my heart lately…

Every once in a while throughout my repetitive, tiring, and joy-filled days, I keep thinking “I need to write a post about that.”  I keep wanting to put something down about the thoughts and feelings that peek up out of my mind and heart.  Yet, the time I typically feel inspired to blog is at night.  And, now, well… I often choose sleep instead of capturing my inspiration.  Or, I indulge in the allure of creativity on pinterest.  Yeah, ok, I’ve spent a lot of my free time on pinterest lately.  But, it’s SOOOO fun!

Tonight, I am forsaking both sleep and pinterest – both endeavors that I enjoy very much lately – to take a moment and try to capture some of the fleeting thoughts that have been swimming through my mind.  Here are a few…

JOY

I have so much joy in my life right now.  My little Lela Jubilee!  What a treasure!  What a sweet, delicious, burst of delight to my soul!  My heart wants to explode from her cuteness!  I cannot contain how sweet she is to me!  When she smiles, I explode inside!  Sometimes, I see it in her, too.  The joy, the exuberance, the happiness.  When a smile cannot fully express her delight and she squeals with excitement!  Ahh – what a happiness has come into my life!  And her name is Lela Jubilee!

RENEWAL

Since Lela has been born, God has given me two symbols of the renewed happiness in my heart: singing and the orchid.

First – I have started singing again.  I always used to sing around my house.  Even through my grad school days, I would just sing loudly all around the house – hymns, musicals, whatever – regardless of the various roommates and housemates I had.  I LOVE singing!  I mean truly, really madly LOVE it!  If I could have requested a special talent from God, I would have requested a broadway quality singing voice.  Music makes me feel so alive, and making music (whether through my voice or through an instrument) is exhilarating!

Well, at some point in the past five years or so, I just stopped singing.  I would still sing at church, of course.  But, I stopped singing during my every day.  I think it happened when I moved overseas, and I lived with a roommate I didn’t know very well and with whom I never really clicked.  It was hard living in India, and I think I pulled into myself to protect myself.  Then, I moved back to the states but to essentially a new place where I started all over with relationships.  Then, there was the challenge of a new job.  The struggles of figuring out marriage and the captivation of my Sweet Love.  I got distracted.  I forgot to sing, and I let my voice go quiet.

Then, of course, my Talitha Asha died, and I was devastated.  The idea of singing never even entered my mind.  If it would have, I know I could never have done it.  God gave me dancing during that season.  But, singing required a joy and strength and a stability that I lacked.  When I would try to sing the worship songs in church, the hopeful words would often rip open my cracked heart, and I would crumple into tears.  My heart was so fractured that there were no words for my voice to sing.  My arms were empty, and my voice was empty, too.

However, since Lela has been born, I have started singing again!  I did not think about it.  I did not decide one day that I would re-incorporate music into my every day.  It just happened!  Music just spontaneously gushed out of me!  My heart is so full of joy, that the happiness just overflowed in music sung to my sweet baby girl!

Lela loves when I sing!  I sing to her when I change her diaper, and she smiles and smiles.  With Lela, God has brought music back into my every day life!

Second – my orchid is blooming again!

Sometime last year (I don’t remember when), Bill bought me a potted purple orchid.  (Orchids are one of my very favorite flowers.)  I enjoyed the orchid, and I watered it.  But, eventually, all the flowers fell off, and it got shuffled to the back laundry room on a neglected ledge.  I managed to water it – oh, maybe six times – over about 12 to 15 months time.  I am sure that I went at least three months without ever giving the blasted plant even one droplet of moisture.

Yet, about two weeks ago, Bill asked me if I had noticed that the orchid in the laundry room had some blooms on it!  What?!  I thought for sure that the poor thing was a goner.  But, no!  The orchid had several tiny little buds!  It was alive!

Over the past week, the buds have started to blossom, and the oft-neglected orchid has produced many beautiful, purple flowers!  Oh the beauty!  Oh the hope that this orchid represents to me!  During my saddest days of 2011, the life inside of this plant lie dormant.  The potential for beauty to spring forth again remained – bound up – inside this sad plant.  This orchid sat on a dusty ledge for months and months (probably for most of 2011).  And, then, one day, it just decided it was time to grow some flowers again.  that it was time for the potential of beauty to become a reality again.  It was time for beauty to return.  Oooh – I love the symbolism of that hopeful orchid in my life!

WEEPING WITH THOSE WHO WEEP

Now that my every day is full of mostly joy, I have been wondering how to continue to walk with those whose every days are full of mostly sadness.  I was there not so long ago. I remember when sorrow dominated my experiences.  I remember experiencing every day through a hazy and oppressive cloud of sadness.

