Only Yesterday

It was only yesterday that I held my breath, needle piercing my back. And the breathlessness continued, because I knew, KNEW, that whatever happened from that point forward would change our lives forever. It was only yesterday that I was wheeled into surgery, feeling nothing but the elephant feet on my stomach as I was ripped in two. In every sense of the word. Because before the surgeon made that cut, I was whole. ONE. And after that fateful incision, part of me breathed life on her own. Outside of me. And she cried. She CRIED. The little, spindly, wonderfully beautiful part of me cried. Something that the doctors could not, would not, predict. And I cried, too. Great, salty tears. Because her gasps and tiny mews of outrage meant that, whatever else, this small three pound, eight ounce girl, was breathing. 

It was only yesterday that I watched the nurses scurry around that little life, probing, poking, warming, weighing. It was only yesterday that I watched my husband leave my side, first to put his head between his knees and breathe raggedly into a paper bag, and then to follow part of his heart, over to that being who, though diminutive, commanded so much of the room's attention. 

I did not get to hold her then. Just touch her small face before they laid her in that incubator and whisked her from the room. And as I was sewn back together, I felt the absence. Part of me was missing. It stayed missing as they wheeled me to my room. It was a new room, not the room I had lived in for two weeks, praying and crying and reflecting. A new room for recovery, for new thoughts of the future. But it was empty. No tiny cries throughout the night. No awkward fumbling as first-time parents attempted feedings, changings, rockings. I would wake, groggily, from a medicated sleep, to see Stacy's place empty, knowing that he was pulled by forces impossible to resist. To a room downstairs marked Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. His heart was there, too.

It was only yesterday that I made the grueling walk to the NICU myself, the muscles that had been cut screaming at me in indignation for the abuse I was putting them through. But I had to get there. To know that it wasn't all a dream. That I was a mother. That a part of my heart was truly beating outside of me. That the absence I had felt the night before was real. 

She wasn't placed in my arms, yet. That was for another day. But as I laid my hands on her, through the openings in her warm hospital cocoon, I felt what had been missing. And love threatened to drown me. Others, perhaps, saw a tiny, scrawny, all-arms-and-legs baby, with tubes coming out disagreeably from nose and head and arm. I saw a beautiful, miraculous human life that--incredibly--God had entrusted into our care. It was overwhelming. It was awe-inspiring. It was love. 

What was only yesterday has turned into weeks, months, years. I didn't believe it would. Not at the time. I remember, as only yesterday can, one of the nurses imparting her wisdom: to enjoy even this time, even the hard, the difficult, because one day soon it would be a distant, treasured memory. I didn't believe then. Not in the midst of isolettes, gavage tubes, and kangaroo care. Not while passing those big, healthy babies in the hospital halls on the way to our own "Special Care Nursery." I didn't believe when we finally carried our newborn home, weighing a scale-tipping 4 lbs, 2 oz. Nor did I believe as we placed that small, swaddled body in the too-big crib her daddy had so quickly assembled. I didn't believe in the year that followed, with physical and speech therapists. With dietitians. With a delicate immune system that made for an endless round of Pedialyte, sleepless nights, and doctor visits. 

I didn't believe. And still, it happened. This morning, I awake to find the girl no longer dwarfed by her first Easter bunny. No longer fragile, and small, and doll-like.  I awake this morning feeling a bit like Rip Van Winkle, wondering where my yesterday has gone. For here is my girl standing before me, growing ever closer to womanhood. I look at her, still overwhelmed and awe-inspired. But now, seeing those yesterdays, I thank God. I thank Him for the privilege of raising Hannah Elizabeth. I thank Him for all that she has become. Her yesterdays, added bit by bit, have culminated in the today. And that little bit of flesh, blood, and soul that once was has grown into both philosopher and artist:  drawn to Beauty, searching for Truth, and pained by Injustice. This is my daughter.

