Healing

A week ago, shortly after I posted my list of gifts, the painful emotions hit me.

I have spent the last year hoping. Not focusing on the disappointments. Trying to overlook the losses and stay focused on the hope of a fulfilled dream in the future.

The hope of getting pregnant.
Of having a child.
Of (finally) being a mother.

But that still hasn't happened yet. And it won't happen in the way that I dreamed and hoped for these past 12 years.

This year began with the hope of still having options, and then, a hard decision to have surgery and end the possibility of growing a child in my womb.  And I focused.

On rationalizing our decision and reminding myself that it was the best decision given the circumstances.
On learning what I needed to do to prepare for surgery.
On coping with the fear of having surgery.
On recovering physically.

But now, the physical recovery is well on its way. And it's time to grieve.

Too many losses to even list.
Too much sadness and anger.
Too much confusion and disappointment.

This is not the way I wanted things to happen. I can hardly believe this is my life.
A life of loss and grief...and it feels like I've had more of this than most people.
But I don't know. Maybe that's not true.

I've been reading (and listing my gifts...I'm up to 620, as of a few minutes ago...trying to find the joy that I know is present because I'm loved by my Father)..."Joy and pain, they are but two arteries of the one heart that pumps through all those who don't numb themselves to really living" (Voskamp, p. 84). "Life is loss" (p. 100). We will all lose everything and everyone one day. Loss is not unusual. But it is painful.

So, painful.
But, I know, it is unavoidable. I've grieved before. I know grief well. I know that it sticks around as long as it takes for my heart to stop ripping into pieces and for God to begin to sew and glue and patch it back together. And that will happen, eventually, but in the meantime, please be gentle with me.

I'm not done healing.