Less of Paige

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Sometimes God Talks Through The Radio

Khalil and I (but in all honesty, mostly me) are doing the medical stuff necessary to get ready to have babies. We're not trying now, and we're not pregnant, so don't go there, because that isn't what this is about.

This is a very scary event for me. Our family has some issues, for lack of a better word, that may or may not have some affect on my pregnancies/ children.

The one that is causing me the most... fear, I guess... anxiety? is the birth and death of my niece. She is the middle child of my sister. Her name is Hannah Grace, Baby Hannah to Caleb and Ellie. There's so much I could write about her, but tonight is not the night.

Hannah died of anencephaly- she was born without a brain or skull, only a brain stem. She lived for one precious week.

Hannah's birth and death was the first time I started questioning my relationship with God. I don't think this is a bad thing (the questioning, that is). I think that God can handle questioning and anger- if He couldn't, He wouldn't be worth it. He wouldn't be God.

I didn't understand why He did it. I didn't get why He let her be conceived if he was just going to take her anyway. Why break my sister's heart, and her husband's heart, and crack all of ours? Why? I was pissed. I felt like God was an asshole (He knows I mean no disrespect. Him and I have talked this out). I wondered how I could trust someone, let my life be in the control of someone, who did horrible things, or let them happen.

This was a few years ago, about five and a half. And in all honesty, it's not all resolved. Which brings me to tonight. I have been having a very hard time with this whole "preconception" crap. Tonight, at yoga of all places, I figured out what was going on with me.

I'm scared. And the root of the fear comes in difficulty trusting God. He let my sister have a baby who died- what's stopping Him from letting the same thing happen to me? Huh? Does he really care, about me? About us? Our family?

Tonight I told God this. I told him that I'm still scared to trust Him with this. That I don't like putting this in his hands because I'm not sure what he'll do with it, with our future, with our children. Will he take them away too? I told Him that I want to trust Him, but I need to know how. That I don't understand. That I need help. Please help me. Because if You, God, can't help me, I don't know how I'll get through this.

That's when he talked to me through the radio. Call me naive, call it a weird coincidence, tell me I'm believing something because I want or need to. But I know it's true. I know, in my heart of hearts, that God talked to me through the radio. This song came on:

I'll Stand By You
The Pretenders

Oh, why you look so sad?
Tears are in your eyes
Come on and come to me now.
Don't be ashamed to cry,
let me see you through
Cause I've seen the dark side too.
When the night falls on you,
you don't know what to do,
Nothing you confess
could make me love you less
I'll stand by you,
I'll stand by you,
won't let nobody hurt you,
I'll stand by you.
So, if you're mad get mad,
don't hold it all inside ,
Come on and talk to me now.
And hey, what you got to hide ?
I get angry too
But I'm alot like you.
When you're standing at the crossroads ,
don't know which path to choose ,
Let me come along ,
cause even if your wrong
I'll stand by you,
I'll stand by you,
won't let nobody hurt you,
I'll stand by you.
Take me into your darkest hour ,
and I'll never desert you.
I'll stand by you.
And when, when the night falls on you baby ,
you're feeling all alone ,
You won't be on your own,
I'll stand by you.
I'll stand by you
I'll stand by you,
won't let nobody hurt you.
I'll stand by you
Take me in into your darkest hour
and I'll never desert you
I'll stand by you.
*************************************

I just cried and cried. By the end of the song I could kind of sing with them. But I knew exactly what God was telling me. If you're not sure, go back and read the lyrics again.

I had a new prayer next. It was, "fine, you got my attention. FINE. I'll believe you. I have to. You're right, God, I don't have to get it. I don't have to understand what you were doing with Hannah, or any of the other things. I just have to know and trust that you and your purposes? Are bigger than me. And that you've got it under control. And I have to let you have the control, and rest in you and rest in trusting you. And trust you in an less naive way than I used to- I used to trust that good things would come. Now I have to trust that no matter what happens, you'll stand by me." And that that's really all I'll need.

I told Him, too, that I might try and take it back. You know, the not trusting. But that I'm going to work really hard to leave it with him- the future. And our babies. And pregnancies. And trust that it's ok that He's in control. Because He does love me, He doesn't want to let anyone hurt me, not in that way, and He will stand by me.

5 Comments:

At 4:55 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Good Job Paige

Make me weep before 8 am.

Know I am there for you through this

Pokey

 
At 12:07 PM, Blogger Amy Witt said...

Praying for you. The Holy Spirit knows how to pray for you so I don't need any details. Sending you love from Texas.

 
At 7:08 PM, Blogger Lisa said...

I know how you feel. It's strange how sometimes, as Christians, we can feel immune to suffering.

At least I did, at first.

I became a Christian at age 18. Before then, I had been through my very own version of hell. My mother died. My father abandoned me.

I grew up in a series of foster group homes, and emerged bitter and angry at the world.

Yet, when I became a Christian, light dawned in my life. Everything changed. I had a new Father, and a new family, in my dorm mates at a Methodist dorm.

Everything was fresh and new... and I guess I felt immune to suffering in my "new life."

Pain was part of my old life. Rejection was a thing of the past. I'd had my quota of suffering, and now the saints were marching in... Right?

But I was wrong. God doesn't offer us lives free of suffering... but He does use that suffering for a purpose. Often, it's to prepare us for something else.

I pray for your sister. God loves her even more than you do -- which, from the sounds of it, is a whole lotta love.

 
At 7:59 AM, Blogger Kristina said...

Wow Paige,
This was a powerful post. And it struck a very precious cord in my heart. I too have suffered the loss of a new baby. He was my first born, and we named him Josiah. He was two weeks overdue, and I had a very long labor. There were complications during the delivery, and he only lived for two days after he came into this world. Now, I am a christian, and I have been for many years. But let me be truthful in saying that here in the blessed U.S.A., we as christians,(or at least I ) believed that we were imune to real suffering. Well, that is obviously not the case. God NEVER said it would be easy to follow Him. In fact, he said that it would be a difficult road, that it would be a narrow road. But that narrow path leads us to God himself, it leads us to true life.
Since the birth, and death of my son my resolve is this; God is the author of life. He is the one that gives life, and He is the one that has the right to take it away. I didn't ever question Him why he took my son. For who am I to question the creator of all things? HE IS GOD. And He is sovereign. If anything, I drew closer to Him during the worst of my mourning. He did promise that He would never leave us or forsake us. And even during my darkest hour, I sensed Him all around me. He never did leave my side.
I also want to say that if I hadn't of taken the risk of having more children later on, that I wouldn't have reaped the benefit of having three other young ones. They are half me, and they are half of my husband. And they are everything I ever could have asked for, and more. I am a blessed woman. And the loss of my first child has only made me a stronger, and more compassionate soul.

 
At 3:30 PM, Blogger Kate B said...

Paige,
When I suffered my miscarriage 3 months ago, I had some of the same questions of God that you did. I had the same anger. Why did He allow such a rotten thing to happen to me? I can't say that I've totally gotten over it, but I've made progress. What I've come to realize is that God does not plot our every happening. Bad things don't happen to us because he's not watching. Bad things happen because bad things happen. God loves us and wants good things for us, but he can't stop the bad things from happening to good people like he can't stop good things happening to bad people. He's not the puppet master, nor the screenwriter of our lives. He is, however, our greatest support system. He shares our pain and shares our joy. So - what I'm trying to say is that in preparing to attempt to conceive, do all that you can to be healthy and to help a baby be healthy, then know that if something bad does happen, God will be there by your side.

 

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