Though You take from me

This is the one song we played at Tobi's funeral.  The Lord had played it over and over in my head and I listened to it probably a hundred times through the 3 months leading up to Tobi's death.  I thought it was a message I was to have to encourage those around me.  I had no idea He wanted me to memorize it because it was the message He would use to give us the grace to bless His name at the funeral of our daughter.

"It wasn't meaningless".  How many times did He say that to me while I lay in the bed waiting to go in for surgery to deliver the lifeless girlie I had made so many plans for?  How many times has He reassured me since then?  

"Though You take from me, I will bless Your name".   I remember admitting to the Lord about a month before she died that I didn't know if I would be able to say that if He took from me someone I love.  And now He has helped me to understand that I was right.  I was never capable of saying that.  When You are broken and You surrender to His will, the Victor and the King is able to say things through you that you listen to yourself saying and wonder at His power and strength.

"Therefore, therefore, do not lose heart. But take these truths and day by day focus on them.  Preach them to yourself every morning. Get alone with God and preach His word into your mind until your heart SINGS with confidence that you are new and cared for."  

I can now encourage you from a heart of experience that I have found this to be true.  Do not lose heart. Get alone with God everyday and preach His word into your mind and heart.  Let the Holy Spirit be your comforter and friend. When you are angry, discouraged, afraid or confused ask Him to preach His word to you.   And before long your heart will SING with confidence that He has made you new and that He cares for you in ways our little minds can't fathom.  And because He remembers that we are dust, He will show you how He cares for you in ways that are small enough for you to understand but that will make you feel as if your whole being will explode with joy from the knowledge of it. 

Tobi would have been two months in a few days, Lord.  I sing my song to You - the One who's all I need.

I trust You. 

Hope

A couple days before Memorial day weekend I sat down to look up and study the scripture "Those who hope in Me will not be disappointed".  It was another verse He kept repeating in my head and so I sat down to figure out what hoping in the Lord really meant.  

As I studied I realized the thing I lacked at that moment was hope.  As I've said before, it's my nature to see life (mostly) as glass half full, so to feel so hopeless about the future was almost as devastating to me as losing Tobi.  

As silly as it may sound to anyone else, from the moment they told us she was gone I felt our future of having a lot of children and even having anymore children biologically was gone.  Yes, there was nothing wrong with me physically and there was nothing that caused what happened to Tobi that would make a rational thinking person to think they were no longer able to have children, but in my despair that was what it felt like.  Grief, and more than that, the enemy, makes you think some crazy things. All I worried our future held was years of trying without success, miscarriages or more stillborn babies.  

And so that night, a few days before Memorial day, I asked the Lord to teach me about how to hope in a way that was truth and not false hope that leads to bitter disappointment.  And among many other things He told me, He brought me to the scripture that says "My soul, wait in silence for God only, for my hope is from Him."   One commentary I found said this of hope; "He is the God of hope, therefore He is the SOURCE of hope.  If we are going to have hope it must come from Him, for He alone has the power to give it."  I ended the Bible study asking the Giver of hope to give me hope again.

And then Memorial day came and I had one of the hardest days I have yet experienced through all of this.  I sat and told Carey every question, every doubt, every angry thought I had been fighting those few days leading up to it. I told him that after all the times I had said over and over these last two years of how good God has shown Himself to be, that I could not, in that moment, remember one thing that was an evidence of what I meant when I said He is good.  

It is a devastating thing to feel like two years of spiritual victory after spiritual victory has been stolen from your memory.  I knew that I had not just said those things without having good reason to say it but I simply couldn't remember what they were.  So many times growing up I would hear someone say that the Lord is compassionate, or He is faithful or He is good and I would secretly think to myself, "They're just saying that to sound like a good little Christian but I bet they couldn't give any evidence of how He has specifically shown Himself to be any of those things to them personally".  And on Memorial day, as I sat talking it all over with Carey, I was devastated to realize that I was right back to that place of doubting because I literally couldn't remember a single thing He had taught me and shown me of His character.  

In my journal around this time I wrote "One way I remembered He is good… He answers when we seek Him and ask Him. Maybe not quickly or right away, but I know He will answer me. I can thank Him ahead of time for the answer I know will come."

