The Story of Us

I just can't seem to make the words fit.

They're here, on the tip of my tongue.  But somewhere between the swelling and the fatigue and the crib sheets, the words get jumbled. 

I put his room together.  Finally let go and let myself begin the nesting process.  A putting together of pieces.  Very much unlike the other women and mothers-to-be around me, but nevertheless all my own.  Like so many building blocks, a puzzle...

So now there's a changing table.  And a crib.  There's tiny little boy clothes in hampers and baskets.  There are small socks and an abundance of blankets.  Scattered throughout my home, yes... our home, are lions.

He has a big name to live up to.  Big shoes to fill.  A deep, strong prophecy spoken over his life.

And he will be here in a few days.

Just a few days.

I find myself in a strange place today.

I find myself at the end.

Here we are.

~

Two days before I found out I was pregnant, I wrote:

Sometimes we wait for the right time for the right thing to happen.

When all along, the whole idea was to surprise you anyway.

And surprises never happen like that.

~

I don't know if I can do this or not.  I don't know if I will be a good mother -- or if it will come as naturally to me as it did to my sister last week when this small little boy was born.  

I don't know if I can juggle being a single mother and finishing my last semester of school.

I don't know if I will be able to be two parents at once.  

I don't know if I will be able to pay all my bills.  

I don't know if I will be able to raise my son to be a good man who remains in awe of the small wonders of the world and loves people...

even when they fail us.  

~

I made it through the 18 weeks of nausea.  Through the titled uterus, which made it hard to hear his first heartbeats.  Through the break outs and the flat hair and the pulled muscles and the weakened immune system.  

There were no insane cravings.  No 2 am runs to the grocery.  Just dragging myself out of bed that first trimester, to walk to class.  Staying up late to write papers, hiding under sweatshirts.  Living off wheat saltine crackers there for a while.  

I ate a lot of red meat and a lot of cheese.  Took myself to every doctor's appointment.  Avoided caffeine for the better part of the year -- but not entirely.  I miss sushi and tuna, though.  I heard my son's heartbeat and saw his face, by myself.  Late in the term, my hands started cramping up.  The nightmares, however, were there from the very beginning.  Vivid, terrifying, every time I closed my eyes.  The echogenic intracardial focus.  

I remember I held my breath until 12 weeks.  Sure that something would go wrong... sure I wouldn't be able to carry a child.

I named him by myself, before I even knew he was a boy.

We thought we'd call him Jude.  

But he has taken on his own name.  He told us, somehow, he is Judah.  A lion.  A gift of praise.  Given a name meant for me, meant for my mother, had we only been boys.

And so I sit, taking a snapshot of my life today compared to January 13th.  

I have a new testimony about God's provision.  To add to my testimony about His voice.  And His plan.  And His love for risks and a good story.

I walk into Judah's nursery and it is brimming.  Stacked.  Piled.  Folded.  A nursery, which had been empty in May is now overflowing.  

A new apartment. 

A new job.

A car.

I also know more about the character of God than I may have ever been able to articulate before.

Because, you see, people have disappointed me.

Consistently for over a year now, people have been breaking my heart.  Not just one, good, clean break.  But a splintering.  Repeated offenses.  They have judged and cursed and abandoned.  They have cast me out.  They have called me whore.  Liar.  They have called me dangerous... selfish.  Damaged.

And through it all, the character of God was what remained the same.  Faithful and consistent.  No "buts" about His love.  No stipulations.  A gentle, steady voice saying He knows what He's doing, He loves me when others do not, and I cannot see what He has planned.  But trust Him, because He does.

Grace, tattooed on my wrist, never meant more.  Because never did He say: "I love you and this little boy, even though you sinned" like so many others did.  He didn't say, "I will make something beautiful out of this, even though you made poor choices".  

What He said was, "I love you and this little boy and I have made this a part of something beautiful." 

~

If Judah does not come on his own, he will be here by Thursday.  Four days.  That's all.  

I need to do some small things.  Like install the car seat, pack my overnight bag, do another load or two of laundry... but basically everything is done.  

Everything is done, yet I still don't feel ready.  

But I don't think Judah's going to wait for that feeling to go away.  

What we are ready for, is to tell a new story.  

Ready to show the world what it means to be a family, to love, to overcome.  We will show them what resilience looks like, what diversity looks like, what faith looks like.  We will show the world, all those who doubted, what it means to love Jesus.  To forgive others.  And to wait, hope, pray... for the right people to enter our story.

Our.

That's what has changed.  This week, that will be what changes more than anything.

We.

It's a story of us now.

Elijah David

I am an aunt.

I have a handsome 7 lb 2 oz, 19 1/4 inch long nephew.

Born on the first day of the month at 5:47pm.

I've never waited in a waiting room for a baby before.  I almost didn't go this time.  I knew my sister didn't want an overabundance of people crowding her and her little family on their first hours, days, together.

But I went.  After being awoken at 4:30 in the morning with a prayer on my lips.  "Come on, Eli," I found myself whispering.  "Today's your day.  We want to meet you.  Come on."  Thirteen hours later, here then he was.  With a perfect blend of my sister and our brother.  With hands like Katherine and Tamera's.  A head full of hair.

