So Much Better Than...

Today I stood in the church parking lot and wept in Loren's arms. It was relatively minor, in comparison to some of the things we've faced in marriage. We said goodbye to Jaime and Emily as they embarked on a three week cross country trip to Washington D.C. with their other family. Exciting times for them, but difficult for me to say goodbye.

It was only later that my stormy heart turned sentimental. Remembering back to that fall, nine years ago...

As a 21-year-old-divorced-mother-of-two-baby-Christian, finding a husband wasn't high on my list of priorities. While I'd agree with the "When Harry Met Sally" premise that a man and a woman can't be "just friends," Dan, Loren, and I pulled it off quite nicely. Dan and I had our three weeks of junior high dating earlier that summer, and we were both confident in the mutual decision that it was not the direction God was leading us. After a horrendous first impression, Loren and I were finally warming to each other enough that we could be in the same room. And so, all romantic feelings off the table, we were able to prove "When Harry Met Sally" wrong. We were, simply and without complication, just friends.

It was a sweet season. Playing UNO on my living room floor while Jaime and Emily slept in their bedroom down the hall. Hikes at midnight after I got off a swing shift at the hospital. Bowling, Veggie Tales, Bible studies that were way over our head. Riding to church together on Sunday mornings.

And then, that night. It was an entirely forgettable evening, making dinner at Dan's apartment, waiting for Loren to get off work so we could eat. Just as Loren walked in, I checked my voicemail. A message from Jaime and Emily's dad shattered me. Due to a change in job, he would be living in Oregon for the next several months and wanted to change our every-few-days schedule to every-three-weeks. Three weeks without seeing my girls? While I completely understood the necessity of the change, I was shattered.

I served dinner to the guys, and just sat there as emotions twisted my heart. There was so much to be thankful for in our custody schedule. Mike and Erika were great parents to Jaime, Emily, and their new baby Alyssa. Two years of schedule changes had always been met with flexibility and grace, never courts and decrees. I knew I owed it to them and the girls to say yes. And yet...my mother's heart broke.

Late into the night, we decided to go on a walk to the park. Once there, the guys started doing stupid tricks on the jungle gym. I stared at the empty swings, thinking of the empty weeks ahead. Crumpling on a picnic table, I wept.

I vaguely registered Dan and Loren coming over, putting their arms around me, telling me that God was in control and His plans were "good, pleasing and perfect." And then, in the quiet of the deserted park, Loren prayed for me.

In those moments, God began the slow revealing of His plan for us. Loren prayed aloud for the first time, completely unaware that the prayer would be for his future wife and daughters. I wept in the uncertainty of what God was doing with my life, of what the coming months would hold, never imagining I'd be engaged in only a few months.

Over the coming weeks, our interactions changed as gradually as the season. We still exchanged Bible verses and went bowling and watched Veggie Tales. We finally scheduled a time to hang out when Dan was at work. And in the middle of November, he picked up Jaime, Emily, and me for McDonald's and a midweek church service. Late that night, once the girls were asleep, we both confessed that we felt God leading us towards marriage.

I heard a song recently that brought tears to my eyes. "But everything I had to lose came back a thousand times in you." And so it has. All those years ago, the girls did go to Oregon, and for a season, our custody schedule did change. And yet, not only was God in it and got me through it, He also gave me the gift of my husband to walk alongside me in it.

Therefore today, mixed up in all of the feelings of excitement for Jaime and Emily and sadness in saying goodbye, there is also a deep thankfulness. Thankfulness for nine years of leaves swirling and seasons changing and crying over my girls in Loren's arms as he whispers truth and comfort in the midst of the pain. Thankfulness for God's providence, for His "good, pleasing, and perfect" will.

"This was not my plan. It's so much better than."

Andrew Peterson's song "Family Man":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KixAGPNmGs0&feature=related

Thanksgiving and Rejoicing

Six years ago today, I held my beloved fourth daughter for the first time. Memorized the feel of her miniature hand in mine and the weight of her swaddled form in my arms. Marveled at the shock of dark hair, at rosy lips and a perfect scrunched baby nose. Six years ago today, we said goodbye.

God has taught me much in those six years. Mostly, lessons in the hope and assurance we have in eternity, that on my darkest days here, it is that hope that I am to cling to. There has come an acceptance that pain is real and God is real and God is good and therefore I can breathe today. And in the pain, in the breathing in and out for the last 2,191 days, there has been hope. One day, the pain will stop. One day, babies will no longer die and mothers will not purchase balloons for cemeteries. One day.

I assumed, in that hope, that God had taught me what I needed to learn. Tirzah’s brief life was, in part, to teach me a very practical lesson. My hope lies not in this world and what it has to offer, but in eternity. Yet this year, this birthday, has me feeling like there is still more for me to learn. For a reason I can’t fully know, I am still here. Six years ago God stilled Tirzah’s heart while quickening mine. And for six years, I’ve risen from bed each morning, focused on raising our other children and being a godly wife to my husband and loving and sharing the gospel with those that I am in relationship with. I am still alive and therefore God is still working in me.

So, as we remember in heartbreaking detail the day that would forever change our family, I feel God pushing me forward. Hoping in heaven was the first lesson, one that I desperately clawed at sometimes. Now comes part two. Reconciling that hope, that yearning for Jesus to come and the brokenness of this world to be made new, with the conviction that I am still here, my heart still beats, and therefore I must meet that with joy and thanksgiving, rejoicing always.

Therefore today, there is thanksgiving. Thanksgiving for our beautiful brown haired girl who brought more love and more heartbreak than I thought any day could hold. Thanksgiving for the conversations we’ve had with our children about heaven, and their continuous expectation of being reunited with their sister. Gratitude for the wrestling over a God that is good and does good, even when babies die, and the rest in that conviction over the last six years. Gratitude for the incomprehensible bond that exists between parents when a child is lost, and the grace that has found us clinging to one another in the storms of this life. And finally, for God Himself. I believe God does bless us, and He does want to bless us, but that blessing? It is GOD. HE is the blessing. And so we are blessed. And so we are thankful. And so we rejoice. Even today.