zechariah 9:12

It has been weeks since I've sat in front of this computer to write. I can't say exactly why. Somehow, the words just stopped coming. Life got busy, things felt lighter - somehow I didn't need to say anything. I found the response to the last post interesting, certainly broader than I'd expected. Oh, I get dramatic sometimes. Caught in a whirlwind of emotion and fervor and I find I can't really slow my own thoughts down to consider what I'm actually saying. What I'm putting out there, for whomever to read. But, looking back, I suppose that's how it should be. Unaltered and totally raw. Truthfully, nothing has changed. I think and feel just as I did that night, over a month ago. But I am quieter this evening. Something has stilled me and I'd really rather not fight it.

This video was put together by the incredibly creative and visionary team at our church here in Nashville. All I will say is that, after six months of walking here, in this place, away from my precious girl, it felt surreal to tell our story again. It felt cathartic, and healing, and also a little sad. The sadness doesn't go anywhere. It seeps into cracks away from the places we most obviously feel during our busied, frantic days, but it's there - it remains. I had thought that once we learned we'd be expecting another baby, I'd feel less of it. That the sharpness of it would wear off. And now, as I sit in my sixth week of pregnancy - something really splendid, something I celebrate almost incessantly - I find that my heart is often heavier in missing her, in wishing it were she, again, inside, waiting to breathe life. And wishing that life would be long. I am filled with joy and anticipation, dread and suspense, apprehension and anxiety, hope and expectation as I sit only a few weeks into this wild, wondrous adventure. It is weird to share the news with so many at so early a stage, but I suppose it's fitting. Nothing in this journey for us has been off-limits - no depths, no heights. So somehow, despite the typical 'don't-tell-until-it's-safe' rhetoric most of us buy into these days, I have to tell. Is there really a 'safe'? Other than in the grips of Jesus, I think not.

What would it look like for each of us to live not just knowing about Heaven but wanting it? Longing for it? I don't think any of us can until it's more than either eternal choir-singing or a state of mind. Neither appeal very much to me, nor should they. No, I want a Heaven that looks like home. Only brighter, and richer, and fuller, and sweeter. I want a Heaven that, when I get there, makes me realize I've only been breathing what seemed like air. I've only tasted what seemed like food. And laughed what seemed like a real laugh. I want a Heaven where everything I love now is better. I think that's what I will find. Because everything good here is just a glimpse of what is to come.

I beseech your prayers. I don't think I can ask God to bless me because of what I've been through. I don't know if that's because I believe it's unbiblical; no, rather, I don't think that at all. I'm asking for blessing, though - and I suppose if I had to give a reason, I'd simply say it's because I believe He loves me. Nothing I've done or gone through deserves any extra heap of goodness. And of course He doesn't love me any more than He did before. I just understand His love a little more.

So I ask. I ask for health, and for life that is brimming over with fullness and hope and promise. I've even asked for more than one life! We shall see. It's a bit like asking for the proverbial Christmas BB gun. Perhaps a bit daring. But I happen to believe God likes to do things that make us smile. Here's to seeing what's up His sleeve.