The thrill of hope, needed desperately

I wasn't sure if we would blog about recent events or not, but as I have emailed back and forth with dear friends I see the way writing helps to organise my thoughts and get them out and stop them spinning endlessly in my head.

Last week we asked close friends to pray for us after discovering our latest pregnancy was heading towards our fourth miscarriage. We were heart broken. We had the medicine, our answer to prayer, our modern day miracle and yet it failed us and we still didn't get our baby. This impending miscarriage has brought with it floods of revelation. Much of which pointed to the huge pile of fear, hopelessness, abandonment and rejection that I had felt toward God since the first time this happened almost a year ago. These dirty emotions are sprawled in a big pile in a dark corner waiting to be fully embraced. If you ignore something like that it just goes away right? That is the British theology in me. No offense meant. But I do see how my lovely homeland shys away from the negative and the things we can't explain. We hold our heads high and tough it out, we claim God's goodness until the bad feelings are tucked deep enough to forget about.

We don't see the damage this can do, or at least the damage this did to me emotionally, and more so the damage it did to my relationship with God. My emotional dam burst and took a few casualties down in its powerful stream. Literally hundreds of counseling hours later I could at least begin to put words to my "undesirable" feelings. I could see out of the fog and I could be present with people in my life today. I could sit and truly be me in a place at a time. I embraced the good, the bad and the ugly and I sat with it. Aware of it all, and unashamed. It was hard work, and it will never be done. I am on a personal counseling hiatus right now but perhaps this is the perfect time to re-evaluate that?! hummmmm, that wasn't where that thought was going at all when I started typing.

Anyway, I feel like my anxiety disorder is a good illustration of a cumulative effect. As it builds to a peak at the start of a long-term episode I would keep my life in a routine to keep control but gradually I will stop doing one activity at a time, and before I know it I haven't been outside for a week. With my negative or big hard to understand emotions to do with our infertility it is the same way. As I neglected these issues one at a time, they built a wall in my heart. Higher and higher it has been building until today I stand on my tip-toes trying to peak over the edge to catch a glimpse of my true self. My heart and passions are caught under the massive pile of emotional junk.

I am a shadow of myself.

And some days it is too much effort to care.

Some days it is easier to sit in my shell, and let the world happen around me. Keeping it at arms length as much as possible because the truth of where my life is today and the pain it has faced is too much.

Wearing the hurt and the fear, the disappointment and the feeling of hopelessness feels like putting on someone else's clothes. They don't fit me, they are uncomfortable and they draw attention. In my shadow I can slip thorough life relatively unnoticed. I don't have to answer questions I don't have answers for. I don't have to admit how angry I am, or how powerless this makes me feel. I don't have to be the person this loss has made me. I can take back control, but I can only do this for so long, my arms are getting tired.

Today I sit. Mourning another child we won't get to hold, and fearful of the physical process that its about to happen. I recognise my true self, behind the wall of emotional junk. I know the day is coming when I have to deal with it, one piece, one lie of the enemy, one painful truth at a time. For today, my arms are burning but I am holding on a little longer to this shield of false protection. Isolated and confused.

The wall of tears is impenetrable this afternoon. Jeremy's kisses fall on wet cheeks unable to stop the flood.

Feeling so far from my Jesus, and aware it has been my feet that have wandered. My heart that is afraid, and my fear and pride which will prolong my return to his arms.

Pray for us please, we need hope.