The slight humming sound of the washing machine lured me into the laundry room. It always made this particular sound when it was finishing up a load. Unable to bend down to retrieve the wet clothing, I stood there in silence. To my right, on the laundry room counter sat my birth kit for when Adah was to arrive.
Placing my hand on the outside of my shirt, I felt the sting of a lost dream. My c section incision , still pulsing with pain, my heart still aching. My body tired from carrying my daughter two weeks past her due date, praying she would come. Praying my dream of birthing a baby into my arms in the middle of my living room would happen.
Angry tears formed in my eyes, it was the first time I mourned what in my mind was perfect. I knew in that moment I couldn’t control every detail in my life. I couldn’t live in fear of the future either. So, I started packing. I started saying goodbye to a part of me that would never leave. But it had to be out of my sight.
Knowing removing the items wouldn’t heal my pain, I did it anyway. It was an act of surrender for me. In one of my weakest moments in my life, I felt Him there packing up my dream with me. He was grieving for me too.
You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.
Psalm 56:8
I gave that kit away the next week to a woman planning a homebirth. For a few minutes I hated her. I hated she would probably be using my herbal bath salts for after birth. I hated that she would share her daughters first breath on her chest. The scent of that baby would fill her nostrils and she would feel for the first time how alive she really is. How her body was created for greatness. The joy that would come from my kit , in all my pain… she wouldn’t know I was drowning.
I quickly dismissed those thoughts, I laid hands on the box with my dream inside and blessed her birth. That was all I had left. I didn’t want to know her name, or how her birth went. I just wanted the box out of my sight. She offered to pay me for it, I declined. There was no price on those items to me. Giving her a price made it sound cheapened, my pain.
Two years have passed by since I gave away that kit. The dream has been replaced by others, and my hope in dreams fulfilled has returned. Little did I know other, much bigger struggles were waiting for me in the days ahead. I wouldn’t catch a break for two years.
If someone asked me what is the one thing that I have learned about my heavenly Father during hard times it is this:
He made us to be dreamers. He made us to be passionate. HE IS PASSIONATE for what we are passionate about. He loves to give us the desires of our hearts. In times of trouble, he is there, he is speaking and wooing us deeper into his heart. Struggles make us lean on him, and as we lean we learn. We learn and we change. We change because we gain knowledge of who we are to him. Who he is to us. Struggles help us understand our place in this world. We are to surrender to our Maker, and when we do , our dreams take a different route. BECAUSE we are lead by his spirit. We learn that our place in this life is to dream WITH him, along side him.
His dreams are bigger. They are better. And they are good.
Satan loves that I didn’t get my dream of a homebirth. He really loves that I wrestled with God for months afterwards. It’s his favorite to divide good things.
So what do we do when we are let down in life? We cry and pitch a fit for a while…. but we MUST carry on. We MUST still dream. If we aren’t dreaming we are dead.
The Witty Uterus 