Vignettes from Jordan

Warm desert sunshine is streaming through the kitchen window as I sit in the kitchen of our friends who have ever so graciously allowed us to inhabit their home with them for the twelve days we are here in Jordan. I know that some of you very much would like to get some peeks into our time here, so I picked seven moments to share with you.

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Chicken sandwich rolls scented the dry cabin air as the plane sped 500 miles per hour towards a very special place. The warm breathing and snoozing wiggles of Baby Joy on my lap felt cuddly and close. As I tried to sleep, my mind drifted behind my eyelids to the last time I flew to Jordan. There had been warm wiggles of a baby who was “in my lap”, so to speak, on that other flight. He had been snoozing and wiggling, but not on the outside. 

My eyelids fluttered open, to gaze out the oval portal into the wide, free blue heavens streaked with a few misty clouds far below. “Somehow this journey, even the first few hours of it, is bringing so much remembering to me,” I mused. And although not audible I heard my Heavenly Daddy say, “I remember, too.” 

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The dawn still struggled with the night sky as my daughter tumbled around on the bed, hot with a fever. My mind took me helplessly back to that night with my other baby, when I realized something was wrong and the next day I laid him in a shallow desert tomb. “This will always be the outcome of bringing your children to this place,” the tempter whispered slyly. “Lord, not again! Lord, how should I feel?” My prayers breathed out while her stuffy little nose breathed in. Then, the realization: He remembers, too. He remembers the pain, the shock, the trauma, the grief. He was here with me. He knows my weakness for fear. And He is The Overcomer. He is our Shield. In Him I have put my trust. He is All Powerful. He is able to heal and to cast out the wicked one. He is excited when I lean the weight of my faith completely into Him around the hairpin switchbacks of life when I can’t see ahead, and want to close my eyes to avoid looking at the chasm to the right. He remembers the past with me, and He also holds the keys to the future. A good future, with Him.

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The gate swung open to reveal a girl I recognized - barely. Two years had blossomed her from a young teen to a young woman leaving in a week for Germany to finish high school. With a flourish of her arm as her loose three-quarter-length sleeve swished in the breeze, we were welcomed in to her family’s courtyard and house. The very place where we had lived our lives in   two and a half intensely formative months, learning language and learning life with loss and grief and Jesus in a new culture.

As I lifted my foot to cross the memorable, odd metal threshold of the doorway where so much of our life had passed through, I remembered. As I looked around the redecorated living space, I remembered. As I walked in shock out to the kitchen where magnets still held up papers displaying cherished verses in my handwriting, I remembered.

The grace. The grief. The weeping. The wondering. The struggling with Arabic phrases and culture with a tired brain and weary body. The quarts of bright purple fresh grape juice we pressed ourselves from the vines outside. The tea and coffee made in the kitchen. That one very unsightly cracked tile in the floor by the stove. The bathroom, where it seemed I spent so much time after the day when I realized within its walls that my baby and I were in for some trauma. The bedroom, where I lay weak and exhausted after birth, then with an intense intestinal infection, and where I came to collapse after language classes. And I felt a Presence with me. “Hannah, my daughter, I remember too.”

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Thoughtfully, I fingered a scarf in preparation for tying it over my hair. Without asking for permission, my mind took me right back to the weeks where I deliberated over which scarf to buy in remembrance of Seth. The day of his birth and burial, I had longed to be able to clothe him with something boyish, babyish and delicate. My dreams were ended in the reality that all I had was a scarf of bright, garish teal, bought generously by a woman I barely knew. True, at least I had something. But to try to ease my longing to have been able to wrap his body with my motherly caress in a gentle cloth of baby blue, Jonathan said I could buy myself a headscarf of that color. So this scarf had become the much-deliberated-over, chosen memento. Bought from the land where he was carried and born and buried. How I treasured this tangible item that I could wear, something I could touch every day and remember how proudly grateful I am for my little son. Fondly, I gazed at the worn fabric, then looped and tied it around my brown hair. Remembering.

