Resolution

Over the month of December, I've been doing a photo a day challenge on Facebook. While I realize that my photo skills aren't up to snuff with the rest of the participants, I wanted to do it - for myself.  I wanted to try something different, to think and see just a bit differently. In these ways, it's been a rewarding experience, yet it's actually been quite a stretch for me to do this. More than a few times I wanted to just stop - it, like everything, felt too hard sometimes.  Ar has been a huge encouragement to me, helping me to keep going. Now, with only two more days left, I think I'll actually finish...

Anyhow, today's theme was resolution.  I struggled with what to do.  I don't even normally set New Year resolutions, but this year I know I must focus on letting go.  I'm not sure my photo will make much sense to hardly anyone else - in this context, anyhow - but it felt right to me.

It's amazing that God makes sunsets so beautiful, isn't it?  After all, the night that follows is terrifying.... it's dark and seems to last forever. Everything seems different in the dark, you know - and not a good kind of different.  We wonder if the morning will really ever come?  Will the sun that so beautifully went away really rise again?  Or is it just me who wonders such things?  Yes, every day has its glorious sunset - just before the world starts to turn terrifying...  only to get progressively more terrifying leading up to dawn. I'm not a particularly great sleeper, so I've seen many a literal darkest before the dawn.  Sometimes it takes a lot of faith just to make it through the night.

This is where I find myself now.  I've been fighting the day's end for too long - scrapping for more time... trying to squeeze more hours into the day, manage the clock, use every timeout and trick I can think of to prolong the inevitable - and terrifying - night.  Even though it looks far from beautiful, I'm here anyhow.  To provide a little context for my picture, in relation to the theme of resolution, I included this quote that has been bouncing through my mind for months:

"Some of us think holding on makes us strong, but sometimes it is letting go." 

(Hermann Hesse)

This has been such a long and hard day.  As hard as it is to let go, I know that at this point the brave and strong thing to do is to let go.  It's time to accept the night has come, trusting that the dawn also will come - and hoping for a better tomorrow.  It's awfully dark, though - and it hurts an awful lot.  

In church this morning, the pastor spoke of when young Jesus gave his parents a big scare when he stayed in Jerusalem, while they were headed home.  They eventually, after a lot of anxiety, found him in the temple sitting with the teachers, listening and asking questions... and amazing them with his understanding.  His parents were astonished.  When his mother asked him why he would cause them this anxiety, he answered, "Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?"  

To be honest, I've never really thought much about this passage before, but I'm glad I was there to hear it today, because it came to life for me today.  This, just a few days after I started reading a book called, "Where is God when it Hurts?"  (Philip Yancey).  So far I've not found the book to be that insightful yet - but I'm only about 25% in.  I've always liked Philip Yancey's writing quite a bit, so I'll stick with it. However, the sermon today seemed to be the very reminder I was looking for in this book.  "Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?"  

The pastor explained that the more literal translation would be to say, "Did you not know that I must be about my Father's business?"  He emphasized that while we - even those of us who know Jesus - search for Jesus, he's already made himself perfectly known to us.  He hasn't left; he's still about his Father's business. 

Jesus hasn't left - I know exactly where to find him.  

"God of grace and truth, in Christ Jesus you come among us as light shining in the darkness.  I confess that I have not welcomed the light, and have not trusted the good news of great joy.  Forgive me and renew my hope, so that I may live in the fullness of your love, trusting in the grace of Christ our Lord."

A kindlier dozen, please

I posted this same poem last new year; it still speaks perfectly to me:

"And ye, who have met with Adversity's blast, 

And been bow'd to the earth by its fury; 

To whom the Twelve Months, that have recently pass'd 

Were as harsh as a prejudiced jury - 

Still, fill to the Future! and join in our chime,

The regrets of remembrance to cozen, 

And having obtained a New Trial of Time, 

Shout in hopes of a kindlier dozen." 

(Thomas Hood)

AF arrived - five days late - on Christmas Eve to destroy any lingering hope that my body can do what women's bodies are meant to do... to destroy any doubt that what so many attain so easily, often without even wanting it, is just completely out of reach for me.  Yeah, I had such high hopes for 2012. Oh I am tired and ready for a New Trial of Time.  In this New Trial of Time, I must learn to let go...  to lay it on the alter....  to trust that it will be redeemed.     

Hazy

As 2012 winds to an end, as the days get shorter and darker, and as the world has gotten itself covered in whiteness, cold, and ice, I find myself utterly exhausted - physically and emotionally.  I started off 2012 with the highest of hopes that I'd be a mom, or very nearly a mom, by the end of it.  Could that have only been a year ago?  I feel like I've aged 15 years.

