A Tale of Two Babies is a blog in retrospect (since I wasn't blogging at the time) about how our first two children entered our lives. I'm going to try to go back from time to time and add to it, though the two actual babies usually prevent me from blogging about much that requires actual thought!
January 2011 started with a journal entry wondering if finally I was pregnant (after several years of trying to get pregnant that involved two miscarriages, a bad infection, a week in the hospital, and lots of disappointments). I had had a positive test saying that there was little lasting damage from the infection and had been powerfully prayed for at a conference we were attending and it seemed that really, now was the time. After having been in church leadership for a long time, things had changed around and I wasn't any longer, which also seemed like God was freeing me up to focus elsewhere. It seemed as if the time were right. And there I was, on the first day of 2011, between the two possibilities, pregnant or not. (A state which often led me to ponder on the relationship of the common expression "You can't be a little pregnant" and Schrodinger's cat, but that's for another time.)
Sitting in a church conference, two ideas kept coming up again and again. The first was the Greek word pistis which is the word for belief, but it also carries the idea of trust. I love that the two go hand-in-hand in Greek. To believe in God is to trust him. I wrote, "The picture that came to mind for that was Jill Pole riding on Aslan's breath in [C.S. Lewis's] The Silver Chair -- neither on the cliff above nor the land below but solely suspended between on the breath of Aslan. That's how I felt. Safely suspended between two possibilities, held by God."
The other idea was that of Peace. From the moment in our first pregnancy that I climbed on the ultrasound table knowing that I had probably miscarried the baby, the "peace that passes understanding" was a major theme in my heart.
Other ideas that had been floating around really since the first miscarriage right before Easter were those of resurrection, life, and hope. Having encountered death, it meant so much more to me that God was a God of life and that the resurrection hope was real. I even dusted off enough of my Greek from seminary to write John 11:25-26 in the front of my journal ("I am the resurrection and the life ..."). I would read it and cling to the Greek words for resurrection and life, which are the basis of the girl's names Zoe and Anastasia. That's what I wanted to name my first daughter, Zoe Anastasia, as a testimony to the God who could bring both physical and spiritual life into existence. (This did not end up being the name of our first daughter since my husband had a say, but we kept the meaning of life in Vivienne's name. Her father liked it better in Latin/French than in Greek.)
And so I wrote this journal entry with all the ideas and thoughts God had been giving me at the conference. Everything was coming together. Surely now was the time ... And then, it turned out it was not yet to be. I contemplated tearing out those first pages, something I had never done before (but this was a spiral bound journal, so you would even be able to tell). I must have gotten God's message wrong. But I decided that my act of faith would be to leave those pages in and see where God would take us.
And so, I wrote again, on January 2:
"And that which was hoped for is not yet to be. It seems that in your sophia [wisdom] hope is to be deferred once again, and, oh, my heart is truly sick. But it is Yours. I am Yours. May it be to me as You have said. I am but Your handmaiden. My testament to Your faithfulness, Your love, Your goodness, and Your hope still stands. But I don't understand it. I am no saint. I seek no stigmata. I have no other choice but to bear this cross You have given me. Your grace will be sufficient."
And on January 3:
"Disappointment -- yes. Despair -- no.
"I stand under the authority of the Father, the blood of the Son, the strength of the Spirit. I place myself, Stephen, and any family You may give us in Your almighty and loving hands. I claim the power of Your Word in our lives and in our bodies.
"O God, You are my God and nothing can hinder me. You are good. You are holy. You are everything."
Little did I know, even as I went through all this and wrote all these words, my two month old son was living just a few blocks away from where I taught English three times a week and that two months later, he would be coming home with us. But this post is too long already, so that is for another night -- if Vivienne Irene lets me put her down long enough to write it, that is.
No comments:
Post a Comment