night of labor

As I sit here yet again at 4am, unable to sleep, the tears come as usual. And with the tears, the angst. Most nights it helps to pray for others. I am so grateful for the grace God shows the moment that I take to stop thinking about myself and pray for others instead.  I hate how self- absorbed grief is. I am sick of thinking about myself and how I feel, of slowly working through each new day of heartache that hits me afresh. I know I am hiding right now in the busyness. I am tired of crying. I am tired of the rawness. I am tired of feeling.  And then this darn 4am hits, and I am awakened to darkness and silence and only God here with me. I know there is purpose in the tears, but at the moment I really  hate 4am.

I especially am hating 4am this morning. At about this time seven years ago today, my water broke a month early. I woke Josh full of both joy and fear, fear of the pain I knew to come and joy at the mere thought of meeting my child we had longed for.  And the pain and the hours of waiting were more than I ever thought possible. And yet, at the end of that long night and day and night of pain, I held a beautiful baby boy in my arms for the first time.  And in a moment the pain was nothing compared to the joy that overwhelmed my soul. Oh the joy. If only every labor held such an obvious tangible blessing, such as a beautiful baby, at the end that made the pain worth it.

And yet, my boy is turning 7 today.  He is so much like his daddy with their even-tempered laid back spirits, that spike when competitive or angry. His desire to wear short sleeves with no coat in the cold. Their shared love of pizza and burgers.  Their love of guns and sports and all things manly.  I look at him and see so much of Josh. And yet now I look at a boy that doens't have a daddy to hold him with such pride. He doesn't have his jungle gym. He doesn't have the ribs or pizza or hamburgers his daddy loved to make for him. And while losing Josh for me hurts so bad I think I could break, watching my children mourn and hurt for their daddy shatters me. I can't fix it. I can't make it all better. I can't fill the Josh sized hole in their heart. And so I weep, clinging to Christ and praying for my dear ones to be held in the comfort of his arms that only he can provide. Lord have mercy.

I love the Lord, for he heard my voice; he heard my cry for mercy. Because he has turned his ear to me, I will call on him as long as I live. - Psalm 116:1-2


Memory: Josh was incredibly good at being a support person 99% of the time. He has always been my tangible rock, my calm when I am not. So patient and always directing me back to trusting God in the midst. Seriously the best to have when laboring for hours on end. However, I will never forget after the epidermal failed to work on half my body after I finally succumbed to having one after 20 hours of labor that Josh tried to comfort me by saying, "At least it works on half your body". I may have responded, "Give me your thumb, I will hit it with a hammer and then tell you at least your other thumb feels fine". It makes me laugh at the memory.