Walking, Wounded & Healing

Lately I've been continuing to learn to walk this 'new' life of mine, with God's help of course, because when I try to walk on my own, I end up stumbling and falling. Sometimes my life feels like it's as though I'm wearing a blindfold, carefully placing one foot cautiously in front of the other, with my arm outstretched, desperately holding onto God's hand as he leads me down my path. I know my eternal destination, but I don't know where I'm going here or what's in store for me next, but I do know I have the best guide in the world to lead me.

My faith and my walk with God has grown by leaps and bounds this year. I have a greater understanding and more of his wisdom about life, who I am, who he is, and how to do this life with him. I don't think my faith would be where it is now without having experienced the tragedies I have this year. Faith and following God is easy when life is how you want it to be. It's easy to feel blessed and praise him when the season you're in is happy, just how you imagined or planned. But the real test of being a Christ follower occurs when life is not how you want it to be, when tragedy or hardship strikes and it's full of pain and suffering. It's trying. It's hard. But it's more real. It's eye-opening. It's deeper. It's better.

If you're a Christian, are you a true Christ follower or are you a fair weather friend? I think it's a challenging question that perhaps can only be truly answered when you're confronted with the dark times life inevitably brings.

And for me, every day also brings with it more healing, peace, and joy. But my walk remains one of a wounded person, a wounded mother. Every day still brings opportunities for me to feel loss, pain, anger, sorrow, jealousy, and so on. I'm learning to walk in spite of those challenges. I'm learning to acknowledge those 'moments of darkness' (as I refer to them) in every day and look at them with God's perspective.

There are days where I acknowledge a moment of darkness, and it brings me swiftly to my knees in tears. There are days where a moment makes my eyes wet with silent tears easily brushed away. And still there are days when I give it a sorrowful nod of recognition, turn my head, and continue on.

Every single day brings with it moments that are painful reminders of Hailey's death and my life as a mother without my baby. Every day. Different reminders. Different moments of darkness. And every day I must face them. And no two moments of confrontation are the same. And most of the time the average person on the outside is oblivious to the battle I'm facing inside.

This morning after church, during which one of 'those' moments confronted me (two moms holding their newborns seated in front of me if you must know), I came home and read this blog post:

There is something to be said for the hardest, most difficult, gut wrenching times in our life. While we are going through them, we may be numb to what is going on. Our minds have a way of protecting us and keeping us from what would otherwise be overwhelming. But when it comes to the surface, the pain is just as fresh as if it had happened that day. It is all still there. Time does not heal all wounds. Only God heals these kinds of wounds. Wounds of the heart. Wounds of the soul. Wounds of the spirit. Wounds that can only be healed by Jesus.

All I could think as I read every word of that paragraph was that it's so true. So true.

The whole ordeal with Hailey's birth left me in a place of numbness. Sure I felt severe pain and cried only God knows how many tears while she was with us, but I was numb a lot of the time. It was perhaps a gift from God. That numbness gave me the ability to smile just as much as I cried, the ability to smile for a picture even when I knew our baby was dying, the ability to cherish the time we had with her, the ability to take care of her, and so on. There was a numbness there that enabled me to continue on so that I wasn't crushed by an overwhelming situation.

But like the writer writes, what has been numbed does come to the surface with time and over time and more than once. And that pain is always fresh and always there.

One of the greatest truths I've learned is the one expressed by the writer above. While time can help, only God has the power to heal these wounds of mine. And he is healing them. But it's not in a way in which they're healed, gone, and everything's perfect again. It's much different than that. And the true healing of my wounds, or yours, won't be experienced this side of Heaven.

Yesterday we went to the beach to go snorkeling. We had so much fun. And the average person on the outside might never see it or know, but Hailey is always with us. She's always in our thoughts. She's everywhere we go. It doesn't matter if there's a baby there to remind me or we're having a conversation about her or not; she's there on my mind, in my heart whether anyone is aware of it or not. Which is why yesterday you would have found us in the middle of our snorkeling and adventures on the beach stopped to sculpt a butterfly in the sand and write her name with the seashells.

Love you munchkin.