This is sort of a continuation of my previous post. I currently have so many blog ideas pouring into my mind these days it's hard to decide which one should come next. I want to start out by apologizing for any typos or bad grammar. As a busy mom of an almost three year old I have only enough time to write and proof read once. These posts won't be perfect, but they will be an outpouring of my heart.
I woke up a few mornings ago with this saying in my head, "Grasping for gain" and I knew it was a word to me from God. That's how God typically speaks to me, it's usually while I'm sleeping. I'll wake up with a voice or thought in my head that seemingly comes out of nowhere. Sometimes it's something I've read or heard somewhere and sometimes it will be a completely new and unique concept. If God speaks to me, He typically does so through rest.
"Don't grasp for gain beyond what is a gift from God." It has taken me days to remember where I first heard this concept, I've been reading through old prayer journals because I knew it was a prayer I had prayed often, "Lord, help me not to grasp for gain beyond what is a gift from you." I pulled out a journal from 2006 and realized that my prayer life during that time was so beautiful. It was a collection of prayers and spirit filled concepts I had heard or read mostly from writers like John Piper or other spiritual leaders who were "Desiring God." In 2006 I didn't yet know the painful loss of a pregnancy or the devastation of infertility and my heart was so pure and so full of love and peace.
I remember almost walking away from my faith circa 2010/2011. I had been suffering from "unexplained infertility" post miscarriage. I had come to the conclusion that a God who would allow me to suffer so painfully was not a God whom I could worship. I felt forgotten, abandoned, unseen and worst of all...hated. How could He watch me "wait on Him" for so long and not answer my prayers for a baby? We were considering fertility treatments and adoption but at the time I was in so much pain and darkness that I knew I couldn't aggressively go after being a mom until my heart was at peace.
I was wrestling with God for the first time in my life. Growing up I knew (and was taught) that God was love, that He provided for those in need, that He answered prayer, that He was faithful and just, that He performed miracles and that He blessed those who were desperately seeking Him. I had been faithful to Him, I was serving Him in a myriad of ways, I was desperately seeking Him, why wasn’t He opening my womb? I want to say that I suffered like Job but I didn’t. I am not a Job. I am a Jacob.
I remember I had decided to become an atheist. I was not speaking to God. I had actually begun talking bad about Him to other people. I don't remember exactly what happened here, but I remember being in the room that is now my art studio and I was reading something or listening to something and somehow became very aware of God's presence and His power to take a person out if they angered Him. I remember it had something to do with Jacob wrestling with God. I felt like I heard God’s voice say to my spirit, "Sit down and shut up." It was one of those slap-in-the-face moments you see on tv where someone is freaking out until they get smacked in the face and then they are finally quiet enough to hear what the sensible other person has to say.
I remember being led to pick up my bible and read it. Pre-infertility my mornings were full of bible reading and prayer but post infertility and pregnancy loss my bible sat on the table collecting dust. I don't remember how I was led to read Numbers but I did and it was all about the Israelites being led out of Egypt by Moses. They had been told about the Promised Land but it was taking so long and they got tired of waiting on God and they started creating and worshiping idols. They stopped being faithful. Because of this God was going to take them out, He was going to end them. Moses pleaded with God not to do this, He told them that if He did, His reputation would be ruined. He begged God to spare their lives. God agreed to spare them but said that not one of them would live long enough to enter the Promised Land, or the Land of Milk and Honey. I decided in that moment that my infertility was like the Israelites wandering in the desert and that if I didn't stay faithful to the Lord I would miss out on my Milk and Honey. Someone once told me that the land of Milk and Honey was a land of plenty. I wanted my land of plenty! I had suffered enough, I wasn't going to miss out on my land of plenty too! I decided in that moment that I would reluctantly stay "faithful" to the Lord...because I wanted my Milk and Honey.
The years that followed were full of Milk and Honey! Trips to Paris, expensive shoes and handbags, time to paint and write and sit. Everything was plentiful time, money, love, life. I felt like finally I was blessed. I didn't have kids but I had everything else a girl could want (Celine bag, anyone?) and I was happy. I had remained faithful to God and didn't go rogue, worshiping other idols, right?
I remember when we bought our house in the Hamptons I had a feeling like God was finally fully making up for the fact that He didn't give me children. He owed me big! I was childless but I was blessed in other ways . God had given me my dream house and I planned to enjoy my Milk and Honey and eat it too!
We all know how this story goes. At the time that we bought our house I was vaguely aware that something was different in my heart but I didn't care. I knew that my Love for God and others had dried up and that I had changed but I just thought that was part of the suffering. It came with the territory. I fully accepted that I was a sad, broken hearted, barren, artist who would live out her days alone out in the woods creating art in solitude. Other people's suffering was their problem, not mine. I was doing all that I could just to survive my own and I couldn't be bothered.
And then I got surprisingly and miraculously pregnant.
