Dancing in the Rain

Rachel would have been 5 months old today.  And for her birthday, God gave me a gift.

I hadn't realized what day it was.  I knew the 3rd was coming,  I knew Tuesday was the 3rd, and I knew today was Tuesday, but hadn't put it all together yet, until I got on my blog after I put Sam down for nap and saw my ticker...

"It's been 5 months since we said goodbye"

The fact that it sounds like a long time had me instantly in tears.  How could it have been that much time since I last held and kissed her?  It feel like yesterday.  On the other hand, how can it only have been 5 months when it feels like I've always known her?

I was really upset that I hadn't planned a trip to visit her today and Sam was now asleep so it wasn't something I could really change.  I went outside to re-seed the lawn (aka: keep myself busy so I don't have a meltdown).  If you have been following our journey, you are aware of how God speaks to me in the yard...today was one of those days.

I have often thought of how weeds can represent sin in the outdoors...  growing where you don't want them, when you're not looking or tending to the land... overtaking the space and choking out the beauty of the plants and flowers.  Sin is like that in our hearts... growing while we're unaware and not tending to it, overtaking our hearts and choking out God's beauty in our lives.

Well, last year we did a ton of work to the yard to get grass to grow.  We bought a truck load of loam, seeded, watered, seeded some more, watered some more (water bill was crazy!) fertilized, watered again...  totally baby'd the yard until we had a nice, thick, green lawn that made me smile :o)  Well, we found out about Rachel Aug 4th and all my cares about my lawn went right out the window.  I just couldn't think about it... all I could think about was my baby and my new future.  Within a matter of weeks, the grass withered and the crab grass (weeds!) overtook the yard.  We had bald spots again and what was there was no longer a nice green.  We were back at square one.  Our new baby lawn couldn't handle the battle with the weeds without our help. 

See where I'm going with this?  Why do you have to work so hard to grow grass, but weeds set up shop wherever they want and as fast as can be?

So, today, I was raking the ground to loosen up the soil so the seeds would take.  There was a huge patch of dry, burnt looking 'grass'.  As I raked it, it all started coming up.... in big chunks, roots and all.  I realized it was all the crab grass from last year.  But what really hit me was that after I raked a huge pile of this hay up, I could all of a sudden see the new grass growing.  Without all that dead stuff there, I was able to see that there was in fact green grass growing under the dead weeds.  Until that point, I thought there was nothing live there at all.  As I pulled on each weed, the roots were lifting out without barely any effort at all....  see, because we put the new soil down last year, the weeds had nothing to hold on to because the soil was still soft... the new life however, had no problem growing there - or withstanding my hard rake!  I sounded slightly old and crazy when I heard myself say to the crab grass "could hack the winter, huh?"  This was my sarcastic way of pointing out that the winter had been hard and my pride was in effect over the fact that I'm still alive and the weeds aren't!  Ha!  (No, I'm not on acid right now, in case you're wondering... if you weren't wondering, 86 that)

God spoke to me about a few things while I was discovering all this...  first of all, no matter how dry I feel right now, there is still life under there... somewhere... and as soon as I rake up the dead weeds I will see it again.  I also was reminded about the story of the seeds and soil in the bible.  It talks of 4 different types of soil (representing the condition of peoples' hearts) and what happens to the seed (representing the Word of God) when it falls on that type of soil.  I was reminded again that if I allow my heart to harden, God's Word can not take root there.  If I allow weeds to grow, It will be choked and die.  If I keep my heart soft and pliable, The Word of God can penetrate and grow there...bringing life.  But the other truth in that is that if my heart remains right before God, the weeds may grow, but I will be able to see them for what they are and rip them out without a lot of effort.

So, what am I trying to say?  Well, I feel like I've fallen for another one of the enemy's lies... Believing that I've been dealt a bad hand and that my life will always feel sad and dry.  And it's no surprise that as I'm trying to finish a project where my main goals are to honor Rachel and glorify God that satan would rear his ugly head and try to distract me from what's important.  Not that the things that I've been sad about are not important... they are.  The things people have said that are hurtful, judgemental or just plain thoughtless are not right.  My baby is dead and no mother should need to bear this burden.  There is not a single positive way to look at my situation now or years from now that would make me say "well, I'm just so glad Rachel died... I mean, at least I got to have another baby and we built a playground"  It won't EVER happen.  I've had legitimate reasons to be sad, upset, and disappointed.  But the problem is that it's all I can see right now.  I've lost sight of Jesus in my valley.  He hasn't left me.  He's still holding me.

Today as I raked my yard, God revived my heart and gave me a renewed strength in Him.  I still cried a lot today, but I don't feel defeated like I did last night.  I am still as sad as I could be, but I'm not without Hope.  The rain is still falling, but today I'm dancing in it.  And what better way to celebrate Rachel's 5 month birthday than to dance with her and Jesus?

I REFUSE to let satan convince me that this journey is too hard for my God.  I will NOT let him make me think that Jesus has dropped me and moved onto someone else - no matter how many humans do it to me.  I KNOW that my God will never leave me of forsake me and He cares about EVERY detail of my life.  He loves me with an everlasting love.  He is my strength and HE IS ENOUGH!

Rachel has left a legacy for me of what it means to hope in Jesus...  Just her existence taught me Who God is.  And He is good.  My journey with her taught me that He will never leave me.  It taught me how to surrender totally to His ways and trust Him.  He used her to teach me all these things and bring me closer to Him.  My journey with her made me rich in Christ.  And so while sometimes I feel pretty lonely in this world because most people don't really understand me and my heart breaks daily from the pain of losing my child... I feel like I have been blessed in so many great ways that many will never get the chance to experience and I am thankful for that.

Tonight I will curl up with her blanket and wish it was her, like I do every night of my life, and thank God for the chance to know such an amazing, beautiful soul.  I will thank Him that I get to call myself her mother. And I may even dream of a big green field where the grass is so strong and alive, a weed has never existed there....and since it's most likely in heaven, maybe get to see my girl twirling around in it....maybe I'll be lucky enough to hear her giggle.