Thanksgiving

 Happy Thanksgiving ! !!!!

We wanted to take a moment and wish all our family, friends, and partners a very happy thanksgiving. Eric and I are so blessed to have you in our lives.

We are thankful for so many things, most of all the blessing of serving a wonderful, glorious God.  It was so amazing and humbling to attend Eric's grandma's funeral yesterday. She truly lived a life that honored and glorified God. she ran a strong race, and in the end used her last moments (her funeral) to continue to share the good news. It is our prayer that we could have the opportunity to make the impact she has for the kingdom. we will miss her but rejoice that she is now with her Lord.

When the miracle doesn't come

This morning I slept in, which means I woke up too late to make it for my morning work out but early enough to gather a few precious moments resting in bed next to my husband. It was a peaceful morning after an emotional and stressful week. Between the deer that totaled our car, Eric's grandma in the hospital again, his three day journey to take care of his grandpa, and the overload of paperwork and meetings that happens for teachers at conference times, there was little time for quiet moments. Especially in a week this special. 

It isn't the good special, the type where you dress in your best and take pictures to look back on when you are old and remembering the life that gave you wrinkles. But it is special in it's own way, and I believe it always will be. Special in a way that it holds significance, enough to change our lives forever. 

As I pulled up facebook this morning, in my attempt to not think about this week - it let me know I had a memory on this very day, a year ago. It is funny how when you try to not think of something you mind tends to wander there more often, until something blatantly points out what your trying to avoid. When this happens you mind latches on, the excuse to think, reflect, ponder, to dive in deep to what you have been trying for a while to just only skim the top of. A year ago today I posted 

"Believing for a miracle" 

What I didn't realize was a miracle already happened that week. And many miracles would continue to come since that week. However, that specific miracle I was praying for, believing in, clinging to.. never came. What happens when the miracles we are believing for never come? 

A year ago we found out we were a month pregnant. What a beautiful miracle that is - life created and grown by God above. For only he can give life - we can't manufacturer a soul, we can't generate breath. But He can, and He does. It was a miracle I was preparing for my whole life but more recently had been praying for specifically. Around 2 months before this we decided to start the journey to serve as long term missionaries in Somerset. When we made that decision I started praying a very specific prayer. Not a demand or ultimatum, but a request that God would let us get pregnant and have a child before we left. I wanted our parents to be grandparents who got to hold their newborn grandchildren. So when we found out we were pregnant it was my answer to prayer. Which is why when the emergency nurse shared that they were worried about the extreme cramps I knew everything would be ok. 

God was giving me my miracle. 

We prayed, and worshiped, and shared our request and needs with family and friends for 4 days, all the while waiting for our miracle. But this wasn't what God had in store, Isaiah 55:8 the Lord says that 

"my ways are fay beyond anything you could imagine" 

Later a dear friend and amazing prayer warrior would confide that she felt God responding to her please that He wasn't going to move in the way we though because he had something so much more planned and this would be a big part of our story. At the time it was little comfort but today I understand what she means. 

Our pregnancy was atopic and at 5 weeks we lost our son. It was the most heart breaking moment and choice of my life. I remember being in that hospital room holding my husbands hands as we both cried for the loss we were enduring. But even in that moment, when our world was crashing we were not alone in that room. Our God was right there with us. Even if I didn't want to feel it or accept it, if it was hard to understand. He was there holding us tight, wiping our tears. It was hard to reconcile the God that allowed our son to leave us was the same God that was comforting us. He didn't cause it, didn't gleefully take him, didn't carry us only to drop us higher than where we were. His character doesn't allow that. But he does allow things to come in and change us, shape us, and sometimes toss us upside down. But I learned that just because the miracle doesn't come doesn't mean God left. He has promised his faithfulness and promised to never leave us. Duet 31:8 

"He will never leave us, forsake us, or fail us" 

Oh, but in moments like that, in moments in your life when everything you hope for, prayed for, worked for, crashes it doesn't feel that way. Maybe yours isn't losing a child - maybe it is a parent, spouse, job, your health, your independence.. in these times it can feel like God has failed us. 

I was given so many words of encouragement and love and some well meaning trite sayings in hopes to make the pain lessen. But one person gave me permission to grieve and to question God. Not question who He is or His authority but why this happened the way it did. But let me tell you, I did question who He was and how HE could. I had that time where I had to have my heart and head agree and until they did I had to choose which one I was going to listen to. I knew all the Sunday school lessons but did I still believe them when faced with my own loss. Could my relationship with the one who gives life, be the same as it is with the one who takes life away. A.W Tozer mentioned that God's qualities are not like ours, they don't waiver or contradict. They are his character and infinite. Who He is can never contradict who He is. God can never fail us, God can never be anything but good. He is good in his grace and He is good in his sovereignty.

