From Our Greatest Sorrows

...6 hours, 20 minutes and counting.  

Just a little while longer and it will all be over again.  Until next year.  But I can't even think about that right now.  I just need to get through today.

No idea what I'm going to do to pass the time until Jess comes home, but I have to do something.  So I pick up my phone and end up talking with one of the only other people on the planet that I know will get it.  Who will listen without judging.  Who will offer not just a word of encouragement, but one steeped in experience.  Who will, without a doubt, understand.  

And in the midst of it all, I tell her I have to do something.  Really do something.  I will not survive any of this, if I do not do something.  

And so we began to dream.

I scrambled for a notebook because suddenly, the ideas began to come.  Not just one, or two, or three.  But a flood of jumbled names, places, projects, topics, books.  Who do we know?  Where can we do it?  What should we include?  And suddenly, page after page became filled with endless possibilities.  

But as we wound down our chat sometime later, I flipped through the pages and wondered.  Will we ever do this?  I've been here before.  I've had dreams and thoughts and hopes and desires to use my pain for something lasting.  Something bigger than me.  Will this time be different?  Will we really be able to turn this into something?  Will God decide that it's worth it?  Is this really what we're supposed to do?  

I never thought it would end up looking like this.

And so we began to plan.  We furiously wrote down our ideas before they slipped out of our brains as quickly as they had come.  And all the while, I wondered.  

What is all of this really going to be?

And so I retreat to my bedroom tonight in order to sit and get this out, not because my room provides the ultimate inspiration for the amateur blogging of this tired girl, cross-eyed from exhaustion.  But rather because downstairs, there really isn't anywhere to sit.

There isn't anywhere to sit because tonight, 6 months after that phone call, my couches and my dining room table are currently occupied by yards of ribbon, lace, and burlap, by 45 brown shoe-sized boxes, by stamps, tissue paper, candles, devotionals, flower seeds, and the tiniest crocheted booties that you've ever seen in your life.  There isn't anywhere to sit because

this is really happening.

And it's all just a little surreal.   

Because of what's been provided to us, because of the support, love, encouragement, work, and resources that have been given to us, 45 women deep in the valley of grief and isolation might feel just a little less lonely.  Just a little less like no one understands what they endure.  Just a little less like no one cares.  And just a little less like everyone but them has forgotten what was lost.  

Because of this.  Because of this, my heartache doesn't have to be where it ends.  It can't be.  

I refuse to let it be.

And maybe the next Mother's Day won't feel as bad.  Next year, I won't be 3 days fresh off of my second loss.  Maybe it will feel worse.  But whatever comes, I will keep doing something.  My broken heart will not be where it ends.

B:  "Maybe my babies keep dying so that I will have more time to do this."

K:  "Oh Becky, No.  I mean.  I know their loss will have a purpose, and you are creating purpose from their loss.  And you need to continue doing it.  But this is not what was ever supposed to happen.  God never wanted this for either of us.  But He knew we'd be ones to create meaning from sorrow.  Our greatest ministries are born out of our greatest sorrows."