I put my order in for this week and, like those times when you ask for an Egg McMuffin and end up with a Cheeseburger, somehow it got garbled in the process. My requests were simple, I thought: 1 baby (born, healthy); 1 mama (healthy, no longer pregnant); 1 toddler (healthy, happy, loving baby brother); 1 daddy (healthy, proud).
Instead the tally seems to be 1 baby (still inside, presumed healthy); 1 mama (sick, still pregnant); 1 toddler (sick, grumpy), 1 daddy (healthy).
I keep wondering if it would do any good to go back to the drive-thru and try yelling this time.
They're little things, the ones I didn't get this week, and yet I keep finding myself upset that I didn't get them. I want this baby out like you could not possibly believe (except you can, if you've been there), I want to be able to breathe through my nose, and I want my girl to regain the ability to deal that seems to flee when she's ill.
This week, these little things mirror larger things that I prayed for over months and years when I felt like God was ignoring me. Now that things seem to be on the upswing for us, I can look back on those times with a little more clarity. A little more, but not too much.
I thought there'd be a moment of truth, a time when I'd realize why we walked through difficulty and uncertainty, when I'd see a purpose behind it all and suddenly understand. But just like I don't understand how this week turned out so opposite what I'd hoped, I don't understand why our lives had to go all topsy-turvy for 2 years.
Maybe I never will know. Maybe I'll never be able to explain to my girl why her first impressions of the world are probably so mixed and confusing. Maybe there will never be words.
I can say that, but can I live it? Questions rise up, more and more of them every time I try to make peace with that. Not just "Why?" but more detailed questions. Did I miss something? How do I know when life is just like that and when there's some sort of method to be found? I wonder why my girl's coming into the world seemed to usher in a time
of pain and confusion, and my son's looks to come alongside peace and
routine and rest. And on, and on.
So right now I'm sitting with questions. They're fragile, or maybe I am, because if I think on them too hard, they'll break (or maybe I will). So they sit in my hands. I poke them a little, then I walk away and come back later, only to poke again.
Will answers come from the prodding? Peace? I don't know, but I know that, just as I can't look at them too hard, I can't leave them behind, either. They're pieces of the future, I think, even though I can't see how they all fit just now. So I'll hold, look, poke, leave until something rises from their ashes.
Come, Lord Jesus.
6 comments:
I don't know what to say except, Yes, and I don't know what to do but nod my head in agreement, having had my own share of poking and prodding such bothersome and persistent things over the past two years and more. I'm sorry it's been so hard and I'm sorry the ends are still so very loose even though things are calming down a bit. I'm sorry Mirren has to start life this way -- entering until unsettling, uncertain, upheaved existence instead of the settled calm her baby brother seems to be coming into.
Wasn't it Rilke who said something about loving the questions themselves?? Ugh. Sometimes I want to say: Love, this buddy ... and ... Amen, come Lord Jesus.
as long as you are trying hard, no problem.
awesome reflections.
bless you.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Hi Sarah. I am not sure what to say here, really. I don't have any magic answers. I am here with you listening to you.
I do have to tell you though, that McDonald's analogy made me smile. I always go away from the drive by window thinking....."Oh Lord. I can't wait to get home to see what they screwed up this time."
Its inevitable.....Uh. When did McDonlds start selling egg rolls?
it can be so lonely when it feels like God is ignoring us. praying you'll know his presence near, friend.
I'm here too, nodding my head and listening with you. It sounds like this week has brought a little relief although you still seem to be pregnant and waiting. Hope that your labor is easy and the baby is well. Peace to you sister.
i got on to my blog today just to look you up (stranger tho i must seem by now?) and to see if your baby had been born???
and so now i know no more (tho i can assume that maybe this little one is here now?)
if he or she is, then i pray you are both indeed well and that you are resting as much as you can and that milk flows freely (if you're nursing) and that it 's a quiet sort of settling in, right before the holiday din.
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