Yet, sadness is not the season that God has me walking in now.  He has given me renewed joy and hope (as I have mentioned above).  So, what do I do with all that happiness as I try to be a friend to those who are in a season of grieving?  It is a hard question, and it has given me greater compassion to all those who did not know how to walk with me in grief after Talitha died.

I do think that the pain of losing Talitha and the persistent – though not dominant – feelings of sadness and longing I still feel for Talitha – do help me to walk with my hurting friends.  I pray that I am more sensitive.  I pray that my words are validating and not wounding.  Yet, I cannot help but wonder whether the glaring joy that God has brought into my life now sometimes smacks my hurting friends in the face.

How can I grieve with those who grieve, when I am now dancing for joy after my own season of grieving and mourning has subsided?  Please show me, Lord.

STILL MISSING TALITHA

Experiencing the joy of living with Lela every day has also made me miss Talitha more.  I see more clearly what was stolen from me and Bill when Talitha died.  In this life time, I never saw – and never will see – Tali smile during this life.  I never got to hold her in my arms alive.  I never held her and watched her breathe.  Her body was limp and dead.  Awful, awful, awful.  I want, I wish, I could have held my Talitha while she was alive.  I wish I could have experienced having her as an outside baby.  I still miss my Talitha, my firstborn.  All the joys of new life of having Lela will never fix the fact that I do not have Talitha.  I am greedy.  I want them both.  I love them both.  They are both my daughters.  My sweet, beautiful daughters.  They both look like Bill, my Sweet Love…

Sometimes, when I am talking with Lela, I tell her how much I love her… how grateful I am to be her mother… how happy I am to spend every day with her.  My heart is so happy to be with her every day.  Yet, my heart is so sad to be away from Talitha for the rest of my life.  Tears of extreme joy and extreme sorrow flow from me.  This is part of my life, too.  They are inseparable.

Anyway, it is late – soo late.  I am hopeful that little Lela will sleep in tomorrow morning.  I am so tired lately.  But, of course, it is SO worth it!

Loving you all out there.  I hope these words are helpful to you.  One reason for my hesitance in writing lately is the joy that I now feel.  But, I do want to continue to be real. It is real that God can give great blessings after great sorrow.  He does not always choose to do that in this lifetime, but sometimes He does.  This time, in my life, He has.  And, I believe I am supposed to proclaim His blessings in my life!  Not to hurt others who are feeling pain, but to offer hope that God does do new things in our lives!

Love,

Kate

Precious Girl

What a beautiful joy. What a precious little girl. I am so thankful for her life. I am so thankful that I get to wake up to this sweetness. My sweet, beautiful Jubilee. I love you so much. Love, mommy

She’s here!

Our second-born daughter, Lela Jubilee, was born a few weeks ago!  (Lela is pronounced “lee – luh”.)  She is wonderful and soft and sweet, and we love her so much!  (I could seriously just stare at her all day long!)

Thank You, Lord, for this precious gift!

Getting ready for our outside baby!

Seeing that we are pregnant, people often ask us “Is this your first?”

Depending on the context (new friend or stranger at the check out), we have responded in different ways.  Sometimes, I say that this is our second and then only explain that our first daughter died if the conversation demands that revelation.

However, one way that we both have started to explain our children to others is to say that we are expecting our first “outside” baby or our first “take home” baby.  This helps me to be able to convey the excitement that I feel right now, as I look forward to this little girl joining our lives.  When people ask “Is this your first?” and then I tell them that we lost our first, they are understandably sorry for our loss.  I appreciate their compassion – truly!  However, I do not feel stuck in those feelings of sadness myself, and I want others to come with me to the good feelings of excitement and joy I have over this new little one!  So, I have found myself saying things like “but, this is our first baby to take home, and we are really excited!”

I have also explained to people that this is the first opportunity I have had to prepare for a baby – for example, by getting her nursery ready.  I know this is not true of all parents who have lost a child.  Some parents have had showers and prepared the nursery, only to return home with empty arms and a room full of baby stuff.  That must be so, so hard.  I know it is still difficult for Bill and me to know what to do with some of the items that people had already given Talitha while we were expecting.  (Should we keep those books out so that our other children can read them?  Wouldn’t they all share these things, if she had lived, anyway?  What things should we keep special – just for her?)

