Falling down the stairs.

A couple of months ago, Nixon fell down the stairs at my parents’ house. Where were his parents, right? Ha! I guess he suddenly felt brave enough and old enough and big enough to just try and walk down face forward. I was across the room at the time. I knew he was in my care because Aaron had just yelled down the hall to make sure I had him. “Yes,” I said. But I was cleaning up the toys on the floor with my back to him while he (I thought) walked my direction. But then suddenly I looked over my shoulder and he was at the edge of the stairs. It was one of those moments where you see what’s going to happen the very split second before it happens.

“NIXON!” I yelled in a way only a terrified mom would yell at their child. And then he immediately went tumbling down the stairs as I ran after him. Thankfully my parents’ stairs are split into two small flights with a landing between them. So technically he only rolled down a half flight of stairs. But he was on his back on the landing by the time I reached him. He started bawling and I was shaking as I picked him up.

The thing is, Nixon knows how to go down the stairs. He knows how to slide down on his belly because Aaron taught him several months before this and he’s been using the technique ever since. If you tell him to slide, he’ll get on his belly halfway across the room and scoot himself all the way to the stairs and then down them. But this time. This time he didn’t. And this time I wasn’t there to catch him.  

How many times do we stop our kids from getting hurt and they don’t even know it? How many times have I grabbed Nixon’s arm before he fell down or held his hand so he didn’t trip or reached for him before he fell into the corner of the table? How many times have I been there to hold him back before he tumbled down the stairs?

My pastor used this example one time to talk about God. We get upset at God when bad things happen, but how many times has he stopped us from getting hurt? How many times has he been there to hold us back before we hit our head and we didn’t even know it? How many times has he held us safe without our knowledge and we just walk along through life? But it’s the time he doesn’t stop it - the time he doesn’t hold back the pain, that we get angry and think he must be awful.

A couple of years ago, Aaron and I saw the movie, The Heart of Man. It’s a documentary about the story of the prodigal son and God’s desire for us to come back to him – how he made a way back long before we ever chose our sin over him. In the movie, one of the people they interview is Paul William Young, the author of the book, The Shack. One of the most poignant things he said was that it took him “all of fifty years to wipe the face of my father completely off the face of God.” Oh man. That will preach —just that line alone.

Because I think we do that a lot –we consciously or subconsciously let God have the face of our earthly father and then use that as reason not to come to our heavenly one. If your dad left you, then logic says God will leave you. If your dad was abusive, God will be abusive. If your dad had an anger problem, God has an anger problem. If your dad was never around, then you’re just an afterthought to God as well. Whatever the case may be. Or, if your dad was loving and attentive and gave you everything you wanted, then God should be also, and yet you don’t have what you want, so then you feel as if God is withholding for no reason. It’s evident that our fathers have so much influence on our view of God.

I think the most damaging view we might have of God is the mad, pacing father. We often think he’s angry with us – for disobedience, for falling away, for walking away, for choosing something else over him. He’s angry and yelling and pacing around wondering, “Who do you think you are?” I don’t know about you, but coming back to that kind of rage doesn’t seem all that inviting. Can you imagine if, when Nixon fell down the stairs, I just stood over him and yelled at him instead of comforted him? Or if I left him to cry at the bottom of the stairs and just yelled over at him, “Get up! You know better!” How terrible of a parent would I be in that moment?

But I think sometimes that’s how we view God when we mess up. We do something we know we shouldn’t or we get ourselves into trouble somehow – we get ourselves jammed up as we’re so prone to do—and we decide he probably doesn’t want to see us anymore. He probably wants us to go to our room and not come out because after all we knew how to slide down the stairs but we chose not to. We launched face first down the stairs because we were pretty sure we knew better.

