The Journey in August

I am linking up with Still Standing for August's Journey.  This is an opportunity to share where we are on the journey.

I am struggling to articulate where I am today.  It seems to be a moving target.  The constant is that I miss Elena so very much!  In the early days, the grief was nearly unbearable, but people tried to be understanding and acknowledged our daughter.  Now we are a little over a year from her death.  I have learned to better carry the pain so that it does not feel quite so acute most of the time (though the pain does not go away), but people are not as quick to realize that I still hurt or to acknowledge that I even had a daughter at all, as if the lack of mention will somehow make us forget.  I will not forget my baby.  I do not want to forget her.  She is, and always will be, a part of me.  And although she may not live on this physical earth, she does live in heaven, and she also lives in my heart and in the hearts of her dad and her brother and other loved ones.  We all miss her, and we regularly talk about her in our home. 

This week I am facing a significant change in my life.  For the record, I am not a fan of change, particularly when it is out of my control.  Unfortunately, this is a change out of my control, a decision that has been made for me (that was quite the opposite of the decision that I had chosen to make myself when it was "in my control").  Another reminder that we seem to cling to an illusion of control.  We desperately desire to believe that we are in control, of ourselves, of our lives, of our futures.  We often believe that we do have the control, that we are in the proverbial driver's seat.  Then life laughs at us. 

I had planned my family and found a way to balance that, in a way that blessed our family, with my career.  Although I didn't carve my plan in stone, I did have a general idea of how I wanted to space my children and what I wanted them to have in life.  Life laughed and handed us a premature baby (who, by the grace of God, is now a beautiful, healthy preschooler).  Life laughed again at our plans and gave us another premature baby, this time a daughter whose prematurity was fatal.  Again, all of our hard work and planning were derailed.  Everything was completely out of our control.  Our family would have done anything in our power to have been able to keep Elena, to have spared her from death, but there was nothing we could do.  We were powerless; any illusion of control vanished before our eyes as our daughter's life faded away in our arms.  So I suppose this most recent change should not come as a shock to me.  I should already know that control is only an illusion.

I found myself thinking of a Bible verse this morning.  It is often quoted, and I have heard it many times both before and after Elena's death.  Jeremiah 29:11:  "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."  I know that God has a plan for me, even when I do not understand it.  I try to keep my faith there and to know that even though Elena's death was not a good thing, that God can still somehow use her life and our love for her to bring something good for His kingdom.  But what really struck me about the verse this morning is that it does not say that God knows the plans that I have for myself and my family, that God will prosper me and give me a future when I carefully plan my life and make decisions with the intent of getting to where I want to go.  It says that God knows the plans that HE has for me.  HIS plans will prosper me and give me hope and a future.  I would rather God be in the driver's seat - He has a much better view of the road ahead.

I still miss Elena.  I still ache for her.  I think of her all the time.  I think of her, and I smile.  I think of her, and I cry.  I long for what might have been.  I crave the other outcome, where Elena had lived and was in our home now, where I didn't wonder how to answer how many children I have, where I didn't have a box full of new baby girl clothing with the tags still attached, where I could talk freely about each of my children without bringing conversations to screeching halts, where I heard each of their names spoken on a regular basis.  And I cling to the hope that my Lord gives me, that I will embrace my sweet Elena again someday and will never again have to endure the pain of separation from her.