However, in our situation, this is the first time we have been able to prepare so much for our baby.  Our families and friends have given us baby showers.  I have washed and folded and put away baby clothes.  And, I have been preparing her room for her!  I love doing these things!  And, I love that they are all new experiences that do not have shadows of sorrow hanging over them.

So, I thought it would be fun to show a few photos of what I have been doing to prepare our little girl’s room!  This is a stool that I got from my Grandpa’s shed, after he died.  All the grandkids got to pick a few things, and I think we got this stool and a pair of pruning shears.

I have been using this stool in our kitchen (in this same, scuzzy state) for over a year.  I have been meaning to re-paint it at some point, but I finally just got the inspiration and motivation to do it!  While dreaming about nursery colors and schemes months ago, I had planned and hoped to make a pouf, like these, this, or this.  But, then, I realized that this old stool had some untapped potential that I could maximize.

So, first, I sanded the stool and spray-painted it with some turquoise paint I had.

Then, I used an old yellow placemat to cover the stool.  The placemat was a little too short and too wide, so I cut the placemat and sewed it together to the correct dimensions.

Then, I tacked down the edges of the placemat and stuffed the placemat for a little padding.  That’s it!  Ta da!

And, here is a photo of the stool in the room:

And, here’s a photo of the other side of the room.  You can see the ribbon curtains I made – I found the inspiration on pinterest!  (We left up the bed for family who will be visiting us over the next several months, since she will be sleeping in a bassinet in our room for a while, anyway.)

It is so fun to create and to get ready to meet my new baby girl!  Hopefully, we will meet her this week!

Show me Your goodness

In the past week or so, God has been working on me.  At women’s ministry on Thursday, our pastor’s wife shared that she has struggled with thoughts that could have come right out of my head and heart:

“I want to believe that You are good.
I want to trust You.
I just need to see that You are good.”

Exactly!  I have definitely struggled with God’s goodness.  and with trusting God.  because of what happened with Talitha and because of the suffering I have seen in close friends’ lives.  Why would God, who loves us, not rescue us from this pain?  Here are some thoughts I recently wrote in my journal:

I think I have been thinking/feeling these things:
Lord, it’s not fair.  How could You let Your people suffer so much if You really love us?  You owe us to rescue us.  If our earthly fathers would save us from this pain, why won’t you?  Why won’t You rescue us?  If you love us, why don’t You save us / heal us / resurrect us?  Why, Lord?

I don’t know how to correct my thinking.  Maybe it’s ok that I think like this.  I know I am missing something key here, though.

This journalling was during a prayer and worship night at our friends’ house (something that Bill and I have not attended for quite some time b/c we either have something else going on or b/c we are tired, etc.  Isn’t it interesting how it has been so convenient not to attend something that always is so helpful to us?)  Anyway, I think God met me during this time and started to show me a more clear perspective.  I continued:

You do not owe us anything.  We deserve hell – eternal suffering  and pain and misery.  Yet, You offer us freedom and heaven and eternal joy.
Our suffering is temporary.
Our joy is eternal.
Give us grace to endure these light and momentary afflictions.

Then, I remembered that there is a verse about light and momentary afflictions, so I looked it up and found 2 Corinthians 4:16-18:

16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer selft is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. 17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

Isn’t it amazing how God can speak to us, right after we ask Him to show us something or to change our thinking?  I need to remember that and ask Him to show me more things regarding my doubt or struggles.  For example, our pastor’s wife said that she has learned to become a student of God’s goodness, asking Him to reveal His goodness to her through His Word.  Makes sense.  I want to become a student of God’s goodness, too.

Lord, please show me how to trust You.  Show me how You are good.  Thank You for reminding me that all of the suffering we experience on earth is temporary and that You are preparing us for eternal joy with You.

waiting and trusting – or, trying my best, anyway!

Lord, here we are waiting.  It is hard.  This baby is alive and healthy, and I want her to stay like that.  Please protect her.  Please help her to come before her due date, so I don’t have to wonder if she will die inside of me anymore.  I just want her to come out and be healthy and alive.  It would be good if we didn’t have to do any interventions for that to happen, but Talitha’s birth was really perspective-shifting for me – showing me that medical interventions like induction, epidurals, or even c-sections are not the worst thing in the world.  None of those things matter compared to having your baby alive.

I told my counselor that I wanted this girl to be born early because I didn’t know if I would be trusting God if I asked for an induction on or soon after her due date.  My counselor said she didn’t think I needed to make the question of whether to induce into a sin issue or into an issue of whether I trusted God.  - basically, that I didn’t need to be so hard on myself about wanting to make sure this baby was born while she was still healthy and alive.

