Real & Raw: Day One

Psalm 34:17-18
The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears,

And delivers them out of all their troubles.
The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart,
And saves such as have a contrite spirit.

A broken heart...  He is near to those with a broken heart.  I didn't want to be here.  I never asked to be in this place.  If Sorrow had asked me to please join her so that the Lord would be near to me I might have even said, "Thanks for the offer... But maybe some other time?"  But here I sit.  Sorrow has overwhelmed me.  It has left me in this place where the only resolve I have left is my faith... and even it has been tattered by this storm that began 6 months ago today.  

It is here where the Lord has met me.  

It is here that He sat with me and held my face.

-My face that could not get any lower than the bathroom floor.

It is here that the Lord has allowed conversations with friends that I could not have been able to have without this identification with this kind of grief.  However, He also has met me inside of my grief that no human could ever understand because it is mine alone.  And only He truly understands me.  For as many women that there are who loose life from their wombs, there are that many shades of response to that grief.  We are interwoven, perhaps, by the thoughts we think and by the tears we cry...  but each of us can say that the way we handle grief is as individual as our lives themselves.  -Like fingerprints with tiny ribbons that look similar and yet could never be truly the same.  Even within the same woman there are differences!  I lost other pregnancies that didn't crush me in the same way that this past one did.  

Over the next few weeks, the Lord revealed to me that there is something I need to do.  My blog is the easiest place to do it.  I'm going to spend 40 days of being real and raw on my blog.  I might not get to write every single day, because I DO have six children, but I intend to write 40 days worth of what the Lord coming near to me means to me. Some days might actually be encouraging, and some days it might not be fun at all.  But, either way, be sure to understand that as I share my private journey I am by no means negating your own or trying to build mine up as the most horrible thing on Earth.  It will just be me spilling my guts.  Some thoughts I have I am literally ashamed for having, but Jesus loves me anyway!  All of our journeys are different and unique.  You might not be going through sorrow and loss, but maybe you want to be able to identify with someone who is.  There could be dozens of reasons why the Lord would have me share.  I just want to make sure you understand that just because what I'm going through isn't as fierce as other sorrows of this life, doesn't mean that this isn't hard for me.  Maybe my sharing is just as simple as that.  Maybe it is as simple as the acknowledgement that I need to have this format that I can look back on in order to remember later what God brought me through.  I have so much that the Lord is coming near to me with that I need to place these thoughts somewhere.  A couple of the thoughts are what others have shared with me and they need to be reshared.  Some thoughts will probably be as simple as lyrics.  I hope that if you choose to make this journey with me, that you can identify with at least parts of it.  I pray that I can be an encouragement and a blessing... even if I whine a little... or a lot?  I'm not sure what this will actually end up looking like.  This is day one, afterall and I have no exact plan except to keep traveling what I'm traveling one day at a time. 

Cheers to the journey,