April 11th

Three years ago, April 11th was a very hard day for me.

A couple of days before that day, we had watched Rayna have seizures, get intubated in the emergency room, get rushed to a bigger hospital in an ambulance, and stay in ICU for 2 days. Then her doctor wanted to put her on brain-altering, and potentially personality-altering drugs for the long-term. Thankfully, another doctor disagreed and we were able to bring her home from the hospital without putting her on the medication. But the day after she came home, I, myself was back at the same hospital, finding out I was having a miscarriage. It was a rough, rough week.

I spent some time reflecting on all that last night, and thought about all that has happened since. I also went back to the book that has been so meaningful to me this year, Better Than My Dreams, by Paula Rinehart. Here are some of the things from that book that jumped out at me last night:

This is a broken world, riddled with heartache, in desperate search of a
Savior... I am not living in the land of neat packages.
***
I want to suggest that it's just these places in your experience- - where dreams and expectations don't work out -- that you are being issued the invitation of your
life. Disappointment is, strangely enough, a doorway to the real adventure. It's
the point where you start to leave behind most of your notions of how your story
should read-- and enter your relationship with God as a journey.
***
It takes faith to believe that if God says no to a good dream.... it means God is
up to something that will, eventually, have his glory written all over it.
***
When a woman grieves her losses with integrity, she usually finds
that her tears give way to a fresh sort of hope. She is not nearly as controlled
by her fears because she's already faced something difficult head-on. Her future
holds possibility that is not built on the ground of anything she was clinging
to -- except, perhaps, the promises of God.

When we lost that baby, my parents thoughtfully gave us an azalea bush to plant in his or her honor. Yesterday I looked at the window and was stunned by how beautiful it looks right now:

I still feel some sadness when I look at that bush, but I wouldn't call it "bittersweet." Right now it feels more "tender-sweet." I see how far God has brought us in the last 3 years, and while I still am sad that I couldn't hold on to that little baby, I know I have much to be grateful for. I look forward to the day when, as our good friend Brian Brown says, "everything sad comes untrue," and we will get to see that baby again.

And I also am thankful for things today as well. Towards the end of the book, Paula Rinehart says,

People who have let go of their expectations of how they think life is
supposed to look usually stumble upon gratitude-- which is a wonderful thing to find. You stop waiting for life to begin when it's fixed
and all the broken parts are healed. It's now, in this moment,
this conversation, this sunset.... The truth is that there will
always be something missing in the picture. Gratitude is getting
to enjoy the moment... even though....

So this April 11th I am thankful. God is shaping our family -- and my life- - in His way and His time, and I know it's way better than I could have ever dreamed up on my own.