Suddenly all of the things (idols) that I had created and acquired in order to soothe my broken heart weren't working anymore. I had a high risk pregnancy and a premature delivery and all of the the things I had started doing to survive the condition of my heart weren't working anymore. I could no longer do my drugs to the extent that I needed to feel ok...painting, drawing, writing, gardening, traveling, shopping, these were the things that were the breath in my lungs. Suddenly I didn't have the time or the ability to do them anymore to the extent that I needed them. They had become my magic elixir, I would use these things to numb my pain and to take the edge off and suddenly my supply dried up and I was going through hard core withdrawal...and I was angry.
I was so angry that loved ones and strangers alike started telling me so. Often I would hear the words, "I can see you're angry." My Mom, my therapist, my husband, my best friends, a stranger who prayed for Seth & I at church one Sunday morning they all said how angry I was. Some of them thought I needed medication. There were ideas thrown about of postpartum depression, PTSD, etc. It wasn't hard to see it. I was PIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIssed.
I had a spinning mind, a palpitating heart, a chaotic spirit, and an angry soul. We were stressed, we were exhausted, we were burnt out, and we were overwhelmed. Life as we created it, on our own, without the presence of God, was not working. It was unmanageable. It was too much. We started fighting and couldn’t stop.
One night I was driving out to the house by myself listening to Shauna Niequist's book Present Over Perfect and she said, "What barns do you need to burn down so you can see the moon again?" I started sobbing. I knew that my barn was the house. The house that we bought to escape, to recover, to live to laugh, to love, to rest and to enjoy (The Promised Land) had become nothing but work and toil and frustration and burden and strife and darkness and sleepless nights and exhaustion Nothing we did succeeded and I could no longer see the moon. My wisteria vines never bloomed. The deer ate my roses and my hydrangeas and my rhododendrons. The giant pool we bought we never got to enjoy much because we had a newborn and then a toddler. I spent six months in court because of my shrubs (another blog for another time). We never got to spend money on the exciting things (aesthetics) because all of our finances went to fixing the unexciting things (oil tanks and pool heaters and evergreens and rotting decks). I know that if you're a home owner you are reading this and thinking that this is all normal but you're going to have to believe me when I say that this combined with God's presence is normal but this without the presence of God is a curse. I had planned to raise my son in that house and have him attend school around the corner. I had a whole big plan for live's out there in The Hamptons but I knew in that moment in the car that God was redirecting us and that we were going to have to sell the house. It took about two years for Seth to catch up to me in that regard because all of the financials that go along with letting an investment go prematurely. It’s complicated. But one thing was certain, life in the Hamptons for us was a "bag of rotten groceries."
We had entered the promised Land without the presence of God. We had grasped for gain beyond what was a gift from Him. He was not in the purchase of our house nor was he in the days and the years that followed. Everything felt off and wrong but we had no idea how to fix it.
I'll mention it again that when our pastor prayed over us for healing last weekend I had an instantaneous heart and soul healing. I told my husband last night that when we drove away from the retreat on Sunday and stopped for lunch I felt like scales had come off of my eyes and I could see people for the first time in years and years. I could SEE people, really see them. The way I used to see people before my suffering and all of this grasping for gain. I told my husband that I had been healed. Not pre-house healing. Not pre-pregancy healing. Not pre bed rest and NICU healing. Not pre-postpartum healing. Pre INFERTILITY healing. This healing dates back to 2009. I don't mean I sorta got healed. I don't mean I partially got healed. I mean I got heal healed. My chains are gone. I'm set free. I'm back. (I will fill you in on the miraculous healing that is going on in our new church at another time, another blog).
Isaiah 50 says that if we ask God for fire and He doesn't give it to us that He will allow us to light our own fires but that misery will follow. Oh God, forgive me for lighting my own fire, for grasping for gain beyond what is a gift from you. I release my grasp, I let it all spill out all over the floor and on to your feet.
I went out to the house a couple of days ago by myself to work on this painting which was part of an art lesson series I've been taking with Russian watercolor artist Sergei Kurbatov. Our real estate agent is hosting a slew of open houses this week and I squeezed some time in there to focus on my work. I was up late at night and I took a break to go outside for fresh air to look at the stars. For the first time since we bought the house my mind was quiet. I was filled with peace. The air was still. My heart was at rest. My eyes were bright and I was full of hope. It’s so interesting that I bought the house to find peace but that I didn’t find true peace until I gave it up.
Originally I was heart broken that we had to stay in New York City and that our home base would be this apartment rather than the house. But I know that we are now living within His will for our lives and that "for such a time as this" He has plans for us here.
I have released my grip on gain and I have entered the true Promised Land. This new, true Promised Land is a land of plenty. Plenty of pasture. Plenty of peace. Plenty of rest. Plenty of love. Plenty of hope. Plenty of joy.
Stay tuned...
KSW
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