It had taken so much to get back into treatment; I went all in.  When that didn't work, I wish we could have taken the next step to IVF, but it wasn't - and isn't - possible.  I still sometimes fancy that perhaps we'll just find a baby or two that needs us and it'll all magically work out.  Still, I no longer hold hope for any of these dreams of motherhood - high or otherwise.

Yeah, it's been quite a year.  Certainly there have been plenty of sweet, fun, and loving times too, of course, which I cherish.  Yet I find myself anxious to be past this next week of Christmas and back home again, but then I want to nap.  I want to crawl into bed with Ar and nap for a very long time - maybe years.  I don't mean the dead to the world kind of sleep, but the sweet, cozy, warm, cuddly kinda nap where you're a little in and a little out...  During those hazy times, you remember only all that is good and wonderful in life - not the hard stuff.  Hazy times are great that way, all is warm and cuddly and funny.  Once you wake up fully, there's memory and pain and tears.  Oh I am tired of memory and pain and tears.  I wonder if spring will ever come.

Joy to the world...

...the Lord is come!!  

I love this song!  I love Christmas carols and I love church at Christmas time!  (Not that I don't love it the rest of the year, of course, but Christmas is... so very special.)

Today at church was the kids program - about 60 or more super cute kiddies up there singing and reading... They provided the entire service - and they were all you'd hope for and then some.  The older kids did an excellent job reading, some with more dramatic flair than others.  The younger kids sang great and provided some good comedy.  Some of the kids were dressed like little men and ladies, others in Angry Birds ties or blinking lights ties, others in Santa dresses or tutus...  It's hard to explain the complicated mix of emotions that arise with this sort of event.  It's wonderful to listen to children singing about Jesus!  It's sweet and lovely and fun - and incredibly heart wrenching.  We should have maybe a five and a three year old by now, if only...

Still, I thought I was holding up okay, but towards the end when we were closing with "Joy to the World," at the 3rd verse, the tears started to drop - and could not be stopped. I couldn't even finish singing.  These words just pierced my heart:

"No more let sins and sorrows grow,

Nor thorns infest the ground;

He comes to make His blessings flow

Far as the curse is found,

Far as the curse is found,

Far as, far as, the curse is found."

My sorrows have grown... oh how they've grown.  They have grown beyond my comprehension.  And don't even get me started on the thorns infesting the ground....

And so the tears did flow.

I'm so glad that Ar didn't have to work today, so he was there beside me.  There's a reason I posted this picture today, for the photo a day challenge I'm doing.  Today's theme was "hands at work."

I've posted this picture here before - all the other pictures (except a special one of Ar that I love) I'm shooting special for the challenge, but I felt this one was appropriate for today.  We ended up having a lovely day together.  What a blessing to be able to talk through the heart break, once again - and to still be able to have such a nice time together. I never understand why Ar hasn't grown sick of me yet, but I'm so very grateful.

I'll just never understand any of this, and I always want to understand.   More importantly, I want to fix this - to make it better, but it seems there's no making it better.  There's only forward and the hope that maybe one day I can sit through a children's program without bursting into weepy tears.

Oh Lord, how I need help.  I am so broken.  

Red nosed...

Hey - it's HJ the red nosed blogger checking in here.  I wonder if Santa needs my help guiding his sleigh this year....

Indeed, my lovely monthly pimple has arrived to usher in another month of confirmed barrenness.  AF hasn't arrived yet, but the arrival of the pimple means it's on the way; today is CD26.

This month's monstrosity decided to park its ugliness right on my nose this time.  It's perfect, really.  After all, by this time, that I need to find my way out of this monstrosity really should be as clear as the pimple on my nose.

How do you let go?  How do you give up on a dream that is so right and good?

I value perseverance so much more than acceptance, yet I do believe that sometimes strength is in the letting go. Belief or not, I've never been been good at the letting go.  In many ways this is a good quality in me, but of course, as with so many things, it can be a blessing - and a curse.  Have I laid it at the alter?  Have I laid at the alter that nagging spirit of mine that constantly, even in the depths of darkness, tells me to hang in there, to not let go...  that inner voice that so vehemently believes that the answer, the resolution, the way, is always there if you just dig a little deeper, work a little harder. 

Sometimes it's actually not there.  This is hard for me to grasp, let alone accept. Besides, what am I missing in my pursuit of it?  Perhaps the good really is the enemy of the best.