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Through the glass sliding doors I could see into the sanctuary, where people were gathered to pray and share stories. The rise and fall of South-African-accented-English and the Arabic translation filled the tile room, as I rocked my little girl to sleep. Like a dream, I realized that now I am holding a big, healthy child of my own. How many Sundays, and Tuesdays, and any days we met in that sanctuary two years ago, I had found my helpless gaze stuck by the glue of curiosity to those glass sliding doors. Behind them, a hubbub of mommies caring for little ones played like a fascinating drama to my aching soul. Pregnant moms putting their feet up on the brown couches; tired moms chasing toddlers across the tile, giving out snacks, wiping tears and messy faces. Moms doing what my very being welled with love and longing to do for my precious little boy. Moms with their tired bodies and sleepy eyes, moms whom I felt like I should belong amongst. Moms whose club I had joined, but now was a drop-out, for my baby had dropped out from this life and into the next. 

I remembered how the tears would well, and I would wonder what I could do for my aching heart. If only one of those moms would let me hold their baby, perhaps a little of the longing would be satisfied. But I was afraid they wouldn’t want my misery to get that close to their healthy happiness. Maybe they wouldn’t want my tragedy reach out and be in the vicinity of their precious babies. Sometimes I was brave enough to go into the nursery and soak in the camaraderie of mommyhood, brave enough to get close and share their joy and be willing to share my pain if they inquired.

My big, healthy girl snuggled deeper into my arms, and I stopped my reverie. “God has been so tenderly good to me,” I mused. “To bring me back to this place and remember. To remember my fears that I would ever have a living little one with me on this earth. To remember my longings and heartaches, and to miss my Seth and enjoy my Joy.” 

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The cemetery looked exactly the same as it did years before; a pale desert of graves. It struck me afresh that this area reminds me of a woman who heard some horrible news and all the color drained from her face. Nearly everything seems to fall under the category of a pasty cream color; from the earth to the rooftops of the boxy houses. Even the fig trees are covered in grey dust right now, and their leaves take on the color à la mode. As in a dream, I followed my husband as we made a pathway through marble and cement box-like tombs of various shapes and sizes, back to the little spot that marked the life of someone in our family. And there it was. Cement block marking with gravel inside, and a small piece of marble on which I had written Seth Malakai, son of Jonathan and Hannah Rudolph. The best I'd had was a “permanent” marker, now perfectly cleaned off by weather and sand. 

The pastor and the tomb-maker followed behind me, ready to make plans for building a cement box topped by an engraved piece of rock for the name and details of our son. Somewhat numbed by their presence, we gathered around and confirmed the details. Then, very kindly, they retreated a short distance away for a few minutes so we could be alone. Our daughter sat on the edge of a concrete block, swinging her chubby little legs and clapping her hands. 

I noticed her feet, and remembered the little baby feet I had tucked for the last and only time in a piece of cloth and left here under the sandy soil. Earth and heaven both felt closer here, as we stopped to pause and reflect.

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Up in the night, for the sixth or twelfth time, I caressed my little daughter, gently stroking her feverish forehead as she gulped my healthy milk. Far from resenting the interruption to a precious sleep, my mind was filled with remembering the last time I spent wakeful nights in this very city. In that season, however, the hours were haunted with longings for the baby who felt so close yet so unmistakably far away. Or was it unmistakably far away and yet so close? I wasn’t sure. Full of milk, I had longed to feed. Full of love, I had longed to give. Now I am here again, fully able to do both. I barely dared to dream about this day, back then when I would have given just about anything to have been able to stay up in the night, or awake in the hospital, with the son of my longings. Love hurts. And now, pouring out my sacrificial mother love on a little girly human, I think I started to believe what my Heavenly Parent was whispering then to my aching, refusing heart: “I ache with you. I really understand how much it hurts. I dare to love, too.”

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The Perfect Home

If a word can get ahold of a human heart and flood it with a feeling, that’s the alluring wistfulness the word "home" is having for me.  

More than just enjoying the word, I enjoy having a home. A nest. A place that is a haven, a bit of heaven, a safe, cozy nook where I can relax and rest. I love the feeling I get when I’ve been gone for a long time, and walk again through the door into my home!

