A season without words

It looks like my last post was at the end of January, shortly after we had settled into our new home.  I had meant to keep up with posting pictures and writing (as much for my own sake as for anyone who might read this post), but I seemed to have needed a break from both writing and taking pictures. 

This has been a season full of decisions and emotions.  When I would even think about writing, I would feel expressions and thoughts come up and literally fill my mouth but I would not have the words to translate them.  Sometimes the thoughts felt half-baked and incomplete and it felt wrong to force them out until they matured, and other times they were simply too confusing or difficult to describe in the fog of fatigue.

I am finding it quite hard to write and articulate my thoughts even now, but I think I need to try anyway. 

Last year Joel decided to pursue attending seminary and enter into full time ministry.  Besides the unknown outcome of his company selling his division at work, this was actually the primary reason we sold our house in December.

Joel and I visited several seminaries all across the country in February.  By March Joel had been accepted to his school of choice, Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Alabama.  We began the process of planning for our move, but chose not to publicly announce it online because Joel did not give his official notice at work until just this past week.   

Joel is terribly excited about going back to school and changing vocation.  I agree that this is best for him and for us, but am too overwhelmed by the logistics of moving and the emotions of grieving the loss of our current community to be “excited” about it yet.  And, while I am willing, I struggle to completely agree with God about the timing for all this transition right now.  We plan to move the first week of August, about a month after our baby arrives.

I recently finished an intense 30 week program on arrested development, which has not only helped me begin to identify and overcome unhealthy thought patterns that have haunted me for years but also has helped with grief processing as well.  The program was excellent but exhausting – I felt completely drained for at least a day and half after each session. 

The class also helped me identify some PTSD-type symptoms that I experience.  I had thought they were just “normal” grieving reactions, but realize now that they should not be affecting me this strongly this long after the trauma of the previous year.  For example, when something triggers a memory of an emergency or other trauma from last year, my heart rate spikes, I feel a sudden claustrophobia, and I am filled with a huge urge to flee the situation or hide in a protected corner.  Sometimes the triggers make sense (e.g. visiting the hospital where we spent six weeks in the NICU, hearing ambulance alarms, and I still have not been able to touch a baby even though there have been seven beautiful children born in our church in the last year and a half) and sometimes the triggers are more obscure and seem random.  I am learning about how to deal with these issues and am optimistic about overcoming them.

Baby girl is due in almost exactly a month now, at the end of June, and she is very strong and active.  I am so thankful for her vigor, but she’s starting to really beat me up inside!  She seems to hiccup and kick all the time, and hard!  We’ve done just about as much packing as we can in advance since I will be less and less able to help as our due date approaches, and won’t be much help packing for a several weeks after the c-section.  I never dreamt I would have an elected c-section (or an unexpected, early one like last time for that matter), and I am NOT looking forward to it.  It is our choice this time around, and I am at peace about our decision, but that doesn’t mean I like it.  We have decided to go to the smaller hospital in town where Elsa and Nora were born to avoid some of the PTSD issues I described above. 

And underlying all of the above bits and pieces of our last few months have been the cluster of anniversaries of Oliver’s life.  His birthday (2 years old!) [I was doing fine writing until now.  The heavy pain fills my chest and my eyes blur with tears and I gasp for breath.  I’ll be back in a few minutes.], his memorial date, and then Easter Sunday – the pinnacle of Christian celebration – the morning his soul went to heaven.  I knew the anniversaries would be difficult, especially in this first year, but I did not expect the anticipation of the anniversaries to cause so much havoc in my heart and mind and soul.  I think it also hit so hard because all the moving and decision making had forced grieving onto a back burner for a while, and it was finally catching up with me.  I grieved hard the entire month of March, and then March blended into April with a near dread of Easter Sunday.  Why did it have to be so late in April this year and prolong our season of anniversaries?  I think I should save Easter for another post. 

This summary has been rather matter-of-fact with only a few bits of emotion, but each of these items have at turns, and often simultaneously, overwhelmed me and left me without words.  I have been sad and tired so many days, and I am so thankful for the friends who continue to check in with me, expecting honesty even when my reply is yet again a text message of “having a hard day today…”.  I still look for beautiful moments to photograph, but I find it is hard to be inspired by beauty when I feel so sad and confused. 

I am kept moving by God’s promises and my belief that He is good, though it all feels very different to me now.   That sentence sounded way too cliché – let me try again.  The hope that motivates me to get up each day is founded in my strong belief of God’s sovereignty and perfect character, my limited understanding of which has exploded into a much bigger and more wild and frightening view of divine love.  We are familiar with Lewis’ description of Aslan [God] as being a good though not a tame lion, but who really understands the awesome and terrifying combination of “good” and “wild” until they have been in a wilderness that has torn and scratched them to the core, and have survived to tell about it?  I was intellectually drawn to the problem of suffering and divine providence during my philosophy classes in college, and I find I have been revisiting many of my old friends like Kierkegaard and C.S. Lewis as my theodicy is informed by my current wilderness journey.   More on that at a later time, perhaps.

So, there it is.  I will also start posting the smattering of photos I have collected over the last few months, because there have been beautiful times.  In The Problem of Pain Lewis writes “Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home.”  The photographs are examples of some of the “pleasant inns” that have been given to us in the past few months.