Broken Legs, Healing Heart

I have felt like an utter mess the last couple of weeks.

Maybe it's because I would have been halfway to term if my first pregnancy had lasted.

Maybe it's because I would have been at the magical 12-week mark (after which no wrong can occur in a pregnancy *cue rolling eyes from those who have lost babies at 13 + weeks*) if my second pregnancy had lasted.

Maybe it's because I've been bombarded with at least one pregnancy announcement a week for the last month.

Sigh. It's extremely difficult to maintain excitement for others when it magnifies something you've lost or can't have. On the heels of yet another "Hooray! We're pregnant, and we weren't even trying," I was told that I was expected to find some sense of joy in this news.

Yuck. I need to be real for a moment.

I think those of us who are believers are expected to wrap up their problems in a pretty little bow, feigning that everything's okay and finding "joy" in everybody else's wonderful circumstances. Let me say that while that may be something that can be achieved, it may not come immediately.

Sometimes, it's good to think about the way that you should feel.

Sometimes, it's good to just feel how you feel. And it may not be pretty. It may be wretched and ugly. And you may feel horrible for feeling it.

But numbness is not always better than pain. It's a lukewarm sensation that just postpones your anger and causes it to fester, making you nothing but bitter.

So go ahead and feel it. Don't hurt anybody in the process ("in your anger, do not sin"), and don't get stuck in your anger.  But let yourself temporarily do what it needs to do. Mourn. Break. Grieve.

Unfortunately, for me, that means that right now, I'm just not finding myself fully capable of sharing in the excitement of the expectant mothers around me. If you are one of them and are reading this, I apologize. It is nothing you did. But know that if my joy for you seems to be diminished, this is why: I'm finding it hard to marry my need to mourn for me and my need to be happy for you. I will rejoice with you at some point, but at the moment, it's just a little too raw. I'll get there. I promise.

I just need some time.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have felt unquenchable anger this time around.

I'm angry at my doctor. Myself.

God.

I've fought it for weeks now. I hate to admit it, but I am.

I'm furious that His plan necessitates this emptiness.

I hate that He has allowed it to hurt this much.

I'm devastated that He has chosen to bless so many others with healthy pregnancies so soon after my loss. I haven't had time to think. To process. To breathe.

I'm angry that God seems to remember everyone else and seems to have forgotten me. All of these women around me are getting exactly what I want and have prayed for, and He doesn't seem to remember that I want it, too.

In my quest to quench my anger, I have looked to the parable of the lost sheep. In the story, a shepherd tends to his flock of 100 sheep. Stupidly, one wanders off. The shepherd, though he still has 99 others, frets over this one lost sheep and searches day and night, far and wide until he rescues his long lost little lamb. Rejoicing, the shepherd carries his lamb home on his shoulders, telling all who will hear about the one sheep that was lost and has been found.

I am that stupid, stupid sheep. I have wandered away because it seems the 99 are more important to the Shepherd. He couldn't possibly see me. He couldn't care. I'm just one little lamb.

But He noticed that I wandered. He sees me. And He cared enough to come get me.

He left the 99 to find me.

He didn't forget. He still hasn't. Even among the crowd, He knows me and comes to me when I need Him. That doesn't mean that He isn't taking me kicking and screaming. It isn't easy to follow a Shepherd into unsafe pastures, unsafe valleys--the Valley of the Shadow of Death, even.

It has been long believed that when a sheep wandered off in biblical times, the shepherd would break the legs of the sheep so that it wouldn't stray again. In the time the lamb spent healing from its broken bones, it remained at the side of the shepherd, learning to trust him.

As it healed, the shepherd carried it.

Well. He has searched long enough for me. And yes, He has broken me.

But He is carrying me.

And now, all I can do is sit atop His glorious shoulders--battered and broken--listening to His beautiful voice rejoice as He takes me back home.

If you had one hundred sheep and one of them strayed away and was lost in the wilderness, wouldn't you leave the ninety-nine others to go and search for the lost until you found it? And then you would joyfully carry it home on your shoulders. ~Luke 15:4-5
  


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