Lost and Found

I'm not sure if I blogged about it or just posted on Facebook about it, but back at the beginning of this pregnancy, Asa flushed my little silver daisy charm that said "hope" on it down the toilet.  It was the one I got at the woman's retreat where I gave my testimony of HOPE and also where I first told people I was pregnant with Rachel... it was the little token we used on my belly shots during my 25 week beach photos of Rachel's pregnancy.  It was super sentimental to me and I was really dumb to display it in the bathroom... but I literally looked at it every single day and thought about how much God loved me - how He had plucked me out of my addiction at such a young age and also how he had carried me while I carried Rachel.

When I realized it had been flushed, I plunged like crazy and stuck my hands as far down the toilet as I could trying to get it back.  I cried.  A lot.  I complained how things never go right.  I was so discouraged.  I can't remember everything going on at that moment in my life, but I know I was in a very rough place and that was the hair that broke the camels back.

On Wednesday, which was the anniversary of Rachel's funeral, I was having a hard morning, but was in a place of gratitude somehow... the toilet was backed up so I flushed and started to plunge and as I did, my mind wandered (as usual...) and I began thinking about Rachel's service.  I looked at the decor behind my toilet and saw the kids had been messing with it again and it brought my mind back to that little daisy charm that was flushed 9 months before...  I started thinking about HOPE and how I wanted to post a picture from her service on facebook, specifically the one of Matt & I worshipping during her service, and that I wanted to share that we praise Him no matter what because without him, we would be utterly lost.

And I kid you not, as I thought that, remembering how God gave us the faith to trust Him on that day, and was lost in appreciation of how God carried me through those hard days, I looked down, and there it was... the daisy HOPE charm!

Now, I'm not trying to over-spiritualize a clogged toilet... but this hit me hard.  I grabbed it and started cleaning it off and I couldn't help but cry.  December 9, 2010 was the hardest day of my life.  It was the day I left my baby's tiny body in the ground.  It was horrible and the night that followed it was even worse, as I sat here fighting myself to not go dig her up while I still could - fearing that someone else might and my heart ripping apart over how I couldn't care for her.  It was the most excruciating pain I've ever felt. EVER.  And on the anniversary of that day, I'm the only one who remembers or hurts from it.  Its mine to bear.  And I feel it each year.

But the crazy part of the entire thing that morning was that I was in such a good place for how hard my day was.  Nothing was going right and I was sad... but I was thinking about how much I needed God and how good He was to always be there for me at the moment that little charm revealed itself after all that time.

I couldn't help but think about if I felt that excited and that relieved to be 'reunited' with a little charm that's been covered in poop and pee for months - just imagine how unreal it will feel to be reunited with HER!  And that is my hope... that is what keeps me going... and on that day, 5 years after she was buried, God reminded me with a clogged toilet that it's only a matter of time.  When that charm was flushed, I thought it was gone forever and in a way, it was because it certainly didn't come back in the same pretty condition - but with Rachel, when I see her again, she won't be worse off, she'll be better off.  She will be whole.

So then remember in August how the night of the baby remembrance ceremony, I lost the memory card from the photos that my friend took for me?  Again, one of my lovely boys took it out of my computer and I couldn't find it.  I searched everywhere, but especially in my chair because that's where I had the computer.  And I finally had to accept it was gone. I honestly thought it was flushed down the toilet too since they had been doing that a lot this year.  I was so upset bc I wanted to make a nice video for the other moms and again was just so discouraged, feeling like nothing ever goes right...

Yesterday, we sold our living room furniture.  Again, changing things up for the baby.  Before the guy took the chair out, I tipped it on it's side to be sure there was nothing stuck in it and out fell a memory card... I knew right away it was *the* memory card... but seriously, I had already done that in August and so had Matt.  I tipped that chair, shook that chair, stuck my hands in it searching until they bled... and it was gone...  for a while.

The interesting thing is that the boys got a hold of my bag full of memory cards just recently and so I've been finding cards here and there for a week or two - and yet when I saw that one, I knew it was from the baby ceremony.  There was nothing special about it, just a plain 16 GB card... but I knew.

I'm not sure why sometimes God makes me wait like that... probably because I'm not very good at it and also probably a little bit to teach me how to let things go.  I was still able to remember God's goodness without that charm - and I was still able to make a beautiful video without that card because I had two people taking photos... but both destroyed me for a day or two.  I will say a day or two is a lot shorter than things used to bother me, so that's progress, but I would love to get to the place in life where I could care less about tangible things and rest more on knowing that I can't take those things with me anyhow and just focus on the things in my life that are eternal - which is caring for my relationship with God, for my husband, and for the little souls he has placed in our care.

As I prepare to meet this baby, waiting to know for sure I can take him or her home, after just celebrating and mourning Rachel's birthday, my heart has been overwhelmed with conflicting emotions.  I felt that God had confirmed for me early on in this pregnancy - before I even told anyone I was pregnant - that this baby would be okay.  But as one complication after another came up, I wondered if maybe he didn't mean here on earth it would be ok.  And so I haven't been able to just rest my mind for 9 long months and it's been so draining... and lonely.

But I think the timing of both of these things is just a loud reminder that even when I feel lost, he knows right where I am.  Even when I can't see the tangible proof that everything is ok, He is well aware of the details and will give me what I need, right when I need it.  You would think the way he saved me when I was lost and brought me into the light where I was found would be enough proof, but in my humanness, the little reminders on much smaller subjects are what keeps me remembering and I'm thankful for a God who will speak my language and not grow impatient with my continuous need to be reassured.  He is so, so good to me.