I sat, feet swollen, in the waiting room and just thought about how I'd never done this before.

Waited on a baby.

Or waited for someone to get out of surgery.

Or waited for news, which just wouldn't seem to come.

The waiting room became overrun, quickly, with drinks and phone chargers, and a fluctuation of Vaughans and Rectors and Rehnborgs and Penningtons.  The whole hospital seemed to undulate with our family, never fewer than three of us, and as many as twenty at one time.

Just waiting.  On this baby boy.

Everyone kept staring at me as I'd walk through the halls.  When was it my turn, they wanted to know. And I'd just shrug.  Eli had to come first.

That was the rule.

Eli had to come.  Be the first.  The first grandson, the first great grandson, on both sides.  The first nephew for all of his aunts and his two uncles -- one who was getting updates from the other side of the world.

Eli had to come.  And then we'd worry about getting Judah here.  It wasn't my turn yet.

I was there to wait.

I'd always known Katherine wanted to be a mom.  I'd seen her with countless babies over the years, watched her change diapers, heard her talk about her plans as a mommy.  But fatherhood is not something a lot of men talk about, before it becomes a personal topic.

I've known David for a long time.  Ten years now?  I'm having a hard time remembering when he wasn't part of our family.  But I'd never seen this David before.  He appeared in the waiting room every few hours.  Unshaven.  Saving his energy.  Acting like nothing had changed and then laughing when we pounced of him for not sharing important news.

So now they were both parents.

I spent a lot of my time in the waiting room thinking about how everyone kept telling David "you're a daddy now!", and the reaction my heart had to this statement.

Because.  I tend to think they both became parents a long time ago.

I think, maybe, you become a parent the minute another small life becomes more important than your own.

And for both my sister and my brother, that happened a while ago.

So Eli is here.  Elijah David.

A fifth generation.  A third member to a small family who lives in a town house down the street from me.

My parents first grandchild.  Their first grandson.

My first nephew.

Can't help but think, if we knew the joy and anticipation, which surrounded our arrivals into this world -- how people waited on us, celebrated us, and prepared for us -- how much differently would we live our lives?

If we knew how people had waited on us.

When We Can't

This particular journey is almost over.

When I found out about the life growing inside of me, I was six weeks pregnant.  

Now, there are only five weeks left.

I have seen my baby's face.  Heard his heart beat.  

I've learned some things in the last seven months.  Some things about the world, some things about my faith, some things about people, and many things about myself.  

The same things I was praying before, I am praying now.  For grace and patience.  

Now I am also praying for strength.  Strength to face the lies.  To demand respect.  Strength to stand up, or kneel down, and ask for a miracle.  Ask for prayers to be heard now, changing the past.  Praying God is not bound by time -- and praying my voice is still heard by Him at all.  

I used to believe because I asked for something, I would never get it.  Whatever "it" was would be withheld from me.  Because I wanted it, because I was selfish, because I didn't trust God's plan enough to be quiet about it.  I remember the day God bent down and whispered, "I am not spiteful".  Quietly, patiently in my ear.  I think my mentality broke His heart.

But until now, I have never needed, wanted, asked for something so fervently in my entire life.  

And as I replay this movie in my head, as I watch the scenes unfold, and anticipate the next few weeks of my life... I am terrified.  

Scripture tells us the Spirit will pray for us when we do not have the words.  I laid in bed last night and I thought, panicked, perhaps I had never actually prayed for this.  Perhaps I had wished it.  Perhaps I had hoped it.  Perhaps I had wanted it with every fibre of my being.

And had never actually asked.

I wonder then, if the spirit has in fact been praying for me.  Every time my heart constricts with anxiety, every time I remember those things I am afraid of, does the Spirit whisper in Jesus' ear?  Does Jesus go to the foot of the Father for me and say,

"Our girl, she doesn't even know how to ask.  She doesn't even know what to ask for.  The words won't come.  But I know her.  And I love her.  And I've heard her heart.  Father, I know what she's asking for..."

~

Someone looked at me the other day -- at my face, at my belly, and back at my face.  The expression I caught in her eyes was almost indecipherable.  

"You look tired, sweetheart," she said very matter-of-factly.  I just nodded a little bit.  It was too early in the morning to be looking tired, I thought.  But I felt it.  "Actually.  I know that look," she changed her mind quickly and handed me my change.  "You look worn out."

There it was.  

I am praying for grace within myself.  Patience within myself for him. 

I am praying for a good ending.  For redemption.

Praying the Spirit keeps praying for me, even when I can't.

Learning Curve

When I was a little girl, my younger sister and I were both enrolled in gymnastics class.

I'm pretty sure the way the story gets told, is I didn't know how to tuck my chin when doing a tumble, and the big, black, male gymnastics teacher yelled at me (I was like... four years old... so he probably didn't really yell.  But that's how I remember it.) and I never went back.

I don't participate in group classes at the gym, unless it's a group cycling class, which is held in the dark.

Actually, I don't really work out at the gym at all, unless I have proper headphones, a good sense of direction, a decent male to female ratio, and can trick myself into thinking I'm the only person there.  Or that I'm invisible.

