Day #11 You Are Just Plain Hard To Get!

I haven't posted in a while.  :-)  I've actually been working on several posts at one time that aren't finished.  Though I feel I've been writing, others of you have let me know I haven't!  Haha!  Actually, thanks for letting me know that.  Y'all are sweet for saying you miss me posting.  I've been asking questions to other miscarriage survivors, intending on not making the next few posts all my own thoughts and words.  The questions are "How can friends support friends going through this sort of loss?"  "How can husbands help their spouses?"  "What are some ways that helped you cope and heal?"  There are lots of blogposts and websites out there on these topics, but I'm going to certainly be sharing some of my own thoughts and some from others as well.  If I haven't contacted you asking these questions, but you have some thoughts, let me know them!  Your thoughts will be confidential since the point is not going to be for me to say, "this is how I feel, but this is how so&so felt."

Anyway, because I haven't been actually posting, I want to share the following song that has been in my head a lot lately.  At least several lines of it.  One of the things I always loved about Rich Mullins is that he wrote with complete open honesty.  

If while reading this your eyes gloss over or you just read it fast... then you need to re-read it!

Hard To Get
by Rich Mullins

You who live in heaven
Hear the prayers of those of us who live on earth
Who are afraid of being left by those we love
And who get hardened in the hurt.
Do you remember when
You lived down here where we all scrape
To find the faith to ask for daily bread?
Did you forget about us after You had flown away?
Well, I memorized every word You said.
Still I'm so scared I'm holding my breath,
While You're up there just playing hard to get.

You who live in radiance
Hear the prayers of those of us who live in skin.
We have a love that's not as patient as Yours was,
Still we do love now and then.
Did You ever know loneliness?
Did You ever know need?
Do You remember just how long a night can get?
When You are barely holding on
And Your friends fall asleep
And don't see the blood that's running in Your sweat.
Will those who mourn be left uncomforted
While You're up there just playing hard to get?

-And I know you bore our sorrows

And I know you feel our pain.

-And I know that it would not hurt any less

Even if it could be explained.

-And I know that I am only lashing out

At the One who loves me most.

-And after I have figured this, somehow,

What I really need to know...

Is if You who live in eternity

Hear the prayers of those of us who live in time.

We can't see what's ahead

And we cannot get free from what we've left behind.

I'm reeling from these voices that keep screaming in my ears.

-All these words of shame and doubt, blame and regret.

I can't see how You're leading me unless You've led me here

To where I'm lost enough to let myself be led.

-And so You've been here all along, I guess.

It's just Your ways and You are just plain hard to get!

*******

In case you do not know, this is a song from an album called The Jesus Record that he didn't get to professionally record before he died.  There is an album professionally done by friends and then there's a demo album he recorded in an old abandoned church building.  It's the recording I prefer, of course.  The following youtube recording of the song is from that one.  And yes... the words are there again, but I wrote all of them on my blog on purpose.  I felt them as I typed them.  I cried it out about how frustrating it is that he lives in Eternity and I live in time.  For me, my thoughts about not seeing what's ahead and not being free from what I've left behind feels like a frustrating mess.  

Hard To Get

Day 10: Those Damn Tears

6 months from now even, I'm going to regret the title of this post.  I'm going to want to think, "Good grief, Shelly.  Couldn't you have called them 'sweet' tears or something else!?!"  But because I'm being real and raw here I need to actually remember how I feel today.  My title will make me giggle some day, like it has already made some of you giggle!!  But I will automatically remember the way I truly felt today!  I'm pretty ticked off right now, actually, about life not being fair and stuff!  And I if I'm going to cry or cuss under my breath, it's usually going to happen when I'm mad.

I had all but resolved to not write a single word on Pearl's due date today...  Really, honestly, today mostly felt just like any other day.  The hardest part was the days leading up to today, but I didn't have any words on those days either.  And honestly, sweet and sentimental is just not where I'm at today like I might wish!

My babies usually come a couple of days before the due date.  When I initially found out our baby was due on July 6th, I loved that because I imagined myself holding a baby in the hospital on Independence Day, a favorite holiday amongst the people in this house!  Might not get to see fireworks this time, I thought, but the birthday parties would be so much fun!!

