10.26.21
I have a lot to get out today so bare with me. I’m currently in our dining room converted to a playroom that I absolutely refused to do for the past 2 years but caved this week and I can’t say I’m mad about it. My butt is smashed onto a toddler chair at their tiny table in the middle of the room while Coco Melon music blares from my phone so these kids can be entertained long enough for mama to get some feelings out…parenting looks different for me these days. A lot different actually. I can feel God moving in my life and changing my heart completely. My heart is softening to things that I was hardened to or didn't care about before losing Alba, especially when it comes to parenting. Hard to explain, I’ll try another time.
Sunday morning the Holy Spirit called me out during the beginning of worship at Oakland Church. The vision put into my mind as I prayed was a picture of myself floating on a magic carpet (Aladdin style) and I knew the carpet symbolized God’s supernatural peace that He has been graciously giving me. More of the picture came into view and I saw my family, my friends, my pastors, my church and even those that I didn’t know all standing under the carpet and holding me up where before I thought I was just floating. The Holy Spirit let me know that their prayers and faith have been holding me up to give me this peace that I haven’t been able to understand but that it was getting to be time for me to step off the carpet and seek God’s peace for myself. Not that they wouldn’t still be helping me with their continued prayer and faith but I haven’t been seeking God for it like I should be. It was time to put in the work for myself. It’s true, I have been riding on the prayers of everyone else and not really talking to God lately. I know I should be and I want to, but the effort or motivation….it hasn’t been there. So the Holy Spirit is putting out His hand to help me off the carpet and draw close to God again through my own prayer and communication with Him. I’m so so thankful for every single person in my life that has been and continues to pray for me and my family. You really have no idea how much I have been leaning on you to survive this. I still plan to, just with my own work as well. At the end of service, the pastor called for those who wanted to realign their relationship with God to the front and I found myself on my knees in prayer with an unknown hand laid on me. One of our beautiful worship singers, Dagan, had the heart to sit next to me until I was done and then speak life into me. Weirdly enough, she gave me the exact word I needed and was looking for. Dagan directed me to Phillipians 4 where it explains how to achieve peace beyond understanding. How could she have known that I had just been praying for help on how to keep this peace? God was calling for me to step out from the sole help of my community’s faith but he wasn’t going to leave me without direction. He sent Dagan to give me the playbook on how to achieve this peace beyond understanding for myself. He’s so faithful.
Yesterday morning came around and I planned to have the tv on all day and embrace the only good thing in my life, my kids and a cup of coffee. My phone sent a reminder for a worship night led by the Women’s movement ‘Heard Daughters’ via Living Army Prayer House out of Lake Orion. I contemplated going and decided that this event would be the third good thing to have in my life today. I’ve never been one to care about going places alone. I’m actually one of those weirdos that enjoy going to a restaurant alone but to an actual event was a little more intimidating to me. In my quiet time with the Lord, I asked Him for his presence to consume me that night and to bless me with a divine appointment. That evening, I arrived early to the prayer house for a good seat and cup of coffee. I assumed I’d probably be sitting by myself waiting for the worship to begin but I didn’t mind. As I turned around from thanking the woman who gave me my coffee, directly behind me was my friend Katrina’s mom…..her name is Alba. The tears immediately came but my heart was so full. In the strangest way, Alba was exactly who I needed to see. She mentioned how Katrina and Hannah were on the way. I didn’t end up spending my night alone in worship with God but next to 3 amazing women that I knew God worked out ahead of time for me. What you don’t know is that last year I was praying HARD for a tribe who loves Jesus like I did. I felt alone in my journey with God but just this year he placed amazing women in my life through a bible study and social media; two of those women are Katrina and Hannah. He wasn’t going to allow me to be alone in this, but with the tribe He had given me. The message shared at the worship night was also pretty spot too- seasons of suffering and the book of Job. God really knows what he’s doing.
The worship night came to a close as one of the leaders, Ann Wilson, addressed a way for us to bring our sorrows to God. She said we are to have a funeral in our minds for the life that we thought we were going to live. ←-Ouch. As she walked us through the mental vision of approaching a casket and placing the life we thought we were going to live into it, I struggled. It forced me to acknowledge the thoughts that I suppress everyday. The thoughts of breastfeeding Alba, rocking her to sleep, holding her hand that was just like her dad’s. I placed her childhood in the casket. Her first steps, her first words…..her first crush, her first heartbreak….her school pictures, her first dance….her first love, her highschool graduation….her first time in trouble, her first car….her walking down the aisle with her dad, her wedding…..her entire life that I pictured for her…..for myself with her. I placed that life in the casket and cried over what I couldn’t have. You see, my life is so good but it’s not the life I thought I’d be living right now. As good as my life is, it doesn’t include my daughter and that’s excruciating. The exercise was what I needed, it was, but I know I will be having to walk back to the casket and put those thoughts back in over and over again for quite some time.
I’m ending this after a couple hours of attempting to type. I have toddlers trying to play without their ring leader (Nani) so they require a lot of direction from me. I haven’t been the best parent but I have noticed a change in my parenting. I’m more gentle and softer towards my girls than I was before. I approach obstacles with raising these kids with more warmth than frustration. I hope it sticks. But it’s naptime now and I’ve found a normal size chair to sit in as I drink my cold cup of coffee from the beginning of the morning. My life is good, I have an amazing life, I’m just experiencing a sad season right now.