I never took a foreign language in college because I didn't want to take oral tests.

I have never been certified in CPR.

Basically, as I sit here reflecting on these memories, I learn something about myself.  Something I've been very aware of my entire life.  But perhaps not quite enough of to give it a name.

I don't like learning in front of others.  


I don't mind learning -- I love learning.

I don't mind admitting I don't know how to do something.

But I don't want you to watch me learn it.

I want to take written directions, take a manual, take a text book, go into a quiet room by myself and learn how to do what it is I need to learn how to do.

But I don't want an audience.

I will fail and fail and fail again.  But if given time, I will learn.  If given space, I will learn.

Maybe I am too proud, and I don't want others watching me fail.  Too proud and don't take direction well.  Too proud and am just afraid of being embarrassed.

But this has been the hardest part of the last nine months of my life.

Ever since the EPT said, "pregnant", people have been watching me learn.

At first it was a small audience.  But ever since, it has grown steadily.  Grown to encompass strangers and acquaintances and family and dear friends.  All watching.  All witness to the learning process.

Some, acutely aware of the steep learning curve.  With just enough information to recognize the inevitable failing.

~

Today I was supposed to go to a labor class.  It was free and two hours long.  Complete with lessons on breathing techniques and pain management and yada yada yada.  Bring two pillows, they said.  Wear comfortable clothes, they said.  Bring your partner.  

I signed up for it, because the nurses and Dr's were telling me it would be beneficial to take a class. I signed up for it, in completely self denial, with the best of intentions.  

But yesterday rolled around and my phone alerted me.  Saying, the next day I was scheduled to take this class.  And I panicked.  

I felt like I was four all over again.  Like any sort of social skills I've learned, any sort of progress I've made over the past twenty years, just flew out the window.  With a great flapping of wings, leaving me in a heap of insecurity and blubbering tears.  

There were multiple, there are multiple, reasons why I didn't and don't want to go to this class.  

#1 - I don't want to.

#2 - I don't want to.

#3 - I think it has something to do with being single and not wanting to look like a lesbian or a teenager by coming without a partner, with a girl friend, or with a parent.

#4 - I don't want to.

#5 - I'd rather go to the library and check out books or watch youtube videos on nursing and breathing techniques and pain management than sit there with this huge pregnant belly, cross-legged on the floor. 

#6 - I don't want to go and watch all the happy couples learning this together.

That's what it boils down to.  

I don't want to learn in front of anyone.  I know in a crowd of pregnant women, I'd blend in easily.  No one would think twice about me strolling in without a wedding ring, or with another woman.  I don't think I'm so important I'd make a huge impression on anyone.  

But I am reminded, daily, of the unconventional way in which I am doing this.  The reminders are not sweet.  The reminders are not friendly.  The reminders are not easy to swallow.  I must, and have had to, take extra measures to guard my heart against the painful triggers.  

Some pain is unavoidable.  

But I've had enough of learning in public.  I've had enough of learning in front of people, with all my shortcomings and failures on display.  There's some more growing up to do before I'm even slightly comfortable it.  It's the exposure I'm uncomfortable with.  All my secrets, too close to the surface.

This is self-preservation at its finest.  

Desperately I'm trying to hold on to myself and my dignity.  To carry myself well and maintain some self respect during this whole process.  

And protect myself whenever possible.

This is, however, something I recognize as one of my fatal flaws.  

An inability to laugh at myself.

Sigh.  

One day maybe I'll get it right.  

But today, I'm not going to that birthing class.  

Next Right Move

32 weeks.  8 months.  8 weeks left to go.

I take a deep breath and am just overwhelmed by how time flies.

I should have started a baby book.  I should have been writing down the dates of important events.  Like the day I found out I was pregnant.  The day I first felt him move.  How long my morning sickness lasted.  I should have a book to put his footprints in.  To write down the important things.

I'm laughing quietly to myself right now.

I can't even breathe.

I haven't picked up a single book about child birth or parenting or pregnancy.  (The What to Expect app has been my only saving grace the last eight months.)

Does this make me a bad mother already?  That I don't stop and record and document and meditate over this miracle inside of me?

I swear, I sure hope not.

I can barely get my words out.  They are so important.  They are so imperative to my health and the clarity of my mind.  But the words won't come.

At night I find myself reading text books or trying to sleep to fight the leg pain.  Books about self-soothing and the sleep patterns of infants are not sitting on my bedside table.  Not because I'm not interested.  Not because I don't care.  But because I don't have time.

As I was leaving the daycare the other day, one of the newest assistant teachers approached me.  He's my age.  A dad himself.  Teases me on a consistent basis with the humor of a fifteen year old boy.  When I acted like I was in a rush to leave, he asked me where I was running off to.  I was headed to another job, I told him.  He shook his head slowly.  "Anna, how many hustles you got?"

Promise, if I had even one decent hustle... I wouldn't be pulling four part time jobs right now.  But as it is, I don't.  So I do.  "How do you do it?" Is a question I hear on a consistent basis.  They stare at me, commenting on the size of my stomach, asking when my due date is.  I watch their eyebrows raise ever so slightly when I tell them there's two more months to go.  "You're wearing yourself out," they whisper.  And I know it's true.  They ask me why, they ask me how.

