber dust, I’ve been stockpiling barrels full of shame and bitter disappointment. Now the scarcity mentality that drives my insecurity is looking for someone to blame.
Looking back, I can see that as my thoughts grew more and more distracted, my writing efforts felt more confused and disconnected.
While I wallowed in self-pity, my old task-master told me nothing I write will ever be good enough, wondering aloud, who really cares what I have to share? I tried telling myself God cares while writing as if He weren’t there.
Meanwhile, my soul clamored to claim the freedom and courage to paint word pictures as an act of pure, obedient worship, not caring whatever comes after.
True story. I’m so tired of desperately seeking to be heard and acknowledged and awarded. How I’d love to stop looking for “likes.” Pan-handling for praise. Craving credit and payment. Letting the enemy cow me into a corner by convincing me to leave the “real” writing to others. Forgetting in this present darkness everything God showed me in bright shafts of His glorious light. Working hard not to be weak and needy and desperate, despite the fact that is exactly what I am and always will be.
How can I get over myself?
Last month, I committed to a daily 1,000-word writing challenge. Giving myself rare and precious permission to write for the sake of writing, not sharing or posting or submitting. The ugly, uncensored journaling that came from these “COVID Chronicles” revealed both contemporary crud I need to let God crush and chronic wounds I need to let Him clean; all the UNs that make me come undone: unhealthy influences, unrealistic expectations, unmet needs, unwanted hurts, unwise comparisons…
Lining my life up next to anyone else’s always proves defeating and devastating, but comparison is a tool I’ve been hard-wired to wield in this world. With my mouth I say God has a unique plan for everyone while mind says the building and writing of my “success story” is up to me. A recipe for futility.
What if success is being obedient, not excellent?
God wired me to love collecting and sharing and painting with words. He gave me access to a college degree in journalism, to online guidance, to a web page and other windows through which to share my chapters in His story. And I have buried all those blessings under piles of doubt, discouragement, and other debris. Blaming my choices on deficits of encouragement and acknowledgment. Preening and polishing my growing collection of excuses for disobeying God’s directions.
I just want to run my race in my lane at my pace by God’s grace!
Is any part of this story true for you, too? I share these words today, not because they’re so great, but because God is so great; and because I desperately need to forge past my little feelings to do as He directs, writing with Him and for Him to bless you.
Lord, we NEED YOU to go before us and guide us to and through the next steps. Help us stay the course and move ahead in Your courage. Help us trust you and desire to please You by obeying You. Help us see each step we take toward You as a victory. Help us find freedom in doing EVERYTHING for Your Glory! Help us keep fear and bitterness and any other human mess out of our minds and hearts. Help us dig up anything our disobedience has buried and hand it all over to You. Let Your will be done in us and through us today.
“Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.” Proverbs 31:10 (KJV)
Summer break? Give me a break! Where’s the brake pedal?
The calendar keeps my teenager’s legs and uberMom’s meter running much all week; nearly EVERY square contains a deadline, an appointment, an event. Broken-up bits of everything else get crammed tightly and tentatively into any little opening.
I wander indoors, wind-whipped and weary from planting and weeding and watering; noticing the never-ending undone—laundry, dishes, dust, finger prints, piles, projects, paperwork—I sit down for a melt-down on the sticky kitchen floor;
From the pages of my small-group Bible study, God sends me the last lady I’d have looked to for a hand up; that symbolic sister from scripture who mocked my female failings…until I got to know her better. The virtuous Proverbs 31 woman offers me “corrective lenses.” A way to see myself as more than a worn-out worker in my obscure corner of the world.
Last month, my 17yo varsity pole-vaulter entered the first meet of the season feeling poised for gold. An exciting, exhilariating, opportunity that ran headlong into strong opposition.
Despite all he had going for him—a new wise and well-trained coach; 20 extra pounds of pure muscle from months of daily training; a year of vaulting experience behind him and a praying parent paving the way ahead—he had quite a bit to overcome:
A crippling case of shin splints
Flawed technique embedded deep in muscle memory
Only 2 days of actual vaulting practice before the meet
Unrealistic expectations
Every time he vaulted, two extra-long strides taken unconsciously just before he planted the pole put him high above the bar without momentum to make it over. He didn’t clear a single bar and didn’t speak for a solid hour after the event.
Heart clenched on my side of the fence, I wanted to pray him into the position he’d planned and prepared to claim.
But I knew GOD WANTED much more for him in this moment than a gold medal.
