He Gives and Takes Away

Last year, the holidays were not about miracles, beauty or joy for me.  They were about fear, loss, feeling isolated and forgotten by God.  It was so difficult for me to see anything that was being given, only what was being taken away.  Over the past year, I have been asking God to reveal to me where he was during our struggles because I know that he never left our sides and never stopped working on our behalf...even if we could not see him.  In my heart I know he was right beside us through it all, but the reality was that at times, it felt like he was far away and had forgotten us too. So I have been praying for clarity and that he would reveal to me some of the ways he worked.

As I have gone back over the past year, my heart has been broken again as God has chosen to reveal to me so many of the ways he WAS providing and loving and caring for our little family and our hearts along this journey...and not just in 2010, but in the months leading up to Luke's birth as well.  It has been overwhelming and incredibly humbling to realize and recognize with such clarity the ways he loved us exactly as he knew we would need to be loved.  He is amazing like that and I hate to admit that it sometimes takes me over a year to recognize it and put it into words.

It has taken me a very long, painful year (plus a few extra months!) to reach this place, but I'm here and with this being a brand new year and all, I want to drive this stake in the ground and claim this territory of our journey for gratitude for ALL he has done- not just the amazing miracles of Luke's life and our beautiful moments with him on his birthday and the heartache that followed, but for all of the extra gifts he blessed us with along the way as well.  Gifts that I could not fully appreciate in the moment, but am and remain completely indebted for now.  He was truly giving where he was also taking away. I just could not see how he was working until recently. So, as I continue to learn to navigate through my sorrow, I'm also going to be working hard to develop the ability to celebrate the joys and the beauty that I'm (re)discovering are and have been along this path the whole time.

So over the next several days and weeks, I'm going to do a small series of posts on our gifts and experiences of beauty and hope from our path, not just because they are so special and are truly a part of our story, but because we always want to remember His faithfulness and His goodness.  By retelling these parts of our story too, we can return here when days become difficult again (which we know they will eventually) and remember how He sustained us and cared for us during our darkest hours.  We will be able to draw strength, faith and courage from our stories of the past as we face new adventures and challenges in our futures.

He is faithful.  He does provide.  He does love.  He does care.  He understands better than we do what we need in order to serve him best.  Sometimes I forget these things and that is why it is so important for me to remember.