I Did Not Deserve This.

Sometimes I forget things that, once upon a time, I thought I never would. 

Take this week for example.  I kept sitting down to work on a piece I’ve spent the past few weeks writing and kept struggling to find the right words.  Oh, I had no problem finding words...  I wonder how many I’ve deleted, only to still have before me a document containing at least two-hundred more of them than I’d prefer.  But the right words, ones I feel communicate the message just the way I mean to?  Those still elude me.  Frustrating.  At best, it’s made me question whether I’m meant to tell that story at all.  At worst, it’s made me question whether I do, ever have, or ever will even know how to write anything that matters at all. 

Further convoluting the matter, this week, something entirely different happens to occupy the forefront of my mind – and I have so many words about that.  (What can I say?  A lot of words live in my mind!) Maybe it all works together, though, because it helped me remember something I’d forgotten:    

Current frustration, writer’s block, and doubts about my purpose and ability notwithstanding, I remembered: 

I am, in fact, already a published author. 

(Here’s where it all works together…) I became one by writing the story of the other thing I feel compelled to acknowledge this week:

This week, we celebrate our son’s 20th birthday.  That number feels monumental.  Granted, he - my baby - wise and capable beyond his years, has seemed more grown-up than his age would suggest for quite a while now.  Still, twenty sounds seriously grown-up.  Goodbye teenage years...

Have you ever experienced something that feels like just yesterday – yet also a lifetime ago?  That’s how I feel when I stop and really think about the story of him.  Twenty-years is a long time.  So many new faces have appeared in our lives since then.  So many people have no way of knowing the whole story behind what they see when they look at us – and him - today. 

That story feels worth telling again. 

…5-years-or-so ago, I reached out to author (and incidentally also my dad’s first cousin) Emily Rodavich to congratulate her on her beautiful book, Mystical Interludes.  I told her how her message had so resonated with me thanks to an extraordinary experience of my own several years earlier. 

I didn’t know that she had already planned a sequel, but when I shared my story with her, she graciously invited me to participate as a contributing author in Mystical Interludes II.

When I first saw my name on that real, printed, published page, I thought I’d never forget it. “If nobody ever reads anything else I ever write, this will be ‘enough’ for me.”  Because this was the most important story I could ever tell: 

The one where I learned to believe – really believe - that God always knows what I need - way better than I do... 

Birth of Gratitude

There was a time when I thought I had my life planned out.  It revolved around my little daughter, whom I loved so fiercely that sometimes I couldn’t even sleep at night.  The thought of separating myself from her caused me physical pain, and the idea of hers being just another little face in a sea of others when she started school truly made me cry.  Although it was still almost an unbearable thought to me, I was learning to focus on what I might do while she was in school.  I was going to go back to school, too, and do some things I hadn’t had time to do in the years when I had been solely focused on her – until we got the news that I was pregnant. 

Without going into detail, this was not supposed to happen for medical reasons.  We had been advised not to have another pregnancy, so another child was not a consideration in our plans for the future.  But that’s the news we got.  A baby was on the way. 

We approached the idea with detachment knowing that the chances were very slim that I would be able to carry a baby full term and give birth.  Actually, that’s probably a charitable description of the way we approached it.  I’m not proud to admit there were days I prayed it would be over so I didn’t have to worry about it or deal with it anymore. 

As we progressed through the next several months, we maintained our detachment from the fact that I was pregnant.  That’s the best way I can explain it.  When we learned that we were expecting a boy, we – at least in some part – allowed ourselves to feel some excitement.  One day my husband brought home a tiny pair of work boots.  Another day, while shopping, I picked up a baby blue sleeper that said, “Daddy’s Boy.”  That was it.  Up to the point when we should have had only two months to go.  That was absolutely all the preparation we did. 

Looking back, I still can’t fully explain the reasoning.  Medically, it certainly felt like one thing after the other was stacked against us.  Maybe not allowing ourselves to get too involved with the idea of an actual baby was self-preservation.  Maybe were insulating ourselves against the harsh reality that this was probably not going to end well.  That’s what I’ve told myself for years.  The other thing I’ve told myself, and anyone else I’ve ever been in a position to tell, is that it was also my biggest forever lesson that God knows what I need way more than I ever think I know what I need. 

Fast forward to January 3, 2002.

After dropping my little girl off at kindergarten for her first day back after Christmas break, I stopped at the hospital for what should have been a routine pre-natal visit.  With a due date of February 26, I hadn’t even reached the point of semi-weekly visits yet.  Little did I know, I would not go home that day or the next or the next – until more than a month later.