Speaking of returning home, recently one of my brothers came back from being in Africa for almost 2 years. What intensity of emotions the whole caboodle of us shared like static electricity between each other as we awaited the anticipated brother’s arrival from the airport. Given the fact that it was after 12a.m. amped it all up several notches! Then there he was. Happy shouts and hugs galore filled the cold night as banners were held high and sparklers lit, flashing and glittering in the darkness. What a spirit of joy abounded, as the beloved son and brother was welcomed home again!

But where is my home? That’s what I wonder when I wander around our apartment these days. In roughly two months the Lord willing we plan to leave the country for several months. When we do, we also plan to leave our apartment that has become “home” to us for close to four years (minus the 9 months we lived out of the country). Is it surprising then that I’m thinking a lot about home?

I’ve done a lot of wondering about what makes a place a home, since I’m surrendering my current home and preparing to transplant in other places. Is it the special, carefully-picked-out things in the house that make it feel like “home”? They certainly do make their contribution, but I’m convinced the nostalgia of “home” goes much deeper than that. Is it the memories made within a building’s four outer walls that finally pile up high enough to give the honorable title of “home” to a house? Memories certainly do have their part in the process. The people who share the home play another big part. When I think of going “home” to my family’s place, it wouldn’t be the same without the family!

I’ve been to Ghana three times and enjoyed watching the interesting progression of when the compound goes from feeling like a strange place in a strange country to “home” for the folks who come on the three months teams. Invariably it’s after they’ve been away from the compound, out experiencing life in the village for a few days. They come back and are intrigued to realize that THIS feels like home. This strange place that they have only been living in for a few weeks suddenly is no longer just some concrete square in the great big world out there; it’s the place to come back to and be relaxed. I love watching that happen.

There’s something about getting in touch with what isn’t home that makes you realize where home is.

I wonder what “home” will be like in the future for me. There’s a chance that the next few years will consist of living in a lot of different places for fleeting segments of time. I have known this prospect was imminent all of our married life as I follow my amazing, visionary man. This is what comes along with the life I always wanted to live!

But I do like home.

I like creating a space that is cozy and beautiful, a haven from the outside world, a nook where we can feel at home. When I think about that pleasure in creating a “homey” place for my family, I feel a sense of wonder. A sense that I’m walking on holy ground. That what I’m doing is like a child who is “playing house” while her mother is doing the real thing.

Jesus is working on preparing a place for me in Heaven! Given my understanding that this place will be mine for ever and ever and ever, my own little corner, that’s oh! So exciting! Gives me goosebumps. With how much He knows about and loves me, I am very sure that my room (or mansion, or whatever kind of dwelling it will be!) is being prepared in just the perfect way to make me feel at home. (John 14:2) With the doleful feeling of knowing that my own little home on Laurel Street will be reduced to boxes and many things dispersed to family or friends, my thoughts are daily entangled in the fact that maybe why I don’t feel home here is because I’m actually not home yet!

When my brother arrived back from Africa, everyone in the family got together to welcome him back. Talk about the joy of homecoming! My heart certainly throbbed with the joy of it amidst the laughter, sibling-banter, and chatter.  Yet amidst the happiness was an inescapable ache, as I felt deeply that someone special was missing. My sister beside me gave a knowing look and whispered, “Everyone’s here except Seth.”

Grief told me that fact is purely sad. A little boy who would’ve loved the joy of that night wasn’t with us. Hope quietly waited her turn to whisper that the truth is, Seth is the only one of us who has been welcomed home for real.

I wonder what Seth is doing today, alive and well in the place my faith declares is my Home but where I’ve never been. I’m so excited about going Home! I don’t even need to pack my bags; I’m already sending provisions and treasures for my life there on ahead and I will feel so lightweight and free to fly when the time comes! I wonder what it will feel like to wrap my son in my arms at some point after I arrive and to actually see him again…

Oh, how my heart longs for home. Home. I long to be in the Place where all of us, every one of us with our individual histories and stories, will be 100% free to thrive. A place where there is no more curse, a place where there is no more death, where there is absolutely nothing to make anyone afraid. A place where we always, every moment, can see our Heavenly Papa’s smile of delight in and over us. Where our older Brother Jesus is the Light. Really. He is such a Light that we won't even need sunshine! That sounds so spectacular to me!