One of the most freeing things I realized a couple years ago was that God wasn’t shouting at me about my sin. He wasn’t pacing around, angry and threatening. He was sitting there with me, willing me to choose something better – hoping I would see his light and life and following him as a better choice than my sin choices. Psalm 139:8 says, “If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol (hell or the grave), you are there.” Through my decisions in my twenties, I made my bed in the depths of hell so many times and what I finally understood is that when I did that, he laid on the floor next to my bed waiting for me to choose something better – waiting for me to choose him instead. He was the better thing, the only thing, I needed. 

When we do fall down the stairs —when the horrible thing happens, when we get ourselves into trouble or find ourselves there somehow – what if instead of angry about our choices, what if he shouts for us right before it happens in one last attempt to hold us back? LYNDI! And then when we tumble down the stairs and land flat on our backs, perhaps its Jesus that stands over us and asks if we’re okay and holds our hand while we get back up. Do we view him that way? As the attentive father that Scripture shows him to be?

After I realized the truth about God – that he wasn’t angry or shouting at me and that he was there with me when I chose poorly --anytime I choose sin over him, I just imagine he’s there offering something else, a better way. Jesus is always there —not hating me, angry with me, yelling at me. He hates the allure of sin, but not me. His thoughts toward me, toward you, are precious. His love for me is endless. He knew I would choose the grave when he went to the cross – he knew I would make every mistake I’ve ever made and will make, he knew we would choose lust and greed and murder and still he said, “She’s MINE! You will not have her. She’s mine.” My heart has no capacity for that level of love. I am known, chosen and loved. And the moment you place your trust in Him, so are you.

Of course when Nixon fell down the stairs, I was a wreck. I patted his back and smoothed his hair while I told him he was okay. He was done crying in a couple of minutes, but I was still worried about him. He’s my son. I will never not care about him and tend to him when he needs me and even when he thinks he doesn’t.

But I guess the point I want to make to you is that that is how God cares about you. God doesn’t have the face of your father, regardless of how your father treated you. If you want to know about God, look at the life and love of Jesus. Look at the way he treated others, how he cared for the sick, how he tenderly lifted the face of the adulterous woman in the crowd. He is the father we need —the one we’ve been looking for all this time. The father who won’t abandon us or show up late or get angry over our missteps. He’s the father who cares what makes you happy and what makes you sad and knows anyway because he MADE you with his careful hands. He can be trusted to lift your head, to pick you up at the bottom of the stairs and hold you close no matter how many times you fall down.  

Learning how to surrender.

I bend toward nostalgia approximately two times per year — my birthday and the new year. So the fact that we’re heading into a new year and a new DECADE has me all up in my old journals and feelings, as you know.

It was very obviously a big year for Aaron and I as we moved back across the ocean and welcomed our son over the summer. But when I started this year, watching the calendar flip from 2018 to 2019, I didn’t have a single inkling that the year would be any different than the last. Aaron and I had no plans to move home and I wasn’t aware yet of my pregnancy. It was business as usual over on the island. And as 2018 drew to a close, I chose my word for the year as I normally do. For 2019: surrender. After my miscarriage last year, I learned again (and again and again) that I have no control over most circumstances in life so in 2019 I intended to make a habit of laying it all down before Jesus before my little head could even begin to try and control anything.

And what do you know — I learned a whole heaping ton about surrendering this year. Just one week into the new year I was already learning about surrendering to God – to his will for my life and Nixon’s, to his timing, and laying down my preferences and priorities and trading them for his.

Think of a time when your heart just felt relieved. You could take a deep breath again. You felt the weight drop off your shoulders. You finished a big project. You heard good news from the doctor. You had a chance to take a vacation after long weeks at work. You felt free. One value Aaron and I have for our home is that it’s a place of safety — where you can come and just relax. I see this a lot in our cat and I know you might think this is a silly example but cats are pretty particular animals. They’re typically on guard a lot — at least ours is. But when I watch her stretch out on a cozy blanket, legs long and belly out, I know she feels safe enough to do that. That’s what surrendering these worries felt like this year. It felt safe. There was a sense of calm. When I could give them over to God and let him handle them, I could just rest. Breathe. Relax. Surrendering isn’t giving up or giving in. It’s more of a handing off of whatever it is that’s weighing on your soul and letting God be in control, or rather, recognizing that he already is in control and he doesn’t need you or want you to spend time worrying.

