From behind sunglasses hot tears streamed down my face watching a little boy run fearlessly from slide to slide at the park. I wanted to jump out of my car and crumple onto the stones of that playground. It’s not fair. Insensitive words and questions from people I love. It’s not fair. Undoubtful panic as I frantically wait for the sound of his heartbeat to fill the room from the doppler. This. Is. Not. Fair. People are asking more questions. I have to remind myself that once, I was that girl who asked the questions that I thought women surely loved to answer. “Awe! When are you due?” “A boy or a girl?” How do I answer those questions without spilling out my heart to you though? How do I smile and tell you that we are having a little boy, who is due in September, and that yes, we are excited but oh, do our hearts ache so badly. Last week someone said to me, “A girl at home and a boy on the way- you have everything you could want!” I couldn’t find any words. I’m in this place of trying to find a balance, trying to honor him in my responses, and praying for grace, not understanding. At 25 weeks we are inching closer and closer to the end of pregnancy and the beginning of whatever will follow. More than ever, we need solid ground to stand on. We need our faith.
All of these moments, moments that were never intended to hurt me, have left me feeling very fragile. My heart said this isnt fair so many times in the last week that it left me feeling lost. The thing about these new emotions is that my immediate response is to shove these feelings back down into my stomach. Remind myself of how lucky I am, all of the things that I have, all of the blessings that surround me every single day. And I do, I really, really do feel that way. But you know what? It’s okay to have a few fleeting moments of it’s not fair. We are human, with human thoughts and human desires… and I need to let myself feel all of these emotions because they are part of our journey. Raw and real and they refresh our faith. They pull us back to the ground, and especially for me remind me that it’s okay to have hard days. It’s okay to not understand.
Right after Locke’s first ultrasound, my friend said to me, “if you have faith there is no room for fear”. I’ve struggled with fear for as long as I can remember, but in that moment I knew that she was right. I had to stand up to that fear and let it know that it has no place in our home. Faith is so much easier when it is just words. It’s easy to say that you trust God’s plan- but when the plan gets rocky and you can no longer even see the road- how strong is your faith in that moment? Do you still hand it all over? Is your faith bigger than your fear? I have to ask myself these questions every day. I have to intentionally choose joy every single day, even as these days get harder.
Day by day, moment by moment we are trying not to search for things that are not in out grasp. The “what if’s” and debates over choices that will be made have no place in our hearts yet. Right now we have only today, and today is filled with joy because Locke is alive and well.
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