I long for Home. The place where we can hear, with our own ears (our resurrected ears which will be capable of capturing all the awesome nuances of the music) our Daddy-God singing over us! The place where we can remember together the beautiful stories of God involved in our lives on earth. The place where we will be safe. Nothing and no one to terrorize us. We will feel safe, in part because we will see God like He really is. We will feel safe too, because just imagine. What would life without the curse be like? Mankind has not known that freedom for thousands of years! I want to go home, where there will be perfect humility, everywhere. I can hardly wait to experience relationships free from the gooey, stinky tentacles of pride. And we will be so changed because we will actually see Him like He is! I can hardly wait to be in the great celebration as all of us who have been living by faith in the shadows here finally arrive Home.

If you don’t feel at home here, maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be. Our unfulfilled longings for a perfect home are likely something our Heavenly Daddy wants to use to draw us towards Heaven and towards Him!

I’m on my way Home, just a wondering wanderer here. There are a lot of things in life right now that are keeping me in touch with where home isn’t, and where it is.  

And that’s a good thing. I have a flawless home being prepared for me, which unlike the difficulties in this life will last forever.

Valley of the Blind

They tell me there’s a valley

The people there are blind.

No eyes have they, no sight, no light;

They grope, their way to find.

Sadly enough, they can’t conceive

Of sight, or seeing eyes

Of color, sunrise – they will laugh!

And say, “You’re telling lies”.

One day, they say, a seeing man

Walked in and found this valley

He saw their plight and sightless blight

And cried, “Oh folks, do listen to me!

“The sunrise, it’s like gold today!

It’s streaked with red, pink, yellow!”
But all the blind thought he’d lost his mind

Crying, “Ho! You crazy fellow!”

“But oh, it’s true!” he cried aloud

“You’d know, if you’d have eyes!”

But still they jeered, and laughed and leered

And said, “You’re telling lies.”

The man with eyes thought, “I must stay,

“For all these folks must know

The wonders and the safety that

A pair of eyes bestow!”

So he moved in. And every day

He walked from street to street

He truly tried, the blind to guide

But it was no small feat!

“Hey, these are EYES,” he’d say and then

He’d let them feel his own

But his heart was torn as they would scorn

And say, “Pshaw! You’re so alone.

“Why would we want to have these ‘eyes’?!
We feel we’ve all we need.

Two little spheres that run with tears?

We need them? No indeed!”

Others would simply walk away,

Waving their sticks all around

Humming a song, they’d go along,

Stumbling along valley ground.

Sometimes he’d try to help them out

When he’d see some egg on a beard

Or a rip on a dress, or one’s hair all a mess;

Their response? “This fellow is weird!”

The weeks went by, and the seeing man,

He saw a young maiden fair

True, she couldn’t see, but her eyes he’d be-

He decided it then and there.

She loved him too, and ‘twas a match

They started to plan their life

But her family heard, saying, “That’s absurd!

“You can’t take her as your wife!”

“Give up your eyes!” they ordered him

“Then we’ll reconsider your plan.

“Your sight makes us queasy and feel all uneasy

“Your eyes make you crazy, old man.”

He pondered it long. For he loved the blind girl

And he loved all the folks in the valley

“But could I despise the sight of my eyes?-

Though I love her, ‘n’ all of her fam’ly?!”

His love finally won, and the day quickly came

By the evening his sight would be over.

He steadied his soul and he studied his girl,

The one who had made him a lover.

But a moment of truth, light came to his soul,

He groaned, and he moaned, and recanted.

“Why, I’d be a fool to give such a jewel,

I’m taking my seeing for granted!”

“I can’t do this, folks, I’m sorry,” he said

And he slowly walked home to his cottage

“To trade in the light for the darkness of night

Is exchanging a birthright for pottage.”

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And others there are, in a world of the blind

Who have eyes, but are mocked for their seeing

“What globe are you from?! Your worldview is dumb!

