sweetly broken.

At the cross You beckon me

You draw me gently to my knees

And I am lost for words, so lost in love

I am sweetly broken, wholly surrendered

- Jeremy Riddle (song here)

This post has been swirling around in my brain for over a month now. I wasn't quite sure how to word any of it – am still not quite sure how to word any of it. But I feel like it's something that should be shared. If only to encourage. Or to relate. Or to... I don't know. My heart is being pulled to share, so share I will.

I suppose it all starts with things I never thought I'd experience:
I never thought good friends of ours would deliver their sweet baby at 22 weeks. And I never imagined that we'd be at that little boy's funeral, with a casket that was much too small and all too real. I never imagined that we'd have to comfort those friends; I still don't know that we did everything we could to help them through that situation.

I also never imagined we'd make friends with a couple who would lose their four year old son to cancer. I never imagined going to that brave boy's memorial service and laughing and crying and praising and crying and feeling completely overwhelmed with love and life.

I never thought we would mourn for other friends who had complications with their pregnancy, or who dealt with years of infertility problems.

All things I never could have predicted impacting our life in some way or another. And yet they did. And all of these families that dealt with these things? Graceful, y'all. These women. Oh my goodness, they've taught me so many things. In the midst of all the heartache, they've taught me that God has never been so real. I'm not kidding when I say that all of these events have changed my life...

Which leads me to this: I never thought I would experience a miscarriage. I never thought that would happen to me since I'd had two perfect pregnancies. And I also never thought it would be something that my sister and I would have in common. (But can I say how glad I am? Having someone to talk to about this has been such a weird blessing.)

On the boys joint birthday party, Jeremy and were elated to find out that baby #3 was on its way!
And approximately a week and a half later, that dream was gone.

Y'all, I struggled. Hard. I didn't know what to do or say. I didn't know where to turn. Until one morning, I just crumbled. And I knew that this was bigger than me. Bigger than Jeremy. I turned to God. The way the women in those above stories taught me to. I laid it all out before Him and asked Him to take the burden of worry away from me. It wasn't easy. It still isn't easy. But one day? When we all get to Heaven, I trust that we'll get to meet this child that we never knew on Earth. And our family will be that much bigger. And that makes things a little bit easier. Not easy, but easier.