This is where the second miracle came in that week. It was like God saved my heart all over again. Because when ever God allows something to break in your life it is so that He can build you to be more like him. He held me and gave me peace as he allowed me to mourn and yell and wallow. then he gently and lovingly, day by day put my pieces back together. Do you know what. He made the pieces stronger, He filled gaps with more love and grace, he put in more understand of who he was.. that He is God and He is good even when life isn't. He showed me his comfort and his peace and how to stand on those when I couldn't stand on my own. 

On the really bad days, when I would sneak out of bed at 1 in the morning to cry in what would have been his nursery, God was there giving me waves of peace that I couldn't understand. When I would hear of a pregnancy or see a rounded belly, He would remind me that He is what keeps me sustained and He fulfills the desires of my heart. When the longing for a child continued months after the miscarriage and nothing was happening, he reminded me of his timing and plan. that he is still completing the good thing that He had started. 

A year later and I still have struggled with wanting what I was so close to having, to remembering in moments of sadness. There are still pieces of me that God is healing. A year later I am a lot stronger than I was. 

A year later I see the miracles that happened that day. Not the miracles I was praying for, or would have chosen if it were up to me. But miracles that God has put in my life to make me, and my husband, the people we are today. I didn't plan on writing this when I woke up this morning. Didn't plan on it being this long and I never planned on sharing what is written below. But I believe God allows things in our lives so we can encourage and uplift others. That we can show the world His goodness and grace. 

In the hospital room, the night before we lost our son, Eric and I had a time of prayer and devotional together. His word took us to Hannah and how she wept and prayed for her son. That night, together at the feet of our Lord, we wept and prayed for what we believed to be our little boy. We dedicated him to the Lord and asked God to save him. We named him Samuel Josiah Mayer, which means

God has heard him and has saved him. 

I want to say thank you to our friend and family, those who have prayed with us and for us. It is a blessing to be so loved. Thank you if you have read all the way to here, through my ramblings and memories. I hope and pray that it has truly encouraged you. One final though and then I will let you leave. At 1 in the morning, a few days after we were home, I was rocking and crying and God gave me the serenity to write. I have only ever shared it with Eric but I feel the need to put it here. I feel it is not just for me and Samuel, but for all mothers who have lost, for those too broken to put in words what they are thinking. Those too afraid to try again or to hope. The ones who put up a false front and pretend it doesn't hurt because it is not allowed to, because the world says it doesn't count. This is that last step in healing and moving forward, not forgetting, but continuing. One day we know we will see out little boy, hold him for the first time - all at the feet of the God who loved us all through it. 

Dear Child- 

It is so hard, I was your mom for such short a time with both of us on this earth. I never got to count your fingers or hold your toes. I never got to kiss your face or tickle your tummy. All precious moments I'll have with your siblings. It's hard because I didn't have enough time to get used to being a mom before it ended and you left us alone. It's weird sometimes to think that I am a mother, that's because of you, even though you're in heaven. I'll always remember you... years down the road. Wonder what it would be like if you had a chance to grow. Who would you be? Who would you love? Would you have my sense of humor or your dad's energy? Would you get in trouble? Would you love playing outside in the trees?

Sometimes I have to remember I don't need to wait to be a mom, I just need to wait to hold you in my arms. To let you go.. at anytime, honestly I'd love more time with you now. .

It's so weird I can't explain how I can miss someone I didn't even know was there. But I do and I feel it, I feel you not there. 

I am happy your with God and cradled there, but I mourn for all the missed memories here. 

It's so hard to think that though we are parents no one will see the love that is there, that qualifies our hearts to break and our eyes to tear. There's no plaque, no grave, no picture on the wall.. nothing marking the day you fell. Only the scars deep in our hearts and the love that we shared in our circle of three me, you, and your wonderful daddy.

So I cry as I rock in this empty rocking chair and ask God why you couldn't be here. Was it me, my fault, did I do something wrong? and how I could miss someone so much that I never got to see or hug or touch.

So my child, my baby I'll trust and I'll wait. For one day I'll get to see you by those pearly gates. Until that time I trust in our Lord's care and will always whisper my love in a prayer. For no matter how short a time you spent with me I promise your mother I will always be.

God please hold my child tonight because I can't reach him from where I sit, down here in this empty rocking chair. 

I could lie and rationalize... push all these feelings aside and go on as if nothing changed inside. I could say it as so short, that I didn't even know, I could say it was tissue that wouldn't even grow. I could push all my feelings and go on with the day. I could say the right things and hope it stays that way.

But I'd be lying to say he was never a life, that he didn't count because he didn't implant right. Cause the whisper is there in my heart, the truth that I'm missing so much ...No snuggles or tickles, no kisses goodnight. No teething, no walking, no singing or fights. No rocking to sleep with him in my arms. He had a purpose like we all do but that just won't be known.

I love you my baby. I love you my son. I love you for making us parents. I love you for being you. For all that would have been, for all that it was. 

Goodnight my baby, goodnight.