What Christmas means to me….

In 109 days it will be Christmas – and usually by this time of year I catch myself singing cheerful Christmas songs. This time around – Christmas means something different to me.

Christmas this year I was supposed to find myself 27 weeks pregnant. But instead of actually being able to plan and get excited for what was to come – we find ourselves reflecting on our thoughts, expectations and outlook on life.

For just over 2 ½ years we having been trusting in God’s timing for bringing us a family so when July came and we found out we were pregnant – we were pretty excited : ) So when mid/end-August came and we found ourselves sitting in the midwife’s exam room being handed a 1980’s style pamphlet about coping with your miscarriage – we were a bit thrown for a loop.

What do you do when you feel like you’ve been hit by a truck – emotionally, physically and spiritually – when you find yourself swinging from feeling 100% sad and also mad to 100% trusting and “okay” with whatever God’s plan will be – when all you want to do is sit around feeling sad but realize that there are 20+ unread messages in your inbox that need your attention now, the house is a messy now and your 4 ½ year old nephew who is staying with you is taking all Dan’s time and focus away from his work during the busiest time of year for us?

Everyone deals with losing a dream like this differently. I know that as the months roll on and as March comes but a baby doesn’t, I will still feel bouts of ups and downs. But one thing I do know is that Christmas will be different this year.

Why? I was so looking forward to getting baby themed gifts and looking reeeeally pregnant and experiencing just a smidge of what Mary felt during my favorite season. But instead of celebrating the impending birth of our first little peanut I’ll be consumed by the fact that I’m not.

Every year for as long as I can remember we’ve gone to church on Christmas Eve and at the end, we light a candle and sing Silent Night – by memory. Many people know the words as well – but not often do I stop and think about any of the words we recite both in song and in word at Christmas truly stand for; it has – over my lifetime – become very rehearsed. And that is what, I believe, has happened within me over the past few years. I have gone through the motions, said the ‘right’ things, trusting it will just all work out.

But have I really been trusting? Or just saying so? I’d like to think that I really have been – but the last three+ weeks since losing our little peanut has made me realize maybe I haven’t really been. Not that me trusting more in God’s great plan for us would have stopped us from miscarrying; but, nonetheless, it has stopped me in my tracks.

So, where do I go from here? Obviously there could be a variety of scientific reasons why we miscarried. But to me – it’s more than just that. More than science. More than just having ‘faith’ that it will all be ‘okay’. It’s KNOWING that we have a God who loves us and wants what best for us. A God who will only give us as much as we can handle. A God who shows us through Paul that “…we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance character, and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.” {Romans 5:3-5} A God who said to Paul “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." {2 Corinthians 12:9} After he begged for God to take away his sufferings. A God who sent His only son to die for us.

Not only will Christmas be different to me this year because I won’t be 27 weeks pregnant, but because I have experienced the thought, the slight dream, the vision of what it might be like to actually have a baby in my arms and then, it was taken away, but because God actually HAD a son – whom He sent to die – by choice. Just so we might be saved.

Christmas will forever be a stunning reminder to me of what true love-lost feels like; just a glimpse into the heart of God. He went in knowing how painful it was going to be – and did so anyways.

So….. To the hopeful someday – when we hold a little one of our own, a D+K: may each day between now and then be a reminder of the physical and emotion pain we went through and how small in comparison it is to the love that God has shown us through the cross – and not just a rehearsed, memorized walk through life.

And to our little peanut – we may not have known of you for long – but the type and amount of joy and excitement that you brought us in those weeks was more than I knew possible. I love you – and miss you every day.