The only answer I've been able to come up with is, "I have to".

Amazing what we are capable of, when there is no other option.

~

My mother wrote a post the other day.  Not sure exactly when, as I haven't had internet at my new apartment since I moved in.  Today I got a hold of some internet, though, and bought my nephew a present, and caught up on my google reader.  

This particular post was about Abby.  

Abby is my baby sister.  The youngest of the Vaughan women.  She's asked to hold Judah after I do when he is born.  She calls him her little lion man.  This particular post was about her prayers for rain during this drought Lexington (and most of the country) has been suffering through.  

At the end of the blogpost, my mom wrote:  

"She prayed and expected God to answer. Not out of arrogance. Not out of entitlement. Not out of ignorance. But she asked out of a place of trust. Trust in who she knew the Father to be. The only risk for her was being willing to look like a fool. She took that risk. And the rain came." 

I know how to pray like that.  

I prayed about Judah like that.

I've prayed for rain to stop.  For food to be provided.  I've prayed for rent money and plane tickets.  I've prayed through cancer scares and through heart breaks and I've prayed about college degrees and tuition money and international customs.  I've prayed about gas for my car and I've prayed about groceries.  Calcium deposits in little hearts and a future so uncertain... so hidden... 

I know how to pray like that.

~

Last week, I got to see my son's face.  

Some minor abnormalities had us scheduling a third trimester ultrasound.  

I filled out paperwork and sat in the waiting room, feeling Judah kick and roll around, jabbing first my ribs and then my hips.  We hadn't visually checked on him in twelve weeks.  Twelve.  Three months.  

Do you know how much life can happen in three months?

Yeah.  I didn't either.  

My methods of measuring time have changed.  From semesters and seasons to weeks and trimesters and the gradually increasing weight of a little boy... time is flying by me like so many colors in a kaleidoscope, or the revolutions of a carousal.  This thing I thought I couldn't do, this journey I thought I wasn't strong enough to survive, is almost done.  

She turned the lights off in the room.  We were looking for something specific this time.  Not overall healthiness.  We knew his lungs, kidneys, liver, brain, limbs were fine.  We knew he was a "he".  We were just checking on one thing.  One little spot of light.

Have you ever seen an ultrasound being performed?  You've seen the pictures.  Indecipherable.  Like x-rays, sometimes.  

When you're in the room, when it's your baby, when the gel is cold on your belly and the tech isn't looking at you... but at a monitor, moving and illuminated... you feel like you're spying. 

Lights flash and fast, harsh movement.  A leg, first.  A femur.  You see a leg.  A hand.  You see his heart throbbing and the heat from the blood in his umbilical cord.  The image stabilizes.  

Judah is head down.  Scoring an 8 out of 8 on a well-baby test.  He weighs (or weighed, a week ago) 3 pounds and 9 ounces.  

And then there was his face.  

He grimaced from being poked and prodded -- woken up by light and noise and movement.  His little nose scrunched up and he looked a little like me.  And a lot like someone else.  

He stretched and pursed his lips.  

Ever since I allowed myself, I have loved this little boy.  

Seeing his face took my breath away. And I would be lying if I told you I didn't look at his picture every day... and just wonder.  All kinds of teasing, curious wonders.  

I'd also be lying if I said I wasn't already terribly biased.  If I didn't think that my kid was the cutest in the world.  

That's probably only going to get worse, to be honest.  

But I got to see my son's face.  And got to hear the doctor say he was healthy. And I got a small, small taste of what a mess this is going to make of my heart.

~

I heard the other day that University of Louisville has a masters program for social workers.  I also heard they offer that program on the weekends and online.  I felt a tap on my heart.  The kind of tap I usually feel when God is highlighting something important for me.  Dog-earring.  As if I can almost hear Him whisper, "don't forget about that.  We're going to come back to that later." 

I mustered up the courage at the internship to ask a BSW case manager about the MSSW degree she was working on.  In Louisville.  

She is my age.  A single mom.  And as of next Saturday, will have graduated with this Masters of Science in Social Work, on a track towards a counseling degree.  She will have done it in a year.  A year's worth of Friday nights or Saturdays.  While raising her two year old son.  

I walked away from her office breathing deeper.  I had heard right.

There will be a lot of moves made between now and next May.  More than I am prepared to make.  There will be labor and delivery.  There will be holidays as a single mom.  There will be first teeth and maybe even first words.  There may be some crawling and lots of smiling.  There will be a whole year's worth of a lease under my belt.  A car to be paid off.  

But God knew I needed this.  To see just a little bit further, so I'd believe in the possibility of it.  In the hope of it.  In the promise of providing for me, so I could provide for my small family of two.  

He revealed to me, my next right move.  

And I felt the oxygen course deep deep deep into me.  Reaching a place, so deprived.  

~

I texted Larry the other day.   

I think I was crying when I did.  But the thing about having a good father is you know when you have a question only he can answer.  A problem only he can fix.