So, I asked for the perspective, patience and peace God promises to those who put their trust in Him. I asked God to help my son overcome all opposition with life-changing glimpses of His Glory:
A new and encouraging response from the girl whose glass typically tips toward empty; obsessing about scarcity, bracing for disappointment and making everything bigger, harder and heavier than necessary.
Because I am way too good at bowing to enemy opposition. Falling head-first into fearful thoughts of dead dreams and crushed hope. Doubling over in discouragement. and depression.
Our enemy wants us thinking and acting like QUITTERS.
But our God wants us thinking and acting like CONQUERORS.
Putting all our plans in His precise, powerful, purposeful hands.
Asking Him for help He alone can give.
Leaning in close to listen and let His Truth shred the enemy’s lies about our lives.
Choosing to believe all He says about us and our worth in His eyes.
Fixing our eyes on the ultimate prize, a life-giving relationship with Jesus.
Now, I’d LOVE to know exactlty how this track season is going to go for my athlete. Because knowing feels like having a little “control.” And not knowing feels like it could gnaw a little hole in my soul.
But, God reminds me that, Jesus has already overcome every challenge we face!
Satan thought he finished us all off when he got God’s Son, Jesus, nailed to that shameful cross. But God turned the ultimate enemy opposition into our glorious opportunity.
Sit back with me and let that sink into your sore little soul for a second! God’sTruth trumps ALL enemy opposition!
But we forget that one-and-done victory and imagine how grand life would be if we could make plans and pedal straight to the prize without help. What spoiled, selfish brats we’d all be! So full of ourselves we’d make no room for and see no need for God!
We’d miss out on the MOST wondrous relationship with Christ who is our life. The absolute pleasure far beyond measure. A freedom more priceless than any worldly prize.
Our gracious God allows our plans to fail, our roads to detour, our people to struggle, because He loves us too much to let live a lesser life or lose our life without Him.
When our enemy tries to distract and discourage, I pray we remember that our God offers us all of Himself, our best and only hope.
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. –Romans 8:37-39 (NIV)
Lord Jesus, turn every opposition we face into an opportunity to know You and trust You more. Thank you for mercy that keeps us going when we want to give up. Thank you for protecting us from pride and forgetfulness in times of “success” and from fear, discouragement and doubt when we get something less. Show us Your Glory, Lord!
“God (redeemed) us and chose us to be his holy people. We did nothing to deserve this, but God planned it because he is so kind. Even before time began God planned for Christ Jesus to show kindness to us.” 2 Timothy 1:9 CEV
They told me employers would grab up journalism-school students from our graduating class like gold. But endless hours spent pouring over job openings, composing cover letters and posing for interviews told me a different and devastating story.
Like everything else in my life, I’d taken college personally and seriously. Hustling for the highest grades. Cramming in extra credits. Chasing perfection to stave off rejection. Counting on that college degree to rescue me…
to redeem my life with proof of my worth in the world.
Losing two babies in one day exposed a life-long lie about how to hold hope.
You don’t find out how many woman miscarry their first pregnancy until you’re one of them. Hearing how “normal” it was took a little edge off and boosted my courage to try again. Certain a second baby could be in my arms within a year.
Because I would do everything right, so nothing would go wrong. Right?
Wrong.
Only days after seeing Baby Bean’s tiny heart hammering away on the ultrasound monitor, that sweet beat fell silent and still. A second ultrasound confirmed in my mind what my body already knew.
I’d done everything I could do to protect this life. I couldn’t have done anything to prevent this death. At least that’s what the doctor said.
Loss now confirmed, we drove home in emotional fog, and I walked to the house like a robot.
“You are good, and what you do is good; teach me your decrees.” Psalm 119:68 (NIV)
Hard rain hammers the roof above my head, shaking me awake. Reminding me that old, blind Russell is out there somewhere. Lost and alone in God’s green acres for going on 7 days now. And I feel so helpless it hurts!
Guilt punches my heart and curdles in my stomach. Throat burning, I whisper another plea for grace: Jesus,please don’t let him suffer. I know it’s crazy to care so much about a cat. But You know that I do. And I’m giving him to You.
Somehow, Russell still gets from bed to bowl to back door most of the time without help. Most impressive if you’ve seen him run smack into the table leg, the dog, the door. Sometimes he can’t find a food bowl placed right under in his face. It’s no surprise that he’s gotten himself good and lost for the second time.
God knows I’ve tried making him an indoor pet, at least overnight. But my proud, scrappy cat is having none of that; I have scars and scabs across my back and shoulders to prove it.