And this year, I learned about surrendering in pregnancy.

first ultrasound of Nixon at seven weeks.

We found out I was pregnant on January 7 and about a week later I started feeling so sick I could puke (but thankfully didn’t) every single day. I laid on the couch and watched more TV in those first few weeks than I probably did the whole rest of the year. If you know me at all, you know I’m not much of a TV watcher and I’m not very good at just laying around. But I knew I had to allow my body to slow down and do the work it needed to do. I mean, it was growing an entire human being. Oof! I can’t get over the miracle that it is. So I laid around while praying continuously that God would sustain the life within me. I could have worried myself sick throughout the entire nine months but I knew that wouldn’t be good for me or for Nixon. I knew God had a plan for me and for our baby and I had to give it over to him instead of constantly worry that everything was okay. This was a daily surrendering to the process of making a new life - one that I had absolutely no control over. I’ve written about this before - my fear of miscarrying again constantly gnawed at me until 18 or 19 weeks when I could finally feel Nixon’s little body move within my own. Graciously, God gave us the gift of a healthy babe in August.

I learned about surrender in the timing of moving back to Nebraska.

me and Darla (and 28 week old Nixon) going through security at the airport on our way back to Nebraska.

If it were up to me, I would have preferred to move back before I was even pregnant but as it turns out we moved back just as I was starting my third trimester. In fact, Aaron moved back for good just seven weeks before Nixon was born! We knew we would be back here eventually but waiting on the right job for Aaron proved difficult. Ask Aaron how often I checked in with him to see if there were any jobs to apply for back in Lincoln. Eek! And then once we knew we were moving you might ask him the number of times I melted at the thought of trying to figure out how to get our house full of possessions across the ocean. It’s somewhere between 1 and probably a million. I blame pregnancy hormones and also my personality. Ha! But God had it all worked out for us. We were back home to Nebraska with a place to live and the most perfect job for Aaron, all in time for Nixon’s birth! All of it is a blessing not lost on me.

I learned about surrendering to God’s plan for the birth of our baby. Nixon’s birth was most assuredly not what we had planned – certainly not the day we had planned. I know due dates are a bit of a guess but with the number of times people told me you’re always late with your first baby, I was thinking we had three to four weeks of pregnancy left when Nixon showed up on the scene. You can read more about that in his birth story, but suffice it to say I was completely shocked to know we would be delivering that day and then five hours later holding our son in our arms. But, then again, God knew. Nixon wasn’t born a moment too early but arrived just as God planned it and my preferences in that moment didn’t matter at all.

And then there has been the surrendering of my very body for the life of this child.

Nixon wilder at one month old.

I have found (in my very limited, new experience) that being a mother is a daily act of surrender. Giving up our bodies entirely for another. Losing our life to create new. Isn’t that a bit like a picture of the gospel? The old is gone, the new has come, and this beautiful, breathtaking new is an image of God the world has never seen. So we mothers lay down our lives, our old selves gone forever, for the birth of this new life, this new magnificent creation, born of His design. It is a rigorous step of sanctification — one that will last the rest of our earthly lives in new forms each day. But I try to remember in the challenging times, where I’m crying and he’s crying, that this is meant for me right now. This is meant to challenge, to mold, to shape, to sharpen, to bring me more toward the heart of Jesus. So I will give up my body, my heart, my life for this new (nearly) four month old life so that he might know my love for him and God’s love for both of us. Because it’s in the giving, the serving, the laying down of our lives that we really find our lives just as He said. 

