Nature's Remedy

Therefore let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.

1 Peter 4:19

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. 

Psalm 19:1

For those of you who are local, though the title of this blog appears to be a shameless plug for a business that I love, owned by a woman that I greatly respect and admire, I can assure you it is not.  This post really is about how restoring and healing I have found nature to be in this season.

The scriptures listed above are two that caught my eye back in April and have had a lasting impression on me ever since.  In reading 1 Peter 4:18, I was kind of shocked that Peter referenced the fact that God is Creator in the verse.  I'm not sure what I expected to see there instead, but I found myself unable to move quickly past that word.  So I started to think about what it meant to entrust my soul to a faithful Creator, and pretty soon just found myself thinking about the beauty and wonder of creation.  

I found myself reading the creation account in Genesis 1 and 2, and asking myself a question from a Bible study I did years ago - "What kind of God creates like this?" And I was reminded beautiful characteristics of our Creator, here are just a few: intentional, creative, One who brings order to chaos, intimately involved in the details, the Creator and modeler of rest, all-powerful, all-sustaining, good.

After that I started to admire nature more - it was just raw creation.  Man's hand was absent from making it beautiful. Instead it was God's voice alone that had spoken it into being, and His oversight that had sustained it.  And it helped me to better understand how big my God is.

So, I stared at the Grand Canyon with awe.  I remember feeling a peace because the Creator of this masterpiece was watching over me - and He was watching over Chase.

I went on a prayer walk up and down the beach in Florida and just couldn't take my eyes off the water. I couldn't see where it stopped.  It was breathtaking.  The Creator of this was asking me to entrust myself to Him.

I went on a mini-hike near Branson, MO one morning in October and was just speechless as I witnessed the changing colors of the lake and the sky and the trees as the sun rose higher and higher in the sky.  I thanked God that I had the chance to behold such beauty, even on this fallen Earth.  And then I found myself excited, looking forward to the reunion I would have with Chase in the New Heavens and the New Earth. Looking forward to beholding beauty there that far outweighs anything I will ever see here.  I speak of the beauty of The Lord of course, but also of the indescribable beauty of the New Earth - the renewed creation.

The weather has transitioned from the hot Texas summer to an overwhelmingly refreshing fall.  I forgot how beautiful this season is - it's slowly becoming my favorite. And because of that I find myself sitting outside a lot more.  I go for walks as often as I can.  I want to feel the chill in the air.  I want to breathe in crisp air.  I want to behold the changing color of the leaves.  Because when I do, I always feel just a little bit better.  There's something life-giving about the creation.

Maybe because the Creator is the ultimate Life-giver.

Walk to Remember

This past Saturday family and friends joined me for an event called Walk to Remember hosted by a non-profit organization called M.E.N.D - Mommies Enduring Neonatal Death.  The event isn't so much a walk, as it is a program that allows families to come together and celebrate their child, or children, that went to be safe with the Lord in Heaven much sooner than any of us would want - through miscarriage, stillbirth, or a short life outside the womb.

Chase was the oldest child remembered at the Walk.  I think the next oldest, was 8 months, and even that is on the older end of the spectrum for the children usually remembered at this event.  The majority of the families were remembering children that did not survive even a week outside the womb.

It was an emotional day.

After we checked in, we headed to a room where tables had been set up for families to display items of the child they were remembering.  Barely able to see through my tears, I set up a few pictures of Chase,  the program from his Celebration Service, a onesie, a jacket, a book, and his Sophie the Giraffe rubber teething toy.  My mom and sister later added another book, picture, and a blue hooded towel.

It was so sad to set this up.  One part of me didn't want to be there.  I didn't want to be remembering my child, setting out objects that I wouldn't ever see him use again.  But the other part of me was so excited to be there.  Proud to be celebrating my son.  Excited for the chance to talk about him and answer questions about him.

I walked around to see all the memory tables.  I flipped through a picture book that a grieving mom put together on the one year anniversary of her daughter's birth - and death.  I looked at countless memory boxes filled with onesies, blankets, and hospital bracelets of babies that never left the hospital alive.  I saw quilts that had been sewn for miscarried babies.  I saw countless pictures of urns, small caskets and gravesite markers.

The sites were sobering.

The program continued in a large field outside the church.  Two women at the podium read from a list of names.  They took turns saying "We remember" followed by a child's name and their corresponding life dates.

There were a lot of names.

There were a lot of singular dates.  Which meant miscarriage, stillbirth, or that the baby took his last breath the same day he took his first.

Hearing this list is what made me realize that Chase was the oldest baby remembered on Saturday.  And in the midst of the sadness and tears, I was able to be thankful.

Thankful that I had a healthy labor and birth.
Thankful that I had heard his cry.
Thankful that I had felt his slobber run down my cheek.
Thankful that I had seen him crawl.
Thankful that I got to celebrate his first birthday with him.
Thankful that I have 375 days of memories.

I left the event thankful for Chase's life.  And I prayed that God would be gracious to all the other families, and show them how they too could be thankful in the midst of their grief.  

This week in my Bible study homework I read 1 Thessalonians 5:18.  It says "give thanks in all circumstances." (emphasis mine)  On Saturday, the Lord helped show me how that really is possible to do, even in the worst of times.

Milestones

Each month comes with its own set of milestones.  But September has been a month of somewhat more weighty milestones than others.

On September 2, Ted and I celebrated 7 years of marriage.  We toasted to God's grace getting us through almost 6 months of grief.  Probably not something you're gonna find on an anniversary card.

Some of the milestones, unfortunately, are what I call missed milestones.

September 14 Chase would have been 18 months old.  But there was no doctor's appointment. There was no weight check and a new percentile to write down and tell my family and friends.  I didn't get to have the fun conversations with my mom friends about how huge Chase was in comparison to their kids.  How his Samoan and Guillory genes were showing out!

Chase didn't get to accompany me this year to dropping Jaden off at his first day of preschool. He didn't get to see Jaden at sports class, hit the ball the farthest off the T. He wasn't sitting in my lap as we watched Jaden attempt his first karate class last night.  It seems that for every milestone or new experience we go through with Jaden, not only do we mourn the fact that little brother is not there to watch, but we have to mourn the truth that little brother won't get the chance to do those activities.

And then there's the non-missed milestones, the actual ones that you really don't want to hit.

Monday, September 23 marked 6 months of Chase being safe in the arms of God in Heaven.  On Monday the tension of the bleeding, yet triumphant, heart was intensified.  On one side I was thankful that he's OK, that I'll see him again, that the end of this story is happy.  Yet on the other side I was immobilized by heartache, taken down to a pit that I'll seem to never escape.

But it's in that pit where I have had some sweet moments with the Lord.  I'll write more about those later, but I find this C.S. Lewis quote to be beautifully and painfully true:

"Pain insists upon being attended to.  God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains." 

God is shouting in these milestones - both missed and actual, and He has graciously given me ears to hear.