I navigate uncharted waters. This path is a new one...not one that I took intentionally or am particualariy happy to be on. Things here are unfamiliar and I have to rearange what I know...all my past experiences and what I believed to be true about the person you are. I am learning that you are not who you said you were. That my entire life I believed you were someone you aren't...and you are proving to be someone I never knew before. But because in my heart there are so many things I treasure about who I believed you were...it helps me to think back on the things that have caused me to love you.
There are things I miss...things I see that remind me of you...the you that I always thought you were. I see your hands on a man sitting next to me on a plane. I see you in a movie...as a man who has no idea who he is. I am reminded of you when I eat hot tamales. I think of you when I see a baseball game and how you know the game better than anyone I know. There are things I want to tell you...things I want to talk about....mostly just things that I know will spark your interest. Nothing deep...nothing about the way I feel since you have removed yourself from my life...just small talk. I wish I could give you a hug and tell you how much I love you and how much I miss you. And why I want to do that really makes no sense at all...because you have abandoned me...but still I wish I could. I think of you when I talk to your mom. I wish I could tell you what I've been doing lately...about my dreams and the things I love. I wish I could tell you about my dogs and hear about yours. I wish I could talk to you about baseball and make plans to go to a Rockies game. If only you knew how often I think of you...how many tears I cry wishing you could find the one thing in your life that would change everything. If only you knew how much you have hurt me. I can't stop loving you even though it would be so much easier if I could. I wish you cared about me more than you care about yourself.
And I am grieving. I am grieving not because you are dead....but because you have chosen to remove yourself from my life. I think that is harder than if you were truly gone. Because if you were gone there would be no choice in the matter....and I would have to move on knowing that you were never coming back. Right now I am moving on not knowing if you'll ever come back...and if I should ever let you. Dads are suppose to be heros. They are suppose to be the parents...not the children. You aren't suppose to leave no matter how old you are. You aren't suppose to hurt me. You aren't suppose to lie to me. All I want is to admire you, to look up to you, to want to be like you. To be proud of where I come from. But I don't. You see...I don't know who you are...and I realize that you made a fool out of me. You're my dad...of course I wanted to believe you. Of course I love you...and of course you could make me believe you were whoever you pretended to me. You didn't have to earn my love like most everyone else I have in my life did. The love I gave you wasn't earned....I love you because I don't know how not to. And you had a responsibility to cherish me. To protect me...to care for me....to love me with the kind of love a father has for his daughter.
So where do I go from here? Well...I move towards those who I know love me and won't ever leave me. More than anything I cling to my Heavenly Father who holds my heart, my hopes, and my future. Who hears my cries and knows every tear I cry. And I am forever grateful that on days when I feel I don't have a father...He reminds me that I do and that He will never leave me. I hold on to hope that you will someday want to be a healthy, sober, responsible person who owns up to the mistakes you have made. I move on with my life...without you in it. I can't take responsibility for you anymore because you have to want help. I have to let go of thinking I can love you enough for you to change...because if you are determined to fall...I am not going down with you. I know that I'm worth more and I deserve more than the way you've treated me. And although I do miss you and I do want you to be in my life...having a dad the way you are isn't fair to me. I hope that someday soon you will find the peace that surpasses understanding. And I do hold on to the things that once defined my idea of you. Because thinking of your notes with smiley faces, and your TTU hats, and you blue eyes, and your slip on shoes, your windpants, and your obsession with 100% cotton...those things bring a smile to my face. They remind me of the man I love.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
He knows....
