We have busily been working on our little guy's room and preparing for a baby in our home once again. We have been praying for baby boy and singing to him as a family every night before bed. The girls absolutely love this. What follows is always a discussion about his name. "Decide now, decide NOW", the girls chant, as they plead for their name choices. We are getting closer to naming him, but are not 100% sure just yet. So he remains "little man", "little guy", or "baby boy" for now.
There is a great deal of emotion running through us these last few weeks. There is so much joy and anticipation for new life and our growing family. AND .... closing in on the final weeks is also a reminder of the trauma we experienced 17 months ago in my final week of pregnancy with Kate. The pain of the loss has been rising up. There has definitely been a struggle for hope. I won't bore you with all of my thought processes, and prayers, and things I have been learning; but HOPE is complicated. It just is. If I really dare to fully hope then I must also fully remember. I must remember, taste, and see the beauty of God's glory and goodness in those moments when "all is well". I mean, this is what we all hope for, right? Those returned moments of complete and pure joy and delight. If I dare to honestly and fully remember His sweetness, then I also honestly remember the ache. I ache because I remember and know the suffering, loss, and pain that comes on this journey called life. Biblical hope is filled with tension. We long for what is to come ..... perfection, a new heaven and a new earth ...... but we live HERE, this side of heaven, where things are broken and not all is "right".
So as we hope, we desire. As we desire, we long. As we long, we remember .... what was (or what wasn't). It's complicated and I can't fully wrap my mind around it, but I am learning to embrace these mysteries. These mysteries are what call us to faith. I am learning to embrace the ache that comes with desire, and let God comfort me here. This is where I am moved from the threats of fear and despair FORWARD into hope. Hope that reminds "all will be well with me ...... no matter what". I can believe that statement because it is God's promise to me, and because my soul has known it. My soul knows what it is to have joy and mourning. What it is to have brokenness and beauty. What is is to have fear and courage.
As Jan Meyers shares in her book on hope, "Hope is not something outside of us to be found or lost, it is something that rises up in us with a gentle strength that requires a response." So in these final days before birth, I am choosing to respond even when response brings a deepened thirst, a deepened ache. I will choose to fully feel the desires, the longings, the pain, and the loss. Here is where I bring my most vulnerable self to my most loving Father for his comfort, love, security, and promise. Here is where my faith finds it's voice. Where my faith is alive and breathing, where I allow myself to be human and God to be God. Here is where I find myself fully available and present to my son and his life inside of me. Here is where I choose not to live in fear of what may happen and therefore miss out on the NOW. Here is where I experience the excitement of the new life God is bringing to us ...... no matter what. Here is where I dare to HOPE.