I was staring at the damn crib still in the damn box sitting in the smaller bedroom of my new apartment. The room that's supposed to look like a nursery.  The room I couldn't bring myself to go into.  Because the crib was still in the damn box.

Expecting mothers will talk to you about nesting.  About decorating and furnishing and buying clothes and preparing a household.  Books and articles will tell you about dads preparing for the newborn.  About sympathy pains.  About ways to help and support the expectant mother.  Everyone around me who is having a baby, or who have recently had babies, always talked about the dads setting up the crib.

And my crib was still in the box.

So I texted Larry.  I didn't want a bunch of girls in my apartment with power drills and can-do attitudes. Not because I don't love my independent girl friends.  Not because I don't believe they're capable.  Not because I didn't think the gesture would have been out of love, or wouldn't have been appreciated, and completely completely sufficed as a catalyst for my nesting process.  

But because putting a crib together is a daddy's job.

And since Judah doesn't have a daddy... 

I felt stuck.  

Until I stood there.  Staring at the damn box.  

And realized that Judah may not have a daddy, but I sure do.  

A dad who showed up this morning with his tool bag, and put Judah's crib together.  

~

Remember.

I know how to pray like Abby does.  

I know how to look for the next right move.  

And as this due date comes racing towards me... I am trying to collect my words and all my boldness and whatever scrappy hope I have left.

Because I want to be loved.  

And my son needs a father.  

I already love Judah too much to let certain things happen... to let certain things seep into our lives.  

But when you're eight months pregnant, 32 weeks into a journey, and the finish line is just around the corner, just a few pages away on the calendar, drawing the line seems like an impossibility.  Hoping for any semblance of normalcy seems like false hope.  And any dreams I once I had of a real family -- a mommy and a daddy and children -- seem like pipe dreams.  

But I know how to pray like that.

Pit

I've been doing this a long time.

I can get a really good read on a church community as soon as I walk in the door.

It was familiar.  The cool pastor, the loud music, the bright lights, the casual atmosphere.

Deep breath.

And I find myself here on my knees again.  Caught up in grace like an avalanche.  


It's hard to be here.  It's harder to be elsewhere.  At least here they don't know my name.  They don't know my story.  Maybe here they won't feel the need to preach.  Here, they don't know what I know.

"we are the only army who kills their wounded"...

I just shook my head at the truth of it.  Being the wounded.

~

I've been in a pit.  There's no other way to put it.  Just a stupid, deep, muddy pit.  I can't see out of it because it's too deep and I can't climb out of it because it's too wide and I can't make a home here because it is not where I belong.

I know better.  

I know how to change my perspective and I know how to make the most of the worst of situations. 

I know how to fix things.

I know how to build things.

But too much life has been happening, too fast, and coming at me too hard.  Like so much water drowning your face.  Forgetting to drink.  

These sentiments, these images however, only really apply to my emotional and spiritual life.  Physically, I am still barreling through.  Working three and four jobs some weeks, setting up my new home, getting finances and logistics in line.  The fog and murkiness I feel in my head and my heart are not affecting my external world.  

But my heart has been so sad.

There have been a few nights when I've even cried myself to sleep.  Hand on my stomach, feeling this crazy little boy move.  And just whispering, hoping he knows I'm not crying because he's coming.  That this is not his fault.  That I wouldn't change him and his being for anything.

But it is hard.  To look at a disassembled crib and wish there was a daddy to put it together.  To come home at night, only a little scared of the dark and quiet, and wish there was someone big and strong to keep me company.  To think about long nights and brand new babies, and wonder how I'll do it without any real help.  How I'll teach a boy how to be a man.

Those are the thoughts that keep me in the pit.  Thinking about things that haven't happened yet.  And wondering how I'll manage.

It hasn't stopped me -- weighed me down, maybe.  Damaged my heart, maybe.  Hurt my hope, for certain.  But I refuse to give up.  To follow some of the worst advice I've heard in the last eight months.  To assume, just because words are said, that they are either beneficial, true, or good.  

You may not think so, many others don't.  But my judgement is still good.  I am still discerning.  I still hear the voice of God.  I still have my share of wisdom.  And perhaps what bogs me down more than anything are those words and opinions and voices of others.  

When it's only One voice I need to be hearing.  

Today I was reading a friend's blog (here).  I didn't even get all the way through the post and I read this, and I felt God saying "Shhh -- those are the words I wanted you to hear..."  

As if out of all of the mess, He'd highlighted them for me.  

"I always think of the peace of God as being tranquil and resolved. But I don't know that to always be true. It was peace - and yes, it surpassed all understanding. But it was mixed with dread. Because I knew it was going to be so hard. I think that's how it is sometimes. It's knowing it will be good. It's trusting God that with the limited amount of information of the situation before me, He will use it and show me how lovely His plan actually is."

Deep breath.  Right there.  In that moment.  That paragraph was full of all my oxygen.  

And there it was.  My perspective change.  Grace like an avalanche, Fran's words: copious amounts.  As if God just knelt down and said, "yeah, baby girl, I know it's hard." And scooped me up.  

Stupid pit.  

Nothing changed.  Nothing got better.  None of the questions were answered.  

