Rest is not a word that comes easily to me.  I think of rest as the time that I sleep, but I generally tend to fight rest even in my sleep.  I struggle the most with Jesus’ command to come to him and find rest for my soul.  I wouldn’t call myself a terribly productive person, mostly because I have a lot on my plate, and I tend to view my accomplishments each day in terms of things still left on my to-do list.  I have a hard time sitting down and completely relaxing because I know what I need to finish at work and just how many dishes are stacked in the sink.  I generally can’t give myself permission to ignore those things even when I am so exhausted I could sleep standing up.  I could never before allow myself to admit that my job can be stressful or that there were things in my relationships that added to that stress.

This weekend was a great time of rest- for my body, for my mind, for my soul.  I was forced to slow down Friday, so all weekend I just relaxed.  I was calm and able to trust God in a much deeper way than I have in a while.  I only felt the tiniest twinge of guilt that my husband cleaned the bathroom that was on my to-do list all last week.  I know it’s ridiculous to feel guilty that my husband was cleaning, but I put enormous pressure on myself to be as close to the Proverbs 31 woman as I can.  And when I cannot account for my time with actual items marked off the to-do list, I feel like a failure.  I am learning not to beat myself up over every little thing, but it’s probably the hardest lesson I’ve ever had to learn.

While I cannot explain the whole situation, I will say that the next few weeks will also force me to rest a lot more than I usually do.  Over the next few weeks, I will need to rest in order to honor the grief of our losses and to honor the new lives coming into our lives.  In God’s great timing, we have multiple miscarriage anniversaries in the months that bring a new nephew (who I can’t wait to see in person on Friday!) and a new niece.  Although it hurts to see new life in the face of the lives I lost, God doesn’t let us linger in the valley of death; we have to move forward if we trust him, and he has given me the grace to not just survive but also enjoy the baby showers I was dreading.  He has given me grace to hope for my own baby shower soon, and the ability to express that desire may be the biggest surprise yet- I wouldn’t have hoped out loud for a child of my own a month ago.  I am not “there” yet, but this weekend was the first time in almost a decade that I could actually follow Jesus and simply and sweetly rest.

Matthew 11:28-30 (NLT)   Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you.  Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”

My dear husband has been extremely patient with me through the entire miscarriage process.  He often gets the short end of my temper, but we’re getting through this together.  I often stymie his sensibilities when I appear to cry for no reason or suddenly go from happy to sad.  He most often wants to discover the source of the bad feeling and eradicate it.  He’s trying to protect me, and I love him all the more for it, but he’s tilting at windmills.  The things that generally set off the tears are tiny things that I don’t even expect: cheesy commercials (the new iPhone ads are trying to kill me), certain country songs, toys at the grocery store…

Last night, I went to Cracker Barrel to pick up supper, and they already have Halloween candy and costumes out.  The fact that school hasn’t even started yet made the displays a little jarring, but more shocking was the realization that I will not have a little one to dress up for Halloween this year either.  There were cute little onesies stylized to convert infants into bumblebees and lady bugs and other assorted cuteness, and I desperately wanted to buy the bumblebee costume with the little tulle skirt and wings for my niece-to-be.  But I didn’t.  I really, honestly wanted to be buying it for my own daughter, and, besides that, it will be my sister-in-law’s joy to choose her daughter’s Halloween attire, not my vicarious attempt to experience the simple fun of the holiday as a new mom.

I always attribute this feeling to jealousy: my sister-in-law is having a baby, and I’ve lost four, so I’m just feeling jealous of her when I compare our situations.  While I am sure there is a little bit of resentment that creeps in, what I realized last night with the bumblebee tulle raspy in my hands is I’m just missing what I lost.  Seeing someone in such close proximity “glow” through pregnancy only multiplies my desire to experience it, too.  In a few months, watching her newborn grow every day is going to hurt like hell – I contemplated the wording there, but that’s my gut reaction, so it stays – not because I’ll be jealous, but because I’ll be seeing what I’m missing on a daily basis.  I want to love my niece and be a fabulous aunt (and I will do both those things with gusto when she arrives), but ripping duct tape off bare skin will hurt less.

