This year has been a year of walking through valleys and deep pain. It seemed like every two months we experienced loss, tried to process it, only to be knocked back down again. I've tried to think about how to really recap the year without it turning into a sob story. But the reality is, this year was hard.
We struggled through the loss of the first baby, left our church in a painful exit, handed Sammy boy over to his new foster family, lost another baby, and struggled in our relationship in the aftermath of it. I had months of stomach and digestion issues that culminated in an IBS diagnosis that seems like will altar my eating indefinitely. And the final trial of 2018 leaves Adam and I working through some heart issues that have caused pain and heartache.
It's been a year of a lot of hard days. We had been calling 2018 the year of disappointment, but last month I told Adam I felt convicted about it and needed to stop. Because God has been good TO ME. There has been joy so intertwined with the sorrow, you can't help but notice how often they go hand in hand.
One of the biggest blessings was experiencing my friends step into my pain and walk through sorrows with me. After our second loss, these ladies showed up in my life, each in their unique ways, but together they were a force of life to me as I walked the valley of miscarriage again. I haven't ever had friends like this. I honestly just thought I wouldn't have them either, that only some people get that gift. It was a humbling season of being able to offer very little to them, but this is how true community works. And I'm so grateful for them.
One of the silver linings of being at a new church was that no one knew us, so more Sunday mornings than I can count, I cried my way through those worship songs. I'm not sure I would've had my guard down at our other church. It was small and there was no hiding. While we are so eager to put roots down at this church now, I'm thankful I had the time, space, and freedom to have those Sunday mornings without having to give an answer to those around me.
Life after my second miscarriage, living in stomach pain pretty much daily, I had a lot of days of feeling like a really bad mom. It was hard to want to do fun things and extend grace or give a gentle answer when I was constantly in pain and definitely irritable. I was so frustrated. Frustrated with no answers or progress and frustrated that my boys were paying a price, too. But they were (and are) both so quick to forgive me, and think I'm so special. Literally, that's what they've been telling me lately. Which yes, their sweet words of love could make me feel like dirt in about .2 seconds, but their tender hearts toward me were absolutely precious.
When I lost the first baby, I asked my prayer group to please pray that I would know God's love for me as I walked through this loss. Well, as 2018 unfolded, it seemed like it was just loss and pain repeatedly. In the middle of the summer, I was losing stamina. I was showing up each morning for my quiet time and struggling. I had so many questions. I was looking for a nearness to God that I wasn't experiencing. But I just kept crawling before Him each morning. In November, I cut out Facebook and other time wasters. For the most part, I stopped watching anything at nap time. I was looking for opportunities to be more attentive to God and the Holy Spirit. One night I was upstairs, on my face, praying Scripture. God gave me such a clear picture, and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that God loved me. And I wept. That moment right there, changed the sorrow of 2018. I just needed to know. I reread a book on suffering that I hadn't read in ten years, and the Holy Spirit used it to do such a shift in my heart. I actually had the thought on Sunday morning at church (when I wasn't crying through worship) that I was actually thankful for all I had walked through.
What I keep calling the final punch of 2018 is not ready to be written about, but one day, I'm confident it will be yet another marker of God's faithfulness in my life. That confidence is there not because I know the road ahead of us is going to be easy, actually the opposite is true, but I know that God completes work He begins, and He is for me! To be able to say that with confidence right now is worth dark days of 2018.
2018 changed me forever! I'm not ready to do another year quite like that one, but I'm fully aware that only God knows what 2019 holds for us. I'm sure there is more hardship to come, but I'm also sure that the work God did in me this year will not be undone.
A lot of hard and a lot to be thankful for this year!
