After our first pregnancy, we learned our lesson. We weren’t going to pretend that we could plan our family. We weren’t going to continue thinking we could do it on our own. We were going to trust God for whoever and whenever they would come. When we dreamed of adding a new baby, we trusted that God would make the timing right. As time progressed, I would look at the calendar and calculate when the baby would arrive if we conceived that month. When December came, I decided that month didn’t work for me. Conceiving in December didn’t fit my schedule. It meant that I would have a baby just before my busy season with work.
The lesson I thought I learned apparently hadn’t taken root in my heart. I couldn’t truly be trusting if I could say, “Yes God, whatever you decide, but not this month. This month is inconvenient for me.”
I did conceive in December. And so began another lesson for my heart: a lesson of letting go of my control. It built on the first lesson of trust and included looking at the character of my God who has a plan for me (Jeremiah 29:11).
This second pregnancy brought much fear and anxiety. Not only was the timing of when this baby girl was to arrive beyond my control, but I also couldn’t seem to get a grasp on my emotions and feelings. I began to feel plagued with fear. I feared the baby wouldn’t make it. I feared I wouldn’t make it. I had anxiety after anxiety, I attempted to control my emotion and the outcome but I could not.
It was during this pregnancy my doctor told me that I was a poster child of pregnancy. I wanted to yell out my angst as I felt the heaviness of the moment but I smiled as I said goodbye and walked out of the office. At face value, everything was seeming to go right but on the inside I was a mess.
I didn’t know why at the time but fear of great loss plagued my heart. I could not guarantee that we would both be healthy. I could not imagine that I could be allowed any more joy in my life, and so I was waiting for the loss to balance it out. I was waiting because this great loss had happened to me before. Back in my first pregnancy I had a loss. I lost my dad to cancer. I lost the opportunity for my dad to be Papa Lowell like we would jokingly call him when we were teenagers. I lost that hope and dream. I lost my Daddy.
Now, subconsciously the joy of welcoming new life was coupled with the fear of losing another. I had somehow buried this connection under the joy of having a new child. I pushed it all away until I was in the thick of hormones with my second pregnancy. At the time, I didn’t know where the fear was coming from. Then, I didn’t know why carrying this pregnancy also carried fear of loss and brokenness. I couldn’t see that I had somehow tied together great joy with great loss. However, I feared that I could not experience this joy without again feeling the hurt and pain. One time that stands out is when our family would try to get N to divulge the new baby’s name. I reveled in the special position that only my husband and I, along with our son knew her name. We would call her by name and tell her good night while she was still in my belly. We would talk about our coming adventures. However, this joy was met with fear. I walked a constant line between excitement and protecting my heart. My only control was to not let the coming loss hurt me.
I was so convinced that I wouldn’t have a chance to know and love her. In my heart, I became stoic and disconnected. I didn’t allow myself to fully form a bond before she was here because I feared that it would only make the loss feel bigger and harder. That was my control. That was my way of not letting it hurt me.
Labor finally came a week after my due date. I have a video of me in the hospital right after she was born and I am glazed over as if in shock. I’m just sitting there not knowing what to feel or how to act. I can’t stand that moment. I wish I reacted with joy and an embrace. I wish I held her to my face and welcomed her to this world. I wish I could have controlled that moment. However, that reaction was real. In reality I was so afraid.
As the doctors gave her back to me some of the fear subsided, I held her close and rocked her. I told her it was going to be okay and I slowly started to believe that it would be.
Step by step, I walked out of my fear and watched as the reality of God’s plan unfolded for me. It started with a healthy baby – one that needed me and one that I was healthy and able to care for. He gave me a baby that was sleeping through the night at one month old, just in time for my busy season. God had calmed my fears and provided for my needs.