One of the complete malarkey lines that people say in relation to miscarriage is that you know you’re ready to try again when you can hold someone else’s baby and be okay with it.  I’m not sure what the definition of “okay” is there; if it means you can hold another person’s baby without running for the nearest exit screaming like a banshee about your new baby, I’m probably there.  If it means that you only feel the deep and abiding love you have for this new child, and holding her squirmy body doesn’t make you cry because you’re not holding your own child, I will probably never be ready.

I often allow others to set such milestones for me: when I can hold a baby, I’m ready to try again; when I can lose 20 pounds, I’ll be attractive; and the list goes on.  I’m learning to mark and celebrate my own milestones: I made it through a stressful day without a single attempted murder charge; I had a horrible day, but I called a friend instead of crying alone.  I am learning to celebrate the beautiful things that God created me to be.  I am working up the nerve to post my personal manifesto along those lines – maybe tomorrow.  Today, I will share the mantra I have adopted from an old Brewster’s Ice Cream slogan, “If you have shoes on both feet, treat yourself.”

Some days, it really is that simple; just putting on shoes is enough if it’s all you can muster.  The even simpler thing is to let go completely and just follow Jesus: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:13)  On my own truly terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days, I wake up and know in my bones that I would rather hide at home in bed.  Sometimes I do; sometimes, I stand up anyway, telling God the whole time, “You have to do this day because I can’t.”  I suppose this doesn’t count as “official” prayer, but it’s heartfelt and what I do all day long, “Okay, God, I can’t handle talking to another person, you have to get me through it.”  My method may not always be pretty, but it’s the grace in small things, like bumblebee costumes and my husband’s fix-it instinct, that remind me God is even more sufficient for the big things.  In Christ alone, it is enough.

In the last few months I have reverted to my “old faithful” of devotion books: My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers (I added a link to it under Sites I Like if you want to check it out).  I picked it up at Wal-Mart one night in college, and I keep coming back to it because it is so frank.  Chambers wastes no time on feel-good platitudes and launches straight into the heart of the matter.  If you know me well, this is exactly my style; I do not want to hear any of the stock answers – I want truth even if it’s difficult to swallow.  If I know where I stand, I know how to move forward, at least theoretically.  The last two days in this book have been difficult to swallow but extremely relevant to my struggle with grief and faith.

The main points are that God is not preparing us for the future – he wants us in the moment, right now.  This is not to say that our daily journey doesn’t prepare us for future work, but if we are only looking for the grander purpose, we have missed the point of the daily struggle: we are to look for God’s presence and purpose daily, hourly.  And the second point is that our trials are intended to simplify our faith.  “Unless we can look the darkest, blackest fact full in the face without damaging God’s character, we do not yet know Him.”  God wants us to believe with childlike simplicity that he is God and that he sent his son to save us.  When we face our darkest times, like my miscarriages and the devastation it has wreaked everywhere else in my life, we tend to blame God.  I did; I needed an answer, and no medical explanation has been found.  God could have stopped us from losing the babies or given us a reason why, but he didn’t, so I blamed him for a LONG time – sometimes I still do.  I needed to point a finger because I couldn’t face such a loss without a reason.

Regardless of the grand plan, I miss the calling of God on my every day life when I see God as less than who he is because of my anger and blame.  The point is that I don’t need an explanation or a scapegoat when I can simply rely on God.  The second that I look away from him, I start drowning like Peter trying to walk on the sea.  I start to see all the obstacles, all the things that are just too big for me to handle, and I start sinking beneath the waves of anxiety and fear.  The second that I start searching for a purpose for our losses, I am flailing in desperation, and I am not really looking at God; I am looking to myself for answers.  I have a long way to go before I am truly resting in Jesus and seeing him for who he truly is.