In our quest to achieve pregnancy I have found this to be a very lonely time. The only perspective I have of mommyhood ended all to quickly when I miscarried at 9 weeks. It's hard to believe that almost 2 years have passed since that day. Time does heal...it takes the initial sting away...however the pain of that memory is just a part of the pain this journey has brought. After the miscarriage I was terrified of going through that experience again...so we took some much needed time to heal and put our hopes of having a baby on hold for a while. When enough time had passed I decided that even if I had to go through loss gain, my desire to have a baby outweighed that fear. Considering we got pregnant on the first try the first time around I figured that in no time we would be sharing our news with friends and family. Well...9 months later we still have no baby news. Month after month I get my hopes up only to have them come crashing back down. It has been a rough ride:(
Surrounding the ups and downs this journey has brought...I have had to deal with having many women very close to me delighting in the birth of their own children, or the announcement that they are expecting. No one prepared me for this part of life. The part where your heart aches to have the very thing that it seems everyone around you has. Joy, excitement, thankfulness all mixed with jealousy, envy, bitterness, and anger. It is impossible to describe unless you have walked this road. I can't handle anyone else telling me to "just relax", enjoy the time I have with my husband, be patient, "trust me it's all it's cracked up to be", or "you can borrow mine", or even asking "are you pregnant?" every time they see me. NO I'm not!! The truth is my arms are empty and my heart longs to hold my own children.
It has been hard to understand God's plan in all of this. Why people who don't even want children have an oops and have a baby. How I see women in public every day with children they don't even seem to want. How someone can have a God given desire to be a mother and cannot get pregnant, or who only knows the joy of motherhood for 9 short weeks. Tough sledding. Trust me....these are the thoughts I live with every day. All while asking God to still my mind...remind me that He is good even when things don't go my way...and to help me to trust Him with my future. I truly feel that the days of anger and unrest are on their way out. Praise God! I am beginning to learn to praise God for this trail, knowing that He has CHOSEN me to endure what most don't have to face. That He has entrusted me with a tremendous opportunity and challenge to honor Him with. He must have plans far beyond what I can see...and I pray He uses this season in my life to bring Him glory. And one thing I know for sure....I am gonna love the hell out of my babies when they come and truly appreciate the gift of children!
I have prayed so many times, "God you just don't understand. You say that you know how we feel and how we struggle in all things. But you didn't carry a child...or loose a baby before you even met them....or grow a life inside you". I wrestled with anger because I knew the desire to be a mom came from God and if He would give this desire then why wouldn't He bless us with a baby. I sometimes feel like the stork is dropping off babies at everyone else's doorstep and didn't get the memo with my address on it. For real! What gives??! I would cry out to God telling Him that I couldn't handle another one of my friends announcing their pregnancy. I was mad....and sometimes I still am. But the thing that has put a damper on my temper tantrum is knowing that God does know the pain of loss. He gave up His only son. And not only gave Him up...turned Him over to the hands of death. For all for us. How I pray He can forgive me for ever believing He didn't and doesn't understand. He knows the pain of loosing a child. I imagine this same pain encompasses longing for children as well.
The thing is that although my perspective is beginning to change...there is no certainty in the outcome of this whole thing. I sincerely pray that the outcome is that someday soon I will hold our babies and see my husband take on the role of the most amazing father of all time. But because I don't know what the future holds I cling to the promise that I know who holds my future. And as I stumble through this trial....I know I will have tough days ahead and days that I will fall short. Days that I'll trust completely in the goodness of God who plans to give me a future and a a hope. And days that I will allow anger and bitterness to reign in my heart as I work out all the ways that this "isn't fair". Psalm 73:26 sums this up perfecting: "My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." And as much as I look forward to being a mommy and holding little hands...I look forward even more to kneeling before my God and praising Him for all of eternity!!!
Surrounding the ups and downs this journey has brought...I have had to deal with having many women very close to me delighting in the birth of their own children, or the announcement that they are expecting. No one prepared me for this part of life. The part where your heart aches to have the very thing that it seems everyone around you has. Joy, excitement, thankfulness all mixed with jealousy, envy, bitterness, and anger. It is impossible to describe unless you have walked this road. I can't handle anyone else telling me to "just relax", enjoy the time I have with my husband, be patient, "trust me it's all it's cracked up to be", or "you can borrow mine", or even asking "are you pregnant?" every time they see me. NO I'm not!! The truth is my arms are empty and my heart longs to hold my own children.
