A New Wave

I've heard it said that women who lose a child experience a physical ache to hold their child. I've never had kids, but I think I glimpsed a bit of that emotion last night. It came out of nowhere really. In fact, this whole week I had hardly even cried, and was a little bit suspicious of my own emotions that seemed to be so tame.

Then I decided to clear out the photos on my camera so that everytime I uploaded new ones I didn't have to delete the old ones. All of a sudden, as I was going through my old photos, ones like these...

...my heart just began to ache. My arms began to physically ache to hold the triplets. I can't really explain it and I don't really understand it, except that in that moment I felt one of the strongest physical and emotional aches I can ever remember. Maybe it's because we talked about transitional stress yesterday and our speaker talked about her own personal ache of leaving her nieces behind and how hard that was. Maybe it's because I'm fighting off sickness, so I'm just not feeling well in general. Or maybe it's just something my heart needs to feel. Perhaps I need to feel these emotions so that I remember...remember the ones I love so much that I leave behind. Remember to love on them from far away. Remember to lift them up to the Father every day and entrust them to His care, to know that His arms are never too far away to hold the ones I hold dear, and to hold me. He gathers the lambs in His arms and carries them close to His heart.

I think in some ways the emotions are starting to hit me now. It's not good or bad really, just inevitable. I think I felt especially lonely tonight 'cause most of my new friends were going to see a movie, but I had a sore throat and the aches so I stayed back and just rested. I was looking over the beautiful book my family gave me full of pictures from the last few years of friends and families and realized I hadn't read the notes my mom, dad, brother and sister wrote me before I left. But then I just couldn't bring myself to read them. I didn't feel ready to embrace that emotion yet, read those words that I knew would bring tears, even if they were good tears. I've never really experienced such a mixture of emotions before in my whole life - and though we've been told this week that this is normal - I guess I'm just learning to deal with it in waves. One wave at a time, or else it will knock me off my feet.

It seems right now the wave continues to involve the flood of emotions I feel by not being with the triplets and just the incredibly deep bond I had with them. Now, on the eve of the sabbath, I feel another wave - a wave of missing the body of brothers and sisters that mean so much to me. It's been a long time since I've missed OGC, I think. And tomorrow I will really feel that. I'm sure the time is coming too - probably when I can finally bring myself to read those letters - that the overwhelming wave of missing my family will hit me. I just don't think I'm ready for it yet.

Perhaps this seems like a downer. I really don't mean for it to seem that way. I guess the Father has always given me the "gift" of honesty and transparency, and as I continue on this journey, I want to give a true picture. There is incredible joy in the anticipation of what is ahead. I have been incredibly blessed by wonderful teammates and friends here. But there is another reality - the reality of leaving loved ones behind - the reality that there is sorrow in the midst of the joy, loss in the midst of gain, some tears in the midst of the excitement.

He knew it would be that way. And He meets me in both places. Paul said he was "sorrowful yet always rejoicing." I'm asking for that kind of heart as I ride the crazy, unpredictable waves of my emotions.