Are you sure you’re a real human being?”

They certainly are, and wiser by far,

Than the folks who can’t see the Eternal

They have a reward which in heaven is stored

And by faith they receive the supernal.

These folks see the Light of Eternity Bright,

As they live in the smile of their Father

They scorn all the joys of this world’s passing toys,

Choosing rather than pleasure, to suffer.

They see what’s invisible, what can’t be seen

By our physical eyes which deceive us

(For those eyes think they see complete reality

And from the real truth they bereave us.)

 But some grasp in faith God’s invisible things

And they stand on the Word God has given

They choose to believe that they will receive

Great rewards when they come into Heaven.

Yes, they will be mocked, as they live in this vale

Where the blind say what’s ‘real’ and what’s ‘actual’

But shall blind hold the sway,

when they can’t see their way

And they don’t know what’s actually factual?!

Oh, dear Seeing Christians, don’t poke out your eyes

For the love of a temporal pleasure

For that would be trading the bright for the fading,

The passing, for eternal treasure.

The world needs your faith to show clearly the way

That they can find peace and know Jesus

For it’s by faith in Him that this world becomes dim

And He, from our sightlessness frees us.

By faith you can help others see the Eternal

And bring them into Jesus’ Kingdom

They’ll find that the Light brings more thrill than the Night

And that Seeing is marvelous Freedom!

1/2/2016 HNR

I wrote this after a time of feeling the pull of earthly things very strongly. God showed me just how blind I had nearly become to what is really REAL, that is, heavenly treasures and an exciting life in eternity where we will be alive in the fullest sense. When someone shared the story about the man who discovered the fictional "valley of the blind" with me, this poem flowed out of my pen.

My Dilemma (Opportunity?)

“Is this one your first?”

They all want to know,

All the curious admirers 

This question throw

"Yes, she is my first";

But no, she is not;

"I’ve also a boy...

But she’s all that I’ve got."

Oh what is most truthful??

My heart pleads inside

I want to explain, 

But as well want to hide.

I don’t want the blushes,

The awkward trite words

So should I just smile

And say, “yes it’s my first”?

It’s my first to be waking

Through nighttime to feed

But the second to have milk

And a baby to need.

It’s the first time to see

My child smiling at me

But oh, how I still miss

My son’s boyish glee.

She’s the first I hug daily

And kiss on the nose

But one day I did hug him, 

Kissed, and fingered his toes.

It’s the first I am cheering

At each development

But no, I’d cheered for his

Though I hadn’t seen him yet.

So what should I answer?

What’s most true to my heart?

The most truthful? least awkward?

Choosing which, is an art.

She’s the one for my arms now

The other, God has

Takes time to explain 

But I’m glad that you asked.

She’s the only one with me,

But it’s two I’ve been giv’n-

She’s the one you can see,

And my Boy - lives in Heav’n!

Written Nov 30, 2017

I am finding a way to answer that oft-asked question, a way that shows my anticipation for heaven and my love for Seth. It has opened up many good conversations with people. When you are willing to be vulnerable and aren’t awkward about it, other people know it’s OK to share their vulnerabilities as well. God is helping me turn this question that I don’t like a whole lot into an opportunity for meaningful connections with people I never would’ve connected with if it weren’t for my children. Thank You Lord.

What is a question you don't enjoy answering? Perhaps God would like to give you a way to answer that will turn it into an opportunity instead of a dreaded scenario.

Receive and Release

The benevolence of the evening sun gifts my humble living room with gold as the afternoon prepares to draw its curtains for the night. A delicate string of tissue paper garlands receive some gold for their own as they hang effortlessly, elegantly across the corner.

Eyes on the golden-lighted pompoms, I find my mind wandering to the day when I put them there. They had been strung up for a birthday party, those pompoms had been. A party to celebrate a little boy...who wasn’t there. My eyes deliberate on the baby footprints framed on the wall.

It has been exactly 18 months, and still, never a day goes by that I don’t think of my baby boy. Eighteen months since I kissed him goodbye, and yet it feels as though he still lives on in my heart. One of my friends expressed her surprise when I happened to tell her I think of Seth so continually. She had thought the loss was past, the child largely forgotten. But no...

