I love to read. I
have always enjoyed books of all varieties.
When I was young I liked to read my mom’s old Nancy Drew books, Anne of
Green Gables and who could forget The Babysitter’s Club? Do you remember the
Choose Your Own Adventure books? The reader
would pick an ending and flip to that chapter and could essentially alter the
ending. Am I the only one that tried to
buck the system? I would read through
one time, and then the next time I would choose a different ending, hoping to
change the ending. It never worked. The middle had different variations yet the
ending was always the same.
I realized (in a way) I have been trying this with my life
for the past 5 years. In my mind’s
“adventure” I was trying to find different scenarios that would somehow change
the ending of my story, the story where my baby girl dies. Yet the ending is always the same, Callie
isn’t here.
I have come to a new place of acceptance and hope. You see, before, there was a perfect world where
I could write our own story, and in it I have my 3 kids, Callie, Corban and
Ellie. But I know the reality of it is
that if I had carried Callie to term, there probably wouldn’t be a Corban. If there were a Corban down the road, there
probably wouldn’t be an Ellie. So, yes,
I fully understand that I can’t have everything I want. Then I travel down
another road, what if she was here and was very sick? What if she was here and I wasn’t? It’s quite a conundrum. I want my 3 healthy children here with my
husband and me, yet it can’t be.
Somehow, only by the Lord’s grace and peace, I have begun to
embrace this idea. When I look at our
life I see the Lord’s blessing and provision time and time again. I see His grace of allowing us to become
pregnant with Callie Grace and then I see His peace and strength during her
delivery, burial and the times that followed.
I see His grace once again when I became pregnant with Corban and His
power when He healed Corban and spared his life. Again, when I became pregnant with Ellie and
delivered a healthy baby girl and was able to bring her home, we were
overwhelmed with His compassion. We are
truly blessed. Does my life look like
what I imagined? No. My life looks so much better than what I
imagined. Yes, there were heartaches
along the way and yes a piece of our hearts and family is in Heaven. But this life on earth that I’m living has
been truly a gift from God.
Are you trying to find meaning in the story of your
life? Maybe you are trying to alter the
ending in your own story. Let me
challenge you with this thought: You are
not the author. It might come as a
shock, but to me it is a relief. Thankfully,
I trust the Lord’s will for my life. I
don’t always understand it or like it, but I know that what He has planned is
for my good. Embrace the life you’ve
been given—every chapter of it.