I just changed where I was standing.  

I heard Him tell me to write it down.  To work it out with my words.  To breathe deep the peace and hope He was offering, even though it makes no sense.  Even when this three pound baby boy is laying heavily on my lungs.  And it doesn't matter how deep, I just can't get enough air. 

I'm still going to be grumpy.  And want all the things I wanted before.  But I swear.  It will be good.  

I have no idea how.  

But it will.  

I just can't get back in the pit.

perfect peace

I know God.  

Not just of Him, not just about Him.  

I know Him like I know my own daddy.  

People say this every day and I wonder what they mean by that.  I wonder if we know the same One.  I wonder if He talks to them like He does me.  If He shows up in light and doves and wind and speaks to them in whispers.  

I wonder how He feels about the way I talk to Him.  

Because I don't talk to Him like you do.  I don't talk about Him like you do.  

And I don't think that's wrong.  But my life looks different because of this.  

I have my reasons for doing the things I do.  I am an introvert, by nature.  I need time to process, to think, without worrying about your reaction too.  I am also empathetic, and your emotions might take precedence over mine.  This is not valiant, it's stupid.  I am forgiving and cynical and hopeful and bitter all in the same breath, and I want people to acknowledge me, but I don't want their pity.  

Complex doesn't even begin to cut it.

~

We found light.  

"Do not be afraid", I heard.  

And I responded as boldly as I dared.  Bold isn't rare.  But expectant is.  I do not pray expectantly.  I do not demand.

But I did then.  

"I'm telling You this once," I whispered as I walked to the car.  Holding the ultrasound pictures in my hand.  My unborn son, who stretches like a grown man, whose future is known and hopeful.  "Once and only once."  

I told Him I wanted peace.  And that I wanted Him to take care of the things I could not.  That I was going to trust Him, actively, by not worrying.  And we were going to press forward.  Me.  Him.  Judah.  Because that's what we do.  

We press.

By the time I'd gotten to the top floor of the parking garage, it had found me.  

The peace I'd asked for.  

I'd like to think it was because I was bold.  That He answered and provided because I was brave enough to demand it of Him.  

And maybe that was part of it.  Maybe part of our relationship with God is believing He is real and big and, in the same breath, approachable.  

My faith can be summed up in three little words.  

"I dare You," I whisper.  

Much like a father, He knows what I need.  The dove and the lilies tattooed on my shoulder remind me of this -- and your Heavenly Father knows you need these things... 

It would show up as light, you know.  Light would rise, peace would come.  

~

Pregnancy has been one of the greatest teaching tools.  Teaching me to trust and to hope.  Taught me about resilience and my ability to take care of myself.  Teaching me humility -- which, hands down, is my least favorite, recurring lesson.  And teaching me about healthy pride and confidence.  

I have fought for myself and my son.  I will continue to do so.

I have shut doors I previously did not have the strength to shut.

I have solved problems I did not previously have the wisdom to solve.

I have endured criticism and betrayal and abandonment I would have not been able to withstand before.

I have thought less about myself and more about those around me (most of all, the little one inside of me) -- and I have taken the necessary steps to make life happen.

Because life has not been lost.

Life has been created.  It is growing.  

If you could spend five minutes in my head, you might go crazy.  The thoughts are wild and unruly -- illogical and hopeful all at the same time.  My ideals have been questioned.  My judgement has been proven.  I have been tested...

And I have come forth as gold (Job 23:10).

We all make mistakes.  I am learning how to forgive myself and others for them.  

My goal has become to never make the same mistake twice.  And although I haven't achieved that goal yet, I have become more honest with myself in this process.  

When I am faced with fear and uncertainty -- about the future, or about where I am going to find my next meal -- I am more consistently able to reach deep within and find the peace I asked for.

The peace that comes with strength.  The peace that comes from not relying on yourself.  The peace that comes with being different than the rest of this world.  

I sift through, on a daily basis.  What is expected of me, what is asked of me.  What I am called, what I answer to.  The questions that I am asked, and the questions I choose to answer.  I am learning how to choose.  And choose well.

~

I haven't had to revisit that prayer.  

The peace remains.

homing pigeons

I sat on the carpeted floor and cried.

Twelve hours of moving at seven months pregnant, in the hot June heat, and I was done.

The kind of done where all you can do is sit on the floor.  Boxes piled around.  The unfamiliar smell of a new apartment, the shadows of unpacked boxes, the echoing noise of unfilled space.  It was time for bed, time for rest, and I didn't know where I should go.

In between here and there.  In transition.  In the very middle of things (in medias res).

The only logical solution was to cry.

And with the tears, the new apartment was initiated.  The new place would be privy to my rollercoaster of emotions, the sweat and tears of this dramatic and difficult season of my life.  It welcomed me then, in all my saltiness.

Olivia sat next to me on the floor.  Rubbed my belly, hoping Judah would kick.  Rubbing my back, playing with my hair -- curly and sticky from the heat.  "This will be a good home," she said.

