One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

It's August. The month we would've found out if Aubrey was a boy or girl. The baby would be moving and Ella and Cale would be able to feel it too. Ella would sit there for hours waiting to feel it if she had to because that's just how important and awesome it would be to her. Joy would cover her face with every move she felt. These thoughts flooded my mind yesterday and I lost it.  I got in the shower to cry by myself. When I got out I sat in the floor, tears still streaming down my face. The picture above is when Cale walked in. He didn't say a word, but grabbed some toilet paper and started wiping my face. Now, I've always been a cryer, but lately the tears are different. They used to just kind of lightly stream down my face slowly and gracefully. They're heavier now. They're bigger, they actually leave wet trails down my cheeks. It's like they're racing each other to fall in my lap. As if each tear has an anchor attached to it. It's like they know a different hurt. 

I have strong moments. Really really, brave moments where I'm proud of myself and my inner me is all like, "You go girl! This is what biblical trial looks like. You believe that there's good here and you wear it well." And then there are moments like these, where all the growth and healing feels like it never happened. Moments that don't feel strong and are far from brave. Moments that feel like it will feel like this forever. Moments that feel like for the step i just took forward, i took two back.

Sometimes I wish I could forget, sometimes I wish we wouldn't have gotten pregnant at all if we were going to lose it anyway. Sometimes I ask Him why we got pregnant for such a short amount of time. What could possibly be the point in that? Sometimes it makes me mad. Sometimes I don't know what I'm learning here, sometimes I feel like I don't know much of anything at all.

But, like always, He is enough. In Genesis Joseph's brothers sell him to the Ishmaelites who later sell him in Egypt.  Some time after that he gets put in prison. None of which sound like fun or I would imagine made any sense to Joseph at that time. But, God sees the big picture. Later Joseph rises to power and is able to save his family from the famine. If Joseph had never been betrayed, hated and sold by his brothers, he never would've been able to save their lives. I'm sure he didn't see that coming. 

So, I am reminded that in the midst of my  confusion, uncertainty and heartache God gets it. And in the moments before he gives me clarity or shows me where to go I just have to swap a feeling for a feeling. I can only feel one feeling at a time. So I swap my anger for thankfulness, I swap my discontentment for trust and I swap my sadness for joy. I can do all that through Him and only Him.  And then maybe, just maybe...I took another step forward. 

I get frustrated at my children for having to tell them the same things over and over. Things that sound something like, "I already said No," "Please be nice to your brother/sister," "Clean up that mess," "Keep the food at the table," "PLEASE stop whining," and so forth. Then this happens....I step back, again. In my flesh and weakness the enemy throws the bait of some struggle back in my face  and I bite every time. In my despair I go to the same promises and truths that The Lord's so faithfully showed me. I get in His word and He works through it. My faith my fail, but then He reminds me of the things I seemed to have forgotten, "I died for you, you can glorify me here." "I've got this." He continually has to repeat himself with me. And I stand in hypocrisy once more.

It's always interesting to me that the places I fail are always the places God takes me Himself and I'm drenched with Grace, may I cover my children in that same grace. Remembering all the while that He will Clean. Up. My. Mess.

Psalm 56:8, "You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book."