I haven’t been spending as much time in my bible (or even my own head for that matter) as I would like for myself lately. There hasn’t been much of a desire to seek out a deeper relationship with Jesus. I hear that’s common in grief. I suppose it makes sense. There’s lots of anger and frustration and disappointment in facing the reality that God COULD have saved my son but DIDN’T. So when I sit down to talk with Him, a whole slew of difficult, heavy, and often undesirable emotions swell up and I don’t get anywhere but deeper into the messiness of this fallen world. It truly makes me long for heaven. For the time that no one experiences pain. For the moment when I am made new, just like my son, and can sing How Great Thou Art and really mean it. Every. Single. Word.
I’ve been busy lately. Really, really busy. It’s been a month full of all the logistics of moving into our house, finally. All of the busyness has been a good distraction from the waiting and he unknowns of expanding our family. It has been good for my heart to take a short break from the work of grief. But there’s one room (two actually) in the house that stirs up all the emotions that I often don’t want to face. The room that we have affectionately and hopefully called the nursery. Audrey says it’s the baby’s room and she is very matter of fact about it’s purpose: for the baby’s crib when they come home to live with us. - there is no baby coming home right now, but she doesn’t understand that, so she patiently waits for the day she can hold her sibling in the rocking chair in the “baby’s room” -
I’ve left this room for last. Logistics sort of made that a necessity, but the honest truth is that I didn’t really want to face it. The room that should have been George Mason’s. I already faced an empty nursery once, it’s hard to do it again in this new place. I keep trying to tell myself that by now we would have made the switch and moved George Mason into his “big boy” room next to Audrey’s. That this empty room, this nursery, isn’t his. It’s the place where all the love we can muster is waiting for the day that our next baby is welcomed home. The place where we hold out the hope that our family is meant to expand, and that the death of our son wasn’t our last experience with birth. So I’ve been avoiding it. Putting off the work so that I didn’t have to admit to myself, again, how disappointed I am with my God. And honestly, not ready to put much love into the actual work of readying the space for a tiny human to occupy it. Because when I allow myself the freedom to fully feel all of the emotions that are floating around in my heart, one of those is fear; terrified of the next baby and he what ifs.
I guess since this room has been so intentionally avoided, it’s time to move that intent into productivity. To see it through to complete. As the room where Audrey will live until her big girl room is ready. As the space that will one day be filled with cries and poopy diapers and plenty of midnight feedings for a baby that isn’t George Mason. That isn’t a replacement for George Mason. For a baby that is very much loved, wanted, and different from their big brother.
And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.” – Colossians 3:17