how she rejoices

Emma came so so fast--hospital at 8 and born at 9:02.  All day I had been counting and breathing, cooking and walking, eating dinner with our small group, doing life in labor and under control.  At 7:30 I was joking with our friends, come 8:30, I was on the edge, and at 8:45, I was lost.

The pain was so blinding and intense that I could't see, couldn't think, couldn't cope. All my truths that had comforted and grounded me all day flew out the window with the final contractions. 

I could NOT do it, after all. I was not made for this, could not endure. It was time, all that waiting, and I couldn't do it... and I panicked.

The doctor on call, a total stranger, arrived minutes before Emma and found me almost delirious, eyes rolled back in my head and fear overcoming.

She didn't tell me what a good job or rub my back or coax me onward.

She came in, saw my state and yelled at me.

"STACEY!" she called out loudly, voice confident and commanding, reaching down into the blackness as she slapped my leg. "STACEY, stop! LISTEN to my voice. OPEN your eyes! Listen to me and do this!"

Her voice shocked me into regaining my footing.  Her instructions gave me an anchor in blinding blackness, and even as I was sure my body was breaking, when she told me everything was ok, I believed her. 

"Lord, help me!" I begged, and the unseen nurse at my elbow whispered every time, "He will!"..."He will!"

The doctor seemed harsh and unkind, but she was not. She was grace.  

Her voice was my lifeline, and when I opened my eyes and glued to her face, I got what I needed to finish well.  

Since that night, it has felt like one challenging thing after another. 

They have piled, and piled, and as I sat awake in the midnight hours with Emma last night, SICK AGAIN, I couldn't help but wonder what in the world we are doing wrong. As she heaved and snorted and coughed, little eyes crusted shut, I wondered how much more we could possibly handle. As I rocked and clucked and prayed for my dad in pain, in pain, in pain, unending, I asked Him again how in the world we are going through this again, begging Him to help my dad. I prayed for our bonus girls, complicated, beautiful, precious little girls, futures about to be decided by strangers, again.

I felt a bit like Job, sitting in the dirt scraping my wounds, listing off my pile of unfair before the Lord...and He graciously listed me back His credentials. 

I am in deep, on the edge of darkness and fear, and ALL I know, all I know, is that I MUST come up Holy.  

My many questions, I know He can handle.

But I'm aware, like Job's, that they can cross the line away from His pleasure...that they can consume us over His consuming glory... and what is the point of walking through this dark time if I lose sight of walking it in Him, for Him, with Him?

There are little things you don't realize are big.

Dinner. (I know you already brought it when Emma was born...maybe again when she was in the hospital...and now once again with Nora, head in my hands) Dinner was once a blessing, but right now feels like a life-line.

A short text, an email, a conversation, a note on a Christmas card, a letter from Kansas family, holding my ropes, a video call with Granny, a reminder we're being prayed for, a neighbor bringing court cinnamon rolls...once it was a welcomed touch, but today it is an anchor. 

Your graces of loving us well again and again, pointing us to all the ways Jesus is here, are keeping me in the light.

God hasn't yelled at me or slapped me yet. But He IS using you to force my eyes open and see Him. He is using Christmas and the painful, powerful, incomprehensible truth of it to keep me grounded, keep me breathing. I am keeping my eyes OPEN with the shepherds and in awe with Joseph, I am keeping at peace with Mary, who labored too, I'm storing all His sightings up in my breaking heart. 

It is Christmas and as hard as it is, as much as this doesn't look like concerts and cookie exchanges, He is here, confident and commanding and able to be trusted. In the darkest night, I am staying awake, and He is here. 

I am calling out "Lord, help me!" and you remind me at my elbow every time: HE WILL.  Clinging to Christmas, I'm refusing to sit in my questions and scratch at my pain. I'm holding onto His voice and keeping my eyes glued to His face, all wrapped up in a manger and cross and glory, for me, for me.

The weary world...THIS is how. 

This is how she rejoices.