Planting Season

I have a hard time keeping exciting news to myself. Dave knows this about me and thus, when we decided to "wait" for a while to tell everyone we were pregnant with our second child, he knew it wouldn't take long for me to spill the beans. Subconciously, I thought Dave was out to ruin my fun; I wanted to shout it from the rooftops immediately. Miscarriage was something that happened to other people, not to me. I was a victim of my own reproductive arrogance.

Later that night, a friend who just happened to also be pregnant, just happened to call and I can't remember how we got on the topic, but of course it came up somehow and naturally I had to tell her. By the time I reached my seventh week, I had told a handful of friends (only the ones that asked, of course), a lady at Amelia's gym, the principal of my school, my sister, my mom, my brother and someone in the checkout line of the grocery store. And then I started bleeding.

To make a short story even shorter, I am no longer pregnant. It's funny; I haven't had any trouble keeping this to myself. I haven't been able to bring myself to call even the friends with whom I had originally shared I was pregnant. Though, I did see the lady at Amelia's gym on Saturday and when she asked me how I was feeling, I had to fess up. I think I have begun to develop some perspective on the situation, and with that perspective, a bit of a paradigm shift.

I think this whole thing has made me realize that I have an unhealthy confidence in my own ability to control any situation in my life. If I want a new shirt for work, I go to Old Navy and buy one. If I want another child, well, then by golly, of course I'm going to get what I want. While this is obviously a false analogy, in the past few days I have begun to see that I have a sense of entitlement that I'm not wholly comfortable with. The relative comfort I have enjoyed for the past few years has caused me to forget that this world we live in can be a brutal, unjust place. And this rediscovered epiphany reminded me of something else I had forgotten: grace. All the beauty of my life, every joy, each moment of happiness is a product of grace. Nothing is a promise or a guarantee. Therefore every blessing is just that, a blessing; a gift- not something I deserve.

Amelia, my very independant 15 month old, in a rare moment of submission, let me sing her to sleep last night as she nuzzled on my chest. That's my grace. That's the most tangible way I can think to describe it. I have always worried a lot about losing what I have; about my plans not going the way that I want them to; about letting an unforeseen tragedy destroy my faith. But, strangely, because of this hole in my heart, I have found some new hope in this not-at-all-new-philosophy. May it take root and grow.