light in darkness

it's amazing how life, and i mean the big and important things, can get lost in the living of it.  how you can suddenly remember-- dive back to places where you once were- places that were tight and squeezed and hard to breathe into- places that you wondered if you'd get out of- places that you had no idea how they'd end-- and see that now you are out, you are breathing, you are no longer squeezed by those things, but you'd forgotten to be thankful.

yesterday i accidentally ended up on someones blog who i don't know- someone who has spent the last few months in one of those squeezed, hard to breathe places- a place i've been. i place i should never forget.

a few months ago, her son, also named sam, was born with severe hydrocephalus- more than jude.  he was immediately shunted. she writes about it here. i read through her pregnancy, i looked through her pictures.  i felt her fear, as i relieved my own.  i felt her anxiety, i imagined her moment of getting the news, i felt that cold jelly as the ultrasound probe went on my belly again and i felt invaded- i felt helpless- i felt i wanted to push them away and protect my baby from their judging eyes- i didn't want to hear about their estimates of his head size, or their plans for how to "deliver safely", i just wanted to go under a tree and have my baby.  it all came back and i wept.

but i think i was crying out of both joy for where we are now, but also because of my foolishness for taking it all for granted.

on friday i was tired and complainy.  on friday i got the school report cards. and they were fine- but.  i was reading them through those tired eyes. i was forgetting that i was holding three report cards- all from the same school- all from a typical school- with no one failing and only one with an IEP.  i was forgetting what i thought 8 years ago.  i was forgetting that dark squeezed place when i maybe first understood the depths of God's love for me.  i was forgetting the miracles that have happened - over and over again.

eight years ago, it was advent and i was preparing.  i was preparing for God to enter into a very broken world- my very broken world. 

eight years ago, i had no idea what the next season of life would bring me.  all i knew was that we had made a choice to accept this gift that God had given us- the one growing in me- the one who may not be healthy, the one who could be disabled, or very unable to do, well, anything.  eight years ago, i was preparing to choose joy- despite.  to choose joy and not make it conditional.  to be okay with whatever happened.

and over that year, many things happened.  things got really bad, and darker, and harder.  then things got brighter and happier and more hopeful.  but through all of it- God had entered- and brought that peace we talk about at Christmas time- that peace that passes our understanding.  that peace that doesn't even make sense.  that joy even, that ability to laugh, or just stand up, or just breathe, or put your feet on the ground in the morning.  the strength to go on.

yesterday, after reading her blog, and crying for a while on the couch, i went outside on my porch. 

the sun was so bright and the sky so blue and everything was vibrant and so alive (none of it felt like Christmas time). and i looked and listened for my children.  their shoes were scattered around, their legos and army men and fort remnants, and all i could feel was the complete blessing in it all.  they were far away- playing with their friends, running, talking, thinking, growing, being normal kids.

i had been prepared for shunting and many surgeries and physical therapy and decreased capacity to learn and understand.  then i had begun preparing for him to be swallowed by a growing brain tumor, to be unstoppably sick, to leave me after only months on this earth.  but.  for him, God had a different plan.  for us God had a different plan.

for some reason, that plan included going to a very dark place for a while, a place where we couldn't see much but the path right in front of us, but in that darkness- wow does light shine brightly! it means more.  it gives more. it changes things. forever.

i'm so very thankful for that light- that amazing light of Christ- that light full of promise- full of peace unconditionally, and even joy.  i pray that i would hold on to it. never forget it.  never turn and walk away from it- and that i would especially remember how much it stood against the darkness.