New every morning

Today marks 11 weeks and 6 days with our new baby and it looks like I will have the immense blessing to wake up tomorrow morning with my round belly still full of life. Maybe we will get to keep this baby.

I've been eagerly awaiting this gestational milestone and dreading this day all the same. I have spent much of this pregnancy grieving my last, fixated on the baby that should already be swaddled in my arms, still haunted by the horror of delivering her into a cold apartment toilet. Though I love our new baby just the same, I have largely and intentionally pushed away my mind's wonderings of who he or she might be, too afraid to dream too far. Miscarriage and subsequent pregnancies can be cruel on the mother's mind: celebrating the new baby feels like forgetting or replacing the last babe-- the flesh of my flesh, the child whose heart beat within me. But focusing on the sorrow of losing a child seems to steal from the immeasurable joy, hope, and love of another child.

 

On that terrible night last February I listened to a song (for hours on end) by Audrey Assad that seemed to express my prayers when I was left without words. (You may remember a journal entry that I shared on this blog about the song.) The lyrics go like this:

"Lover of my soul/ even unto death/ with my every breath/ I will love You. Lover of my soul/ even unto death/ with my every breath/ I will love You. In my darkest hour, in humiliation, I will wait for you. I am not forsaken. Though I lose my life/ though my breath be taken/ I will wait for You. I am not forsaken." 

I listened to that song again this morning remembering Dot, the feelings of forsakenness, and the long, long wait for this baby. Many nights my prayers felt like laments straight from the book of Psalms. "How long, O Lord? How long?"

Then, almost as a conclusion to my lament and a conclusion to this first trimester, the lyrics of another one of Audrey's songs began to play:

"In the beginning you hovered over the waters. You broke an unbroken silence. You spoke light into darkness and there was light. In the beginning we were made in your image. We were naked without shame til we fell for the darkness and there was night. Your mercies are new. Your mercies are new. New every morning."

We are so grateful for the ways in which God has breathed life into our souls and for all four of our children who were created in His image. 

I will wait for you. I am not forsaken. His mercies are new.