The routine blood pressure check set off an alarm that something was wrong.  The something was pre-term labor – even though I couldn’t feel anything!  I remember being admitted and filling out paperwork as it pertained to a living will, religious preference, etc., all while feeling that I needed to get that out of the way and figure out who was going to pick my little girl up from school.

Things moved very quickly afterwards:  I don’t remember a whole lot until that night.  My husband was there with me.  It seemed as if nothing the doctors and nurses were doing yielded results, so they kept increasing the intensity of the drugs they were administering to stabilize my blood pressure and stop the pre-term labor, which I still didn’t feel.  As the night wore on, I remember losing more and more control of my body and feeling more and more helpless. 

We had a wonderfully compassionate nurse, Laura.  Later, my husband told me he overheard her in the hallway, vehemently telling another nurse, “I will NOT let them lose this baby tonight!” (He also told me he thought he was going to lose not only the baby, but me, too.)

In a strange twist of circumstances, after hours of my receiving intravenous magnesium sulfate meant to relax uterine muscles and stop contractions, my body was rendered non-functional, and my alarmingly high blood pressure plummeted to 60-something over 20-something.  During that lowest point and before the professionals in charge realized my crisis, I experienced something I’ll never forget.

I had a sort of tunnel vision feeling, where suddenly the discomfort was leaving.  I remember seeing a very bright light, which eventually looked the way light appears when it shines through a stained-glass window.  In that light, I saw a baby boy.  The best way I can describe it is that it was similar to the way we typically see the Christ child depicted in a manger scene.  I was at peace and unafraid.  Then, suddenly, I was back in my hospital room.  My husband, my nurse, and doctors were standing over me.  I remember saying, “I just saw Jesus.”

Laura exclaimed, “Honey, I’m sure you did!”

I believe that was a near-death experience.  Although I must admit that the rational part of me has always wondered if it was just my mind in the face of too many drugs, in my heart, I don’t think so. 

That was only the first of many nights that would be problematic.  Finally, at 4:17 AM on January 28, 2002, our perfect baby boy was born, almost a month before his due date.  They whisked him away before I heard him cry.  In that moment, I knew that I had never wanted anything as much as I wanted my tiny baby boy in my arms. 

Today, our son, Ian, is a beautiful, healthy, strong, amazing sixteen-year-old.  I will never look at him and not remember how close we came to never having him at all.  I never look at my son or start any day without feeling gratitude for him. 

This experience, among others, has shown me that God presents me with things I most want to avoid until I learn to handle things the way I know in my heart He wants me to handle them.  Conversely, I do know He also protects me in situations where I know my heart is right. 

I wonder if I am alone in an awareness of this sort of experience?  I don’t think so. 

Those are my words as published almost 5-years ago.  Somewhere along the line, I did forget about that.    

I remembered it this week and pulled out the book.  I lived and wrote that story, but reading it now, even I still feel amazed.  It says so much about why I feel such deep gratitude for my son – every day of my life.  God is so merciful to not allow us to see the future.  Had we been able to see our beautiful boy; the blessing, light, and joy he would bring to all our lives, how could we have endured knowing just how much we stood to lose? 

I’ll always be grateful to Emily Rodavich.  For letting me ride her coattails to maybe the only thing that will ever qualify me as a real, published author - and for inspiring me.  I’ve always admired her, and now I think of her often as I seek the courage, honesty, and grace I need to tell stories that I believe matter.  The story she helped me tell is still the most important one I could share.   

…And yet… seeing my name published that one time no longer feels like “enough.”  

Today, I feel the need to keep writing.  To try and reach as many people as I can.  Not because of ambition or the need to prove anything, but because what once felt like a hobby now feels like a calling.  I can tell the truth of God’s grace and kindness, displayed most remarkably in my life in this story.  But I can also tell it daily, in less dramatic, yet also life-shaping ways.  The more I watch for it, the more I see it.  I have a chance and a way to tell others about it, so how can I not? 

If any part of this story is also part of your story, then I need to make sure you hear it.  Especially if you haven’t quite gotten to the part of your story where you can see the hope and the future yet…

He has done this for me:  I’ve never deserved and could never earn such grace and kindness.  Once, believing I knew the best plans for my life and what I just couldn’t handle, I actually tried to pray away one of the most beautiful gifts He had for me. If He has still taken such care of me, please believe that He can – and wants to – do the same for you.    

Maybe I should start telling this story more often. 

Maybe someone else needs to hear it right now.

I’ll keep thinking about the words I need to finish that other story, so that I can tell you that one soon, too.

But first, we’re going to celebrate our boy’s 20th birthday:  The true blessing of the gift of him in our lives.

That is something I promise you I’ll never forget.