A week later I was thinking about how much I miss Tobi's name being used every day, many times a day, in our conversations with each other. I loved her name, not just because I thought it was pretty, but because it meant so much to us that the Lord had given us her name and that it meant what it did.  

I've made a habit to go into her room, or rather the nursery, just to stand and face the special pain that comes when I'm in there because my logic is that if I face it enough times it will either lessen the pain over time or I will become desensitized to it and not feel it as much. I stand and look at all of Piper's hand me down clothes that still hang in the closet ready for the next girl that might come along. I stand and think how I want so badly for the Lord to give us another baby, any baby, right now.  I tell Him every time that I'm ready whenever He wants to give us another. And I'm even honest with Him and say I want to know when that will be.  

So that day when I was thinking how much I grieve losing Tobi's name and everything it means to us, I realized the obviously thing was that all I have to do is ask Him to name the next one for us.  I got in the car with Piper to run errands and I very quickly told Him how much I'd love it if He'd give us another name with equally meaningful meaning and I even asked Him if He could tell me the name now so I could at least know that.  I'll be honest, I walked away from that prayer and assumed that was probably not something I would get right now.

That night I fell asleep on the couch while watching a movie with Carey.  As I lay there I had a dream that we were in a situation where we had a baby but we had to name the baby RIGHT THEN and I was panicked because I wanted the Lord to give us the name but He hadn't yet.  Carey woke me up to go to bed and as I fully woke up the name Tabitha Hope was almost literally ringing in my ears. I paid attention to it because I couldn't remember the last time I had heard the name Tabitha - besides that being the name of the little girl on Bewitched.  It was odd, too, because in the moment it wasn't one that I would have liked and picked on my own.

I went to bed but turned on my phone to look up what Tabitha means because I was curious.  The first thing that came up on my google search was that Tabitha is a Hebrew name and is best know from a woman written about in Acts 9, also known as Dorcas (the Greek translation of Tabitha). I looked it up and found that she was a disciple who was always doing good and helping the poor. In the passage, Peter was summoned to her house because she had died.  He went upstairs where a bunch of widows were and they showed him all of the cloaks she had made them while she was alive. Peter sent them all out and kneeled beside her and prayed. He then turned to her and said "Tabitha, get up" and she opened her eyes and got up.  He then called the widows and all the disciples in to see that she was alive. It ends saying that many heard her story and believed in the Lord because of it.  

At something like 3am, I sat reading that passage with my mouth open.  I saw so many different levels of meaning in it, many that I'm sure some cynical or jaded person might say is me just search for ANY meaning from a silly dream but that I know was anything but just a silly dream.   The next day, I was telling my aunt the story and trying to put into words what I thought about it and she interrupted to say "He raises hope from the dead".

This, friends, is what I mean when I say the Lord is good...

He hears the prayer of a brokenhearted mother who just lost a child that she had prayed for and wanted so badly before she even knew she was pregnant.  He hears a timid request of a child of His who just wants to know that there will be another little girl to wear those clothes that hang so neatly in the closet. 

And because He is a mysterious but exceedingly gracious God, He decided to give this child the exact thing she asked for in this one thing because He knows it will remind her that He is good in ways that effect us in deeply personal ways.

And although I realize it could be years before He gives us this little girl, He has given us the very precious gift of knowing her name in the meantime. And I remind myself that my hope is not in the little girl who He has already named but in the God Who is kind enough to give such a gift.

And I will now forever testify that while He did take Tobi, He also gives us Tabby.  Tabby Hope.  Because He is the God Who raises hope from the dead. 

"I am still confident of this:

I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

Wait for the Lord;

be strong and take heart 

and wait for the Lord."

Psalm 27:13&14

Another battle cry

I didn't expect going to Disney to hurt so much. I knew to expect some pain just not the amount I've experienced today. 

Because I'm wired to enjoy the anticipation of something as much as the actual thing itself I've imagined and planned this first trip after her being born down to very small, silly details.  I had a plan for how I would care for both of them from the front seat on the drive down since sitting in the back to entertain would no longer be an option.  But instead that seat remained empty, apart from pillows and random things thrown on it.  Piper doesn't even need me for entertainment anymore because she has reached that wonderful age that coloring, reading and pretending is fun to her.