I started watching the Tour de France for the first time ever last year.  I have a possibly unhealthy competitive streak shared by my siblings, and two years ago I talked my best friend into training for a triathlon with me.  We had a blast, and I learned that bicycle riding is not as easy as I remember it being as a kid, and there is far more technique involved in staying upright as an adult klutz.  I decided to watch the pros to learn about drafting and mountain climbing and making turns at death-defying speeds.  I spent about two days researching the lingo as I watched: peloton, breakaways, yellow jerseys and polka dot jerseys were all foreign concepts to me.  Every day I learned more and more about the team strategies and determined that the Art of War was perhaps the most appropriate primer for better understanding of grand tour competitions.

There are hundreds of dramatic moments in an epic race like the Tour de France.  As a compatriot competitive spirit, some of my favorite moments are the breakaways.  One man will start pedaling away from the peloton (the main group of riders; the word also roughly translates into “big stick”) and a few brave souls will join in.  These guys will ride ahead of the peloton for as long as they can, and a very few will actually stay ahead through the finish line.  Usually, though, the peloton lets them gain a lead of about 2 or 3 minutes until close to the end.  At 25k to go, the peloton goes into chase mode and brings the strays back into the fold; it’s like the Borg on bicycles, and it’s fascinating to watch.  I sit there, legs flexing along with the riders’ pedal strokes, half cheering for the escape artists to go all the way, half cheering for the peloton to catch up.  If you ever watch the last 30 minutes of a stage race, you’ll be hooked, too.

Last night I was watching the Stage 4 coverage on Versus, and they had this beautiful camera shot of the breakaway.  Three brave riders against the “big stick” holding bravely onto their shrinking lead.  Then the camera pulls back and refocuses; about a half of a mile behind the breakaway was the peloton looming closer and closer.  I could almost feel the dread these three men must have felt when they peeked over their shoulder.  It was inevitable that the peloton would swallow them – soon.  As creepy as I may have made the peloton sound, they have a brilliant purpose.  Most of the riders stay with the group because they share the workload; together they can maintain speeds a breakaway group can’t maintain without a LOT of pain.  The riders have a drafting system like geese flying in formation; the lead rider does most of the work while his teammates ride easier behind him.  They each take a turn at the front, and each team is protecting their best hope for a win, propelling him to the front of the line or helping him catch up with the group if he had to stop for a problem.  That process is just as fascinating to watch as a breakaway; there are riders on each team who will never win a race because their entire purpose is to get their best rider to the front.  Even though the breakaway group employs the same system of drafting, and they are fairly effective, they do a lot more hard work than the peloton will.

There are hundreds of life metaphors there, but the one that struck me as I watched that particular camera shot was that we are always stronger as a group.  Just like the peloton, the body of Christ allows for us to draft when we need a break and requires that we do our share of the work.  I was attempting a breakaway for the last few years, and it was about as succesful as most of the Tour de France breakaways.  It ended with me completely wiped out and desperately needing help more than ever, and, like a Tour breakaway, it was a misery of my own choosing.  Of course there were a lot of reasons – grief and depression are isolating emotions – but it wasn’t necessary.  I was letting myself drown when all I had to do was ask for help.  There is great strength in connection; we humans were created for connections.  If you find yourself in a horrible, lonely place, you have to make yourself reach out – talk to at least one person, even if you have to call your entire contact list before you get a live person.  Leave a comment here or on some other site so that someone can reach out to you.  Trust me, they won’t hate you, and you are not a failure for needing other people.  You are actually a more successful human if you can ask for and accept the help that you need.  Build yourself a team that will help pull you along, and someday you’ll find yourself in a position to pull another teammate back to the fold.  Just think of the peloton and rethink “Walk softly, and carry a big stick.”

I started this blog about two weeks ago, but I was too afraid to tell anyone – not my family, not my friends, not even strangers at the grocery store that I seem to be able to share oddly personal moments with.  But yesterday I finally asked about a dozen of my friends and my beautiful sister to read and give me some feedback.  I was instantly terrified.  I am racked with self-doubt all the time.  It’s a little bit crazy, but the second I say something or write an e-mail that discloses my emotional status, I immediately regret it sending it.  What if I worded it badly?  What if they think I’m crazy, or silly?  What if they hate me for my weakness or idiosyncracies, of which I have more than a few?

