Nov. 29, 2007 - Life-changing moments ...
Let me just start off by saying ... this may turn into an intense entry ... so if you aren't up for it today ... I so understand!
I spent the past few days trying to write more "thankful entries' but the end of November always makes me contemplative. Maybe it's the fact that there's not enough daylight to ward off the blues. Maybe it's the fact that I'm always trying to figure out how we're going to 'do' the holidays ... both Randy and I come from divorced families and the end of November always brings questions from my mom (in Florida), my dad (in Indiana), Randy's family (in St. Joe, Missouri) ... and because I'm a people pleaser it makes me sad to tell each of them 'no' we won't be coming ... and maybe it's made me even slightly more sad that we've said no for so long now that they ask but already know the answer ... maybe, just maybe it's because we're involved in two basketball leagues, a huge Christmas performance at church, youth group, prayer group, church ... and I'm sleeping about 4 hours a night!
Those would all be valid reasons for sluggish joy during the last week in November!
But it's an exercise in futility to 'suppose' what might be causing my contemplative heart. I already know.
I'm going to set the stage a bit ... I left a small town in Indiana and came to Tn to a college which challenged the wishy washy Christianity. And by the time I graduated, my wishy washy faith became secular humanism at best. I began to speak the 'there is no absolute truth' mantra. I started to look at a variety of religions in a way that leveled all playing fields (in a nutshell ... I really stopped believing/started questioning that Jesus is the only way to the Father). I was in a very difficult journey of someone who was abused as a child. I was not surrounding myself with friends who did much to bolster a true relationship with Christ, but rather surrounding myself with folks who were playing at church (more dangerous in my estimation than just abandoning the church all together). And, I had developed very strong feminist attitudes, including a pro-choice attitude. Those beliefs just skim the surface of what was really going on in my heart, but they do give you a picture of what was happening from about 1985-1992. It wasn't outright rebellion ... it was a very quiet change in my heart that was not obvious to the casual observer. And, though I always wondered if I was headed down a destructive path, I thought it was my intellectual awakening.
In 1992 I entered my first teaching position ... 6th grade science. I LOVED MY JOB. And I loved teaching science. The Lord used that job to begin to challenge my beliefs. I started that fall with some amazing Christian women. All three of them my age ... all three of them committed beyond anythiing I had experienced in a long time. We adored each other. We loved teaching. We loved our students. It was an amazing experience ... we started a drama club, a Jesus and Me (JAM) session ... we jumped in and really impacted the lives of those kids. But it was the faith of those kids that really began to soften my heart toward things of the Lord again. The first ding in my academic armor was textbook teaching of Evolution. I did teach it as a theory, but one particularly vocal Christian young man (whom I suspect had the spiritual gift of discernment) came to me privately to ask if I really believed all that evolution junk. I lied to him that day and said no, but I knew it was a lie. Then came the week long abstinence unit.
I had to begin to look at my own personal beliefs and weigh them against what had to be taught. I loved those kids too much to lie to them.
And so I began to explore my faith again ... I started being more regular in church attendance ... stepped up some relationships with Christian friends that I had let begin to dwindle and I made some surface changes but nothing significant had changed in my heart. I was sort of living out a faith by works existence. I was DOING a bunch of good stuff!
Jumping quickly ...
In the spring of '93, Randy and I married ... and in the fall of '94 we got pregnant.
I thought it was an ironic turn of events that I would be teaching reproduction(starting in November) at exactly the time that all these things were happening in my own body. I made a decision that I would share the experience with my students. Afterall, I knew these kids. It was my second year with most of them and some had come to my wedding, their parents had thrown a shower for me ... we loved each other and I was thrilled to take them on this journey. I okayed the approach with my principal and off we went. The Lord used those weeks to really break my heart and my pro-choice views. Those kids looked at pictures and asked questions ... hard questions. I was forced to look at some of the liberal views that I had so proudly developed and I was beginning to waiver.
Three weeks later, in November of '94 ... the 22nd to be exact, I left school early because I had started to spot. And that afternoon, during an office visit, I miscarried ... not an unrecognizable mass of cells ... but 8 weeks worth of baby that looked just like the pictures that my students and I had poured over the week before in anticipation of week 8. Perfectly formed fingers, toes, body ... in a perfectly formed, but unable to stay attached sac.
I will spare you the details of the entire process ... but as I lay on the examining table, I was in shock. Full blown, can not recount how the next 5 hours passed shock... how I got to Randy, got to the hospital, got through xray, got through another procedure ... but it was like I was an observer, perched up on the ceiling everywhere I was, watching what was happening ... and at every turn I reminded myself that I had no one to turn to ... no one who would ever REALLY understand what had just happened.
To top it off ... it was the week of Thanksgiving. And just because my world was crumbling didn't mean that life stopped for anyone else. And I was utterly alone. Randy and I ate Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant and he worked the rest of that day and the entire weekend. It was in those days following that I began to see my own need for transformation in my relationship with Christ. Wrestled with God over some hard issues, threw my Bible and cried while I was alone. To everyone else, it appeared that I had gone through this experience with strength and courage ... inside I was dying a private death.
At first glance, that sounds like a terrible thing. Make no mistake, it was painful. Going back to school and having to tell my kids. Trying to decide whether or not to try to get pregnant again ... which was a laugh, we decided not to try right away, God decided differently and three weeks later we were pregnant with AJ ... though we wouldn't know that until March!!! All of it clearly orchestrated by a God who had a plan. A plan to draw me back. A plan to build a family. Plans I can not begin to pretend I understand completely. But it was that experience of isolation that made me know there was no where else to turn but to Him for healing. And that private death was the dying to self that I was resisting.
It would be a year later, after AJ was born that I came around to full recomittment to my walk with the Lord. And several years later before I was able to really begin to mourn the loss of a baby. So while November always makes me ponder and evaluate my Christian walk and my heart, it almost always makes me a little sad. Our Sunday School teacher recently said he often prays, "Lord, bring me the easiest way I will come." And I know in my heart that the Lord tried to bring me easier roads ... but I resisted ... and the sadness reflects the regret.
That said, I am so thankful that He never gave up on me. That He lovingly brought me through even the tougher road. And on the other end, He provided healing. He gave us AJ ... and in that gift he is teaching me the lessons that are mending my heart in ways I do not deserve!
And so I can't hear Chris Tomlin's words without knowing them to be true deep in my soul ...
The splendor of a KingClothed in majesty Let all the earth rejoiceAll the earth rejoice He wraps Himself in lightAnd darkness tries to hide And trembles at His voiceTrembles at His voice How great is our God, sing with me How great is our God, and all will see How great, how great is our God Age to age He stands And time is in His hands Beginning and the end Beginning and the end The Godhead Three in One Father Spirit Son The Lion and the Lamb The Lion and the Lamb How great is our God, sing with me How great is our God, and all will see How great, how great is our God Name above all names Worthy of all praise My heart will sing How great is our God How great is our God, sing with me How great is our God, and all will see How great, how great is our God
Blessings to you this day!