Saturday, March 30

A Holy Saturday Post

On Dec 1, before I was pregnant, I wrote this: Lamenting in the Barren Land. I was not looking forward to Christmas - for the first time ever. Having gone through a year of failed infertility treatments and struggling with my sister's spontaneous pregnancy, presuming I would hear all kinds of "So why aren't you starting a family" kind of comments from friends and extended family.  Believing I would walk through all of it raw and vulnerable. It made me want to hide.

As I wrote "Lamenting", I assumed that the road ahead would lead toward healing, but in the form of contentedness years in the making. 

At the time, I believed I would write a bookend to "Lamenting." I didn't know when, but I thought it would go something like this:  "God didn't abandon me, and this is how I know, etc, etc." I also thought it would be something along the lines of "look at all he has done, though he never gave us children."

Which brings me to this Post: We are not Forsaken. I think it is a better bookend to "Lamenting" than something I could write. 

What I didn't think about during my own post was the effect on God as he watched his only son suffer and die.  Which is why the post is so fantastic. I, myself, couldn't wrap my brain around any other perspective but mine (and Jesus from the cross).

I forgot that parents suffer as their beloved child suffers.

My mom and sister (who has now had her baby) have both made comments recently about how painful it is to love someone as much as a parent loves their child. I cognitively believe it, but I don't understand it - yet. I know I will when our own little peanut comes I'll know experientially.

1 comment:

Laura Ward said...

Wow, that post was incredible - raw pain and true hope side by side. Thanks for sharing, friend.

Part of me got sad when I read your mom & sister's comments about the pain of loving one's child, because I don't want you to feel that pain. Yet you feeling that pain one day soon is proof of a miracle for which I prayed, a gift being given to you for which I rejoice and give thanks. And the giving of such a gift requires feeling the pain too, because love (at least in our fallen world) involves suffering.

C.S. Lewis said hell is the only place to be free of love's pain. I'm awed that God would face the pain of separating Father from Son in order to reconcile the world to Himself, and in doing so, He proved depth of His love. It's beyond my comprehension. What a gift, what an honor to be loved with that love! And how cool that you will soon be able to image God more fully by loving your child as He loved His Son, and as He loves us. Wow. :)

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