I had a plan to mostly keep Tobi in a sling and would rely heavily on Carey to keep up with Piper now that she is old enough to walk a bit more.  I imagined how proud I would be of Piper as she sat in the stroller  next to Tobi and tried to help out.  I've pretended and imagined so many times with her in the last 6 months about how Tobi would cry a lot but that she could rub her stomach and say "it's okay Tobi. It's ok. Piper's right here" and how much that would be a help to me. But instead I walked with my arms completely free most of the day. I watched as Piper climbed in and out of her same single stroller like such a big girl. 

I bought a couple dresses this week and was so excited to see how "little" I was and how well they seemed to fit.  But then today I passed a mirror and saw my still need to lose a good bit of weight and still a bit swollen from a c-section stomach poking through that dress and had a moment of awful realization. The reason I was so happy with how I looked at home was because some how in my mind I still think of myself as pregnant.  I still expect to see a stomach that is home to an overdue 9 1/2 lbs.  Instead I see a stomach that looks only about 6 months pregnant, my favorite time during pregnancy, when I'm still small-ish and things still fit comfortably. And so today when that moment of realization came, a part of me experienced a slightly new kind of pain because I realized there was still a part of me that is trying to deny that this last month has really happened.  As well as I now seem to do from day to day, I realized in that moment that everybody was right.  That it will take a long time to totally recover from this. And if I'm honest, that understanding makes me want to punch somebody in the face.

I want it to be over. I want to wake up tomorrow and not feel that ache the moment my mind wakes up enough to remember that Tobi's not here anymore. I want be able to remember her face and look at her pictures and not feel like my insides are coming unglued.  I want to be pregnant right now, moving again towards the finish instead of not even being anywhere near the starting line.

We've had this Disney trip unofficially planned for the last 3 months. It was going to be part of Piper's birthday celebration.  And for the last three months we've told her every time she asked when we were going that we had to wait on Tobi to come so I could ride Goofy's barnstormer with her (a kids roller coaster I couldn't ride because I was pregnant).  We told her we had to wait on Tobi so she could celebrate her birthday with us. And now for the last 4 weeks, each time Piper asked about going to Disney she would follow it up by saying "…and Tobi and Jesus are coming?" because we explained that Jesus took Tobi to live with Him instead of with us like we thought. She has accepted that explanation without many more questions but we are able to tell that she is still very bothered and confused by where Tobi is now that she's obviously not in my stomach anymore. This afternoon she was asking me about going to Magic Kingdom to ride Goofy's Barnstormer and after a minute of thinking she said "and we gonna see Tobi there?".  

…And I want to never feel that again.  I want to not have to try to figure out a way to help my 3 year old understand that Tobi is gone and we won't ever be able to see her here on earth.  I want to see her be able to accept it and not struggle on and on about why what we said was gonna happen hasn't happened.  

I want my incision to stop hurting so that I'm not constantly reminded that I had a baby a month ago. I want the panic of thinking, just for a second, "Where is she?! Where did I leave her?" to stop every time I remember I'm still recovering from her delivery.

I want to not feel such incredible envy over everyone else who hasn't experienced this particular kind of loss. I want to not see the pictures of their beautiful babies and their 3rd trimester selflies and think "I'll never be that carefree again".  I want to not worry over how we'll be able to enjoy the anticipation during the next pregnancy. I want to not dread the "waiting on the other shoe to drop" feeling I know I'll have to constantly bring before the Lord. It's my nature to always be looking for joy in things.. to look for the good things in the day... to expect the best from a situation. I want to not feel like there is a constant fight going on between that now old feeling nature and this new nature that worries about what plans we'll make that will never come to be. What new tragedy that will happen when we least expect it.

I want the Lord to make it all better. To speak the words and make the pain stop, cause a baby to be forming in me right now, make us have hope because we know exactly when and what good things are coming.  I've said it over and over to Him these last few days and every time I'm reminded that that's not how He works usually.  We learn great things through bringing our pain to Him every time we feel it. We learn patience in a way we wouldn't otherwise in waiting for the thing we desire most.  We learn best that only when we put our hope in Him and only Him, not the things we think we understand will happen, are we never disappointed. 

