Sometimes writing about the experiences I had during my pregnancy with Julianna is really difficult. Not because I don’t want to share them. I wouldn’t write them and share them with you if I didn’t want to, but the reason they are so difficult is that it is extremely hard to put some of it into words. It’s hard to explain. Almost every story I have, I want to write how incredibly close and personal I felt the Lord God with me, but how do you put that into words? How do you help someone who may have never had that experience understand it? It’s no wonder the world makes fun of people like me. Its hard enough for me to understand it, let alone someone who never gets to feel the beautiful company of the Lord Most High.
Through my experiences with Julianna, I am not trying to claim I have some greater place with God than someone else. I believe God is wanting of all to know Him intimately. It breaks my heart even more so knowing just how close God offers himself and yet most of the world sits and wonders where He is. Christians included. I don’t know how many times in my life where I have wondered myself where God was hiding. I should know as a Christian that He is as what A.W. Tozer mentioned “… He is nearer than our own soul, closer than our most secret thoughts”. But yet we still flounder and fuss. We still live life as though He wasn’t fully present.
Even before I found out I was pregnant with Julianna, I knew something was different. I couldn’t at the time place my finger on it, but I knew. It wasn’t until we found out about her diagnosis before I realized it was God standing there waiting to catch my fall. I didn’t realize it at the time though, the roller coaster we were about to board.
This is where it gets hard to explain. During the entire pregnancy, every hill, valley, flip and turn, I knew God was at my side. If I had an immediate prayer- it was answered quickly. If I had a worry- It was handled. The moment I would begin to lose myself to an ugly cry, something came and held me tight. I only ugly cried three times. – When I first found out about her diagnosis, when I had to hand her over to the man from the funeral home, and sometime later after her passing. Any other time that I would go from crying, up to the point right before it turned into an ugly cry- something came up from inside me and all around me, and embraced me in a hug so tight and with a love so strong, I would immediately stop my crying. Then I was able to finally breathe. Now I did cry often, but never where I would lose myself. He never let me go to that point- again except those three times. And to be honest, I think I needed those times to grieve and cry it all out. I believe that’s why He let me go at those times.
The crazy thing, to me, was that every need I had – He answered. Like a parent sitting at their sick child’s bedside, for every beck and call- He was there. If there was something I needed, it was taken care of. If I was sad, He found a way to cheer me up. When I was anxious for a test result that should have taken a month to come in, I got a phone call soon after I prayed to Him about having a hard time waiting for the result. This happened so many times I lost count. (We also had the extra stress of life in general. Life doesn’t stop because of the diagnosis, but God dealt with all of those ‘other’ areas too.)
When I say that – “the very thought of how personal God was with me- brings tears to my eyes in the very same way that the simple thought of Julianna does.” I truly mean it. Any time I think about how personal, loving and caring God was during that time it makes me cry. I still struggle sometimes, even as a Christian, to wrap my brain around how much the Creator of the Universe Loves me so much that even though I am not perfect in any way, and I fail Him so often, yet, He would still care about me and my heart’s suffering.
It grieves my heart for all the other times in my life that I wondered where He was. It is not because God likes to be secretive. God wants us to know Him and have a closer relationship with Him. If I don’t “feel” Him, it’s not His fault. It is solely my own. He is always there. Always patient. Always willing. I just have to be willing to spend the time getting to know Him and trusting Him.
“We need never shout across the spaces to an absent God. He is nearer than our own soul, closer than our most secret thoughts” -A.W. Tozer
