In The Land of The Living

It’s Christmastime and my mind keeps wandering to death.

I should be thinking about baby JESUS born in a manger and being born the hope of the world, but instead I keep thinking about death.  

The death of my six babies and the death of a dream that I had to be a mom in the ways I wanted to be a mom.

I hate death.  If I could, I would spit in its face and send it to its own grave.

Needless to say, going back to counseling has been a needed way to spend my time.  Each time I go I ask the question, “Is this normal?”  And each time Roger says, “It’s normal for you.”  He reminds me that this journey is complicated and taxing and could destroy the faintest of hearts.  

So often I would like for nothing more than to melt into my own tears.  To not feel.  To not know loss on such a level as this.  To walk away- not from my life- but from the pain of it all.  To lock it up in a box and sink it to the bottom of the ocean.  To wake up one day and not have a thought of death and go to bed the same night thinking only of life. of babies who live.

Right now I wish I could fast forward through this part of life.  I want to be out of the baby-making, family-building season and I want to know where GOD will land us in this area of life.  I want what feels so present and raw now to be distant and dulled like I hope it will then.

Through all of our losses, I have come to find that suffering is not equally distributed and that grief is a bittersweet way to connect with my LORD on a very intimate level. 

It’s not what I was hoping for and it certainly was not anything I was looking for, but here I am.  

I am in the land of the living amidst my thoughts of death.  And every year and month and week and sometimes day, I am learning what it looks like to walk in the land of the living while I mourn. to feel in the land of the living while I wish I could go numb. to have joy in the land of the living while my heart is breaking.

“I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.”  

Psalm 27:13