I gave him a shower this afternoon.
(My three year old).
But he came home buzzed from Bible school,
told us that he graduated from kindergarten 😆
then proceeded to celebrate by sticking his head in a bowl of brownie batter, trying to lick it clean. 😂
So off to the bathroom we went just now.
Off with the clothes again,
this time for a bath.
As he is stripping down,
he hands me this necklace he made tonight.
Painted ziti noodles on plastic string,
with a “medal of heroes” on it
(Yep, that’s his Wreck it Ralph reference.)
I glance down at the message
and I start to read the verse out loud to him:
“I am fearfully…”
And he finishes for me
…”and wonderfully made!!”
I looked at my husband and smiled.
“He has no idea just HOW fearfully (and wonderfully) he was made.”
I looked back down at the bathroom floor and saw the hidden laminate crosses.
The ones I first noticed as I sank to the floor, sobbing, as I endured our multiple losses before him.
The crosses that reminded me that even when I was on the floor Jesus was there with me.
That He was holding me.
Sobbing with me.
Staying with me.
Even here.
And when I got pregnant again with C,
after four losses in a row,
and I sat on this toilet a thousand times,
and I was FEARFUL of what I might see-
{mothers of miscarriage will understand what I mean}…
He held my hand even there,
in the most vulnerable of places.
In the delivery room,
He was there.
My husband holding one hand,
My Heavenly Husband, Jesus, holding the other.
Until this wonderful little boy emerged
and the fear I had also been carrying for ten months fell out of me like afterbirth.
And I sobbed tears of joy this time,
because the promise I persevered for had finally been delivered.
——
Since then I’ve had a calling…
(I struggled finding that word-
because it’s not a job
and though it’s an honor and a privilege to repurpose my old pain into something that can be used to soothe someone else…
those words make it seem like a pleasant thing,
and there’s no pleasure in seeing others endure the same pain I went through.)
The calling has been to help others hold on,
just like He did for me.
To help the mommas pregnant after loss persevere through fear, during the forty weeks that feel like they’ll never end, waiting to receive a baby at the end.
To help the mommas on the bathroom floors, heartbroken and hurting, and not wanting to be hard hearted toward God but needing someone to tell them (from experience) that He didn’t do this. And that He is there, crying with them. Already collecting those tears and planning How he will not let them go to waste.
And for the first time I feel what a delivery nurse must feel like, getting to help deliver a life into this world. What an honor.
And for the first time I feel like what a hospice nurse must feel like, sharing in the grief by loved ones left behind as a precious and too-brief life has been delivered out of this world and straight into their eternal home. And that’s an honor too. Not because I want it to be necessary, but because it is. And it’s something that only one who has been through it can properly handle and understand.
And tonight I feel extra thankful for both:
That I get to be the momma of the messy little boy in the bathtub who made the noodle-note reminder.
And that God redeemed my mess, so I could be a truly empathetic shoulder for mommas currently crumpled on the bathroom floor.
Pointing them back to Him.
Reminding them-
That THEY are fearfully and wonderfully made.
And that their story isn’t over yet.
He didn’t write this chapter,
but He is still redeeming the messy parts.
From Full 