Our lives changed forever sixteen years ago today. And the breathlessness I felt in the beginning still hits me at times. At how fast she's growing. At how soon she'll leave. At all the mistakes we've made. At how wonderful she is. At how much I love her. So on this, my daughter's sixteenth birthday, I stop…and take a breath. I will myself to enjoy this "here and now" with her, to remember each precious yesterday, to pray, on my knees, for each unknown tomorrow. I pray that the meaning of her names will take root in her life. That she might feel and live the "Grace" God has so freely and wonderfully given. That He will "consecrate and set her apart" for a work that's larger than one life, one lifetime, that's meant for a coming, eternal Kingdom. And I pray, too, that she, during these painful teenage years, would become deaf to the lies that seek to tear at her and destroy her, telling her she's not enough. Good enough. Smart enough. Pretty enough. Lovable enough. Gifted enough. That she will see the beauty that God has given her, both inside and out, learning to trust His Truth over the world's lies.

Yes. I remember. As only a mother can. The day that my heart left my body. Sixteen years ago. Five thousand eight hundred forty-four days. Each one a gift from God. And may I have the wisdom to treasure each coming day with my girl. Because someday, very soon, I will look back on this, as only memory, and say, "It was only yesterday…"

A Christmas Post, Part 1

“Let the little children come unto Me…for such is the Kingdom of God.”

This very year, just within the sphere of my own personal knowledge, I’ve watched my sister and her family, as foster parents, give away the beloved daughter of their heart, I’ve prayed as other children fight deadly diseases, or begin the long recovery process from horrific accidents, and prayed, with the rest of this nation, for the families of those “little children” (the very ones that Jesus welcomed into his arms) who were shot and killed by a madman. So much pain and anguish.

In the wake of national tragedy, personal heartaches, and unnamed fears of this past month, this past year, how do we face another Christmas season? How can we celebrate the Light coming into the world, the Light that welcomed children? I hug my own children close, wondering if I could sustain what others have been through, wondering if I could still rely on a good, kind, loving Heavenly Father to support me?

And yet…I wonder. Because I often forget. I forget two of the very names that we call our God, the Trinity: God, the Father, and God, the Son. Is it possible? Possible that the Creator, who made us and shaped us into His very image, understands? Understands what it is to give away His own child? To have Him, who was with the Father before the world even began, ripped from His side? Sent to Earth? To see Him grow and mature in someone else’s arms – arms that were so horribly ill-equipped to raise the King of kings? And then, He watched His Son tortured, an agony more acute for its very injustice, and led away to an excruciating death. He gazed on as His Son suffered unnamed agonies, agonies that we ourselves—even in this fallen world—can never begin to fathom. For it wasn’t just a man experiencing these pains, but God in flesh. How much more was His capacity to suffer? As deep as His capacity to love?

And then, God the Father did what must have been the hardest of all:  He turned His back upon His only, beloved Son. The agony that the Son felt, more acute than any physical agony, was mirrored in his cry, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46) How much more agony did His Father suffer? Truly separated for the first time in all of eternity? Knowing that Death approached His beloved Son, He was still unable to look upon the vile weight of sin Jesus had taken on his shoulders. For us. All for us.

It is so easy to forget, in the midst of our self-centered, complicated lives. It is easy to lose our focus and our ability to imagine. We read the stories from Scripture—how Jesus was miraculously born, how He suffered and died for love of the world. But we (I) so rarely infuse the God who did these things with any passion, any emotion, any suffering, any pain. And the God who did this for us wasn’t just God the Son. God the Father gave much, as well. He surrendered a portion of himself to a world that hated Him, that rejected Him, that sought to serve anyone, anything but the God who had created them!

I have said since having my own girls that motherhood really begins when a piece of your heart starts to live and breathe outside of your own body. I love them with a passion I did not anticipate, until I heard their small, pitiful cries for the first time. I would sacrifice whatever I have and am for them. But to willingly, knowingly sacrifice them for the lives of others? What an unthinkable, horrific act! And, yet, God the Father went a step further. Not only did He surrender His Son, His Heart, in whom He “was well pleased,” He surrendered him up to save those who were not worth saving. He saved those that were wicked, vile, evil to the very core. He saved you. He saved me.

