Hope

Can I be honest with you for a moment? Facebook reminds me today that in 2012 we announced that we were finally expecting Matthew. In 2015 I posted on father's day about never knowing if we would ever get to be parents. And where am I at in 2017? Lost at sea possibly, lost among dreams never realized, among pieces of broken heart, on tear stained ground that once held a sea of tears that has long dried up.

Every month and year that passes, if I'm honest with myself, my hope for the future slowly dies. The hope for future children that is. If I'm ever so honest with myself my faith in God starts to fade as my hope dies. I'm fairly certain they go hand in hand. When I am walking closer with God, I know that He holds my babies in His hands. I know that one day Matthew will (probably) have a sibling. I know whose I am and who I am. I don't know how it happens, slowly day by day I turn away from God and choose to follow attainable fleshly desires instead of those that threaten to hurt my heart.

I used to have this amazing community online of fellow bloggers that I felt like I truly knew and connected with because we were walking the same path together. Now a days, I feel like a stranger to most people. How many people have you met that have lost as many babies as we have? How do I relate to people that can accidentally look at someone the wrong way and get pregnant? Why did the Lord place the desire in me to be a labor and delivery nurse? Seems bizarre to me, "I think we'll let her have infertility and joy in working with mom's and babies." I have lost my joy in the Lord lately friends. Stuck between loss of hope and fear to hope once more. That's where I am, stuck between a rock and a hard place. It's a dismal place truly.

Because when you lose hope in one area of your life I think it saps energy and hope from other areas of your life. It saps joy from all other aspects. It's this horrid cyclic event that is never ending until you focus your eyes on Jesus. And I guess that's what I am going to try to do. I might be struggling to stay above water but at least I know the one who created me in His image, no matter how often I may think he created me quite imperfectly (Hello unicornuate uterus and my plethora of issues).

Today I am praying along side of Psalm 38. The cry of David asking God to remember him. I know that our God is a God who bows low to listen to the cries of my heart. They do not enter a deaf ear. Something I am trying to reteach myself. I'm trying to remind myself that there is always room for hope because God is a God who loves and who hears my every cry.

"I am exhausted and completely crushed. My groans come from an anguished heart.

You know what I long for, Lord; you hear my every sigh."

Psalm 38:8-9

"I am waiting for you, O Lord..."

Psalm 38:15

"Do not abandon me, O Lord. Do not stand at a distance, my God. 

Come quickly to help me, O Lord my savior."

Psalm 38:21-22

Struggle Bus

Lately I have been the driver of the struggle bus. No joke. Everything seems hard. My anxiety is coming back. I may need to get back on medication type of anxiety.

I used to be able to write without worrying who would read or what they would think. Sometimes I don't know that lady anymore. Sometimes I am just exhausted 24/7 and I think it is working night shift.

Other times I remember giving up caffeine when I wanted to get pregnant so badly. I was working nights. I spent time alone with God quite often. We made it to church weekly. I didn't go to Bible Study but we met with friends more frequently. Working nights I was able to exercise daily and somehow have energy on my days off.

My lifestyle lately is so different. Night shift has me a zombie during the daylight hours. On days off Matthew and I have been known to sleep in until 10 or 11. I feel like a slug and slowly beginning to look like one as more days then not I become one with the couch and my double chin eats my neck.

You can laugh. But I'm being honest here.

I started playing my clarinet in a band which was so good for me...but it also meant giving up Women's well. I stopped going to my Bible Study. And the only group I remained somewhat connected to was my MOPS group because I signed up to serve. We have transitioned from the family that used to go to churc weekly sometimes for both services to going like once a month.

If I am placing my feet in a church service once a month you can probably imagine how often my hands and eyes are on a Bible. I just went 8 days without barely batting an eye at reading the devotions on my phone.

The same phone that comes with me everywhere. It's so annoying.

Tonight a good reminder came from Matthew as he, in his overly tired state, sobbed that our gold impala is (finally) going to the junk yard tomorrow. He sobbed that he loved the gold car. That it was fast, his favorite. That he wished we had put new parts on it to drive it instead of our red car. He was a hot mess.

And then God spoke to both of us at once. I told Matthew about how the Bible says not to store up our treasures on Earth. That the things here don't matter because they aren't alive and won't spend forever with God.

His 4 year old response? "I don't want them to take the car to the crusher machine. I don't want the car to get killed."

I tried explaining that things like cars aren't alive. I don't think I got through. But man alive it was so sweet to see him sobbing and saying good bye to that Gold rust bucket. But I couldn't help but wonder how often God feels like that about me? The parent bemused that the kiddo isn't comprehending the life lesson that's trying to be taught.

Probably too often if I am honest.

I'm doing a devotion on walking with God through Miscarriage on my Bible app. It said, "God wants our trust put in Him alone, not our circumstances.  God has allowed certain circumstances in each of our lives so that we can in return use these experiences to bring Him glory as well as help others who are going through the same thing."