So just as I think I’ve learned one lesson on surrendering, God is already preparing my heart for the next. And isn’t there something daily we can put at the foot of the cross and trust that he is in it all? There is a surrendering of the will that must happen for each of us in various aspects of life. But the good news in all of this — the very best, most important news —is that I can surrender it all because I know in my guts that HE is GOOD. If he weren’t good, if he didn’t show himself faithful again and again, why would I give it over to him? How could he be trusted? But he IS good. I know this in my bones. So I can lay down my plans and trade them for his with confidence that his way is better than my way.

And this isn’t a lesson I have solely learned this year simply because it was my chosen word. I have had to learn this art of surrendering over the last decade or so. There have been many things I hoped to have control over or thought God should, at the very least, ask for my input on because I had a lot of thoughts and opinions. Thankfully he did not, because the majority of the time I can look back and say I have no idea what I was thinking. Gosh, there were times I worked my little life right into a disaster zone and I kept banging my face on the wall of my own self-righteousness and pride and desire to control different areas of my life and finally I just said, “No more,” or rather God really dug into my soul and said, “No more. You’re done with this,” and pulled me up out of a lot of darkness. He graciously rescued me from myself and it’s been in the last few years that I’ve remembered to say, “Not what I want, God, but what you want,” and my circumstances may not have changed (though sometimes they did) but my heart about them was certainly transformed. My patience grew teeth and I could hang on a little longer. My heart for the Lord rooted deeper. My faith had an anchor. It has taken me 35 years to learn a life of dependence on him and I want to live the next 35 walking that out.

I know that just because the calendar turns to 2020 and I have a new word for the year that there won’t be numerous lessons in surrender for 2020 and for the rest of my life. For instance, Aaron and I are currently looking for a house to buy – a place to call our own and finally settle in for a little while. We’ve been looking consistently now for nearly six months and it’s taking a little too long if you ask me. So here again I remind myself that God knows our finances, he knows the house we’ll end up in, and he goes before us to prepare the way and prepare our hearts. I know he has the right place for us all worked out, so we’ll keep looking until we feel him leading a certain way. I just want to surrender the process to him knowing he will bring it all about in the right time.

So, as we close out this year and this decade, I want to remember the lessons of this year as I go forward into the next and the next. It’s all about trusting him no matter the circumstances — surrendering my will for his, knowing that his is better than anything I could think up. And perhaps you think I just write the same things over and over again here on this blog and you’re kind of right. My life makes no sense without looking through the lens of Christianity and the love of Jesus. And what a perfect time of year to be reminded of this – when we celebrate Christmas – the birth of sweet Jesus and his life as Emmanuel, God with us. It is my favorite attribute about him. He doesn’t leave us alone to figure out this life on our own. He walked the earth. He felt the pain. He gave up his glory for us. What immense surrender to the will of the Father. A beautiful example we can look to at Christmas time, and all year long as we learn the art of letting go and giving it to Him.

**

As I’ve shared before, I always use my word for the year as the wallpaper on my phone so I see it every day. If you’re interested, here’s the graphic I had this year. I just found it on Pinterest so I can’t give credit to the artist, but it is not my own work. I’m just thankful for the reminder it served each day this year.

Peace, be still.

I have always wanted to be a mom. When people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, my most honest answer was, “I don’t know... a mom?” And I always answered it like a question - asking for validation that it was okay. Can I just be a mom? Is that good enough? Do I have to choose some other kind of profession? Okay, I guess I can go to college, but I really want to be a mom.

I played with dolls until long after it was appropriate. I mean, a lot of my peers were “going out” with someone, testing the dating waters, but I was still playing with dolls, not trying to kiss boys. I always hoped my parents would have another baby or adopt a baby or just invite someone with a baby to come over so I could hold it. Finally, I started babysitting when I was in 6th grade with six-week-old twins. I don’t know what sixth grader I would hand my children over to at this point, but I guess I had a trustworthy face. Ha! The point is, I grew up holding babies, they were just always someone else's. 

