When I was in high school and college, I filled my spaces – my bathroom walls, my shower wall, my daily planner with beautiful, inspiring quotes from favorite authors, characters of books or movies, from songs, and from the Bible. One of the ones that was taped on the wall of my shower said, 

 

“’I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world, you will have trouble. But be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.’ – Jesus”

Despite recognizing the beauty in this quote from Jesus, and feeling inspired by it, I had had very little reason to understand it. My childhood had been perfect… ideal in every way.  I grew up on a cul-da-sac, where I spent hours riding bikes, climbing trees, and playing games with my sister and six other kids, one of who happened to be my best friend and Dad’s associate pastor’s child. It was the childhood depicted in the best stories or movies, as I was surrounded by joy and life was fun, memorable, and full of play. Adding to the beauty of my childhood was that I also grew up with sound, mature theology. My Dad was my pastor, and although pastor’s kids have a reputation of being rebellious, I admired and respected both my Mom and Dad, because they lived what the preached. I often think pastor’s kids go “wrong” because they see their parents doing one thing at home and doing another thing in public. My parents never allowed their congregants expectations to guide them in the way that they raised us, but rather their own convictions, and as a result, I never strayed. I loved to sit in on conversations that my Dad and his associate pastor and closest friend would have. I grew up listening to them discuss their prayer meditations of the Psalms, something Dad has been doing for over 30 years, or their discussions of books from the likes of C.S. Lewis or Henry Nouwen… conversations where “iron sharpened iron”, and I sat on the sidelines learning. I have loved Jesus my whole life, and I have experienced Him in some deep ways. 

Yet somehow, despite my sound theology, happy childhood, and love of Jesus, I had grown to misunderstand the concept of God’s “plan” for our lives and His “desire” for our happiness. I now refer to the false theology that I had unwittingly adopted as “the entanglement of Christianity and the American dream”. Three days after my 31st birthday, on May 24, 2014, my world came crashing down on me when I had a terrible and traumatic delivery of my premature (29 week) twins. Ironically, not even 12 hours before I had sat with my feet propped up on the dashboard of my husband’s car, talking about a "birth plan", and I had said, “I have been praying about this delivery since the day I found out I was having twins… and I believe that God, who gave me these twins, will get me through this delivery.” I would never EVER have considered myself a “name it and claim it” kind of Christian, but there I was, assuming that I understood God’s plans, and claiming that my prayers had guaranteed me an outcome that I hoped for. It seems kind of arrogant now looking back on it that I assumed that I knew that God wanted me to have a smooth delivery, or that I knew what was in His plans… but somehow, along the way, despite being a Christian well versed on the shipwrecks and imprisonments of Paul, the sufferings of Job, the crucifixion of Jesus... I had without realizing it become a Christian who believed that if I prayed about it, then God would do it for me, and that if I wanted it, then God must want it too. 

 

Later, looking back on my attitude, I realized that my Christianity had gotten tangled up with my American dream. I had unconsciously grown to believe that if I worked hard enough to do “right” and to have a good and happy life, that I could achieve it. Essentially, I truly thought that I believed that God was in control, but my actions and even my prayers suggested that I actually thought I was, and that much was dependent on my own positive attitude and dreams. And in this false understanding, I made the serious error of assuming that when God answered one prayer (i.e. to get pregnant… and he had shown me his will lined up with my will on this issue…) that it would mean that His will for the entire process (i.e. the delivery) would also line up with my will in the same way. When 12 hours after my declaration of “Him getting me through…” I had a very bad and traumatic labor and subsequent delivery, it felt as if God had abandoned me. Well, not immediately…honestly, if it had just been just a bad delivery, I think I would have seen it and declared it as “God making beauty from the unexpected”, and continued falsely believing that his ultimate goal is my happiness. 

 

The journey of understanding that God is good, even when he does not answer our prayers the way we pray, and that joy does not equate to happy, began in time, after we got our twins home from the NICU, and we began to realize that one of our daughters had some motor problems (and was eventually diagnosed with cerebral palsy). My initial reaction, however, was not that God was good, but rather that my prior confidence in God's provision had been stupid and naive, and ultimately anger set in. 

I knew ALL the right things to say to my friends and family… I could talk all day about, “finding purpose in the pain of the NICU, and the blessings of the girls not being worse off…” I had grown up so immersed in Christian lingo, that it was easy to pretend that I was okay, despite the fact that I felt that my heart had been stabbed with a knife and I could feel the blood and my life spilling out of it. And the thing was, I wanted to be angry… I could barely talk to my Dad, because he had been the figurehead that I had most seen God reflected in… I could not bear to hear him insist on God’s goodness despite his granddaughter, my daughter, struggling to learn basic movements and motor skills. I held on to the anger, and lashed out at those who encouraged me to find beauty or hope in the situation.  