Jesus tells us not to worry about tomorrow. He has designed things so that we need to take it day by day, moment by moment. My sister in law, Chris, told us of a situation where, when she wanted to think the worst was going to happen, she chose to say over and over to Him "I trust You. I trust You".   And so this has become my other battle cry.  When all of me wants to yell and scream how incredibly unfair this all seems, I remember her advice to chose to trust Him. 

Yesterday and today, the Holy Spirit keeps repeating the verse "You hem me in - behind and before; You have laid Your hand upon me" in my mind like a song that gets stuck in your head and you can't get out.  I've never really thought about what that means.. "You hem me in".  Another translation says "You are all around me. You are behind me and in front of me". A commentary I found written by Charles Spurgeon describes it like "a prisoner marching along surrounded by a guard, and gripped by an officer".  

He reminds me in this that I cannot escape His presence. He is here when I am trusting and faithful. He is here when I am sinfully, arrogantly angry. He is here when I feel so alone and wonder desperately where He has gone. He is here and not only that, He has laid His hand upon me.  I cannot escape Him.

So forgive me, Lord, for being such an unfaithful, untrusting wretch. I know that good only come from me when You, Holy Spirit, bring it forth. I am a slave that You bought at a great price, but You are a patient and loving Master, Lord. You let me feel and know Your great compassion for my pain. You are the source and giver of true hope and You give it generously when I ask it of You.  

And so I trust You, Lord. 

I trust You.

On the hard days

Today was not a good day. Today I woke dreaming about Tobi.

Most days, I'm alright. I think I almost even act like my old self most days. I have moments of not being ok each day but it's bearable and it doesn't last for too long.

But today I missed Tobi. I miss her as if she were someone I had known my whole life. From the time we decided on her name, around November of last year, we have used it in our normal conversations throughout the day. It was no different than the way we talk about Piper. She was a person and it didn't matter that we hadn't all officially met, she was apart of our lives now. And now there's some days that we don't use her name at all. Some days there's just simply no reason to. There's some days that we go about our life like before...as if the last 9 months never happened. As if a part of Carey and me and Piper isn't missing for as long as we live here on earth.

Today I didn't care about what the good purpose behind it is and who might be impacted by our testimony through it. I wanted Tobi Ruth. I wanted our days to be filled with a newborn schedule, and the chaos of having two small children to see about when I'm running errands by myself. I wanted to know what her pretty little face looks like when she opens her eyes. I wanted to know if her voice is as small and girly as Piper's is. I wanted the memories I can't stop reliving to be replaced with balloons and flowers being brought up by happy faces of friends and family. Today I wasn't satisfied by the thought of future children I hope He will give us soon… I wanted Tobi.

But then tonight, I sat down to write in my prayer journal and to read my Bible like I do almost every single night. I didn't last night. I just decided not to because the time had gotten away from me. But tonight I felt an overwhelming urge to sit and talk to Him for a while and see what He had to say back to me, if anything at all. And I was reminded of a sermon of John Piper's that I listened to recently explaining the text from 2 Corinthians 4:16-18. He explains that what Paul is saying is that it is a renewing of our inner self day by day that keeps us from losing heart.

Day by day... He goes on to say "It means the refreshing, renewing, strength-giving drink you took in the morning that kept you from losing heart must be taken again the next morning — or night or noon. “Re-new” means something runs out. The bucket leaks. The car runs out of gas. The spiritual metabolism of your life feasted on the renewing meal, and now it needs another one." According to Jesus, each day has troubles of its own and therefore each day requires renewal of its own.

And so I sat and poured out my heart to the Lord. And I listened as He reminded me that He lost loved ones while He was here on earth, too. He knows the great sadness that comes with being separated from them in this life. And as Carey pointed out during that first week home, the Lord knows even greater anguish in loss than we do because so many of the ones He loves and died for choose to leave this life still rejecting Him… to go to a place where He will be eternally separated from them, unable to save them anymore.

THIS is the God who hears me when I cry to Him about how much my arms ache for Tobi Ruth.