It's so hard to trust - to really trust, with more than just lip service (or fingertip service, as the blogging case may be) that God, our holy father - Abba - will not let this life of mine be unredeemed.

These are some of the lyrics to the Selah song I posted a couple posts ago:

The cruelest word, the coldest heart; The deepest wound, the endless dark; The lonely ache, the burning tears; The bitter nights, the wasted years.  Life breaks and falls apart; But we know these are...  Places where grace is soon to be so amazing. It may be unfulfilled, it may be unrestored; But when anything that's shattered; Is laid before the Lord; Just watch and see, it will not be unredeemed. 

I've had the strength to persevere for a long time, and I'm very tired.  I wonder if I have the strength to let go. Or am I off to the Island of Misfit Toys?

Pimply yours,
HJ

If only in my dreams

I'll be a mom for Christmas... if only in my dreams...

Indeed, it is only in my dreams, and it broke my heart to wake up.  The dream started out a little scary, but it became quite lovely.

I don't remember all the details, but these two adorable little kids - a little girl about 3 and her big brother of 4 or 5 - needed help.  Their parents had left them and someone was out to get them, so they were on the run - and I helped them escape.  This part of the dream must have been quite stressful because Ar says that my sleep-antics woke him up.  Apparently I was pretty riled up.  He woke me up because I was acting frightened, but I went right back into the dream.  In the end, the little girl told me she loves me and that they want me to be their mom.  I told her I would love that!  Ar wasn't seen in the dream, but I knew that he would love them as much as I did.  After that, I asked my boss to write me a letter that would allow Ar and me to be the kids' parents...   She didn't want to at first, because she thought I'd quit my job if I had kids, but finally she agreed.  In the end, the little girl was hugging me on the front porch of the house that I grew up in.

Then I woke up and ohhhhh - how I wanted to fall back into that dream, but it was over; I was awake and there was no going back.

Besides, this is real life and all there is is forward.

A great fall

I had a terrible realization today:  I'm Humpty Dumpty.  

Yet I can't be, right?  I mean, God won't leave me smashed to smithereens, will he?  My faith says no, absolutely not - but every aching ounce of me is certain that I can't be put together again.  

I hadn't told my dear friend about this particular episode of moroseness, yet she sent me this lovely song: "Unredeemed" by Selah.  Thank you, my friend!   ♥    My achiness and I really hope it's true - and we appreciate your friendship and encouragement!!

A word that isn't

"There is, I am convinced, no picture that conveys, in all its dreadfulness, a vision of sorrow, despairing, remediless supreme. If I could paint such a picture, the canvas would only show a woman looking down at her empty arms." (Charlotte Bronte)

My heart aches. Even in the midst of keeping on keeping on, it just -- aches.  Frankly, the word ache isn't sufficient to describe it.  I know no word that truly describes it.  And I don't know if it'll ever go away.

Proverbs 30 reads, "...weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning." 

So... when is this morning they speak of?  This night has been awfully long.

Is it really always darkest before the dawn?  

My night has certainly taken a turn for the dark over these last several months.  It's not the same grief as it was seven years ago, or three years ago...   Even just a year ago, I still hoped.  Hope evened out the grief. It was a roller coaster ride, to be sure, but the hope that the next cycle might just be the one...  the next treatment might just work... maybe, just maybe I'd be a mom soon.  This hope always brought me back.  That hope is gone. 

Infertility with no hope for momdom - with no options left - is just...  well, it's a word that isn't.  There is no word to describe it: ache, grief, sorrow, pain...  they only scratch the surface.  This wordless place is one that even my dear IF friends don't understand - because they have hope.  Wonderfully so, many are even coming out the other side - with arms full.  But I realize now that fellow IFers only understand up to a point - up to the point where the road forks. 

It feels like uncharted territory here, as if I'm (not so) boldly going where no one has gone before.  Those who are still trying, oh - I truly hope and pray they never get here.  When they reach the fork in the road, I pray they take the road more traveled, one way or another - the road to momdom.  As hard as it is to be here, I don't want any of them to join me!

Yet I am grateful to not have to go it alone; Ar makes for awfully good company.  He wishes he could stop this word that isn't; I believe he'd stand and fight anyone or anything to the death to stop it - if only he could. 

Nothing seems to stop the word that isn't.  I wonder if it will ever go away?  

Even so, "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. 'The Lord is my portion,' says my soul, 'therefore I will hope in him.'"  (Lamentations 3:22-24)