How could I forget?

Like the sunshine sharing its glory this evening, my small child shared some of his God-given glory with me, and I received it. It became a part of me as much as he had been once a part of me. And even now, they say, some of his little body’s cells inhabit my body. I can’t explain how the bond went so deep, but we shared a lot together in those short months... Scientists tell us moms that maybe the feeling of our children being a sort of inseparable part of us isn’t that far from reality:

“In pregnancy, women are shape-shifters, their bellies waxing like the moon. After delivery, they hold another kind of magic: microchimerism, a condition in which women harbor cells that originated in their children even decades after birth...These fetal cells migrate all over a mother’s body, becoming part of the heart, the brain, and blood—and fascinating scientist and artists alike.” (Source: The Atlantic. Also see this.)

The wonder of those words hasn't left me since I first read them. Strung as I am between my birth and eternity, there are things I will always wonder over. How could cells from my baby continue to live on within me? How can my children claim such a big part in my heart? “How can someone so small hold my heart so tightly?”

The tiny life of Seth Malakai Rudolph inhabited my body, a creation only perhaps a dozen people got to see, yet I received that God-given-glory deeply. 

The delicate pompoms have now surrendered their gold into the hands of the quiet evening, and I too choose to release myself to my Creator. My questions, my ache, my wondering heart. To release my son, yet again. I am awed at the beauty of my God’s imagination. His interesting ways. His unique gifts. I delight to have had the chance to be mother to that little person. By God’s strength through grace I am free to receive and release.

Maybe This is What it Feels Like

I sat in a plastic chair at the side of the sidewalk, holding a slice of pizza on a triangle of cardboard, nibbling away. It was my second day in Jerusalem, and there was so much to see and take in around me. But as interesting as the Israeli rabbis and Hasidic Jews buying their lunch along the busy street were, something else caught my attention and imagination, up and away. “There must be a store for buying baby things or else an OBGYN office down the street,” My intellect said to my heart as I tried to eat my pizza. Thing was, my flat-yet-flabby-belly seemed so…so empty. Woman after pregnant woman strolled past me, chit-chatting with her friends, pushing baby strollers, waddling their big round bellies full of life down the street. Why was I so mesmerized by the sight? Why did my heart ache so much? My mind tried to stay busy, taking in the fascinations of town, the unfamiliar sound of Hebrew sentences, the smells and sights. But the pregnant ladies passing by every other minute had my heart.

What did they feel, as they strolled along, rubbing the large roundness of Baby within them? What would it be like to be That Pregnant Mama? What would it feel like to have only a short time left and then, the advent of a baby to my arms? What would it be like to linger over little baby clothes and be filled only with the feelings of eager anticipation, rather than the dull ache of remembering a tiny rough coffin in a nearby country, where a never-to-be-forgotten part of me was laying, buried under the dirt? Oh, the longing to ask That Pregnant Mama, what does it feel like to be you?? I long for that fullness in my womb, that satisfaction of being a safe place for a little child; that swelling of mommy-pride at the intensity of a strong kick from within!

_________________________________

Today, I look down at my belly. Just a little over one year has passed since the day I sat trying to swallow pizza and grief all in the same gulping motion. Today, my belly is big and round. Maybe this is what it feels like.

The fingers, toes, knees and elbows that jab and tickle, somersault and wiggle within me. The anticipation of the day I will get to meet my second child for the first time. Will she have brown eyes? Or will they be like her Daddy’s, which are always changing in their shades of green and blue and grey? Will she smile the day she is born, or will she mostly just cry a lot or look around with wide open eyes between naps? Will she nurse like it’s an instinct or will it come with sweat and tears? Will she be five-and-a-half-pounds like I was at birth, or will she be bigger, maybe seven-and-a-half, or more? Will she have her Daddy’s thin, wide smile or my thicker lips? Will she resemble any of her aunts or uncles very much? Will she look at all like her older brother Seth? Will she suck her thumb? Will she sleep at night? Will I have enough clothes for her in three months when she grows out of her abundance of newborn sizes? What will it feel like to be my “normal” size again? On the other hand, will I ever be that size again? Will anything in my closet fit me in a week or two? I can’t wait to share my little one with our families! Oh dear, I am feeling so hungry I can hardly think...

