Walking with a Limp

Last year at a Super Bowl party is when I first started bleeding a little bit. It would take a couple of days to become a full blown miscarriage and medical emergency, but I remember very clearly that I started to feel sick and almost instantly tired at this party and noticed some bleeding. 

I've heard people talk about our bodies carrying memories. I've been curious to look up the actual date of the miscarriage because I honestly don't remember, but tonight, all the talk about the Superbowl is what triggered the emotions for me. 

It's been a year. It's been a long year. And surprising to me, I needed the reminder that it's only been a year. I need to have grace for myself and the healing that I still need to do. I need to give myself space to work out within myself how I feel about wanting or having more children. Or about not wanting or having more children. Or even the what if of those two getting crossed- wanting more children and not having them and not wanting more children and then getting pregnant. I don't have answers for all of that, and in its own way, that is an answer. I don't have to know. What I do know is that I never want to say "I just" or "only" have two children. Contentment and gratitude have been guiding stars for me through some very dark times this year. 

As I have processed various parts of what I consider the trauma of my miscarriage experience in the ER, I have thought often of the story of Jacob, when he wrestles with God. He will not let God (in the form of a man) go. So God touches the socket of his hip so that his hip was wrenched, and, I presume, he walks the rest of his life with a limp. That is strangely comforting to me. I feel like I will walk the rest of my life with a limp, and I have a feeling this experience will not be my only injury.

I think we hear a lot of rhetoric about how hardships make us stronger. How God uses them to perfect us. Or the good old "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger." Practically biblical, that one. I even put it in my blog about this- that I trusted God to make me stronger or to grow me through this. I'm not sure I believe that anymore. 

The summer after the miscarriage I experience what I believe was postpartum depression "light," which I did not address. In September, I experienced severe anxiety about medical interventions (blood draws/ ivs) or other emergencies, complete with full blown physical symptoms of nausea, partial paralysis while I was trying to sleep, and insomnia. Thankfully, miraculously, the symptoms, which I fully believed at the time were going to be eternal, lifted, and I was able to get some treatment for PTSD. I've also reflected on Job. I think I can handle some kinds of "affliction" better than others, and physical pain and mental health struggles are probably the two I've feared the most. Actually, that's not true- I feared physical pain, but until this year, I've never actually feared mental health struggles. I didn't think they would touch me. I didn't know to fear them because I didn't understand them. I pridefully thought that I was immune from them. *shakes head*. Even now, I'm grateful that my struggles were short lived. I can't imagine dealing with chronic pain or depression. 

This past year has forced me to consider that I may not get stronger. I couldn't/ can't self-will my way out of all that mess like I've done with other difficulties in my life. These fears and anxieties and physical reactions are not something that I can harness to become a better person. I can't "get over" them. And, my favorite, I can't "face them and conquer them" as I have tried to do with some of my other fears (rock climbing to overcome fear of heights etc). In fact, ALL of my fears feel magnified to where I'm not even sure that I could handle rappelling or mountaineering. I might turn into a nervous wreck. I hope one day to return to those activities. Whether I can or not, I'm aware that I may always struggle when I need medical care. That I may always fear a trip to the ER. That I may never be as strong in my faith and in my confidence as I once was. I certainly do not have the ability to heal myself or make myself stronger. 

Perhaps God doesn't want me to be stronger. Perhaps He wants me to realize how incredibly powerless and insignificant I am; one not-even-that-great-of-a-human in an ocean of humans on one tiny, struggling planet in an unfathomably vast universe. I'm not even saying that was it- that learning how weak I am was "the lesson." Maybe there isn't a lesson. Or maybe I don't need to know what the lesson is. But what I do know is that God does know and care for me. He is with me. And while that may not carry all the assurances that I would like for it to, I realize that I have to choose for that to be enough even when it really, really doesn't feel like it.

I have learned that God provides tools for us to use in difficult times, and that I can avail myself of those whenever I need to- there is no shame in asking for help and using tools to help myself. I'm grateful for that lesson. 

 So, my faith has been wounded. It's limping. And I think God's okay with that. After all, Israel himself walked with a God-inflicted limp.

*I want to add that I did have great support through Ben and through my friends when I told them what I was experiencing.