amy courts: en route

It’s been an eventful week for my friends…and a bit of a rough one for me.

It was precipitated by the happy fact that a few weeks ago, Elijah started sleeping through the night, thereby ending our sweet, middle-of-the-night interludes. He’s growing up too fast.

Then, last Monday, Paul ran his hand over my belly, and like a shock wave it hit me that we won’t ever again get to feel a tiny growing baby dancing inside me.

Then, stupid Betty Draper didn’t want to be pregnant with her third baby.

Then, three friends had their second or third babies.

Then, a few more friends posted magnificent announcement photos of their brand new baby bellies, or new pictures of their ever-expanding, almost-ready-to-pop bellies.

And then, just for good measure, one more had her second baby.

Sometimes, it seems, the mountain literally crumbles when you’re already in the valley.

So, like a emotional champ, I skipped over to Google and typed in “emergency hysterectomy.”

(I’ve done this before. It rarely ends well.)

I read scattered findings – because there are no major, concrete studies that tell us anything conclusively about why or how many women’s childbearing days end this way – and came across one teaching hospital’s study at which 22 out of 110,000 women had emergency hysterectomies over a ten year period, all due to similar complications but otherwise for no discernible reason.

After wading through thickets of anger, regret, and crossing the inevitable “What if it was my fault? What if I had just waited for Eli to come on his own, instead of inducing labor and starting this ball rolling…?” river, I reported these findings to a dear friend who shared my experience. And her response was, “When you do the statistics it sucks – 1 out of 30,000 or something – really couldn’t I win a really good raffle? Or the lotto?”

It sounds funny, but it’s a healthy reality check too: This can’t possibly be my – or anyone else’s – fault, ’cause massive postpartum hemorrhaging leading to near-death and the consequential life-saving emergency hysterectomy is, as Marilyn pointed out, about as likely as winning the lottery.

That to say, there’s no point in wondering where blame lies, because it doesn’t. This kind of thing just doesn’t happen…at least, not to more than a couple dozen in one-hundred-and-ten-THOUSAND women. When it does happen, it’s a classic fluke. The terrifying exception to an otherwise predictable rule.

So…where do I go from here? What do I say, and how am I to feel, when part of me is truly rejoicing with my friends for their healthy new babies and perfectly normal wombs, and the other part is screaming “WHY!?!”

I mean, where does the 30-year-old widow turn when her friends are celebrating one anniversary after another while she grieves another year without her husband? Where does the almost-mother turn when others are celebrating birth after birth while she grieves the loss of her stillborn daughter?

To where does anyone turn when the most senseless devastation befalls her, and there simply are no answers for the questions burning the last shreds of her faith?

To Hope.

To the One who is so intimately acquainted with grief and sorrow that He knows the best – and only – thing to do is invoke the all-knowing groans of the Spirit who so perfectly and adequately pleads the Father’s mercy on our behalf.

To the peace that lies solely in the bittersweet company of the Knowing few, who can grieve together.

To the Comforter who promises that all will be made right, in the end.

sometimes there is
no bright side
no silver lining
sometimes the grass is really greener
because there it is
and here it is not
sometimes no words of comfort
comfort
no healing balm
soothes
and all you can do
– what you must do –
is feel and feel
and weep and feel
until you’re all cried out
your heart dried up
and everything
everything
is a gift

but even still
the dark is not the gift
nor even the light that seeps
into it
but the knowing it
cannot stay dark
forever
though a cloud may
ever hang

Maybe it’s inherent to motherhood. Maybe it’s inherent to beginning my thirtieth year, or my fourth decade of life.

But never have I experienced so much grace, and never have I needed it more.

When I’m driving down the interstate in another state (or city…or my own, for that matter…) and not at my road-worthy best, I just wave at others and say “Give me grace! Please, give me grace!”

When Elijah is having a meltdown, and I’m on the brink of my own, I just beg the Lord for grace accompanied by some mercy that I might be filled with patience I don’t have.

