Skip to main content

Railroad Tracks

Joy and grief are opposites.  Like oil and water they do not mix... do they?  How can they coexist?  I wrote  almost a year ago that I felt there was hanging over us either a great joy or a great sorrow concerning a possible adoption we were holding our breath about.  I always pictured that life was a series of ups and downs- victorious mountain top experiences tempered by valleys of striving and disappointment.  I think now that Rick Warren is right.  Life is more like a railroad track made with two rails hammered together.  One side of the track is joy and victory, while the other rail is suffering and disappointment.  The two opposites run parallel and are connected at all times throughout our lives on earth.

And that is where I sit as February 22, 20011, c-section day, draws closer- looking down the rail road tracks.

Will I laugh or cry or do both at the same time?  We have waited sooo long for these little ones.  They have been so badly wanted and deeply prayed for over the years.  The agony of awaiting their appearance on the stage of our lives is another story in itself.  I sent out a letter to family and friends last January to pray with us as we pursued adoption and continued infertility treatments.  I wrote. "We feel strongly that the Lord is not finished growing our family...Makiah prays nightly for the Lord to send her a brother and sister...We are beginning 2010 with great expectation that the Lord’s unique plan for our family will unfold as we take each little step with Him."

I believed the joy we had desperately longed for would come in 2010- somehow- but I could never have foreseen in a million years this devastating sorrow being thrust on us as well.  I don't attribute it to God... don't misunderstand me.  I think he never planned for us to have a rail of sorrow hammered into all of our tracks, and one day the master engineer will implement a new design.

A prayer...Dear Lord, as I start this journey through Ruth, I find myself in a precarious place.  I feel like Ruth must have felt returning with Naomi- depending on a thread of hope, disappointed with the past, unsatisfied with the present, uncertain of the future.  I need more than ever to know that the story ends well.  It did for Ruth, but of course she didn't know that.  Help me to put one foot in front of the other and not lose heart when I am gleaning the scraps from someone else's fields.  Help me to have the determined cry in my heart- "Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay."   Help me to throw myself on your mercy and to rest only at the feet of Jesus.  Thank you that your plan for me is good and your love for me is perfect.  Press hope into my heart!  Expecting, Rachel"

I wrote this last summer about expanding our family as I started a bible study on Ruth and her loss, love, and legacy.  I did not know how timely it was.  Now I can scarcely utter these words.  The story did not end well for my sweet Makiah.  Maybe the prayers of my past will cover me now as I sit peering down this foggy railroad track.


Our 2010 Famliy Photos for Adoption Efforts... 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Deafening Silence

In a single second my life has been radically altered.  My precious gift from God, sweet Makiah Kaitlyn, has gone to be with Jesus long before her time.  I know in my heart that she is happy, but my arms are so empty... my house so dreadfully quiet.  I feel at times that a horrible blackness has enveloped me.  I feel as though my insides are screaming.  I am clawing and fighting to break out of this torturous body- to escape from this oppressive reality, but I cannot escape.  The dark anguish leaps on me again and again.  It sits on my chest and presses against my very life breath.  My heart feels utterly crushed and broken- pummeled into a thousand pieces.  Life as I knew it has been shattered and the shards that are left are painful and sharp.  Cutting me as I try to walk through them.  This is the valley of the shadow of death.  How dark is that shadow! Her room is perfectly untouched.  All of the dolls in her dollhou...
Post a Comment
Read more

Toes

Outside the sky is grey and dreary.  I feel it should rain torrents today.  I think the whole earth should cry out in grief.  I feel my heart pounding in my head.  My eyes will barely open, and I think no more tears can possibly come.  Maybe I will stand in the rain and borrow the tears from the sky. I look down at sparkly pink toes, and they are lonely.  Makiah, our last Sunday together you spent the morning in bed with Mommy (because I am on bed rest).  We ate fruit loops and snuggled.  We practiced drawing your letters and painted our fingers and toes.  You wanted rainbow toes, but I didn't have the colors with me.  I promised I'd paint you rainbow toes later.  Once we were all pink you said, "I got an idea!  Let's put sparklies over the pink, and you have to do it, too, Mommy, so we can be twins!"  You are such a princess!  So pink toes became sparkly toes.  We giggled and hugged and admired our matching fe...
1 comment
Read more

Wells of Living Water

My eyes filled with tears when my mother-n-law told me of her friend's idea.  This sweet lady, whom I've never met, wanted to know if she could do something special in honor of Makiah.  She said God had put it on her heart to start a well project for her.  She would sell "living water well charms" through Operation Blessing International to raise money to build a well for underprivelaged children in a poverty stricken country.  She said when 600 charms have been purchased, a well with a permanent plaque would be built to commemorate Makiah's life.  Not only was this an amazing idea, it was linked to my daughter's heart in a way that shocked me... What this thoughtful lady could not have known was that only 2 weeks before the accident, Makiah came into the kitchen on a Sunday morning carrying her whole piggy bank.  She told me she wanted to take it all to "give to the kids who need clean water."  The preschool class at church had been raising mon...
Post a Comment
Read more