“Where is the flicker of the heartbeat? Why can’t I see the flicker?”

It felt like everything went into slow motion and all I could think was, “not again, we can’t have lost another baby!”

The screen showed the chalky outline of our baby girl but everything was still, and I had experienced enough ultrasounds to know what it meant before the doctor could find the courage to speak the heavy words.

Finally, and as tenderly as humanly possible, the doctor replied, “I am so sorry, there is no heartbeat.”

A few days later I would go in for my DNC shaking so badly that it appeared I had a seizure disorder of some kind. Between the hormones, my lack of strength, and whatever positioning happened on the table that day, I woke up with my pelvis a mess, and a nerve in my back very, very angry. That was one year ago this month. The photo on the left was taken about a month later, the one on the right was taken today by my teenage daughter.

A year ago I could barely walk the short distance in front of my house, 10 yards maybe? My body ached, my heart was broken, and I truly felt like I had descended into some level of hell. I would love to say that I handled it all well, but that would be a lie. So much hard happened all around the same time, so much loss, so much physical pain, that I did what I do so easily- I gained weight.

I allowed myself a two month pity party before I decided it was enough. In two months I gained 30 lbs. Then COVID hit and I couldn’t seem to get the medical help I so desperately needed with the nerve in my back. I needed to continue to build strength, to continue to correct the imbalance I have from my hip surgery, but the nerve made the pain from strength training unbearable. So, one step at a time, tackling what I could, in what has felt like the tiniest of steps, I decided again to fight for me. And finally, about 3 months ago, I finally got a shot in my back that has allowed me to start strength training again.

Thanks be to God, I can swim a mile again, I can hike 4 miles now, walk upwards of 6 and I have built SO much strength. I am at levels I haven’t known since before my hip surgery (almost 4 years ago now). There are still countless setbacks, I still deal with pain every day, but I am not where I once was.

And that is why I am sharing this. Everyone reading this has “THE battle” they are wrestling with, the struggle that threatens them, and some of you are struggling to believe that you will ever overcome it. Maybe you think the setbacks get the final say in the journey? Maybe you think it will never change? Maybe you need to stop and look back for a moment to see that you aren’t where you used to be? Maybe you need to see how brave you are, and show yourself the kindness I am sure you show others? Maybe you need to decide that the hard of fighting FOR yourself is better than the hard of GIVING UP on yourself? It is messy, it is hard, but you CAN KEEP GOING. You CAN PRESS THROUGH. You ARE WORTH FIGHTING FOR. If I can make progress my friend, I promise, so can you. Take the next right step for you! I will be here cheering you on.

I stood in front of the mirror, scanned my reflection, and sighed deeply as my shoulders dropped. My flesh tells a story of chapters I find myself longing to rewrite. It is not the signs of age, child bearing, or gravity that heralds in my yoking of shame, it is the battle with my flesh and food that firmly takes me down, over and over again. My eyes stare down my wobbly bits, my wrinkles, my scars, and I make an agreement with the shame that engulfs me. The message I accept is simple but powerful: “I am not worthy.”

The one word that God keeps echoing through this season beats in my mind again: surrender.

God, I am sorry. It has all been so very much. The pain, learning to walk again, doing everything to help me, learning to move and then having it all taken away and now starting over for what feels like the millionth time…  I keep failing at navigating all of this and…

Surrender. Give it all to Me, including your fear.

Breathe in, breathe out. I remember, just breathe.

I choose to surrender it all, God. Help me to see clearly because it seems so dark right now.

Get your green shirt. 

Immediately I knew which shirt, the shirt I had quickly bought from Target when we visited Florida 16 months ago when it was skin tight. I dug it out and thought back on how hard that trip was and how I battled fear every step of that vacation, afraid of another setback and more pain and all the alcohol I used as a muscle relaxer when desperate. Tears started filling my eyes as I realized how now I can walk for miles, can almost swim one, not truly realizing how far I had actually come.

Thank you Lord.

Put it on. (I have grown to love the sweetness of His still and gentle whispers.)