 

After months of feeling like I was suffocating in anger and grief, two things happened to start my process towards healing.  The first was that my sister said to me one day while we talked on the phone, “If this handicap is her fate, you can not fix it or control it, but the one thing you can control, and the one thing you she deserves for you to give her is a joyful Mom.” And I knew she was right… and so I began to try. I began Christian   grief counseling, and began to try to let go of the bitterness that was beginning to define my attitude. 

 

The second thing that happened was discovering Tim Keller’s book, “Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering.” I have an acquaintance who has twin daughters with a genetic mutation that has caused a severe handicap in both of her girls. She had shared some quotes from this book on her Instagram page, and I had bought it within seconds of reading the quote. As I read and processed the words in this book, I began to peel away at the false theology that I had unknowingly come to believe. So much in that book is just basic Christianity, but I realize now that when you grow up hearing it, and unfamiliar with true suffering, you can almost become dulled or unimpressed by the sufferings of Jesus. 

 

In time, I began to try to view my situation and my grief through the lens of the cross. It has not been an easy road, but the healing began when I began to understand and recognize my false assumption that Christianity equals American Dream, perfect life. I do find grief to be like an ocean… vast, strong, and unpredictable. You may think you’ve found a sweet spot that you can kick back in, floating on your back, and out of no where a wave can crash down on you.. sometimes the waves are rough but quick, and sometimes they can be strong, and suck you down until you are not certain if you will ever stop spinning, much less be able to rest, but thanks to the new clarity and renewed love and appreciation for Jesus’ wounds and sacrifices. Over the last 5 years since I first began the healing process of learning to trust God again, while letting go of the idea that my goals equals God’s goals, the grief has stopped making me feel angry. I am capable of seeing the pain through the lens of the cross. God has truly given me the peace that Jesus speaks to in my quote, and that so long ago I could not fully understand. I have now experienced crushing, heart-wrenching pain in this world, but because of it I am more hopeful, and more grateful that Jesus has overcome this world, and that one day every pain will be undone, every tear will be wiped away, and we will experience happiness as it is meant to be known.

tummy time

I have only been a parent for a very short while, but even in that short while I have begun to understand more clearly the concept of God, as a "Father".

The girls had only been home from the hospital about a month. I was trying to do all of the things I had been told to do, to encourage their growth and development. One of the things they needed to do most to help get them up to speed was "tummy time". The doctors had told me that they wanted them to have ten to fifteen minutes of tummy time three times a day to improve their strength. Because they were premies, it is even more important, because they are starting out behind for their age (although appropriate for their gestation). In the beginning, they could barely pick their heads up off the ground. Eventually tummy time will strengthen their neck muscles, as well as their arm and leg muscles… so that they will eventually learn to crawl and walk. They HATE HATE HATE tummy time.

One particular day I had laid the girls down on their playmates for their 15 minutes. It is getting better, but usually they fuss and cry during the majority of the tummy time session. I hate hearing them cry, but I know how important it is for them to do this exercise. I sit and watch them… even though I could jump to their rescue. Sometimes I have to stand a little distance so that I do not run to their rescue. Most of the time, however, I stand or sit very close…watching…hoping they can pacify themselves, but ready to scoop them up when they need me most… when I know they have taken all they can take. One day, when sitting, watching, even hurting for them, yet knowing that it was for their best, I was reminded of God. He sees our pain…he sees our trials, and although He could rescue us, He often does not. Yet does that mean He is far off? Or is it that He sits closer than even the good and easy times? In the same way that I know that their "suffering" during tummy time is actually what is going to allow them to grow strong… so that they can someday walk and have a wonderful (much more enjoyable) life than they currently have, He sees that even in our trials, we are being stripped of the bad in our lives, and IF WE ALLOW it, we can emerge out of the times stronger than we ever knew we could be. 

God is not far off. I bet if you could see Him, you could see that like me, our Father sits close, watching, occasionally offering a pacifier to help us get through our "tummy time", and ready to scoop us up if we are ever truly in danger…or when we have had more than we can bare. 

I hope that I can learn to be thankful for the "tummy times" of my life. I hope that I can realize that it is those times that will teach me to crawl…and then to one day stand...

Van's bad dream

Van's bad dream that I want to remember forever:

This morning Van rolled over and said groggily but convincingly, "ohhh I just had the WORST dream."

The way he said it, I assumed he had dreamed about sharks or something else really awful. I asked him what it was and he said:

"I dreamed that it was back when we were dating… we weren't married, and we had given up our relationship, but we had remained friends. We were at a mutual friends' wedding, both with other people… and both engaged to these other people. I asked you to dance, and while we were dancing, I kept thinking, "I should have married HER!  Then I woke up and was so relieved that I had, and that the dream was not my reality!"