I had a deep sense, then, as I looked around.  The deepest kind of knowing, like a blatant foreshadowing of what's to come.  This was home.  I would have to build it.  I would have to break it in.  I would have to introduce it to all my dysfunction and all my worries and all my flaws.  But life was about to happen here.

I had chosen well.

~

Larry brought Judah's crib into the new apartment the next day.

He sat down for a minute.  Quietly said, "this looks like a good home to me" before heading out the door.

I felt a sharp pang of melancholy as the door shut.  Looking at the box with the disassembled crib, I was acutely aware of whose job it really is to put such things together.  Painfully aware of who was supposed to take on that role...

And who wouldn't be there to do it.

~

Yesterday I texted Larry and reminded him that, once again, I'd come full circle.  

You see, the Vaughans used to live on Redding Rd.  

Some of my earliest memories are sliding down a snowy hill in a baby pool and having a big German Shepherd dog pull us back up to the top of it, only to slide down again.  I remember an old man we called Brud and his dog named Hanna.  And we all lived there on Redding Rd.

Full circle.

I am back at one of my starting places.  

Larry mentioned that after leaving my apartment, he had taken a little detour.  And I smiled, knowing how much I am like my dad.  How much I need things to tie together, to make sense, to come full circle.  

Our family's old apartment, actually, is in the same place my sister and her husband now live.  When I mentioned this to Larry, his response was short and sweet.

"You all are like homing pigeons." 

~

Do you know what a homing pigeon is?  

A simple description is a bird, which can instinctually find its way home over extremely long distances.  

I sat there for a moment.  Just smiling.  Thinking, this may be the very best description of myself.  

The paths life has taken us down have been tremendously steep and winding, often unfamiliar.  

But I am not sure there is a single one of us who doesn't know how to find our way home.  

As far as we stray.  As much as we mess up.  As easily turned around as we have gotten... 

Our true north is home, and somehow we are guided by a deep, intrinsic sense of belonging.  

~

So I've returned to Redding Rd.  

Perhaps Judah's first memories will come from the same neighborhood mine do.  

And the cyclical, logical nature of this soothes and comforts me.  

In a sense, I have brought myself home.  

the last straw

I've been waiting.

Waiting for so many things.

In anticipation.  For answers and direction.

I'd been hearing and ignoring.  Like I so often do.

Aware of the truth -- painfully aware of truth.

Deceived by some false hope and chosen blindness.

Sometimes we hope it will get better.  And we hold on longer than we should.  Waiting, in our uncertainty.  Holding out, putting off, praying for change.

But I know.  My heart always knows.

The anticipation had been building.  Foreshadowing of affirmation, hung like thick fog every where I went.  There was a closure, waiting to happen.  And it was all in my power.

The only thing I hate worse than things out of my control, are things IN my control.

I don't ever want to make the wrong choice.

I was afraid of making a drastic choice, which might affect too much of the future -- too many of the days ahead in a negative way.  I was afraid of my own judgement, although it's rarely failed me.  I was afraid of what was irreversible.  Afraid of the permanent.

However, sometimes things change.

There is a shift.

And you tumble head first into a decision.

Or the final piece is added to the puzzle, and all the doubt and misgivings you've been feeling and sensing.... manifest.

The whisper you hear becomes a roar.

And it doesn't matter how long you ignored it before.  Now... now you hear.  Now you know.  No question.  Now.

The last straw.

~

Peace is what I seek.  

Throughout provision, throughout transformation, throughout all my hoping.  Peace is the goal.  To reach a place of perfect peace, and hold on for dear life.  

Peace that transcends all understanding.  

That is not only what I seek, but what I rely on.  

Call it a gut check.  Call it divine comfort.  

But when the peace comes, I pay attention.  

And when the peace is absent... when the peace is missing... I cannot rest.  I cannot settle.

~ 

So here it comes.  The coveted peace.  Surpassing all understanding and relieving me of a burden too heavy to carry.  

I caught my breath.  Filled my lungs.  As if for the first time. 

And then peace comes.  

With the wind.

A Moving On

There are days that come, which make us pause...

Perhaps we don't even anticipate them.  They are certainly not marked on the calendar.  They are not recognized, let alone celebrated.  But you wake up and write the date somewhere and it all hits you --

The nostalgia.

Days like these draw me directly into a state of reflection, far deeper than New Years Day ever could.

Today is not one of those days.  But the day is coming.  This week, actually.  And I find myself in a tailspin, enveloped in memories I thought I'd never even filed away.  Remembering little things, then insignificant.  Now, imperative to the story.

So much life can happen in a year.  Perhaps this is why we are subconsciously allowed to remember these obscure milestones, these subtle and subliminal reminders of how we do not stay the same.

~

Camp started this week.  I haven't seen most of my babies in a few weeks, if not months, for a multitude of reasons.  One of them being I work three jobs, am in school, and am currently semi-homeless.  But not really.  That's not really why.  

I haven't seen them because none of us know what to do with ourselves.  Since they're ten years old these children have no tact or verbal filters (most people don't ever fully develop tact or verbal filters ever, let alone in elementary school).  I never see them in a setting where I can sit down and fully explain about Judah.  Explain a baby is not something to joke about, to tease about.  Why I can't swing them over my shoulders anymore. Why I'm more tired, quiet than I have been in the past.  

