Overcome

Life isn't always fair. It can deal you some pretty hard blows sometimes, knocking the breath out of you, leaving you feeling empty and alone. The easy thing to do is hide, to curl up in a ball and hide away; to watch t.v. or absorb yourself in a book so your mind doesn't have the chance to wander. But that would be easy. And there's one thing I've learned over my lifetime, and especially in the last 4 years of my life...the easy way never makes things better and only drags out the heartache you must go through to reach the other side of happiness again.

I was watching Joyce Meyer a few mornings ago and she was talking about living in fear and how God hasn't designed us for that. We were not built to live in fear, but how that is very different than being scared. She talked about how experiencing fear is normal and in many ways healthy, but that living IN fear and being consumed by it is living against God's will for our lives and is too easy. The best way to get over that all-consuming fear is to step out in faith. I tried to picture that in my current circumstance.

My vision looks something like this: fear is a room completely void of light, the darkest place I have ever experienced. No matter how wide I open my eyes, there is no way to see. I know there are walls but I have no idea where they are or how big the room is. I only know I want to get out, but I don't know how or where to go and I can't see anything. The darkness is paralyzing and my heart pounds, my body aches with grief and I am all alone in my fear, at least that is how it feels at the moment. Slowly, however, I realize what must be done and I fight it at first because it hurts too much. I don't want to pray, I don't want to talk to Him about it, I don't want to ask for help because I'm FEARful of the answer, FEARful of being disappointed and FEARful of feeling good again because of the potential for more pain. But I know it must be done. So, I slowly get to my feet and the words start to form in my mind, in my heart, "Lord, I don't have words, but you know what I need. I beg of you relief from this hurt. I know you are the only one who can fill this void in my heart. I need your peace. I wait on you and I know you will hear my call."

And then, I take the first step. And here I am. And things aren't quite as dark as they were.






Because I know there are some who will read this that will not know what is going on, after 21 months of trying after a miscarriage in March of 2007, we found out New Year's Eve we were pregnant. We were ecstatic but didn't share our news with anyone but family and a very few close friends because of our previous experience. We praised God for his answer to our prayer and were overwhelmed with happiness and expectation for the future. The first thing we did was hug each other and cry as we offered a prayer of thanksgiving for this miracle. Less than a week later a phone call confirmed I was indeed miscarrying this baby, as well and now we are dealing with the aftermath of that news, emotionally, spiritually and physically.