And then afterwards, I turned on some music and got in the shower and sang to Him about His holiness. And I was again overwhelmed by the knowledge that Almighty God, who makes Himself knowable but also remains mysterious, had not only heard my heart but had answered me back with words of comfort and then led me to sing to Him about Who He is.

...Because He knows that it is the only thing that can make it all right. It is the only thing that makes us whole.

"In and out of situations
That tug-a-war at me
All day long I struggle
For answers that I need
Then I come into His presence
And all my questions become clear
And for a sacred moment
No doubt can interfere...

Through His love the Lord provided
A place for us to rest
A place to find the answers
In hours of distress
Now there's never any reason
For you to give up in despair
Just slip away and breathe His name
He will surely meet you there

In the presence of Jehovah
God Almighty, Prince of Peace
Troubles vanish, hearts are mended
In the presence of the King"

"Count the cost"

3 days before Tobi was born I went in for one of my final office visits with Dr. Crute.  I was put on the monitor in the office and then was sent over to L&D for extended monitoring because of a blip on the office monitoring when I was first hooked up.   After almost 2 hours of extended monitoring they let me go saying she was perfectly fine, healthy, and that I was contracting irregularly like I had suspected.  Two nights later, I sat on edge of the pool with Mama and Daddy watching Piper and Carey play and Tobi kicked at Mama.  That night, I suspect, at some point The Lord took Tobi to be home with Him.  She sat at his feet in utter amazement that someone could be so beautiful. I like to think He talked to her about how much her Daddy and Mama love Him and love her. I like to think He showed her the events that happened after her death that caused His name to be glorified and praised.  I like to think she stood with Papa and Jillian and all the multitude and sang to Him "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty. Who was, and is, and is to come."

That morning, though, I excitedly woke to light contraction that were consistently 5 minutes apart.  I was so very excited and yet trying so hard to be cautious of my excitement because I had had contractions before that eventually went away. I began timing around 11:30am when I saw that they weren't going away and continued to time for a couple hours before calling and finding out that yes, I did need to head on to the hospital. 

I can't begin to put into words how excited we were to pack the van full of our stuff.   It went a bit beyond the normal excitement of knowing a baby is coming, for reasons that will take a whole other blog post to write about, but basically I had surrendered to the thought that Tobi would most likely come by c-section even though I badly wanted her to be a VBAC.  But then when I began contracting and things started to progress on their own I began to hope that maybe I would get this thing that seemed, at that point, almost impossible.  We dropped Piper off, took off to the hospital, waited in the ER for them to wheel me upstairs and then sat in the observation room waiting to get hooked up to the heart monitor, all with such incredible excitement and anticipation.  

Despite knowing that Tobi hadn't moved in a while, which for her was pretty normal, there was not a thought in my head that they would find anything but a little beating heart, beating fast and strong like it had all 41 weeks I had known her.  After several nurses, a couple resident doctors and then finally the OB on call looked at the ultrasound screen, they finally said that there was no blood flow to the heart and yes, she had died.   At that point, I did the only thing that my body could do… I began wailing.  Tears wouldn't come.  I just sat there and wailed into Carey's shoulder in complete denial that this could possibly be happening.  Everyone scattered like cockroaches to go get things set up for the c-section that did end up happening after all and Carey stepped outside with the horrible task of letting everybody know we had lost her.  I lay in that bed, still wailing but now asking the Lord out loud- like a crazy person I'm sure it seemed, "How can THIS not be meaningless?  How do I ever come back from this?"

When I say the Lord is good this is one way that I mean He is good.  I only was able to ask the questions "How is this not meaningless?" a couple times in those first few moments before I knew, I knew as surely as I live, that Tobi's death was for a very specific reason. His assurance and presence in this thing was so real but I can't describe it well enough to do it justice.  For some good, important purpose that I couldn't see, He had taken Tobi.  Not just that there is sin in this world and the consequence of that is that people and even babies die, and sometimes for what seems like no reason.   Not just that this happened and He would make it, somehow, be for good.  But that HE had pre-determined, before the creation of this world, that Him taking Tobi that day and in that exact way was the very best thing that could happen for someone or maybe many someones that He loves.

