When Loss is Gain . . .

I woke up before my 5am alarm this morning and lay coverless in the dark of a warmer-than-usual winter morning. It had been another one of those my-brain-won’t-turn-off kind of sleepless nights. So I rolled out of bed, pulled on my Nikes, and drove to the gym in Jon’s little green Geo.

As I pulled my sixteen week preggo body onto the treadmill between college girl running six minute intervals on my right and 85 year old Dick hunch-walking on my left, I pressed buttons and started moving my feet. As my feet flew faster, I looked down at my baby-belly, remembered my OB appt. in a few hours, and I wondered, as I’d been wondering all night long:

 Will God-grace keep little heart beating, or does He have other plans?

Over eight years ago, when I was preggo with #1, I never wondered if God would take un-named baby Home. Back then I didn’t fear loss because, for the most part, life had gone as I thought it should.

Then REAL life happened and I learned the hard way: life doesn’t always follow my plans because God’s ways are not my ways and His thoughts are not my thoughts. And in the midst of real-life-sorrow I asked myself for the first time: Is God good when he allows loss and pain? How on earth can I live God is Good when I don’t see any good?!

And as I ran this morning I asked myself—What if good is taking baby #7 Home at sixteen weeks? Will I know this loss as God-grace, God-goodness?

 In morning light, I realized this: my sleepless night revealed my heart’s struggle to rest in God is Good—all the time!

 And in morning light God whispered soft: in moments of doubt, of fear—remember.

 Remember how I showed mercy, turning loss into gain—

♦giving you and Jon mentors—Dawn and Mike—when you’d lost family and church and reputation and thought the weight was too heavy to bear;

♦blessing you with Shari—that rare kindred-spirit friend—who listens and loves with her life;
♦freeing BOTH you and your sister Rachel from the pain of the past, freeing you to love each other unconditionally as blood-sisters.
♦protecting you and Jon—just last September—from hell-bent-on-hurting-you family members.
♦blessing you and Jon with three wild, healthy boys.
♦revealing to you—again and again—the true nature of your wandering heart so you can turn to Me.

And so much more . . .

So when dark clouds gather in my brain—when self-pitying what if’s and if only’s  threaten to drown God is Good I echo the Psalmist’s words:

Will the Lord cast off forever? And will He be favourable no more?  Has His mercy ceased forever? Has His promise failed forevermore?  Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has He in anger shut up His tender mercies?  And I said, "This is my anguish; but I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High."  I will remember the works of the Lord; surely I will remember Your wonders of old. (Psalm 77: 7-12)

And I claim this promise as my own: “I remain confident of this--I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the Living.” (Psalm 27:13).

And this afternoon, as Jon and I and our three blond-headed boys sat still in tiny Dr’s office, praying for the swoosh-swoosh of baby #4’s heart beat, we heard the goodness of the Lord in the land of the Living:

 Swoosh-swoosh, swoosh-swoosh, swoosh-swoosh.

Only 14 and 1/2 weeks here--need a new photo! But you can see the belly!

And we sang out loud: Praise the Lord! He is good!

Husband Love

To Jon on Valentines Day

Husband-love, this is God’s
Grace-gift to me,

For husband-love lives Father-God’s love,
making God real to me.

Before husband-love,

I knew pseudo-love—
Love that says “I love you”
But lives “I love self.”

I knew false-love in the name of Love.

I’d never felt Fearless love,

Love that sacrifices Self for the Soul of another,
Love that mirrors God-love: perfect love
That casts out fear.

So when You lived patient love,

waiting for this foolish-fearful heart,
to trust in real Love,
waiting five years,
weathering three break-ups,
two “Dear Jon” letters,
and my sloppy-hurtful words,  
always pointing to the One
who loved me best, loved me perfectly,
Slowly, I began to see:
this lived-out Love,
Rooted in sacrifice of Self,
Rooted in trusting God,
casting out fearful
grasping, pushing, pulling,
forcing of Self before Soul is ready,
this was
Real Love.

So when we finally said “I do” on that

Bright June morning, in 2002, this I knew:
I trusted You because You first Loved me,
And I wanted to love You too.

