the marathon

**please do not write comments about the news in the first paragraph on public news feeds (i.e. facebook) until andreas and i have gone out with the news ourselves!!! i just figured that if you're one my faithful readers, then you're welcome to know! thank you for respecting our wishes!**

it's not public news, at least not facebook news yet, but i'm 13 weeks pregnant, a full trimester on friday, and i'm not even excited about it. don't get me wrong. i've waited what seems like a lifetime to become a mom, but after losing levi, getting excited seems scary. hoping seems scary. 

back in february, as i was sitting in a worship service in new life, God whispered a name to me, a name that will, most likely become the name of our next child. not sure of the meaning and slightly obsessed with the meaning of the name, as i believe our names say a lot about who we are, i looked up the meaning, and it filled me with the promise of hope. i so need hope right now. i so need to believe, i have to believe, that God wants to bless us with a living, breathing child, and that he is healing us.

at the same time, however, the voice of reality--or is it satan? they sound so familiar at times--attempts to drown out God's gentle whispers of hope with screams that God's already allowed my dreams to be crushed without explanation, so of course he'll do it again. but i know. deep within, buried under the hurt and heartbreak, the tears and the sorrow, i know. i know that the Lord is working for my good. i know that he loves me. i know that he longs to be, that he is my hope. and i hold on for one more day.

but my reoccurring problem at the moment is that i've felt for awhile now that i'm in some sort of race, a marathon of sorts, and yesterday morning, the feeling just overwhelmed me to the point of tears. a close friend just gave birth to her fourth child the other morning. another to her second a few months ago, and yet another her sixth. and then there's me with no baby. we were supposed to be in this together, my friends and i (they have been very supportive during this time, but i'm still struggling).

when i checked my facebook feed yesterday morning (sometimes a very uplifting moment, but today, quite the opposite effect was produced), i was bombarded with beautiful pics of said friend and family and baby, of news that other university friends are expecting their fourth child in september, and THEN, that two more university friends (not close ones, but still) are due the same week in january as i am. for one of them, it's her second child, and for the other, her third.

and feeling blindsided by all that information, i was struck with two main thoughts:

1) i can imagine that none of these friends are worried now nor have been worried about losing their babies. none of them are still so overwhelmed with grief (and maybe a bit of fear, too) that they don't know how to celebrate and anticipate their upcoming births. none. of. them. i'm in the middle of a bloody baby boom, and i don't have one single friend--thank God!-- who truly understands what i'm going through or who's even feared going through it. sometimes i feel so alone in my grief.

2) i'm in the middle of a wretched marathon. i. hate. running. i even hate the thought of running. i always have, and i certainly don't expect that opinion to change anytime soon, not even in light of swedish author martina haag's popular book Heja, heja!, that should inspire all women everywhere to put on their best sports bras and snazziest new running shoes and, well, run. i won't. I. HATE. RUNNING. and, yet, here i am in the midst of the worst imaginable marathon EVER, a marathon in which i never chose to run, compete, or even be. you see, i feel like all these families that i know and honestly love and have nothing in the world against--please hear that--are living out my dream, MY BLOODY DREAM, {my dream} of having a big family, {my dream} of being a mom, and they're all doing it with such grace and beauty and LIFE! i see Jesus working in and through their lives and blessing them with babies, and my heart aches for that which God placed there so very long ago.

to add salt to the wound, most of these women who are beautiful inside and out pop out babies and then return to their gorgeous, pre-baby weights like magic. but not me. weight and i have never been friends. whether or not i have the "crutch" of grief "on my side," the fact is that according to my BMI, which i realize doesn't take into account a lot of things, i am clinically obese. my medical journal from levi's delivery said so. i've not been able to breastfeed to help lose weight after that difficult pregnancy, and i have grieved. i have grieved well, and i have been exhausted for months. i haven't lost weight like i planned or thought i would, the weight of shame, the weight i carry that no one understands, the weight that is unable to hold up levi and explain or defend my case (not that anyone's actually accusing me of anything, well, other than the medical community here, but that's more than enough for me to handle). that weight. that burden. that heartache. 

just a few weeks after finally rejoining the gym and feeling that my energy levels were increasing and that i was up for exercising, i fell ill with a nasty cold that knocked me out for a good week. and just as it was subsiding, i had to have a pre-cancerous spot from my breast removed, deeming the one semi-appealing form of water exercise a non-option. and, of course, morning/all-day sickness then invaded my body like an unwelcome alien, creating a constant hunger, repeatedly embarassing vomiting scenes, and an exhaustion (combo of grief + pregnancy?!?) like i have never before experienced.

only this past weekend, a good six weeks later, have i felt like moving, staying awake, living, not starving, and not vomiting. so, it's so ironically appropriate that i awoke on yesterday morning to a wave of facebook-slaps-reality-in-my-face grief that, more or less, consumed my day. of course.

but during my Bible reading yesterday morning, as i tried in my broken state to consume the Word of God, i came across The Message's paraphrase of lamentations 3. several of these verses (21-23) have held a place in my heart for years and have promised me hope that joy will come in the morning. but yesterday, in the midst of this marathon in which i found myself, in the midst of reading about the israelites' captivity in babylon, i read these words again. and in the midst of the tears and anger and frustration and exhaustion, the LORD spoke to me afresh through his Word:

19-21 I’ll never forget the trouble, the utter lostness,
    the taste of ashes, the poison I’ve swallowed.
I remember it all—oh, how well I remember—
    the feeling of hitting the bottom.
But there’s one other thing I remember,
    and remembering, I keep a grip on hope:

22-24 God’s loyal love couldn’t have run out,
    his merciful love couldn’t have dried up.
They’re created new every morning.
    How great your faithfulness!
I’m sticking with God (I say it over and over).
    He’s all I’ve got left.

25-27 God proves to be good to the man who passionately waits,
    to the woman who diligently seeks.
It’s a good thing to quietly hope,
    quietly hope for help from God.
It’s a good thing when you’re young
    to stick it out through the hard times.

28-30 When life is heavy and hard to take,
    go off by yourself. Enter the silence.
Bow in prayer. Don’t ask questions:
    Wait for hope to appear.
Don’t run from trouble. Take it full-face.
    The “worst” is never the worst.

31-33 Why? Because the Master won’t ever
    walk out and fail to return.
If he works severely, he also works tenderly.
    His stockpiles of loyal love are immense.
He takes no pleasure in making life hard,
    in throwing roadblocks in the way.

hope. that's what i had yesterday and what i have today. and tomorrow. and the day after that. and although life will disappoint me time again, {his hope} will not. romans 5.5 (niv) says, "and hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us." and then there's hebrews 6.19 reminding me that hope securely anchors my soul to Jesus. so i will hope...and know that the only marathon i'm truly running is the one Christ has set before me (hebrews 12.1-2) and that Jesus is my prize...and he's already won! AMEN!