Since Tobi's death the Lord brings verses, or only a few words from verses to my mind that when I look them up I find some (to me) profound word from Him.  One was "Count the cost".  Over and over it played in my head for days before I googled it to see if it was somewhere in the Bible.  Luke 14:25-35.  Jesus tells a large crowd that if you want to follow Him you have to hate everyone you love by comparison to Your love for Him.  He also says "Don't begin (to follow Him) until you count the cost. For who would begin construction of a building without first calculating the cost to see if there is enough money to finish it?  Otherwise, you might complete only the foundation before running out of money, and then everyone would laugh at you. They would say, 'There's the person who started that building and couldn't afford to finish it!"

He has spoken to me these last few weeks about suffering that we experience in this life.   Whether you follow Jesus or not, bad things will and probably already have happened to you.  But before Tobi's death I would have (wrongly) said with a fair amount of confidence that if I follow Jesus and am obedient to His specific direction in my life, then I will be under the umbrella of His protection and I will remain safe and healthy.  My children and my husband will live long and healthy lives.  I've spent the last 6+ months seeking the Lord's will and obeying to the best of my understanding His direction in my life… SPECIFICALLY my life pertaining to Tobi and her arrival.  Again, that's another blog post for another time…  But at the end of it all, I lay in that hospital bed, holding a painfully beautiful but lifeless little girl as the "reward" to all my obedience.  

And the words of John Piper from the song "Though You slay me" kept ringing in my head - "every millisecond of your misery in the path of obedience is producing a peculiar glory you will get because of that".  ….In the path of obedience… There is suffering even in the path of obedience but it produces a peculiar glory you will get because of it.

To get to my point, I have learned that if You follow Him there is a cost.  To be sure, there is a cost to not following Him…  But if you follow and you obey His every prompting, there is a cost.  David Jeremiah once said in a sermon that he believed that's why so many Christians in America walk around with such immature faith - because we aren't taught the purpose, benefit and necessity of trials for mature faith.  I listened to that very sermon 2 days before she died, in fact.  I wondered if he was right.  I wanted so badly to believe he wasn't.

After having now experienced what I would call my first, real experience with true suffering I can tell you... he was.  I have found there is great benefit and have seen there is great necessity of moments of suffering in our walk with the Lord. 

As a side note, before I sound like a doom and gloom always person - MOMENTS is the key word.   The Lord reminded me (through something my sister in law, Chris, said) that throughout the Bible followers who suffered in the path of obedience like Joseph, Moses, Abraham, David, Job… also had long periods of peace and ease. Even Job died "an old man and full of years" after the Lord had blessed the latter part of his life more than the former part.

But what I wanted to remember for myself from all of this and share with anybody who cared to listen is this.  For the last two years the Lord has been teaching me about Who He is and about His nature. As I lay in the hospital in such pain over losing Tobi I almost wanted to die at one point, the Holy Spirit was able to remind me of all the things I knew of the Lord's character.  I was able to put my feet on the solid rock of Who I know He is. He reminded me over and over that He is the only constant.  That His nature never changes, no matter how much the situation may scream that He doesn't care, that He just plays games with us, that He's not good after all.

We, as followers of Jesus, are all bound to suffer at some point in our lives. Jesus tells us before we set out to follow Him we should count the cost of it.  He even says "He who has ears let him hear" meaning "pay attention and listen well!". Don't naively set out to follow Him and then find out after you only just laid the foundation that you aren't willing to pay the cost to finish the rest. But if you can make it a point in your life to ask Him to help you to know Him more and to study His nature throughout the Bible, then when the storm comes You can preach to yourself what You KNOW You've found Him to be and stay firmly planted on the path of obedience you've started down.  

2 years ago, in the little bathroom in Evansville where I did my quiet times, the Holy Spirit prompted me to ask that my fascination with Him would be my lifelong obsession.  That it would be like a drug that I couldn't live without.  When the pain of what's happened and the seeming unfairness of not having Tobi here comes, the Lord's promises and Who I know I've found Him to be is the balm that soothes the hurt.  That it is not meaningless, that He's not just playing games with us and that He cares more than we can ever imagine.    And that He "rewards those who earnestly seek Him".