God, who is not just the Messiah’s Father, but now ours as well, knows what loss and sacrifice are. He lived it as the Son. He experienced it as the Father. And now He offers us, not just his understanding and his comfort, but an actual taste of His Kingdom to come: “He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all—how will he not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32)

He loves us! And I am convinced that every event of our meager lives here on earth is to teach us to trust that love. It is so hard. We don’t understand. We strain against Him so often. And, yet, ever the faithful Father, He persistently shows us, in whatever our circumstance, whatever our pain, our anxiety, our fear, that we can and should trust Him, even (somehow) with those “pieces of our hearts” that live outside our bodies now. We are to trust Him just as the Son did, those two millennia ago, when He became flesh to come to us.

So what is the culmination of Jesus’ sacrifice for us? Where will this celebration of Christmas  end, this “Christ’s Mass” that we observe? Herein lies our hope, because the Father and His Son did not just save us from something. Our God, the Three-in-One, saved us for something:

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, ‘Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.’

He said to me: ‘It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life. He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son.’” (Revelation 21:1-7)

The little taste we have of the Kingdom now will be full-blown Kingdom Life then! Everything will be new. No more death or mourning or crying or pain, but instead, the “spring of the water of life.” Can we trust God? Can we rely on Him? The very act of celebrating Christmas most emphatically reminds us that we can. He sacrificed all. He gave reason and purpose and hope to everything we now go through. 

So Merry Christmas, friends and family, beloved and cherished of God your Father. May you know and trust His love this coming new year. And may you feel Him welcome you into His arms, saying,

"Let the little children come unto me...for such is the Kingdom of Heaven!"

Why Even Write, Jill?

Let's just get something straight right now. I am not the Pioneer Woman...nor an Ann Voskamp. I will never be one of those remarkable women bloggers who, just by reading, make you feel equal parts wistfulness and admiration for all you aren't and cannot be. I have not published books or started national movements. I can barely homeschool my own two children, much less whip up anything from scratch, or take up five different hobbies in which, it turns out, I have amazing abilities. 

I am simply Jill, ordinary Jill. 

I have never been beautiful. I am not excessively talented, nor have I ever had much in the way of charm. I fall apart far more often than I accomplish in my day-to-day. I procrastinate. I daydream. I crave too much solitude, wrapped in my introversion, to make it possible to succeed in what God gives me daily.  And, as part of my crowning glory, I am only known, outside my small circle of friends, for whom I'm related to - Dr. Allman's daughter, Stacy Tyson's wife, mother of Hannah and Sara, not for any achievements of my own. And, truly, I've made my peace with that. 

So why even write, Jill? Well, for one thing, I'm not starting this blog to prove anything or to get anywhere or to be anyone. This is just a place I can come to record my thoughts and those brief spurts of insight that, really, are far too precious for me to lose. Because they are brief. And because my mind is almost owl-like in quality, a mind that, like the owl, forgets. As soon as it turns its head. Short term memory loss in its extremity. So I write, lest tomorrow, when my eyes are focused on something else, I forget the lessons of today.

But there's another reason. No. I'm nothing extraordinary. I am, in fact, so fallible, and dysfunctional, and heart-breakingly needy that I often wonder how I've survived thus far...BUT for the grace of God. And that's the key. In and of myself, I have nothing to offer. Anyone. Period. Not my husband, nor children, family, friends, and most especially the world at large. Anything, and I mean anything, that you see of value in me is there because of God's grace in my life. And anything you see in me that still needs "fixin," well, you can be assured that's all me! 

So why even write, Jill? I write because I have an amazing God, an incredible Savior. And the growing knowledge that, if He gives me the words, I need to praise Him. For all He's done. For all He will do. And, if no one else reads this, I pray that it will at least be a legacy to my children, a written record of God's work in one splintered little life.

So, this new blog, and my life, share something crucially similar. They are both works in progress. Let's see where they both go, shall we?