Yesterday, I was like a little kid waiting for Santa, constantly running to see if there were any new developments under the Christmas tree since the last peek – only for me, it was checking my Blackberry every few minutes to see if anyone responded, as if everyone I sent a message to must have immediately read my blog and responded.  And the most amazing thing happened: within an hour, I had a message from one of my dear friends, and she told me she loved it.  Reading her short and beautifully sweet message, I knew I would “go public.”  God used a few words to quell my crazy fears and prove that he has truly blessed me with amazing friends.  Their love for my (and mine for them) is just a tiny speck of the love that we’ll know in heaven.

It has been an indescribable experience the last two days.  Maybe somebody I invited to Mabbat really hates it but just won’t say it, but the people who responded already were so encouraging.  Your words have alternately caused me to grin like a fool, cry, thank God for putting you in my life, and laugh with joy!  You have spoken some of the most beautiful things I have ever heard, and I am still astonished at them.  And to my sister: you are the most amazing of all.  You have strength that I have always envied, both emotionally and physically, and your determination has always inspired me, no matter how much I picked on you!

I want to say, “I wish I had known I would get that kind of support when it seemed to hurt the worst,” but I realize two things immediately in saying that.  First, I was too afraid to ask for help, so I didn’t.  I’m not sure how much I’ve changed much in that regard.  I struggle to speak the right words unless I’m writing them, so most of the time I still find it incredibly hard to say, “I’m not okay today.”  I know without doubt that I could have had all the help and support that I needed, but I was in too dark and isolated a place to be able to ask for it.  This was entirely a black hole of my own creation, and it was the worst kind of self-centeredness I have ever known.  It’s also really tempting to fall into when I have a bad day.

Second, second-guessing and wishing to change the past are completely ineffective pastimes.  My second-guessing is the exact psychosis that made me afraid to share this blog with anyone.  We all find ourselves wanting to change some part of our past at some point, but we only have to read Ecclesiastes (or if you prefer, listen to the Byrds) to realize that every era in our lives has a purpose, some more obvious than others.  Focusing too much on the past and its pain is a large part of the depression that kept me from moving forward at all.  Not that I am running yet – I stumble a lot and daily – but I am learning how to let go of the past, a skill I know my husband will be ecstatically grateful for.

Weirdly, confidence has never been my strong point.  I’m guessing that a lot of my friends will find that odd because I know a lot of them think it is a strength I possess.  Good, bad or ugly, I often follow the fake-it-til-you-make-it maxim.  But really, I’m a wimp at heart, and it makes me even more thankful to be surrounded by such amazing people.

Nothing has marked the last decade or so of my life more than the feeling of inadequacy and confusion about what I’m even doing here on earth.  I know I haven’t found all of the answers, but I am more certain than ever that God gives each of us a calling of some kind – a purpose beyond ourselves that will somehow honor him.  Have you found yours?  While some of the imagery in Jeremiah can be difficult to understand, read the first chapter if you never have.  God calls Jeremiah, just like he calls each one of us.  Up until the blank, this is directly quoted from verse 5: “I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. Before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as my __________.”  The verses that follow are a discussion between Jeremiah and God; Jeremiah immediately points out his limitations, and God rebuts him with, “Don’t say _______.”

I’m still trying to fill in my blank, and I know it has more than one answer: I am a wife, a leader, a volunteer, a writer…  I will no longer say, “I’m not good enough” or “I’m not talented enough” or any other excuse I throw at God.  I am what he created me to be, and that’s enough.  To deny his power and ability to work through me is to deny God’s character; every excuse I offer is really just a form of unbelief.  What fills in your blank?  It can never be blank; there is always a purpose for you on this earth, or you wouldn’t be here.  What should you stop saying right now?

For a really long time, I had two specific screen savers on my desktop at work and on my laptop.  One said “Jeremiah 29:11” which says, “‘I know the plans I have for you,’ says the Lord. ‘They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.'”  The other was a quote from a Tony Evans sermon I heard on the radio about that verse: “You’re still here.”  That was the answer to the question he posed, “How do you know God has a plan for you?”  If you’re still breathing, there’s something left for you to do here on earth.  It’s that simple: fill in the blank.