I do that sometimes – see the world in black and white:  ”If I wait for labor to begin on its own, then I am trusting God.  If I do anything to make labor start, then I am not trusting God.”  But, does God really work like that?  Is He really so harsh in judging our motives as we can be?  I don’t think so.  I think He understands that I want what is best for my baby, that I love my baby, and that I want to hold her in my arms alive…

Am I being defensive in this?  There are so many opinions about labor and delivery.  I know that some of my friends do not like any interventions and that some of my friends are all about them.  I think I land somewhere in the middle.  I don’t want interventions, but I now see that the entire debate about interventions is not really so important compared to having a healthy, living baby.  Whether my baby is alive is a whole lot more important to me than whether or not I take pitocin.  Who freakin’ cares whether I have an epidural if she dies?!

This is basically what happened during my labor and delivery of Talitha.  During that pregnancy as I looked toward her delivery, I had hoped not to use any interventions – no pitocin, no epidural, and definitely not a c-section.  But, then she died, and suddenly none of that seemed to matter at all.  I was induced into labor.  I did have an epidural.  But, those things were so obviously not the point anymore.  Of course, I also would have gladly had a c-section if it meant that Talitha would have lived.

It is still important to decide what intervention is appropriate or necessary, and I still want to keep intervention at a minimum.  I guess I just see now that avoiding intervention is not the most important concern I have about labor and delivery.  In the grand scheme of things, how much does it matter?

Lord, please help me to listen to You and to not be distracted by the many voices around me.  You love this baby.  You love Bill and me.  You knew what You were doing when You made us her parents.  I believe that You trust us to make good decisions for her and for us.

We trust You.  Please show us clearly what to do step by step, in Your timing.

5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; 6 In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.

Proverbs 3:5-6

I know that Your word is a light to our path and that You direct us through it.  I kept reading in Proverbs 3 and found some more help in Your Word:

19 The LORD by wisdom founded the earth,
By understanding He established the heavens.
20 By His knowledge the deeps were broken up
And the skies drip with dew.
21 My son, let them not vanish from your sight;
Keep sound wisdom and discretion,

22 So they will be life to your soul
And adornment to your neck.
23 Then you will walk in your way securely
And your foot will not stumble.
24 When you lie down, you will not be afraid;
When you lie down, your sleep will be sweet.

25 Do not be afraid of sudden fear
Nor of the onslaught of the wicked when it comes;
26 For the LORD will be your confidence
And will keep your foot from being caught.

Proverbs 3:19-26

Wow – it is so much easier to cut and paste than to write out verses! Ha!  Anyway, thank You for Your Word, Lord, and thank You for Your promises.  Please give Bill and me wisdom, understanding, knowledge, and discretion as we continue walking through the last days of this pregnancy.  I claim Your promises for peace and no fear.  You are my confidence!

the need for grace

I talked to my sister today about suffering and encouragement and how friends can relate to others who have suffered or who are suffering.  We both tried to wrap our heads around the issue and tried to express what our hearts were struggling to understand.

It is just such a hard thing.  How can we walk together with someone in their sadness, giving them the room to feel the sadness without making them feel worse?

I said that very often I have been more encouraged by people who have not tried to encourage me in my grief, worry, fear, etc – but by those people who have empathized and validated my feelings.  Sometimes it feels like people just want you to be happy again – which of course is a good thing to hope for your friend.  But, it can mean so much more when people are just willing to sit with you in your sadness and not try to push you to a “better” place.

Practically speaking, I have been very encouraged when others have said validating things like “Talitha mattered,” “I miss Talitha,” “I’ve been thinking about you lately,” or “it must be hard not to worry.”  On the other hand, “encouraging” words like “God has His reasons” or “you really have to fight fear” have not been as helpful.  I know the latter statements are true.  But, I really don’t want to hear them, you know?  especially if they are from people who have not suffered like we have.

Even so, while typing that last sentence, I feel in my gut that I am being too harsh to people who really do mean well.  Friends want to help.  They want to encourage.  They genuinely want you/me to come to a victorious, better place in our hearts.  Sometimes, it is not possible or it is not time.  And, sometimes, people push too much.  And, sometimes, they really should be willing to sit with us in our grief and our fear and worry.

And, sometimes… it is me who is the one who needs to be more understanding and who needs to learn to give more grace to someone who is just trying her best to be a good friend.

It is a strange dance… this thing of friendship – especially when one person suffers and the other sees it and hurts for their friend and so wishes they could make the suffering end and offer some piece of hope.

Lord, please help us all to have grace with one another.