Strange grace

Warning: melancholyish musings. Recently came across this, which I wrote shortly after miscarrying the baby who’s been particularly on my mind of late, as he would have turned one this month.

My reflexive reaction to the simultaneous discoveries of my pregnancy and miscarriage shows that I have in fact learned nothing at all. Children of the Heavenly Father, I confess with my mouth, but...but…

But it’s not fair, I shouted heavenward, as the initial shock wore off. I lost him before I knew I had him! I didn’t even have a minute to be happy before I was sad! He was never mine!

I never got to feel his squalling, squirming warmth against my skin; never had him burrow and shudder happily in the instant postnatal recognition and quiet contentment of knowing his mother. He was so small when he died that, like most women who miscarry, I never got to feel him move, never had the satisfaction of knowing when he was awake and lively, or whether he had the hiccups. My especial reason for complaint was that I never had even a day of that peculiar maternal joy of being the only one in a crowded room who knows about the secret world within. He was never mine!

No. He was never mine.

Nor are my living children mine. Praise God; they too are safe in His hands. Neither is my life my own. Praise God; it is hidden in Christ.

My perfect idiocy of somehow attaining two months of pregnancy unawares was, after all, a blessed idiocy. Even in that, I can say, with scarcely a stutter (most days), “Blessed be the name of the Lord.” God is good. How could I say otherwise, when I search the faces of my living children, and know that I will one Day, in a world made new, trace their likenesses in another child as well?

Learning to love a child only through the losing of him—this is a strange grace indeed.

Clarity, charity, verity

But anyone who understands in the Scriptures something other than that intended by them is deceived, although they do not lie. However, as I began to explain, if he is deceived in an interpretation which builds up charity, which is the end of the commandments, he is deceived in the same way as a man who leaves a road by mistake but passes through a field to the same place toward which the road itself leads. But he is to be corrected and shown that it is more useful not to leave the road, lest the habit of deviating force him to take a crossroad or a perverse way.

Augustine, On Christian Doctrine XXXVI.41

Be still, my skeleton, the Lord is on your side

So, the other day I went to bed pregnant, only to wake up Mondo Pregnant. KABOOM! Thus did I especially appreciate today's Collect, which read:

Heavenly Father, as You know us to be set in the midst of so many and great dangers that by reason of the frailty of our fallen nature we cannot at any time stand upright, grant to us such strength and protection as may support us in all dangers and carry us through all temptations.

I love it when the Collect so pointedly addresses my problems. Yes, I was designed to carry a baby the size of Delaware in my belly, but to stand upright while doing so? That, my friends, takes Divine intervention.

And that's all I remember about it

A while ago Dad and I watched one of those loud movies with guns and cars and men and a plot I can't follow. At some point, a man with a gun standing by a car motivated some other men with guns standing by cars by telling them that if they didn't do what he wanted them to do, he would see to it that they were assigned work which required them "to touch s*** with your bare hands."

Wow, that would be really awful.

Why chicks are crazy

The merest beginning of the Odd Socks Box.

Extraordinary

The people who say, "A few women did it!" never mean that just a few women should do it.

Expect only good from God in every situation

During a recent meeting, my Father Confessor made available to me the "Preparation for Confession" questions based on the Ten Commandments. Although such a sophisticated Christian as myself knows her sins well, it had been a while since I'd looked over the questions. Shockingly, I ran into this: Do I expect only good from God in every situation?

Ahem. No. Well, yes, in some very pious, spiritual way. But not when it comes to this rotten afternoon and the grinding noise from the dishwasher and my achin' back. Not when it comes to thinking about what an EPT with two lines would mean (less the immeasurable gift--that old thing). Not when it comes to my fear of something much worse than the normal wear of a pregnancy. Not when it comes to my worldly-wise impulse to quit while I'm ahead, to take my five healthy kids and still functional body and tragedy-free procreative history and run.

So there it was, another sin to confess, another infidelity of which to repent. Expect only good from God in every situation--no matter what has happened to me before, no matter what I've heard about happening to other people, no matter that as a Lutheran of Lutherans I am an excellent theologian of the cross and know better than to think God will conjure me a sparkly pink Panzer if I trust him enough. The theology of the cross does not mean that I should cry all night about the mud pie I'm going to make myself for breakfast. What sick freak eats mud pies when she hasn't even bothered to check the pantry for Cheerios?

Do your worst, kid

I've found it cost effective to make flannel crib/toddler bed sheets, in which I believe firmly for the winter months, but not regular cotton ones. However, I was forced to make an exception despite the expense (Walmart clearance: not actually that great) for this most felicitously colored of cottons:

(Crayola classic yellow shown for perspective.)

Day's end

At the end of the day, I’m never quite sure whether I am depressed by how little, or impressed by how much, I’ve managed to accomplish. Whether I’m down about the mess in the kitchen or congratulating myself on the homemade loaf on the counter, I return again and again to the richness of Starck’s parents’ prayer. Some dark days, some long nights, my weary petitioning gets no farther than “O Lord, Lord, in all my efforts, do Thou perform the most efficient part.”

In no area of my stumbling efforts is this petition—this promise-- more desperate, more crucial, and more comforting than when I consider the End of the Day.

O Lord, Lord, in all my efforts, do Thou perform the most efficient part! Regardless of what has or hasn’t been crossed off the to-do list; even if I get no farther in my devotions-- Satis est, and Soli Deo gloria.

Live liturgically, or else!

Or else you'll be bored. Thanks to Katy for helping us out at her new blog, The Church Year In the Home.