Slipping my arms into the blouse I flashed back to the day of purchase and how I struggled to get it on but bought it anyway because I was short on time. And while I know that was 54 pounds ago my eyes still can’t quite compute it yet. There was extra room everywhere, inches and inches of it. Muscle replacing fat.

I want you to see what I see.

I see a warrior who chose not to give up and has found me in the depths of this season of pain.

I see one who is learning that while she may find herself in the furnace, she is never alone there. In fact, I am using the heat to burn off all that binds her.

I see one whom I love, and I am asking her to agree with me and to choose to love herself too. 

You understand that I want you to love like I love, and it starts with you.

How can you love your neighbor as yourself if you don’t love yourself? 

How can you be kind to others if you are brutal toward you?

Surrender and see.

…

Be kind. It is a lesson taught in preschool, but I don’t remember ever being told to be kind to myself until I started therapy many years ago. I am so thankful that God is patient because I am clearly still learning, one baby step at a time. He is always inviting, and I am always choosing my hard; the hard that leads to life and freedom despite our circumstances or the hard that comes from self-soothing in ways this world heralds which lands you into a pit.

Lord, help me to keep surrendering, help me to truly see. Thank you for every step on the path of victory. On second glance I can see some abs starting to peek through their winter coat and that I have breasts that double as floatation devices, and then I hear myself say, “it is good,” like it is listed in Genesis under the days of creation…

Ok, well, it is a start.

I should be holding you in my arms this week…

One thought, stuck on repeat.

A deep ache seems to pound in my flesh; my body hasn’t forgotten.

It seems to know at a cellular level that a baby was supposed to be born this week.

My flesh, my mind, my heart are all struggling to compute a reality without you, a you I never even got to meet…at least not yet.

I have so much to do; there is not time to deal with the tears that keep slipping over the edges of my eyelids.

I know this space called grief, and yet it is like I am walking the road anew. The ground is unfamiliar even while the scent smells the same.

Quarantine. A weight clunks down onto my chest…

Parenting kids locked inside while they navigate puberty.

Another weight falls.

A husband stressed.

Clunk.

A complete upheaval of all that was once familiar, of friends.

Clunk, clunk, clunk.

Parents in health-crisis.

Clunk.

Caring for others.

Clunk.

The bank account draining.

Clunk, clunk…

Shopping in the midst of COVID-19.

Clunk.

The fridge breaking.

Clunk. Gasp, GASP.

My breathing is so labored the tears have permission to fall as all my effort focuses on willing my lungs and heart to just keep going—even when it feels impossible.

Stop. Scream. Cry. Tear clothes. Pour ashes on your head. Lock yourself in a bathroom. Go for a walk.

Take a moment…

To feel it all.

I should be holding you in my arms right now and blanketing your face with my kisses-

not crying over a fridge and lost groceries and pain and parents and kids and money and COVID-19.

And yet, I must cry over it all—all the hard—for this is grief, and the only way out is through. After the rain comes the rainbow, and it looks like a few who offer their words of comfort, their toilet paper, their coolers, and their acknowledgement of you, dear Cara Belle. With the rainbow comes the reminder of His promise, that He is bigger than the destruction of your world. He provided the ark, and the ark can look like beautiful friends showing up and picking up a weight to carry, the snuggles of those who are present, and the whisper of a God who has provided every life-giving piece of wood that makes up the ark during the storms, all while He carries us through them.

It is 4:15 a.m. and I can’t seem to find my friend called sleep.

My mind spins and turns and frantically but methodically tries to comprehend all that is unfolding in this season.

The house has a steady white noise of rhythmic breathing- theirs, not mine; mine is forced, theirs is a symphonic reminder of some of my most precious gifts.

I listen to the bathroom fan whirl in submission to the switch it must obey and slowly demand my own breathing to find a calm rhythm.

Surrender.

This space doesn’t seem fair, it smells of grief and loss and yet is somehow oddly clarifying.

The most important things seem to gleam and glow in this space, eager for the overdue acknowledgement of their splendiferous life giving fruit.