So, when Aaron and I found out I was pregnant earlier this summer, I felt like my baby dreams were coming true. I thanked God for this little baby from the very moment I knew about it and while I was a little anxious, this precious secret Aaron and I held between the two of us was filled with more joy than we knew how to handle. Like nearly every girl I know, I pulled out the list of names that I've been adding to and editing since seventh grade. I imagined a baby room and moving back to Nebraska and all the ways our lives would change. I read the entire packet of baby development and labor and delivery information our doctor's office gave us in one afternoon and I checked our baby app almost hourly to see exactly what baby looked like. I felt like maybe no career ever sounded all that interesting to me because God was finally revealing my true calling in motherhood. I journaled to the Lord, "Thank you for the opportunity to harbor this tiny soul, this immense creation, alive by your breath, created by your beautiful idea." Delighted by this little love would be a ridiculous understatement of my feelings.

Summer was a complete blur for me - consumed with thinking about, praying about and planning for our baby. So the devastation was swift and deep when it seemed it would all be taken away. I couldn't think of anything else to do, so I pulled a pillow off our bed and laid down on my back on our bedroom floor. I put my phone next to my ear and blasted music so the songs were louder than my cries. I stared up at the black blades of our ceiling fan whirring above me as my lower body cramped and ached with increasing intensity. Tears rushed steady from the corners of my eyes, down the sides of my face, and I cried out to God in long, heaving wails that only sounded like grief. Mourning. Death. I cried out loud, “Okay, okay, okay." I kept repeating it, as if willing myself to accept what was happening. "Okay, I know this is what you have for me now but I don’t understand it, God. I don’t get it. I don’t want this. I don’t want this.” I was afraid of what was coming in the next couple of hours and days. But the music in my ear sang a competing story,

I'm not gonna be afraid
'Cause these waves are only waves
I'm not gonna be afraid
I'm not gonna be afraid
I'm not gonna fear the storm
You are greater than it's roar
I'm not gonna fear the storm
I'm not gonna fear at all

Peace, be still
Say the word and I will
Set my feet upon the sea
Till I'm dancing in the deep
Oh, peace, be still
You are here, so it is well
Even when my eyes can't see
I will trust the voice that speaks
Peace

Peace, be still. And I was. I laid completely still on the bedroom floor until Aaron got home and we were able to go to the doctor and confirm what I already knew.

Aaron and I lost our baby on July 19, just one day before we were to go home to Nebraska and tell our families about our sweet, exciting news. Instead, we packed our suitcases through tears and grief and while the sadness was immense, the nearness of God was evident at every turn. I felt him in the sweetness of the doctor who talked us gently through what to expect and her willingness to work with our airline to change my flight. As we waited to do my lab work, I felt him near when the receptionist came out with a whole box of tissue. She offered it to Aaron and I with a quiet and sincere, "I'm sorry," and in that moment I wanted to hug her for her kindness. Home from the doctor’s office, we sat on the couch and left the front door open, watching from the living room as the sun set in front of us and turned to brilliant colors of pink and gold behind dark clouds and somehow it felt like being held. Behind the darkness, there was a promise to behold. We were not alone. We were not left unnoticed. I felt God speaking to me, “Peace, be still. I have this. I’m here. I know. I see your broken heart. I will carry your tired body. I am here. I know.”

In the days and moments since the loss of our baby, I have had to battle hard for the truth in my heart rather than lies. I’ve had to stop myself from thinking I did something to cause it, that it’s “not fair” everyone else seems to get pregnant and stay that way, that God is somehow punishing us. I’ve had to stop myself from spiraling into the “what ifs” – what if I can never stay pregnant? What if this happens again? What if there’s something wrong with me? What if? The other side of that same coin is the “not enoughs.” Maybe I didn’t pray enough, wasn’t thankful enough, didn’t trust enough, wasn’t healthy enough, didn't rest enough. I know all of these are untrue - it is my brain trying to make sense of grief. 