So I say to anybody who listens, look to Him for help.  Ask Him to really show you His greatness and love and mercy and faithfulness and goodness and kindness.  And then be prepared for the overwhelming, overpowering, irresistible, heart healing love of El Roi - "The God Who sees me."

"But as for me, the nearness of God is my good; I have made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell of all Your works!"   Psalm 73:28 

I miss her.

We have been putting off doing the bills since coming home from the hospital.  Tonight, we finally sat down to do them.  

One of the worst parts about this grief is that everything is a reminder that she is supposed to be here.  May 10th I sat in this same place opening mail and paying bills for the last time before I thought our baby would be home.  Afterwards, I finally bought the double stroller we had been patiently waiting and saving for.  That same time the following night, I lay in the hospital bed and handed my phone to Carey for him to call and leave a message canceling our order for that stroller because I couldn't bare the thought of coming home to it waiting for us.  

We currently have 3 bills due for OB visits and a hospital stay for a little girlie who's supposed to be here in my arms while I sit with Carey laughing at an episode of Top Gear.

We go in a store and I see an ottoman I had been waiting to buy after she was born.  I look down at my ankles as I put my shoes on and think again how little they look now that the swelling is gone and remember I thought the same thing after Piper was born, only this time there's no Tobi in the next room sleeping while I get dressed. I go out to eat with Mama and Piper and realize, again, that the meal should be so much more chaotic than it is. That there should not only be a very squirmy 3 year old but a fussy 3 week old wanting my attention. I open my email and see my weekly subscription from Baby Center saying "Your 2 week old!".

I walk past her room - just the nursery now - every single day, multiple times a day with it being right beside Piper's, and realize again that there won't be a baby in there for a while after all.

I keep thinking, "That's it.  That's the extent of realizing the depth of what we've lost.  There can be no more now." but each day there's some new realization of what was lost when she died. Even this event, the birth of a child… anyone's child... that should be nothing but anticipation of celebration and joy is now just this memory of the doctors words - "She's passed". The unbelievable pain of remembering holding and kissing her soft cheeks and wailing in a room that was meant for so much happiness.

They told me again at my check up that there was nothing that came back as the reason for her death.  Everything appeared perfectly fine. She looked like she was just asleep as we all held her that night. One nurse said that's what makes this difficult is when there's no reason to give for why it happened and at first I thought so too.  But now that I've had time to think on it, it actually makes it easier to accept because I know there was nothing I, they or anyone could have done.  The Lord decided May 11th was Tobi's day. I consider it a very clear message from Him that this was absolutely just His doing because it is for a purpose, maybe many purposes for His children.   It is not meaningless and it won't be wasted.

I know, even in my very darkest, lowest times that He has a great purpose for this.  I have already seen good things comes from it.  But it would not be honest of me to say that this week I haven't struggled spiritually harder than I've ever struggled before. You don't make statements in public like we did in those first few days and have the enemy just lay down and take it.  I am thankful now, in a way I've never been before, that the Lord is faithful even when we are not.  This is one thing that sets Him apart from other "gods" and religions.  El Shaddai, the one true God, Who was first and created all we see, not only notices a speck of dust like me but also remains faithful when the this speck questions His plans. Not only remains faithful but is compassionate… and in His compassion very gently leads that speck to repentance for the sinful things it thought or said, knowing full well it may struggle with thinking it again tomorrow. 

All simply because He is good…. and because He loves it…. and because it belongs to Him.

Thank You, Lord.  I am not worthy.

"All praise and all the honor be
To the God of ancient mysteries
Whose every sign and wonder
Turn the pages of our history

But tonight my heart is heavy

And I cannot keep from whispering this prayer

'Are you there'?

And I know you could leave writing
On the wall that's just for me
Or send wisdom while I'm sleeping
Like in Solomon's sweet dreams

But I don't need the strength of Sampson

Or a chariot in the end

Just wanna know you still know how many

Hairs are on my head

O Great God...

Be small enough to hear

Me now."

A tale of being admitted to the hospital

I've had some stuff going on the last couple days that made me have to go in to Memorial's L&D floor for monitoring.   Nothing hugely major but still not something to ignore.  

