So I Had A Miscarriage... And Our Adoptive Family Profile Is Being Presented Today.

(So I have another piece, kind of a "part 2" to the last piece I wrote re. Lizard Skillz.  I was going to post it today.  But... I'm feeling the need to wait on that one and bring you this today instead.  Hang with me friends?)

Image Credit

10 days ago, I had a miscarriage.

I didn't write about it.  I kept quiet not because I felt the need to keep our loss a secret, but because I honestly just didn't know what to say about it.  I felt numb.  

I wondered where my emotions were.  Had they died?  Had my ability to grieve been permanently seared by the number of losses I've experienced?

1 baby, 2 babies, now 3 babies... Not to mention our former foster daughters - both of them.  

That's kind of a lot of loss crammed into 5-going-on-6 years.  A lot of nightmares.  A lot of heart-wrenching, agony-filled cries to the Lord.

A lot of unanswered "WHY?"s.

And this time, this last loss, I just didn't quite know how to process.  If you talked with me during that week that I miscarried, I probably sounded weirdly okay.  Or rather, simply out of touch.  I was genuinely okay on one level... I wasn't putting up an "okay" front.  Under the surface though, I knew I needed to feel more. 

But since I couldn't at the time, I let it go, handed my heart and my emotions and my grief process over to the Lord, trusting Him with the process and the timing.  I put one foot in front of the other and kept walking.

Fast forward to today.  I sat down to write a blog post about something completely different.  Something that will now have to wait for another time.  Because when I glanced at my email, I had a link to Ann Voskamp's blog in my inbox... and since I can rarely resist her writing, I hopped on over to her place.  

This was her post for today.

And that Laura Story song?  It used to make me mad.  For real.  That doesn't happen to me often.  I used to turn off K-Love whenever it would come on.  I could write a whole 'nother post about the reasons for my heart response to her song.  Suffice it to say, it was wrong.  I was wrong.

So I watched that video today.  Watched Laura sing it.  I glued my little bottom to the couch and I set my heart before the Lord and I listened.  I'd heard the story before, of her husband's brain cancer.  At least pieces of it.  

But with a reminder of that story combined with my current life circumstances as the backdrop... this song wrecked my heart today.  In a very good way.  It was a "wrecking" that needed to happen.

And... the second after I clicked "play" on the video of this song, I glanced at the time: 1:02 pm.  And I realized... our profile is being shown right. now.  As we speak.  A birth mom will, in the next hour or two, be making a decision between our family and a few others as possible adoptive families for her baby girl.

Deciding that the timing of this was not coincidental, I leaned into the Lord.  And I mean, I leaned hard.  Trusting, trusting, trusting....surrendering more deeply.

When friends betray us

When darkness seems to win

We know that pain reminds this heart

That this is not, this is not our home

It's not our home

'Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops

What if Your healing comes through tears

And what if a thousand sleepless nights

Are what it takes to know You're near

What if my greatest disappointments

Or the achings of this life

Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can't satisfy

And what if trials of this life

The rain, the storms, the hardest nights

Are Your mercies in disguise

(Laura Story - Blessings. This only the last half of the song.)

If my "greatest disappointments and the achings of this life" come in the form of loss, in the form of my family not looking the way I've dreamed it would, and possibly in the form of our family not being chosen for a baby yet again.... can I press in and trust Him?  Trust His heart toward me?  Trust that the trials of this life are His mercies in disguise?

I wept.  Sitting here on my couch, the tears finally came.  Over this miscarriage...and over all of it.  The babies that are now in Heaven... over "our" sweet girls who are no longer ours... the long wait for this adoption.

And it dawned on my heart all over again: "the rain, the storms, the hardest nights" - these are mercies in disguise because in it all, He invites us to know Him.  In it all, He is working for our good (Rom. 8:28)... and our greatest good is nothing but to know His heart and surrender to His love.

Someone once said that it's only here on Earth that we'll have these opportunities, these invitations, to know the Lord in the midst of suffering.  In Heaven, for eternity, we will know Him in joy and radiance and splendor and beauty and the absence of pain.  

But it's only here and now, only for this blink-of-an-eye life, that He gives us these opportunities, these invitations to encounter Him intimately in the midst of our pain.  Our grief.  Our losses.

I want to know Christ, sharing with Him in the fellowship of His suffering.

When I get to Heaven, I want to know Him like that.  

This is my chance to cultivate that kind of intimacy with Him.  Right now.  I want to respond to Him well while I can... while I'm here.  

Oh God....Your heart toward me is good - I believe it.  I do.  

Let me know You intimately here, now... in the midst of these mercies in disguise.

~~~

~~~ 

PS.  Though I rarely intentionally invite comments these days, please know that your hearts and thoughts are always so very welcome here, friends.  And that YOU are always welcome here, comments or not.

PPS. I have just (tonight, Tuesday, 3/26) enabled Disqus on this site.  It'll upgrade the level of community happening around here by letting you know when I, or someone else, responds to a comment that you leave.  That said... it is taking a bit to sync with my blog... so to those of you who've left a comment here, please be assured - it'll come back!  All comments should reappear by tomorrow.  Along with my replies. :)  In the meantime - y'all are welcome to leave comments.  They should show up just fine.  Thanks, everyone. Really.  Y'all are so loved.