Maybe this is what it feels like, to be That Pregnant Mama.

As I remember back to the scene in Jerusalem which I described earlier and look at the hope blooming in me today, I am marveling at the miracle of new life. New delight and hope. God saw the longings of that grieving, weeping Mama-Heart and wept with me, while simultaneously making plans to allow me the privileged experience of being a pregnant mama again. It's so precious to realize that He was there with me. And the same God is here with me now, inhabiting this very September day.

I still grieve the loss of my firstborn and find myself in puddles of tears with the ache. With time however, the crumbles of brokenness can break into joy. It is possible to allow God’s sentinel of Faith to come up and stand in your soul where you can only see sadness and painful shards of your heart just now. Possible to imagine peering into this sadness of your soul someday, marveling at the past and current presence of the God in whom you decided to invest your trust. It's OK to dare to thank Him for the present brokenness as well as what He is dreaming for the future. 

Maybe this is what it feels like to swell with the trust and hope of seeing the goodness of God.

Wondering

I wonder…what it would be like to have lived a life without any pain, darkness; what it would be like to never have had tragedy’s black streak catapult across my life. I wonder…what it would be like to never have had my firstborn son be taken moments after leaving my womb away, away, far-far-away to a place where I cannot visit even when my heart is breaking with longing. I wonder what I would be like...

I wonder….what it would be like to go through this pregnancy I’m in right now without the tormenting emotions of self-doubt screaming,

“MAYBE YOU CAN’T DO THIS LIKE OTHER NORMAL WOMEN CAN! Maybe your womb is the contradiction of all things motherly and nurturing and will dump this little child too! Maybe your womb will refuse to carry your precious child before she can breathe or open her eyes on her own! Perhaps ‘incompetent, insufficient woman’ is a better name for you.” 

Oh, I wonder what it would be like to live without ever knowing the haunting of those ugly, ubiquitous thoughts… I wonder what it would be like to carry and give birth to children without a second thought as to your own competence and ability to do what every woman has been unmistakably made to do... I wonder.

I wonder what it would be like to have perfect health and never ever need to wonder if today you will feel strong and capable or if some little stress will overload you and you’ll end up melted on the couch, a weeping, confused and overwhelmed puddle of humanity.

I wonder…what it would be like to hear the happy twittering of summer birdsongs and not feel a pang of weeping loss that a darling little son so much like your husband is not there to giggle in the joy of the moment with you. I wonder…what it would be like to have had the desire of my heart completely fulfilled and our family on earth begun with the boy I longed for. I wonder what it would be like now, to watch him trying to take his first steps, crawling around my house, tasting watermelon and strawberries and pumpkins for the first time, making his daddy and I bubble over with sheer joy at his little accomplishments. I wonder.

I wonder…what it would be like to have no one in our little family already in heaven. No one already there to be ready to welcome us…home… I wonder how we would find time to look forward to all that Jesus is preparing for us in heaven if we didn’t have such a precious treasure living there already. I wonder how the ‘things that are above’ would lose their tangibility if we didn’t have a family member enjoying them this very moment.  And what it would be like to have never experienced the intense longing to see with my own eyes the comforting, contagiously victorious expression on the face of Jesus that can only be experienced through intense loss and grief? I wonder…what it would be like to face the future in the deficit of experiencing intense tribulation which in process of day after day, week after month after year gave the hard-earned gift (yes, GIFT) of patience.

I wonder what it would be like to be so strong in my own physical strength that I would never have even had the opportunity to feel desperately dependent upon the nature and resources of my God. I wonder what it would be like to mother a little girl without ever having gone through the pain of losing a child which gives you the gift of treasuring little children oh, so much more… I wonder what it would be like to become a mother without God having spoken over and over, in simple straightforward talk, that HE is the One that needs to be competent here and I am the one who has all I need in HIM alone… I wonder.

What do you wonder?