June 24, 2011

• Bittersweet Memories

  Spending time in prayer for a dear friend over the last couple weeks brought back memories of this bittersweet time in my life. 

  Reposted from December 18, 2008: 

  It seems like yesterday and yet forever ago.  We had just moved to Telford, TN for my husband's work.  We lived in a rural area with hardly any neighbors.  We had our first daughter.  She was almost two.  My husband worked long hours and I was mostly alone. 

  We were thrilled to be expecting our second child.  We waited until I was about ten weeks along to announce our news.  We had seen the baby "bean" on the ultrasound.  Little heart fluttering and growing just as beans should.  As the news made it's way to all our family and friends, I began to miscarry.  At our twelve week visit, we learned that it wasn't to be.  No reason why.  One of those things.  That's what everyone told us. 

  I've experienced real depression twice in my life.  I'm not talking about being sad or a little down, I'm talking about depression.  This was one of those times.  I desperately wanted to be okay.  I wanted to shake that feeling.  I just couldn't.  So, I began to take proactive steps to getting better.  I ate right, exercised even when I didn't feel like it.  I tried to do all the things that the "experts" recommended. 

  Here's the lifeline that God threw me.  I fell into a job as the youth director at Jonesborough Presbyterian Church.  

  

  At that time it was a smallish church with a dozen kids or so.   JPC gave me a generous salary.  I loved my job.  I loved the kids.  I loved the pastor.  I loved the people.  My preschooler accompanied me everywhere.  It was bliss!  Depression lost it's grip on my heart and life quickly returned to enjoyable. 

  I was still sad about the miscarriage.  I still felt a tremendous loss.  But I no longer drowned in the sadness. 

  A little time passed and we were expecting again.  Fear threatened to overtake me instead.  Through faith and support of friends and family, I trusted God for the future.  He blessed us with a beautiful baby girl!  Our 3 year old thought we had given her a living babydoll.  She was ecstatic!  I could hear her coming down the hospital hallway squealing because she had a baby "sits-ter!" 

  Hindsight is 20/20.  What isn't clear while we're in the midst becomes very clear when we look back.  I still don't know why we lost a baby.  I do know that through it all, God was there.  He held our family in the palm of his hand. 

  This article flooded me with bittersweet memories.  You see, I've ate the bread these ladies bake.  God used it to sustain me. 

  Edit:  The article is no longer online.  It was written about two of the church ladies who baked homemade rolls every 3rd Sunday for the church family luncheon, for every birth of a baby, every funeral, every meal provided in love.  My time with them was a time of healing.  Reading the article reminded me of how God used them in my life.  I'm sad it is no longer online.

  The song, "Held" by Natalie Grant reminds me again of what God did for me during this dark time.

  "This is what it means to be held
  How it feels, when the sacred is torn from your life
  And you survive
  This is what it is to be loved and to know
  That the promise was that when everything fell
  We'd be held"
  

  • 7:22 am
  • 3 Comments