It has been hard to understand God's plan in all of this. Why people who don't even want children have an oops and have a baby. How I see women in public every day with children they don't even seem to want. How someone can have a God given desire to be a mother and cannot get pregnant, or who only knows the joy of motherhood for 9 short weeks. Tough sledding. Trust me....these are the thoughts I live with every day. All while asking God to still my mind...remind me that He is good even when things don't go my way...and to help me to trust Him with my future. I truly feel that the days of anger and unrest are on their way out. Praise God! I am beginning to learn to praise God for this trail, knowing that He has CHOSEN me to endure what most don't have to face. That He has entrusted me with a tremendous opportunity and challenge to honor Him with. He must have plans far beyond what I can see...and I pray He uses this season in my life to bring Him glory. And one thing I know for sure....I am gonna love the hell out of my babies when they come and truly appreciate the gift of children!
I have prayed so many times, "God you just don't understand. You say that you know how we feel and how we struggle in all things. But you didn't carry a child...or loose a baby before you even met them....or grow a life inside you". I wrestled with anger because I knew the desire to be a mom came from God and if He would give this desire then why wouldn't He bless us with a baby. I sometimes feel like the stork is dropping off babies at everyone else's doorstep and didn't get the memo with my address on it. For real! What gives??! I would cry out to God telling Him that I couldn't handle another one of my friends announcing their pregnancy. I was mad....and sometimes I still am. But the thing that has put a damper on my temper tantrum is knowing that God does know the pain of loss. He gave up His only son. And not only gave Him up...turned Him over to the hands of death. For all for us. How I pray He can forgive me for ever believing He didn't and doesn't understand. He knows the pain of loosing a child. I imagine this same pain encompasses longing for children as well.
The thing is that although my perspective is beginning to change...there is no certainty in the outcome of this whole thing. I sincerely pray that the outcome is that someday soon I will hold our babies and see my husband take on the role of the most amazing father of all time. But because I don't know what the future holds I cling to the promise that I know who holds my future. And as I stumble through this trial....I know I will have tough days ahead and days that I will fall short. Days that I'll trust completely in the goodness of God who plans to give me a future and a a hope. And days that I will allow anger and bitterness to reign in my heart as I work out all the ways that this "isn't fair". Psalm 73:26 sums this up perfecting: "My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." And as much as I look forward to being a mommy and holding little hands...I look forward even more to kneeling before my God and praising Him for all of eternity!!!
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Speaking of Rainbows....
It is no coincidence that I wrote my first blog about a rainbow. Last weekend there was a crazy storm here...everything from wind to rain to thunder and snow. It was wild. Wind that was so strong, blowing rain and snow sideways. And cold. I kept peeking outside to see if it was on it's way out since my puppies were getting tired of being pent up and were ready to go for a walk. We had been sitting inside most of the day curled up on the couch listening to the whipping wind and the rain beating against the windows. Just as it sounded like it was settling down, things would pick back up with an unbelievable intensity. After hours of this I wasn't sure the dogs and I would make it out at all. Slowly but surely, the clouds moved out stopping the rain and snow and all that was left was the wind and the cold. I could bundle up and handle that. I finally decided that it was decent enough to get out of the house and get some fresh air with my dogs. The poor things had been giving me puppy eyes for hours. I peeked out the window from the kitchen one last time and caught a glimmer of a rainbow. I thought to myself, "a rainbow in January....how weird".
It wasn't until I got the dogs loaded into the car and was on my way to the trail that I understood the magnitude of this rainbow. It expanded high into the sky and outlined the entirety of the storm. I can't remember ever seeing a rainbow in January. I think back to my last post, "until I see the rainbow I will choose to enjoy the rain". Immediately tears fill my eyes. Thank you Lord. I truly believe that I was intended to see this incredibly beautiful sign from God that stormy Saturday. "I will never leave you, I will never forsake you" my heart speaks deep within my chest. More tears. "I am faithful...I have a plan for your life...take my hand and walk with me." Tears run down my cheeks and my heart is full. I am known by God. I am loved by Him. He hasn't forgotten about me...He spoke when for so long He has been silent. It was one of those rare moments in life when I feel that maybe I'm not as small as I think I am. I was exactly where I needed to be that day...and I saw exactly what I needed to.