The help I need to explain such things, is no longer there.  The support system I'd built over the past few years within the family just could not withstand this kind of life change.  I think I disappointed them.  Some of them.  I think, like most people, they are uncomfortable.  They don't have the answers.  Like a few, their response has been to withdraw.  

This time last year I stood with them, hearing God whisper about how His love is demonstrated through the small ones.  Hundreds of little hands and feet, inquisitive faces, and loud voices were the manifestation of God.  A God -- the God -- who had chosen to be quiet for so long.  

Last year I spent this same week with them.  We ended the week at a music festival, carting around teenagers who were skeptical of the "Christian rap" they were told they were going to hear.  We followed the fitted caps through the camp grounds, and found the back stage where any racial diversity at the festival had gathered.  

Some would say it was all downhill from there.  Donald might call it an inciting incident.  

I called it an active giving up.

And Jesus... Jesus just didn't leave.  

Some people want me to talk about how God redeems sin and how mistakes happen and we bounce back.  Talk about resilience.  Talk about recuperation.  Talk about forgiveness.  

But my mind and heart are so full of all I have learned in the past twelve months, all I can remember are the feelings.  All I can remember are the string of decisions and words.  The crash-course lessons in real life, real world.  

Over-stimulated is what I am.  

~

My son is rolling around, pushing on my diaphragm as I sit here.  Tomorrow starts the third trimester.  The last leg of this particular journey.  My head spins, thinking about how fast this has all happened.  Thinking about the million different ways it could have turned out.  Painfully, distinctly remembering a Saturday night five months ago and all the hell and hurt, which followed.

Thinking about all the times Jesus spoke to my heart about provision and grace and defiant love.  

And somehow I heard.  

Somehow in the midst of all the noise and confusion and hopelessness and lies, I still always heard His voice.  Saying, "we have no room for that, Anna.  You and I.  We don't have room for the shame and the guilt and the regret.  I'm not even letting that enter here."

The same way now, I hear Him.  

Whispering about how He cares about food and gas.  About shelter and student loan bills and overheating engines.  

"And if I care about those things," I hear Him say, "don't you think I care about Judah's father?  Don't you think I will provide something so important?  Don't you think I'm chasing after his heart, as hard as I have always chased after yours?"  

And I am quieted.  The complaints, the fears, the worries -- diluted, muffled by the protective, authoritative, powerful roar of King who has been standing up for me... His hand covering me, shielding me from the onslaught.  This whole time.

"Don't you think I know?"

This week, these particular days, cannot go without being recognized.  They are part of the process, part of the moving-ahead.  

To be able to move on to the next year, I need to face this week.  

Because in twelve weeks, maybe fewer, there will be a little boy here.  And instead of rolling around inside of me, he will be laying on my chest.  The things I'm worrying about now, then won't seem so serious.  

To be a better woman, a better mother, I have to face this week.  To face this week, I have to relive an entire year of my life.  I have to write my storyline, recognizing the moments I lost... and the moments I triumphed.  And how each one brought me here.  

That is, actually, what we should always do.  Whether the quiet milestone is a good one, a bad one, a secret one, or one, which passes by unnoticed.  Part of our process, part of the way we live, should be based in honest self-reflection.  And catalyzed by an intentional moving forward.  A moving on.

~

Sensory overload.  I am overwhelmed by an overplayed song, which characterized the summer of 2011.  Smells of $2 beer and sun tan lotion.  A whole lot of life, crammed into a few short months, flooding my memory like so much water.  

Of Haitian children and bare feet.  Sea sickness and thunder and lightning over the mountains.  Bruised backsides from hours on a rickety truck and sweet kisses and sweaty backs.  

Dark parking lots.

Station wagons packed with too much stuff.  Wind chimes.  

A dropped set of keys.  

A tiny studio apartment.  

The day of my sister's wedding.  

Trailing all the way, linked together, into the fall.  Into the winter.  

The muscles of my heart, my spirit, my character ripped only to regain strength.  Calluses form, hope seems lost.  Trust is harder to come by those days.  The games played, I recognized.  

And through it all, I still hear. 

Even now, I feel it all filing away.  Folding up.  Finishing up.  

I am not who I was.

I have not stayed the same.

And some... some still do not understand.  

Some even witnessed the evolution.  

Only I know the transformation -- the potential of what comes next.

Tonight I will love love you tonight /
Give me everything tonight /
For all we know we might not get tomorrow

little lion man

Meet my son.


This is Judah Nathaniel.


Tonight, I wish I had words.  But they're not coming.  I am unable.  


But he is kicking, wide awake now that I have stopped rocking him to sleep with my own movement. 


Tonight I am praying for his daddy.


And I am ready to see how this story will play out.  


One of his aunts sent me words tonight, to speak over him as we fall asleep.


"There will come a day, when mountains fall and the clouds grow dark. Seas fall into themselves and the sun will hide from its own light.  That will be the day you roar to all creation, awaking them, leading them, to your Father.  Your roar shall awaken the deepest of the seas and the highest of the mountains.  Assuring them of the power you have been given."