Beautiful Mess

I’m not sure I even know how to respond to the outpouring I have received since my last post. I was just a tired mommy sitting in front of a computer screen at 1:00am, pouring out my heart the way I felt God was calling me to do, and since then over 3,500 people have read those words. While those may be common numbers for many bloggers, they are not for this mommy writer for sure. Thank you for taking the time to listen to my heart. Thank you to the hundreds of people who have passed it on to others. I pray with every “share” that my letter gets closer and closer to the woman or women for whom God had me write that note that night. I am grateful that I can do my small part and then trust Him to use you to do all the complicated parts of reaching others.

Thank you to each and every person who has reached out to me with encouragement in my writing. Your stories of your own miscarriages, those you’ve known who have struggled through abortions, or your excitement that someone put your feelings into written words have blessed me more than I can say. It’s hard to explain the nervousness I felt the other night posting. It was very personal. It was my story and also my heart and passion for a group of women who are hurting. A part of me wanted to hold it inside and not lay it out there for everyone to see and read, and possibly critique, or instead of being blessed, become offended by my words. It’s a highly volatile topic, and I would often rather stay in safer zones. But I knew that in order to do that I would have to choose to ignore His voice at work in my heart. And, I have to tell you, of all the things in the world I do not want to do, ignoring Him is at the extreme top of the list.

As I sat there this morning and prayed over what happened the last few days and reviewed in my head the words shared with me, it suddenly hit me. The constant recurring word used over and over in the responses I received was the word, “beautiful.” Beauty? But at the core of my post was a lot of pain. The pain of loss. The pain of mistakes. The pain of sin. The pain of regret. The pain of emptiness and void. My friends, that is our beautiful Jesus at work, redeeming and resurrecting. I wonder just how much beauty there would be in our lives and in the world if we truly let Him do His perfect work in the ugliest, most tragic, most gut-wrenching parts of our story.

The first time I went through a miscarriage, I had no idea that I would be sitting here writing to you today. I was just in pain. Gut-wrenching pain. I had no idea that I would have five beautiful children. I had none. I didn’t know if a child was a blessing I would ever experience. I couldn’t look ahead and see where I would be today. But I couldn’t wait until I could see to make my decision. The choice was my void and my questions or His Name and His beauty. And, honestly, it was a choice I had made years before or it would have been very difficult to make in that moment. It is hardest to choose beauty in the dark moment unless you have already chosen it when the light was on. It’s like looking around your home at night, locking the doors, seeing that everything is in place, and then turning out the lights. You know what is there, who is there, and there is a sense of peace. Can you still have moments of question over what you can’t see? If you hear something different or sense something out of place? Of course. But deep down, you know what is there. But if you were to be sitting there with your doors and windows open, nothing certain about what could come in or go out or who was in charge, and then suddenly lose all the light, there is much more fear involved there. Did something come in that door? Where is that open window and what do I hear? Are things in place and is it safe to trust? We must choose His Name in every crevice and cranny so that when we are under attack there is no weak link in our armor, no open windows for doubt. No place of darkness where we refuse to see that He could do something in a far different way than we would choose. Would I have chosen to lose five babies? Not in a million years. Would I be who I am today without that being a part of my heart and my story? No, I would not. All I know is this, there is nothing life or another person can throw at me that is out of the scope of His resurrection. And if at any point I refuse to let His Name fill that place with His light, I am refusing the gift He died to give me. We are missing out if we only believe He came to give us beauty and resurrection after this life is over. If I knew there was no life after this one, I would still choose Him. I would choose Him for what He is to me today. What He was yesterday. What He will be tomorrow. I would choose Him because He fills up all the voids and brings beauty to the darkest of stories.

I am praying for each of you as well as myself. May we give it all to Him and watch Him create perfect, indescribable beauty out of every mess we give Him.