The main thing I think I've been able to rest in since that day is that I serve a mighty God. And I mean MIGHTY. I don't have to worry because He holds my future. And His plan for me in unique for me...no one else is on the same journey that I am on. I can be pissed about that....OR I can be honored that He would choose to give me these challenges. That He would trust me with so much. How will I respond with the testing of my faith? How will I honor Him with MY specific journey? Will it make me better? Will it refine me like gold? Or will it make me worse? Bitter...angry...jealous...hopeless? Will it turn me into dust? I pray that it makes me look more like Him.
He has asked me to give Him two things nearest to my heart. My dad. And my desire to have children. Neither is something I can give over easily. And neither has a safe outcome or a sure ending. But He knows how the story ends...and that is all that really matters. I will follow Him no matter what the ending looks like. None of this is out of place...the questions...the tears...the pain. It is exactly how its suppose to be. And He is the author and perfecter of my faith...so I will give Him my whole heart. As I let my fingers loose...I work at positioning the desires of my heart in the palms of my hands. My fingers keep reaching back...fighting...trying to take back what belongs to Him. My heart screams "What if"...."BUT"..."WHY"..."I'm scared"..."This isn't fair"...and it takes me filling my mind with the rainbow to quiet those cries and trade them for truth. That I serve a mighty God who desires to give me a hope and a future. As my grandpa always said as he faced his final days, "He holds the keys". My heart is open...to whatever it is God is bringing into my life. And I will work to live my life on my knees, palms up offering all that I am to my Father.
It wasn't until I got the dogs loaded into the car and was on my way to the trail that I understood the magnitude of this rainbow. It expanded high into the sky and outlined the entirety of the storm. I can't remember ever seeing a rainbow in January. I think back to my last post, "until I see the rainbow I will choose to enjoy the rain". Immediately tears fill my eyes. Thank you Lord. I truly believe that I was intended to see this incredibly beautiful sign from God that stormy Saturday. "I will never leave you, I will never forsake you" my heart speaks deep within my chest. More tears. "I am faithful...I have a plan for your life...take my hand and walk with me." Tears run down my cheeks and my heart is full. I am known by God. I am loved by Him. He hasn't forgotten about me...He spoke when for so long He has been silent. It was one of those rare moments in life when I feel that maybe I'm not as small as I think I am. I was exactly where I needed to be that day...and I saw exactly what I needed to.
The main thing I think I've been able to rest in since that day is that I serve a mighty God. And I mean MIGHTY. I don't have to worry because He holds my future. And His plan for me in unique for me...no one else is on the same journey that I am on. I can be pissed about that....OR I can be honored that He would choose to give me these challenges. That He would trust me with so much. How will I respond with the testing of my faith? How will I honor Him with MY specific journey? Will it make me better? Will it refine me like gold? Or will it make me worse? Bitter...angry...jealous...hopeless? Will it turn me into dust? I pray that it makes me look more like Him.
He has asked me to give Him two things nearest to my heart. My dad. And my desire to have children. Neither is something I can give over easily. And neither has a safe outcome or a sure ending. But He knows how the story ends...and that is all that really matters. I will follow Him no matter what the ending looks like. None of this is out of place...the questions...the tears...the pain. It is exactly how its suppose to be. And He is the author and perfecter of my faith...so I will give Him my whole heart. As I let my fingers loose...I work at positioning the desires of my heart in the palms of my hands. My fingers keep reaching back...fighting...trying to take back what belongs to Him. My heart screams "What if"...."BUT"..."WHY"..."I'm scared"..."This isn't fair"...and it takes me filling my mind with the rainbow to quiet those cries and trade them for truth. That I serve a mighty God who desires to give me a hope and a future. As my grandpa always said as he faced his final days, "He holds the keys". My heart is open...to whatever it is God is bringing into my life. And I will work to live my life on my knees, palms up offering all that I am to my Father.
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