My friend Megan and I chatted a lot last week.  7 years ago she lost a baby during this holiday.  7 years ago... and yet she still found herself crying on the phone with me about it.  I was feeling pretty strong on the day that she needed to cry, but it wouldn't have mattered if I was feeling strong that day or not, actually.  The time is always perfect when you know that you are able to pick up the phone and talk to someone who understands what you are going through.  Yes, life after miscarriage eventually gets easier, but there are difficult moments and memories and the tears still find the way to sneak out when we least expect them!  Megan was recalling on the phone with me that in the midst of her very devastating loss that year, she had to play hostess to visitors from out of town.  I'm not sure how to process how a woman can be going through a miscarriage...  something she did NOT plan or hope for...  and yet no one could change their traveling plans for her.  It's not fair.  It's no wonder it is still painfully difficult to remember 7 years later!  She sobbed all over the newborn baby in her house that wasn't hers.  There were the moments that at least she and her husband were able to have some privacy and share in the depth of that loss.  He was strength for her despite the insensitivities of others.  He stepped up to the tasks and took care of things that she would normally have done, even though he was grieving too and had valid concerns for the physical toll the miscarriage was taking on his wife's body.  Other people don't usually mean to be insensitive, but sometimes a lack of experience coupled with no real desire to understand can make the strongest person crumble underneath the lack of willingness to try and identify.  It's tearfully frustrating!  (This story is shared with Megan's permission. I hope to be writing about ways others can help a friend who is going through such loss in future posts.)

At about midnight this week on July 3rd, I got out of bed and sat on the couch and reached for my Bible.  I couldn't sleep.  I thumbed through a few passages, but it didn't really matter what I was thumbing through because my view was blurry.  My husband surprised me by coming in the living room to sit on the couch with me.  He put his arm around me and I just let the tears go.  Somehow I just knew I should be going to the hospital to have a baby that night and the fact that I was crying on the couch instead made me feel so lost and confused.  I am so thankful for my husband who didn't let me feel lonely.  No words were needed.

On the 4th, my doctor and his family were out of town.  The kids and I took care of their cats and plants while they were gone and they let us use their pool.  I started out the morning by checking on things at their house.  There was a card there for me from Theresa which had words in it that mean more than I can write about.  I'm so thankful for her friendship.  We did enjoy the parade that day with Englert cousins and Whitley got to hold and see baby Jared for the first time, which he had really been looking forward to doing.  That evening we made ourselves right at home at the Rakovs' pool and watched the fireworks show.  Timothy used his new favorite word a lot which is "amazing."  ...  Cutest word ever now, I think!  He pronounces it [amasing].  "Wow!  Amasssing fireworks!!" he said repeatedly in a very quiet, awe-struck voice.

Sunday morning, the 5th, at one point I thought about leaving Sunday school early to go to the prayer room.  I resisted though because I knew what would happen if I went in there.  I'd get to praying about the solo I was about to sing and then I'd also have to think about Pearl and knew that was probably a bad idea.  I'm not normally someone that cries easily, so this whole "crying at the drop of a hat" thing is unchartered territory for me!  Our choir gathers up in the choir room right before the service, so I went in there all about "business" hoping to head the crying off at the pass, so to speak.   I sat in my chair for a bit until I couldn't anymore and ended up stepping into David's office to cry there anyway despite my attempts at not doing so.  I reminded myself over and over to breathe and that I needed to stop.  But telling myself to stop just made it worse.  I looked over the words to my solo, "Heal Our Land."  I asked God to please help me sing the song and mean it and to help me forget my "petty problem" long enough to not just put on a show... but to actually pray the prayer in the song no matter what subject matter I'm dealing with on a personal level.  I reached for David's Bible on his shelf and felt compelled to turn to Romans 12.  We had read some of that in Sunday school, but not the part I was actually thinking about at this moment.  "I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.  Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect."

I don't have anything else to say, really.  Worship is sacrifice.  It's singing a song on a Sunday morning with the hope to honor Him even when it isn't what feels "natural" in the moment.  Worship isn't singing the kind of music we like, in case you wondered if I've changed my mind on that position.  Worship is falling on our faces and still getting up to live in a way that is holy and acceptable, even when it hurts.  Life isn't fair.  God did not "will" my baby's death no matter how many people want to lovingly tell me that.  I won't accept that.  But I'll accept that Jesus works all things together for good and that He has a purpose for me.  (Romans 8:28)  I'll accept a transformation and renewal of my mind so that I may know what His perfect will is.

I'll accept the tears, randomly as they may come, with a side of hope for tomorrow, please!