And when friends call or text or email with stories of new wounds and heavy burdens…oh, it’s all I can do not to fall on my knees and groan, willing the Spirit to join me.

I suspect it has something to do with the simple fact that I experienced real, true, tangible salvation this year when God brought me back from the brink of death to be Eli’s mother and Paul’s wife. I don’t know that I’ve ever been so aware of Christ’s presence in and around and for me as I have been these last five months, since He saved me.

I don’t know if I’ve ever been so fully consumed by the knowledge of prayer’s power for those around me, since seeing how God interrupted so many others’ lives to plead for me and Eli. I have prayed and prayed that He would interrupt mine, that I might be part of the mystery and miracle in a similar way for someone else.

I do know I’ve never been this awe-struck by the weight and depth of the struggles we daily face, or by God’s hugeness in comparison.

And I have never been so keenly moved by the small beauties that transform…well-written songs, powerful prayers spoken by tiny lips, baby coos, and falling leaves.

And so every day, for something or someone new, I’m drawn to my heart’s knees if not my actual knees, pleading for grace, and grace, and grace in the world around me. For my friends whose marriages are deteriorating; for those who are facing injustice upon injustice; for almost-orphans and their dying mothers; for my family in Africa and Nebraska that I miss so dearly; for close ones facing the shock of aging in sudden illness. Grace and grace and grace, that I might hold tight to the life around me, grace for everything dying, grace for the eyes to see it coming alive.

Grace and grace and grace, that it might be made right, that life might bloom and I might watch it. Again and again.

I wrote this in response to Rachel Held Eveans’ response to Donald Miller’s blogs about Great Love Stories (for men and woman). I figured I’d post it here as well. Why not? Tangents and rabbit trails are always fun.

—–

I’m gonna go ahead and say the thing I think a lot of women (in my experience) are afraid to say:

I am a supporting character in the story. So is my husband. But in our marriage, I’m the supporting character, the Helper. He’s the leader, I’m the Helper. Which I used to think was bad or somehow inferior, until I realized the only other Person to whom that title (“Helper”) is given is the Holy Spirit. I don’t mind keeping company with the Holy Spirit, who was sent to be my Helper. It’s pretty exclusive company. And that makes for a fairly interesting story.

Whether I like it or not, I am defined by my sexuality, past, marital status, and body. …And a lot more. But those are elements I can no more abandon without abandoning my self (and becoming something altogether different) than a fish can abandon its gills and still be a fish, or a bird its wings, or a shark its dorsal fin. And I think all those definers make for a fairly interesting story.

I have cried into my pillow, waiting for someone else to give me purpose and direction in life. And when I’ve done it honestly, God has appeared more visibly and audibly – more powerfully – than ever before. I’ve learned to cry into my pillow often, because God likes when I’m weak and vulnerable, at the end of myself and finally willing to hear Him. He did it in Africa and it change my life forever. And that makes for a fairly interesting story.

I do fit into some of the predictable roles well-meaning Christians have prescribed for me as a woman, mother, wife, artist, and Believer. I’ve been pretty passive, at times, expecting and then allowing God to do things I didn’t try to do because they were beyond my comprehension, much less my action, and have seen some pretty amazing things form thereafter. What makes it interesting is the fact that those well-meaning Christians (and their counter-parts who defy those roles & prescriptions) didn’t actually expect me to do it (neither did I, for that matter), and I’ve done it much to their chagrin, because I’ve done it within – but without – their parameters. I’m an artist who would rather be a stay-at-home mom, but takes her baby on the road anyway. I’m a wife who loves being her husband’s Helper, despite that I’ve been told I should take offense at the very idea. That can be pretty interesting in conversation.

And all of that makes for a story that transcends race, gender, nationality, socio-economic status, family and creed. It makes for a story whose characters are single, married, celibate, gay, young, old, male, female, rich, poor, powerful, and weak, and of which I am only one, but a significant one within the ever-relational community. And stories about relationship are always interesting.