Yet, I continued to try and control life around me by myself. I worked to hold it all together. I strived to keep a clean house and happy babies. I strived to keep two babies under two years old cleaned, fed, and entertained. My fear of loss transformed to guilt – guilt that I could not achieve what I had hoped to control. I felt guilty that N would never get the undivided attention he once got and I felt guilty K would never even get to experience that attention. My guilt was motivated by fear that I could not do enough or be good enough. I feared I would fail. I didn’t know if any of my actions were lasting or of value. I feared I was not enough.
God brought me to a place of brokenness. However, in my brokenness God was faithful to lead and provide for me. I found little glimpses of His gifts of love to me. One of these gifts of provision for me came as I stood one night crying to my husband that I couldn’t do it all. I couldn’t pick who to help and who to let cry. I couldn’t keep the laundry done and the house together while having happy kids. I wanted to do it all and be all that they needed. As I cried, I began to hear little voices and laughter. We peeked in to find the kids playing together for the first time without my direction.
Through moments like these, He showed me that I don’t have to be everything to everyone. That laughter echoed the words of my husband and gave peace as it bellowed out the fact that our children now also had one another. Even having more people that needed me meant more people to love one another.
At the time, I could only see this baby step of God’s involvement in my life. I could see that He did not leave me. I could see His provision in the moment, but it takes looking back to see that He was walking me down a much bigger path to truly see my need for Him and His involvement in my life. I needed to learn this lesson to prepare for the next. God used this step in the process to lead me along and bring me to a new level of trusting, a new level of believing that God will work all things together for good.
My K has been a continued reminder that I cannot control the situation around me. God was in control when He chose her due date. He was in control when she was a week late. He was in control when I couldn’t figure out how to balance my emotions or balance my new family of four. I need to walk in faith and know He is in control.
I find peace in Romans 8:28 “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”
God can use it all: the good the bad, the fear and loss, great pain and great joy. He can use it all for our good and for His glory. When I was in the thick of this struggle I did not see the depth of my God’s character. I did not see that He was working in my life to bring Himself glory. Heartache, struggle, joys and losses can all lead us to discovering the depth of our God starting with His goodness and faithfulness.
I can almost hear the questioning voices protesting, “Sure you can say you trust Him because it turned out well.” Yes, by God’s grace it turned out well. I feel blessed this path was the plan that God had for me. My fears were unjustified. They became a distraction that took my eyes off God. However, my fears did not change His plan nor His character. Does the outcome of the plan make God any different? Was He just as trustworthy and good when the plan was great joy and great loss to coincide? Whether heartache or joy, pain or rejoicing it is all used as part of His plan for us. The anxiety for me came because alone, I couldn’t guarantee anything, but with God there is a guarantee. It is not that it will all be good, not that it will all be easy, but that it will all work together for our good if we “love him and are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).
As I remember the pain of the loss of my dad and the fear and the what if’s that came my way, I am reminded of Joseph being sold into slavery by his brothers. (That story can be found in Genesis 37:18-36.) Things that we often fear as parents had happened to him and yet in Genesis 50:19-21 “…Joseph said to them, ‘Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones.’ Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.”
Joseph’s lesson is one I must remember, one I wish that was always focused in my heart. The things that I fear cannot control me. I don’t need to be in control because God is in control. He will bring all things to work for His plan.
Is loss good? But what can come of the loss when we trust God? Witness, provision and strength. Is hurt good? But what can come of the hurt when we trust God? Lessons, forgiveness and reconciliation. What do I have to fear?
Romans 8:31 “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?”
I am not in control. However, the one who is in control will work all things together for our good and His glory. Will we trust Him?
Father help me to see that all that comes in life will be used for your plan. Life, whether it is filled with joy or loss, security or fear will be used for your glory. Help me not to strive and fight for control nor fear that I am not in control. May I trust that You are in control and You are faithful. Father, May I look at this story and at my child as a stone of remembrance of You showing me that I need not fear because You are in control of all things, and you have a plan and a purpose. Thank you that all I have to face will be brought together for my good. Oh God be glorified in my life! In Jesus’ name, amen.