Several months ago I watched this video from Rich and Dawnchere Wilkerson regarding their struggle with infertility. It’s a beautiful story of patience, trust, and faith and she talks specifically about how they were trusting the story God had for them. When we look at someone else and think, "It's not fair they have _____," we're ultimately saying their story is better than ours. Their story is the one we want instead. While an eight year struggle is not what the Wilkersons would have chosen, they trusted God was writing a story specifically for them. When I posted it on Facebook, I had no idea how much I would need their faith to bolster my own just a few months later.

As I laid on the floor of my bedroom that day, I felt the truth of Dawnchere’s words. I desperately wanted the story God was writing for Aaron and I – the one he has faithfully worked out over the last couple of years for us. I cried, “I want the story you have for me, God. I just don’t want this to be part of it. Please, don’t let this be part of it. I don’t want to cry. I don’t want to feel this heartbreak. I don’t want this, God.”

But, losing the baby is part of our story now. Feeling the grief of loss in all its waves and lulls is part of our story. I know this is true for many, many couples. It is so common, this specific kind of grief. My sister endured it just seven months before I did and I suddenly felt a new sense of compassion for her and her husband. As it is with anything in life, it's impossible to know what it’s like until you experience it for yourself, and even then it is different for each person. I heard one time that the trials of life tie us compassionately to earth. This could not be more true for our current season. Aaron and I talked the very next day about how this experience is growing our compassion for others who have suffered loss through miscarriage or, really, loss of a child in any way at all. 

While this all happened just a month ago, it feels both longer and shorter than that. I remember laying on the floor like it was five minutes ago, but sometimes it feels like I have lived a new span of eternity since then. But when my heart starts to sink into sadness, it is the Lord who gently reminds me that he is near. I started reading through the Psalms early this summer and while I was home in Nebraska, I happened to be on Psalm 107.

Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble,
And he brought them out of their distresses.
He caused the storm to be still,
So that the waves of the sea were hushed.
Psalm 107: 27-29

This Psalm was written hundreds of years before Jesus walked the earth, but it was Jesus who fulfilled it and said to the sea in Mark 4, “Peace. Be still.” And the storm ceased. The waves were hushed. So it’s Jesus who is still reminding me in these days and weeks to be still. He has been faithful to remind me that he has not left me, forgotten me, been punishing me, nor is he letting me suffer alone. He has granted a supernatural peace, just as he promises in his Word. He has given me the gift of a caring, patient, kind husband who has walked with me in the same heartbreak. And for a few brief weeks he gave us the blessing of abundant joy in the gift of our baby, for which we feel extremely grateful.

I stayed in Nebraska a little longer than Aaron because I wanted extra time with my family and friends - extra time with the people who could help me heal, who would remind me of the truth, who would hold me up in prayer when I could not do it myself. For several weeks Aaron and I kept the news of our baby a secret, planning to go home and surprise everyone. Instead, God planned this trip at specifically the right time that we would be surrounded by love in the midst of our hurt. What graciousness from a loving Father. What depth of love he has for us. What lovingkindness in his plans for our lives. 

That song of peace goes on to say, 

Let faith rise up
Oh, heart, believe
Let faith rise up in me

So, that's the aim of my heart in this season of recovery and rest and waiting. Let faith rise up, even in uncertainty. In fear. In doubt. In pain. In joy. In blessing. In what feels like the weight of 1,000 curses. Let faith rise up. And like Hosea cries, "Let us press on to know the Lord." (Hosea 6:3) Let us press on. To seek you. To know you. To love you more. You are certain. Sure. Steadfast. Marvelous and holy. A treasure, rich and rare. 

While this has surely been traumatic, I don't believe this dream will always be answered with a no from God. For some reason, he is allowing this to be part of our story and though we wouldn't choose it, I know he is in it, so I can say, It is well. God had plans for our baby from the start - he knew the days he had ordained for our little one (Psalm 139:16). And sweet baby, God is using you for my good and for your dad’s good, too. And someday when Jesus comes back to renew all things, the sad truth of never getting to meet you will come untrue and that will be a really good day. Until then we will miss the joy of knowing you and press on to know the Lord who sustains us and speaks peace over us.