It is a pruning reality, and one where the branches that aren’t bearing life may be expertly cut away to create the conditions for new fruit to be born.

Surrender.

A distilled clarity of offerings that hold a fragrance of the finest perfume becomes a pouring out of what really matters in that space. A perfume submissively poured out at His feet, and one so strong that it will still linger through the breaking of bread, the garden midnights, the flagellations, the accusations, and the cross.

Surrender.

I pour out the perfume that has been refined in my soul over the last several months at His feet…

The baby girl who won’t be born this month,

The loss of people who were dear,

The pain of rejection,

The quilled blanket of isolation,

The mother who must undergo her cancer treatment alone,

The body that just will not heal,

The parenthood journey that refines my warrior ways,

The quarantine, the trauma-homeschooling, and all the things,

And s-u-r-r-e-n-d-e-r.

The heaviness of it all drives me to my knees in the dead of the night asking God if there is any other way…

And then He reminds me again of the Garden and the Cross that is coming…

Today is Wednesday but Friday is coming-

Surrender.

He grieved, He wrestled, He refused to run from the crushing spaces, He carried it all to the cross and He surrendered and sacrificed for you and for me.

“Yet not my will, but yours be done.”

The single greatest act in all of history-

Jesus willingly going to that cross.

Surrender.

Surrender is the choice that makes the yoke light, it is the only way to the cross, and it leads to the life after the tomb.

Friday’s coming but so is SUNDAY.

Surrender.

Not my will but yours be done God.

What do you need to surrender today friend?

My Dearest Mom and Dad,

I know you remember this moment, you dreamt of it long after you let all of your own dreams die. YOUR child, a COLLEGE graduate and the first one in our family. Your expressions say it all, and so does mine. You both are beaming and I was just happy I could bring you both such joy. I didn’t understand at 21 what I think I might today, and I am wondering if you both see it more clearly now too?

Dad, you started working after junior high, and mom you never got the chance to finish high school, parenthood arrived early in your journey and changed everything. I thought on graduation day you both were living a bit through me, and while a sliver of that may be true I now see the heartbeat of your dream more clearly. It wasn’t about college as much as it was you two believing that was a ticket to a better life. But if your peel back all those layers the better life really wasn’t about college, it was always about breaking the cycle, wanting better and more for your children as you grappled with navigating your own lives. It was about freedom, a freedom that seemed elusive to you but you wanted desperately for your kids and it just dressed itself up like “college.”

And so tonight as I wonder what I most need to say, it is this:

You did succeed. Because Mom and Dad, this little girl grew up to be a warrior who walks in more freedom then the two of you ever dreamed. You DID succeed, not because of the career I chose or because of how much money I have but because you taught me to run my race, to never quit, to dream bigger dreams then I could ever do alone, and a thousand other lessons you never thought you could teach.

And now we enter what I think may be the most important chapter of our earthly story, the nearing of the finish line. And I have to say to you both that this space is far more important to me to do well then getting any college degree. It is far more important that I do THIS season well more than any before it. It is MY turn to show up in the hard spaces, to cheer YOU on, to be YOUR shoulder to lean on, to pour out MY love in all the everyday ways, and to remind you that you are not alone in this journey.

Today was a hard day Mom and Dad, but you have known many.
Mom, you tried not to cry as you told me the news and I held you.
Mom, it is ok to cry.
Dad, it is ok to be emotional too.

Lung cancer.
Mom.
Congestive Heart Failure and COPD.
Dad.
Today is a hard day but none of this gets to win because God ALREADY HAS.
He formed you, He loves you, He holds you and He will NEVER leave you.
I pray that you both would lean in with every fiber of your being and find just how sweet He is, especially in the gut wrenchingly hard spaces.
I confess I am not sure I will do this chapter well, I want to do a throwback to age three when tantrums were acceptable, I want to be selfish and I want to fight the fallenness of this world because I am certain I will never feel ready to even think about the earthly story ending with you.
But I will keep showing up, imperfectly, loving you and lifting you up the the God who delights in you.

Love,
Your “Baby”