In the past I have known this and clung to it. Lately I haven't been thinking at all about God instead thinking about me and earthly things. So here's to hoping for change. And the Bible says all that hope will not be put to shame. ♡

Dear me.

Hey there,
It's been awhile. And this is going to get kind of personal. And real. I haven't spent time with pen against paper or fingers against keyboard. Unless it has been to chart or write down frequency and duration of contractions or charting on my patients.

Meanwhile, my heart feels further and further from God. If I'm honest further and further from myself and from my husband. I'm not myself lately. And I know where it stems from.

Usually my identity is in Christ. The past year or so my identity has been Jessica...a labor and delivery nurse. Jessica a mom to Matthew. Wife to James. A sometimes funny lady who cares about others. A lady who says bad words more frequently. A lady who doesn't invest in friendships, her marriage, or her relationship with Christ. A lady that says more and more mean and sarcastic things. A lady who has started to wonder how I used to be the person who leaned on God as much as I used to. It's messed up.

I found a 3 page journal entry while cleaning yesterday. It was admit my nursing school notes. My heart was so open and honest with Christ. Honest with where I was at in life. I haven't been there in a long time.

It was so raw and you could sense the eager yearning to be in the presence of Christ. I have somehow lost that burning fire at the moment. I have instead turned to myself to do life on my own accord. I have become something of a shadow of my old self. The self that I was before I came to know Christ.

So dear me...I guess this is my official resignation to stop living that life. That life for me. That selfish lifestyle. This is my declaration that things are going to get better. Things do not fill your cup. Christ does.

Life has its ups and downs but seriously your valleys away from Christ shouldn't last this long. Get your act together sister.

Sincerely,
The fed up version of you.

Broken Record

The last post I wrote was last August. About my walk with God and how it hasn't been a priority in my life. Well it's now May and I sit in the same spot. Actually maybe further from where I was because occasionally I feel the pull to get closer to Christ and instead choose to play some version candy crush or eat some more chocolate. Or binge watch my newest obsession. Which recently was re-reading and then re-watching all of the Harry Potter books and movies.

Yesterday Matthew and I went to kindergarten round up. He struggled on his little test with the teacher, who was cute and younger mind you, something that makes Matthew zip his usually chatty mouth. He did what I expected. He couldn't say his ABCs, count to 10, or do all of his colors in the presence of this beautiful lady. He's such a boy. I know this. But insert mom guilt.

Have I made the wrong choice not doing preschool? How is he going to go to school 5 days a week when he hasn't had to go at all? Doesn't our society demand too much learning on our kids too young now a days? Should we home school after all? Am I capable enough to home school if he doesn't even know those mere basics in front of pretty ladies?

Or how about this past Monday when we went to the dentist, which I knew it had been awhile. I'm a self titled slacker mom. It's been over a year, maybe closer to 2. I'm learning I am a person that has to have a dental appointment on the calendar set up early or it doesn't happen time gets away from me. But alas, this dental appointment pushed in those "bad mom fangs". And I've been having a hard time extracting them from my thoughts and heart. Not only will my son likely be a toothless wonder with all four front teeth missing for his first day of school but he also doesn't know his ABCs.

This anxiety and self-doubt isn't about Matthew. I know he is smart. He's fun. He's loving. As others say to sum it up, "He's a hoot!" I don't know a person that has met Matthew that hasn't fallen in love with who he is in a whole. And that means I'm not a bad mom.

Add all of these crazy feeling up with the fact that the ugly day of Mother's day is coming up and all the mixed emotions that my heart feels towards this day. And that my period is taking it's sweet ass time to get here. Hormones talking, don't mind me. It leave me wallowing in self-pity once more.

Tears in my eyes, thinking to myself, "Maybe I'm a bad mom and that's why God hasn't allowed us to have more babies." There I said it. Logically I know this isn't true. God give babies to crack addicts and child molesters, which I assure you I'm clearly neither of these. But I may have had the thought of being a real life baby snatcher to one of these types of parents.

So here I am, Matthew is 4.5 years old. James and I have been married for almost 8 years. And here I sit on the couch tearing up over thinking I'm a bad mom. I'm 60 lbs heavier than when I got pregnant with Matthew and struggling to find truth. I turn off the TV and do something I haven't done in quite sometime. Turn up the worship, open up my Bible app and read. Asking God to show me the real truth.

The verse of the day is Hebrews 11:1, "Faith shows the reality of what we hope for, it is the evidence of things we cannot see." I smiled a little and knew the it was what I needed today. I read Chapter 11. The chapter on great faith. Something I have been lacking lately.

Spattered among the great giants of our faith were verses I had previously highlighted. Words that spoke truth to me and took me away from the edge that I was teetering on labeling me a parenting failure. My eyes have not been on Christ. So I, like a broken record, am at the same spot I have been for a few years now off and on. Trying to clear the brambles in the way of the unkempt path that is my walk with Christ.