When I got the call from Dr. Crute saying I really did need to go in, I was really afraid.   Like, duh.

At first I was afraid for Tobi but then in a minute I became not afraid for Tobi…  the only way I know to explain that was I just had a distinct sense  that she is fine. I really do think it was the Holy Spirit Who was making feel certain about it.   He lives in me, so He'd know that kinda thing, right? Anyway, the thing I was afraid of was that it would be something wrong with me that would require I be on strict bed rest or even worse, have to be in the hospital for monitoring for a while (or be there the rest of the pregnancy).   I tend to jump to the worst case scenario when worrying and I was so upset thinking that life for Piper would be interrupted and I would't be able to do my mama things for her for a while.   

Honestly, it was such an overwhelming feeling that when I went in my closet to get dressed I almost couldn't catch my breath.    I get like this and it's hard to pray through the thick fog of fear. And definitely to pray in faith, with thanksgiving, that The Lord is absolutely good and absolutely in control. I stood there trying to think and all that came out was "Lord, You allow things like this to happen sometimes, don't You? How do I have peace in this circumstance? What do I hold on to?"    

Friends, before I finished my chaotic prayer He immediately answered back "When I am afraid I will trust in You".  I know that may not seem like I whole lot to anybody but in almost any situation anymore I look for Him to speak directly to me.  I'm unable to feel any peace unless HE speaks to me.  I'm unsatisfied with hearing assurances from friends, family or doctors because we are sinful, foolish people.     BUT if I can hear Him tell me the specific hope I am to cling to in that particular situation I am able to have peace and even joy a lot of the time.  I'm able to preach the message to myself that the Lord has spent the last year proving to me, that He is absolutely good.  He knows that I've spent my entire life as a "Christian" who didn't trust Him because I know He sometimes let's Job go through horrible suffering. I'd ask myself over and over "How can He be good and trustworthy if He allows that?"   

Yes, He allows it sometimes and sometimes, frankly, we bring it on ourselves because we go our own way.   But in this last year of truly following Him through acknowledging the Holy Spirit's presence and depending on Him to even give me the motivation to follow in the first place, He has shown me in big and very small, inconsequential things that HE is absolutely good.   I wish there was another word I could think of to use instead of good because it seems like not enough to describe what He's shown me so far…  I just looked it up and the definition of good is "to be desired".   We constantly desire good things.  We desire to be good ourselves.  

Only God is good in every way, all the time, without fail.  

He knew that I needed Him to show me that before He could begin (just to begin!) to answer how He can be good and allow the terrible things to happen.  

In the midst of thinking of all the unknowns riding to the hospital, I followed this train of thought...  what if the absolute worst thing ended up happening?  What then, Lord?   And He made me recall a Bible study that I did on the Beatitudes.  A girl pointed out that with each thing He wants us to be, He more than fulfills the need that is left there.   

Are you poor in spirit?  He gives you a Kingdom. 

Are you mourning?  He will comfort you.  

Are you hungry and thirsty?  He will fill you up.   

If this is true of Him then whatever He allows to happen He will more than meet the need.  He will fill that void with such blessing.   My responsibility as His follower is to trust and rely on Him.   To acknowledge what He has shown me so far about His character and thank Him for His goodness and faithfulness even when it looks like He isn't. 

Turns out Tobi is perfectly healthy and so am I.   We weren't even held at the hospital for a long time like I thought.  I was in and out in about an hour or so.   As Carey and I drove home eating Baker's Pride donuts (because we deserve a treat, DANGIT)  I sat realizing that, even though I may not know all of why He let us go through that (expensive, might I add) ordeal, I know of one thing.   He has helped me exercise again the muscle of total dependence on Him. He has made me realize that when His people pray (all my family was praying HARD) He hears and He has compassion.   He is even grieved that we give into worry and fear and would have us see His heart in the matter.   It has left me again knowing I can say with all my heart,

"Whom have I in Heaven but You?

And earth has nothing I desire besides You.

My flesh and my heart may fail,

but God is the strength of my heart 

and my portion forever"

...And that when He told us to name her Tobi because it means "Yahweh is good", it's because He wants us to remember it.

The Lord is good and I will never, ever stop saying it.