It's been a little bit hard, this not being pregnant thing. Not just because I desired a baby that I was not meant to have, but also because it has forced me to think. And think and think and think. About nothing. About everything. All at the very same time. And now my brain is tired. But it also feels like it might be waking up for the very first time in ages. Can that even be possible? Being tired, yet waking up, becoming alive, all at the very same time? I say yes. Because it is happening to me.
You see, I am a girl who has always seemed to have gotten what she wanted. Grow up with a nice life, in a nice country, in a pink house in the suburbs? Check. Parents still married? Check. Car from said parents upon turning sixteen? Check. Graduating a year early? Check. Going to college on my parents dime? Check. Vacations and trips around the world? Check. Meeting the Boss man, falling in love, having him choose me (ME!), and then having a whirlwind engagement? Check. Fairytale wedding and dreamy honeymoon cruise? Check. Moving around for adventure to see and to try out new places? Check. Wanting a baby after only two months of marriage, husband agreeing, and then seeing two pink lines on a stick only three months after that? Check. Second baby exactly two years later, just like clockwork? Check. And then a son almost four years after that? Check. Friends? Check. Husbands career? Check. And the list could go on and on, and is it just me, or is that a whole lot of checks? It overwhelms me sometimes to think about it. All of these joys and blessings I have known.
I can't deny that there have been some minuses in my life, too. I have experienced seasons of loneliness and seasons filled with anxiety. My growing up family has had its share of struggles in our relationships. I have struggled with an eating disorder, seeking treatment in the months prior to meeting Boss. Our marriage has struggled, because we are people. People who don't always make good choices. But overall, when I think (and think and think) on my life, it is not the minuses that come to mind first. It is the checks. Because the truth is that the checks far outweigh the minuses. I have always known a fairly easy, happy, comfortable life, with everything I desired seemingly within arms reach. And I innocently (pridefully?) thought this would always be the case. Really, if Mama wanted something, Mama got it! The truth is, I took my life, and all my gifts for granted.
So losing this baby? Losing my dream for the next nine months and the lifetime after that? It has been a little bit hard. But I am worried that it has been hard for all of the wrong reasons. That maybe it has been hard, because for the first time in a really long time, Mama wanted something that she cannot have. And this thought has me struggling. And thinking (and thinking and thinking). Am I maybe not as much in control of my life as I once thought? All of my life my mouth has formed the words God is in control, but I'm not quite sure that my heart and soul have believed it. I am afraid that for far too long I have been under the impression that I am in control. And that, my friends, is a very scary impression to be living under. Because what happens when life throws you a curve ball? When things (jobs, children, dreams) that you desperately desire to hold on to slip from your grasp, and try as you might you just can't make them stay? Then what?
And this is where I currently find myself. I am in the then what? stage. If not me, then who? God? The author of the greatest book ever written? Could I really let Him write my story? Does He even want to write my story? Does He even work that way? Is He sitting up on high, laughing as all this while I was attempting to scribble the pages of my story with my own feeble hands? Has He been waiting for me to wake up and realize that He is the only one worthy of holding the pen?
I don't know. I don't have all of the answers. I know some whom I respect who think of Jesus as mainly their a teacher (and obviously their Savior). They are passionate about Him, and they are passionate about His Word, but for the most part they believe that the stories of our lives are in our own hands. That we get to choose the setting, or how certain chapters might go. And then there are others (who I also respect), who think that God is close, personable, active, and that He has written very personally some of their greatest chapters to date! And I am left here wondering, thinking (and thinking and thinking), and praying, somewhere in the middle of it all.
Because life did throw me a curve ball. And even if I wanted to write my own story, it was out of my hands to write it the way that I wanted to write it. So I am left to believe that there is something more. There must be something more. Perhaps God writes our stories, but the choice is ours how, or even if, we respond?I like to think that this could be the case. Because the funny thing is, when Mama (that's me) didn't get what she wanted, she may have gotten something more. A wake up call.
These are all the thoughts I have for tonight. Thoughts redundant over this past month, but thoughts very relevant to this journey I am on. This journey of discovering who I am and Whose I am. It feels a little bit like an adventure, and adventures usually make really great stories, no? So I will keep plugging along. Praying, reading the scriptures, seeking. Handing Him the pen, grabbing it back again in fear, and then handing it over once more. And all the while thinking. And thinking and thinking and thinking.
PS. Tomorrow we are having a birthday dinner for a very special little boy who stole my heart almost two years ago! And he, my friends, has been a very cool chapter in my story!
