Express Lane

A month has passed since our third child was born without life……………

I sit here again staring at a blank screen with the little cursor blinking its impatient rhythm in my face. I don’t lack words or thoughts to share, in fact quite the opposite. I have so many ideas hurling towards me I can barely contain them, or even make sense of the jumble in my head.

First I want to thank each and every one of you who have blessed us with your encouragement and love. Your love and meals have filled our hearts and our stomachs. Thank you for your prayers on our behalf, and especially the ones for our girls. God has given such peace to us. That’s not to say that this does not continue to be hard. There is still pain. Always will be.

A month has traveled by in slow motion. Yet I feel as though no time has passed at all. We are still saying good bye. Good bye to our precious baby girl. The world continues to swirl around us in fast forward. And now, I wonder how does one jump back into that life? The life where things are often spinning so fast one barely has time to breathe. In my current state of moving in slow motion attempting to step back into that life could be detrimental to my health. I see myself standing in the middle of the tornado of life, trying to stick a toe back into running that race and end up losing a leg……... One step at a time.

After Aida was born life stopped. We hid out at home, we did nothing, we did not answer the phone. We are just a grieving family. However it wasn’t long and we had to venture out to the grocery store. It was somewhat of a shock to me that everyone else’s life had not come to a screeching halt as well. It’s easy to get consumed with yourself when you only focus on yourself. God has shown me that even in the midst of intense pain I can still pray for others and see His mighty hand move in unimaginable ways. Standing in the middle of the grocery store with people shoving their careening bumper carts in every direction, I had to wonder how many times I have been one of those people in fast forward. Have I been part of the mass that is too consumed with a self inflicted To-Do list to notice intense pain? How many times have I been frustrated with someone in the wrong line or lost in an aisle? This reality check has made me take a second look at those moving in slow motion.

I would love to paint a rosy sugar coated picture for you, how we are all fine and dandy. But the truth of the matter is we are hurting, death hurts. It cripples you and leaves you numb with open wounds and raw, very raw. It is a pain you can’t mask, as one of my dear friends often says “I’m not gonna lie”. Unfortunately since we have been through this before and this is somewhat familiar territory, I find myself wanting to push through the grief process and get to the part where we all can function again. There is a battle going on within me to skip the hurt and get back to life. I want to deny the pain. Having a family lends itself to following through with that philosophy. They all need so much right now and I am more than willing to provide for them as well as provide myself with a distraction rather than dealing. Dealing with what God has placed on my plate for the third time. But greater than my desire to skip the pain is the desire to learn from this. To see what God will do in our lives because of death. Death is part of His plan whether I like it or not. Death has always been a part of His ultimate plan for Aida, for me, for everyone…..including His very own Son. But He did not leave it there. He chose to give His very own Son over to death so that we all might have life. A Life that never ends, a life where tears will be wiped away and pain will be no more. Where forgiveness is granted and praise is found on our lips. To see what God will do in our lives because of death makes me want to shout from the rooftops!
To God be the Glory!