And you’ve lived Love through good times
And bad: through seminary days, joyful
birthing days and weary new-born-baby days,
through three miscarriages and the
shattering of family,
through joy and through pain, 
through this broken-fearful heart
learning
how to let go of Self
and love you,
love our sons,
love the God
who sacrificed his very own Son
for Love of me.

And it’s Your love—

Husband-love—
That points me to this greatest
Love.

And You—

my husband, my Love,
Are God’s
most precious
Grace-gift to me.

I John 1: 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. ¹⁰ This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

1 John 4:18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.

Grommets and Grace

I’ve been on a mission to get our little town home in the ‘hood ready for baby #4. Fitting a fourth in this two-bedroom place will require creative genius. So I got on Pintrest looking for space-saving solutions, and after seeing the simple genius of removing cumbersome closet doors, I decided to replace most of our bi-fold closet doors with drapes.

After hours of searching for the perfect drapes for the basement, I finally found them in the “catalog returns” section of an outlet store. But the drapes had a major issue: a missing grommet (see pic on right). But since the manager was willing to give me a smoking deal, I bought the drapes hoping I could find a lone grommet to fit the naked hole.

So yesterday afternoon I spent two hours running from Home Depot to Michaels to Jo-Ann’s hoping to find a lone grommet for sale. (They only sell them in sets of ten—imagine that!)  In the midst of my hunt I called Jon to ask if he knew of any other places to look for my lone grommet, and he didn’t pick up his phone. I called again. No answer. Frustrated at my fruitless search, I stooped to desperate measures:  I went to a couple thrift stores hoping to find a rejected curtain with a grommet hole I could pry off with a screwdriver. As I wandered around the Salvation Army thrift store, I called Jon five more times. No answer.

I could feel the frustration boiling under my skin. My “smoking deal” was turning into a pay-a-lot-of-money-in-gas-for-no-reason disaster.

So after calling Jon about ten more times. . . I gave up the hunt and drove home, and as I drove, I fumed about the fact that Jon didn’t answer his dang phone!

When I walked through the front door, I threw my purse and keys on the buffet, stomped into the kitchen, and found Jon wiping down the table. I snapped at table-washing hubby: “Why didn’t you answer your phone! What if the van broke down?!  I –your pregnant wife--would have been stranded on the side of the road. ”

 Jon just looked up at me with blue-eyes laughing, sponge in hand: “Well, did you break down?”

 I stared into his laughing-at-me eyes and tried to stay mad: “You should ALWAYS answer your phone when I’m gone!”

 “What’s got you so worked up?”

“A missing grommet.”

 That’s when laughing-blue-eyes chortled loud: “A what? You mean like, Wallace and Grommet the movie?”  

 “No!” I huffed: “Grommets are for curtains! I’m missing a grommet in my new curtain!”

Jon: “So. . . . you’re biting my head off because you can’t find a grommet . . .” Snicker-laugh, “ Grommmmmeeetttt. . . . Sorry, can’t help myself. Just like saying that funny word: grommet. So you’re telling me that you’re all worked up because you can’t find a grommet?”

His snicker-laugh turns to belly-laugh and I can’t stay mad anymore. I laugh with him, and I see: I’m being selfish-silly about this missing-grommet thing!

 And laughter reminds me why I love this man: when I’m selfish-silly, he doesn’t lecture or scold. He just states the obvious:

 I’m giving missing grommet joy-stealing power.

Jon’s laughing-eyed correction of my selfish-silly heart, this is grace. A gentle correction from God through my hubby. 

And I realize: missing-grommet moments happen every day:  jam on the couch, legos on the floor, gum on the carpet, lost keys, burned dinner, tough Math lesson, sibling spats. And everyday I have a choice—to extend grace through patient cleaning, correcting, and training, or to receive grace—the gentle correction of my own selfish heart when I respond with angst and sloppy-hurtful words.

So today I choose the grace that brings JOY, and when I mess up (which happens every day!) I choose corrective grace which molds this wayward heart to my Savior-God.

So, this morning, this afternoon—let’s choose grace.