See-through

I have tried to start this post several times. Eloquent words escape me. I have no fancy intro this time.

When Matt and I moved onto The Coastlands campus, we were so ready for new things in our life. We wanted to go new places with the Lord. Turns out, the Lord knew what was ahead for us, and while it was new, it was not exciting, and He knew just how much we would need people around.

Less than 2 weeks after moving here, in November, we found out that we were expecting a baby, and less than a week before Christmas, we lost the pregnancy.

Almost four months later, I would love to say that I am healed, and some days I feel like I am. It comes and goes...

As sorrow and frustration swirled around my head and heart, I attacked my Bible with ferocity. Not actually - *no Bibles were hurt in the writing of this post* - but also not really in a spiritual “Oh I just love the word of God” kind of way either. It was more like researching for a paper or a legal defense. Where? Where does it tell me what to do now? Where does it say how to stop feeling this way? Where does it tell me why this is happening?

And for some reason, I found Colossians to be strangely comforting. Be warned: don’t necessarily go recommend Colossians to someone grieving, it talks a lot about life and death and Jesus being the first born of the dead…In fact looking back I’m surprised I kept reading. But the verse that inspired my first deep breath and “yes, Lord” was this:

Colossians 3:4

When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.

The Lord was so near to me during that time, and I felt Him over and over asking “Do you want what I have for you?”

“Not if it includes this” I answered. PS I knew that this was not something the Lord “wanted” for me, but I was a little mad that it happened anyway.

“I know. I hate ‘this’. Do you want what I have for you?”

Quite honestly, I audibly choked out the response “Ok, Lord, I want what you have for me.”

The Lord was not asking me to just accept the pain or the loss. He was not telling me to get over it. I believe He was asking me to be see-through. In all this, in everything, I want so much to be more of who He made me to be. And when He is revealed in us, then we are revealed – the real us.

2 Corinthians 4:7 says:

But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves.

I am a very earthen vessel. And so often I am painfully aware of the cracks and holes in my not-so-very-perfect shell. But He puts the treasure of salvation and His Holy Spirit in us, not because there is no one else, but because others can see Him better through the holes and cracks! Where we are broken, Christ shines through.

I will not be complacent with death and loss. But I will be confident in the fact that where I feel insufficient to hold anything, Christ is sufficient.

So then my prayer became “Do something with this Lord, I give it to you. Force it into something good.”

In the months that have passed, I have been asking the Lord to keep me anchored. I have felt so tossed. I have felt like a crazy person. Happy for several days, then aching in my heart and bursting into tears in cartoons, while reading children’s books, looking at my child, you name it. Anything could push me over for a while there…

Now as I look forward, I am not hopeless and I am not “over it”. I’m not sure how “over it” a Mom’s heart can ever be after that. But I am so certain that He who began a good work in me will complete it. And I am hopeful that as I surrender my life to Christ, He will reveal Himself and me – an ever changing me – in Him.