I am so fortunate to have a husband who loves, cherishes, and values me the way he does. So glad I didn't mess it all when we were dating (as I many times tried to push him away…)

NICU days

Monday June 9^th, 2014

I feel like I woke up two weeks and two days ago on a Saturday and that since that time two years has passed. Today I would have been 32 weeks pregnant. I would have taken a picture of my ever growing twin belly for my weekly belly journey documentation. I would have been stiff, achy, swollen, and quite miserable, but I wouldn’t be driving to the hospital in about an hour for the second time today, and for what seems like the millionth time in the past two weeks. I would have been much less tired, but I wouldn’t yet know that my sweet Annika and Elliana would be dark haired little beauties, or what their little toes and noses look like. It’s a bittersweet experience, this whole NICU – premie thing. I have grieved the too soon end of my pregnancy. I have grieved that I cannot feel their little kicks inside of me, but rather I must leave them in in a hospital isolette multiple times a day… that I only get to hold them a few hours of the 24 that they’re on my mind and in my prayers… yet despite the grief, I have experienced the tenderness and love of something so small and helpless, and I know that I am already a better person because of them.

I journaled the details of my delivery in a straight forward kind of way right after the delivery, just so that I could remember it in the future. (Not that I can believe that I will ever forget the trauma of it completely.) That particular entry is not something that would be all that enjoyable to read (too long, detailed, and maybe even boring). So to sum it up and keep it short, I’ll just say that the day I went into premature labor (May 24^th) at 29 5/7 weeks was a day that was full of shock. I never anticipated it. Never dreamed that it could or would happen to me. And even as I was in the OR, fully dilated, without an epidural and trying to push Annika out, knowing that I would then receive a c-section for Elliana, in my mind, I was thinking, “THIS CANNOT BE HAPPENING!” It felt like such a bad and impossible nightmare.

In some ways, the days that followed the delivery are still a blurry haze. Some of the blur is likely due to the fact that I received a general anesthetic for my delivery… but some of it is because I was running on adrenaline and no sleep. Amazingly I have only cried four times that I can think of. Not that I am bragging about this… just simply stating that I have been too busy to cry. There is no time to cry or worry because I must pump and hold them and do whatever I can to be strong, so that they will be strong.

Everyday of these first weeks has been filled with thoughts on when they could be taken off of CPAP, and then when they could come off of their nasal cannulas; when Annika could get off of her phototherapy for jaundice; what their weights were; when they would be weaned from their TPN and receive only nutrition from their OG tubes; when Annika would get her umbilical vein IV out so that I could hold her… and now two weeks after their birth, we’ve moved past all of those worries and thoughts and I find new things to think and worry about: like if they are still gaining weight (they weighed their birth weights again on Thursday the 5^th! and went past it on Friday!); how will we succeed with breast feeding; when will they stop dropping their oxygen sats; when can we bring them home…

But like I learned when going through anesthesia school – you take a huge, daunting task and deal with it one day at a time. And then one day, without even realizing it, you have managed to survive the daunting task, and you realize you were stronger than you ever realized you could be. In my case it’s not that I am so strong, but that God is making me strong…

This past Friday (the sixth), I was reading my devotion for the day. The verse on the page beside it (for the seventh) caught my attention, as it was a verse that I had mediated on for months during my “break” from fertility treatments. I opened up my Bible to re-read it (Lamentations 3: 19-33).

On July 11^th of 2013 I had written in the margins, of my Bible, “this verse (25-27) and chapter in general has been one that I have been meditating on for the last month or two… learning to have “passionate patience”. As I re-read the chapter, thoughts of what had lead me to this verse came flooding back. Thoughts of fear, pain, and anxiety… I remembered that I had been dealing with such anxiety that I felt that I could not be restful. That I could not be silent. I felt ALL THE TIME that I had just drank three times the amount of coffee I should be allowed.

As a result of the anxiety I had been feeling, I had decided to take a break from fertility treatments and I had begun to seek out “rest”, as I mediated on Matthew 11:28 (“come to me all you who are weary…and I will give you a “real” rest…” message translation uses “real” rest – which I loved)… and it was then during the introspective times of my “rest” period that I had found this other verse in Lamentations that talked about learning to have “passionate patience”… another concept that I began to meditate on, as well as seek to achieve in my life. Almost a year later, having had my fears of infertility dissipate, I couldn’t help but feel in awe of how much God had taught me about trust, patience, and resting in Him during that season of my life. And without even realizing it, the lessons I had learned then have been what have sustained and strengthened me during this crazy, chaotic, overwhelming NICU time. It occurred to me as I was remembering all of this that this entire time since their birth, despite the chaos, high intensity, and high stress of our lives, I have KNOWN rest, peace, and trust. And this rest and peace has been possible only because I first experienced two years of painful growth.

How much harder and more exhausting would it have been to have jumped in feet first into the NICU experience, not knowing how to rest and trust? How much easier it was to learn it when two little lives that I love weren’t at stake! I found myself grateful to the point of tears that my pain had purged my heart enough that I would be ready to be my best for them… grateful for the painful growth. Sometimes we never understand why… and then sometimes we do.  This week I understand at least some of the why’s of then, and maybe someday I’ll understand the why’s of now. But one thing I am confident of: there is a why, and whether I understand it or not, I will trust that He is in control.