Embracing Your Season..

I’ve thought a lot about this. Embracing the season you are in. It sounds easy enough when you are in a season of reaping and reward. In the good times thankfulness, joy and embrace seem to come naturally. Embracing the season you’re in doesn’t seem to come naturally when you’re going through the most difficult season of your life. Of course in any difficult situation or season, how you deal with it is a choice. You can choose to follow your emotions and let them overtake and overwhelm you, or you can choose to accept what has happened, feel the emotions when they come, then see what you can take from your situation to bring positivity from it.

From the day Malachi was born, I made a choice to embrace this season, whatever it would bring. I started seeing someone regularly who has immensely helped me in this process. She encouraged me to keep hope, even when things looked bleak, and she cried with me when our hearts were shattered. She encouraged me to embrace the season (though she never used those words, that’s what I took from it). I made the decision that every milestone, ounce gained, ounces lost (when he needed to lose them), successful surgery, decreased vent settings, increased milk intake…no matter how small the milestone seemed, I made the choice to celebrate them. I would often look at our nurses after getting our daily reports and repeat the good things and say “well those are good things, right? So we will celebrate!” I think they thought I was crazy sometimes; maybe they aren’t used to seeing such reckless hope. I embraced every moment I had with Malachi, moments that weren’t promised. A situation that made me embrace and cherish each and every moment I now have with our oldest son. On the days when he’s said “mommy, mommy, mommy” for the millionth time, I make the choice to embrace that moment (even when my last nerve is raw) because I know that it won’t last. That sweet little voice calling for me might not be there one day. We embraced every second we had with Malachi, the good days and the bad days. The days where we couldn’t touch him in his isolette, but would sit by him and read to him, sing to him, tell him over and over how much we loved him and how proud we were of him, I embraced, I sat for hours on end. The days I was allowed to hold him, oh those sweet and wonderful days, I took advantage and embraced every second. Holding him close to my chest, feeling him breathe, feeling his warm skin against mine was heaven to me. Heaven in our own little corner of the NICU. Watching him grow from a 25wk 5day old baby, who looked like he still belonged inside, to a 7lb “normal” looking baby, was incredible. He was beautiful. He was embraced and cherished. His season was embraced, by us (his parents) and by so many of you who prayed for him and rallied around us to keep us going. When Malachi passed away, we had another choice to make, a choice to embrace the most difficult journey of grief you can imagine. In one of the days after he passed someone had offered to me to call my doctor to get me some medication to help ‘cope’ with everything. I adamantly refused. I refused on the grounds that I wanted to feel everything. I wanted to feel my heart break, I wanted to feel the waves of grief that crashed on me, I wanted to be present in my grief, and I wanted to embrace my grief. I wanted to remember waking up in the middle of the night with my pillow already soaked with tears. I wanted to know how this felt. At the reception after Malachi’s service, I had many people telling me it would be ok if I sat down and didn’t talk or socialize much, yes that would have been ok, however, I wanted, even in the midst of that grief, to embrace the season. I wanted to stand with my husband and embrace everyone who had come to honor his life; I wanted to feel the physical expression of love that was being poured into us. I didn’t want to be a zombie just going through the emotions, sitting on the sidelines. Embracing this season, to me, has meant embracing the change that comes along with it, sharing the journey and giving ourselves grace to feel the pain and have our “emotional time-outs”. It isn’t easy. Embracing this journey to me also means knowing (and make a conscious decision) to not let the sadness and depression overtake me; it means I allow myself to have moments, and then rise. I rise with the strength of 2,000 prayer warriors holding up my arms and helping me to get through the day. I rise daily with the prayer of “Lord please give me strength for this day”. I rise with the support of my closest family/friends who have been there 24/7 since our journey began. I rise. I embrace and I rise because God wants that. He calls us to rise out of the ashes. He allows us to make beauty from these ashes. Oh how I long to know that there is beauty in my Malachi’s journey, beauty that will rise from the broken pieces of our hearts. Beauty I can see when one of the high schoolers we work with tells us how Malachi changed their life, beauty I can see when someone sends me a letter saying they are closer with the Lord because of Malachi’s journey…beauty, in the deepest grief a human heart can know.

I am also learning to embrace this new season of a ‘new normal’; I have returned to work this week, bills have to be paid, school events are happening, Deuce’s 2 yr. old needs need to be met…life continues to move forward, and I want to embrace every second. 

Maybe you are facing a daunting journey, maybe you are in a season of harvest and joy. Embrace that and learn to know what true joy feels like. Maybe you are wading through unexpected tragedy and grief, a season of sadness and sorrow. Try to see what beauty can come from the pain, embrace it. It’s not easy; it’s a choice, but a choice that leaves no regret. Even if all you can do is rise in the morning and pray “Lord, give me strength to make it through this day”, He will honor you in your season.