A New Perspective

I have had conversations with several of my friends who freely admit to me that they have no idea what I am going through because they themselves have never really been through any major season of pain in their lives.  They have never lost a close friend or relative, they have never experienced deep disappointment, financial struggle, abuse, etc.... Their lives have pretty much always gone the way they expected they would.  They live on a completely different planet than I do.  Just as I look at the starving people in under developed parts of the world.  I can imagine on some shallow, surface level what it must be like to starve and to watch your children starve but because I myself have never starved I really have no idea what it is like to be in their shoes.  I can't.  It's impossible.  To truly understand one's pain you must have walked in their shoes, maybe not the exact specific shoes I have been walking in, but the shoes of grief, disappointment, fear and confusion.  Whether you are walking in those shoes because you have had several miscarriages or because your father just died and you are only 25 or because your wayward child has drifted so far from you and made yet another choice in their life with devastating consequences, whatever brings you to your walk in those shoes, once you walk in them, you get it, on a level the other people living on that other happy planet don't.  Sure, we all live with the conscious awareness that we are blessed by the good things in our lives and we shouldn't take them for granted, but it is those who have lost those good things that truly get it.  It is those that can say "I thought I knew back then, but now I really know".  And you really know when you come home from the hospital after delivering your deceased baby and collapse on your stairs in tears and the only thought in your head is, "It's too much.  It's too much.  This pain is too much."  You know you have officially left "Planet Happy" and moved to "Planet Something Awful has Happened and I Will Never Be the Same Again". 

How do we navigate this new planet with terrain and environmental hazards we have never seen before and have no training in how to manage?  I have learned, at least for me, there is only one way.  Trust.  You may know the story of Peter, the disciple of Jesus, who, by faith and trust, walked on water.  Peter, along with the other disciples, is caught on a boat in a storm.  The story unfolds like this, "Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear.  But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”  “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.^" “Come,” he said.  Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus.   But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”  Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”  And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down.  Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.” Matthew 14: 25-33.  

Once you know this kind of pain, it haunts you, it disables your ability to trust.  But if you can find it in your heart to step out in faith and trust, even when storm is all around you and the past shouts at you that you should never trust again, if you can chose to trust anyway, the sweetest reward awaits you.  I chose to get pregnant, to try once again to have another child.  Faith.  I chose to buy a gift I saw in a store for my new baby when I was just 7 weeks pregnant.  Trust.  I chose to go shopping for maternity clothes when my pants got a little snug.  Faith.  I chose to let my mind wander to possible names for a boy or a girl.  A step out of the boat.  I chose to tell Riley about her new baby sibling.  One step further out on the rocky waves.  I chose to announce my pregnancy at just 11 weeks.  One big step in faith and trust out even further onto the water.  These are all minor activities for most people, but for me they go against the voice inside me saying, "Just wait.  What if you lose this one too?" These choices take me so far from the boat I can't even see it anymore.  My only choice then is to trust.  And the reward for that trust is this.  It is in few other places than the rocky waves where we must trust that we encounter Jesus on such a deep and personal level.  The great thing about being out on the water, away from your boat, is it's where Jesus is.  It's where you walk on water by His power.  Out here on the water, my new home, there is a lot of thunder and lightning and wind.  A past that haunts me and fears I can't seem to shake.  I start to sink many times a day, but He is always there to catch me, to save me from drowning and pull me back to the surface.  Even when I doubt and the fear takes hold, He is always there.  

One day I will go back to the boat, that is both good and bad.  But when I am back on the boat, I have a new perspective.  My perspective is this. I know how precious life is and that it can be lost in a moment.  I know how precious our health is and that one day you can get the call that you have cancer. I know what a gift my children are and I love them fiercely because of it.  I know deep pain and anguish and because of it I can appreciate joy on a level many can't.  I don't mean to disrespect my friends living on Planet Happy.  Praise God that they are living there!  But I pray that if and when they move to my planet, they will have hearts open to trusting God even when it hurts, that they will be brave enough to step out of the boat onto the water where Jesus is, that they will let Him carry them through the storm and that they will look at life with new perspective, perspective that can only be gained once you have lived on my planet, a perspective that knows how bad it can get and therefore feels the joy and appreciates the gifts that much more.  

I love you always and forever and no matter what.