Baby's Breath, Maturing Marvels

"All your children shall be taught by the Lord,

and great shall be the peace of your children." Isaiah 54:13

The jails are full of people whose mothers wish they could trade places with me.

It's hard to remember that, though, when my kids disappoint my (probably inflated) expectations. When our conversations begin to resemble the Lincoln-Douglas Debates. When some of their life choices and spiritual goals are 180 degrees removed from my own (at least at this stage of our respective developments).

Yet, when I step back and ponder the positions in which some of my friends find themselves, my own life stands out in stark contrast. Several moms I know have to visit their kids behind bars. Others have spent thousands on drug and alcohol rehab programs, often with minimal success. Some have lost children to suicide or illness.

In recent weeks, I've had the sad privilege of standing alongside a couple whose short-lived pregnancy just ended through no fault of their own. A "missed miscarriage," the doctors called it. This experience has brought back a flood of memories for me, as I relive the day 20 plus years ago when I said goodbye to my unborn baby (a girl, I decided; we called her Abby), whose little heart was too frail to survive, and wouldn't beat for the fetoscope. I limped grief-stricken down the same path my friends are traveling now, enduring the IVs and invasive procedures, the sympathetic looks and ill-conceived comments. How well I remember waiting, longing for the calendar to turn from February to March, to just be rid of that awful month in which God had reclaimed my child.

My sister was expecting her second at the time, which seemed doubly cruel, as I had no toddler at home to cuddle during my loss. A loving family member, suspecting my bitterness at the seeming inequity, wrote me at the time, "Nature is sometimes not very fair."

That summed up my feelings during that barren period. Still, if I had delivered my Abby in July of 1991, my beautiful Aaron couldn't have arrived in March of '92. Though I didn't know it then, the Almighty had a lovely, loving gift in store for me, made more treasured by the tears that readied my eyes to behold it.

As I told my grieving friend, I've had to really delve back into my memory to recall the waves of hopeless despair that held me captive that cold, gray winter before the sun resurfaced at last. My todays are too often full of wrangling and negotiating with the young men my sons have become, and I lose sight of the passion with which I begged heaven for a child's breath on my shoulder. It's been good for me, actually, to revisit that bleak time, as I've found my fuse exceptionally short lately with the two blessings God has asked me to shepherd. I get tangled up in their shortcomings (of course, I don't have any myself), and lose sight of their wonderful qualities. The confidences they share with me. The laughing together at old sitcoms. The porch light a thoughtful teenager thinks to turn on. The trash neatly stacked (unprompted by Mother) at the curb by a young adult who surely has better things to do. The remorse they show when they let me down, and the forgiveness they unfailingly offer when their mom's feet of clay crumble time and again.

So, as I render prayers for heartbroken parents and parents-to-be, I also seek patience and gratitude while staying the course with my two miracles. I bank on the promise (quoted above) that God gave Isaiah to share with floundering parents like me, who are doing their best while entrusting their wing-spreading birds to an almighty safety net. Though works in progress (like their mother), Aaron and Ethan are my joy and my crown, and I would do well to view them with great pride.

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