Good Grief: month 4

I don't have nearly as much control over my life as I thought I had. This is news to me.

I figured, get your education, you'll have some security. Work hard and be careful with money, and you'll be self-sufficient. Work on yourself and your marriage, and you'll be happy. We wanted to have several kids, and we were able to get pregnant easily. If I could have, I would have chosen the exact gender order I got. I understood these things didn't always work out for people, but they did for us. Not that I thought we were more deserving (probably less!), it was just our experience. In reconnecting with friends and college roommates I haven't seen in years, many learned this lesson ages ago through infertility, divorce, unemployment, wayward kids, health problems, etc.

At dinner with high school friends. We ate dinner at 4 
(with the senior citizens :), and four and a half hours later, 
finished up. I guess we had a lot to catch up on?

Soccer friends and college roommates

So, we have either no control or very limited control over some of the biggest factors in our lives: Life and death. Health. The economy. Husbands (luckily I got a good one!). Genetics. The job market. Teenagers :)

This is life.

I signed up for one more low-functioning pregnancy with Elle. She was born in November, a tiny 4 lbs. 12 oz., so I kept her home from church for 6 months because of the threat of RSV (she got it anyway at 6 months).

I would take pictures of her sleeping and couldn't get over how cute she was when she sucked her thumb.

I called her Puddin' because her cheeks looked like they were loaded with it. When I had fed her enough, she'd turn her head.

I potty-trained her, read my favorite childhood books to her, immunized her, and made sure she didn't have too much sugar or screen time.

I would dress her up for photo shoots around the house.

I loved hearing her awesome laugh as she slid down the front stairs or down the hill in the backyard in sleeping bags with Cam.

I would give her piggy-back rides to bed and taught her to pray at bedtime (mostly she would beg me to pray for her so she could suck her thumb and smell her blankey tag). I figured how to work around those two chunks of hair choppings while they grew back in—one where her bangs should be and one underneath in the back.

I would put her in time out and then watch her familiar tantrum—dumping the stair basket out on her way to her room and then kicking her door shut. I would wrap and re-wrap my scarves around her like sarongs because she wasn't satisfied that they were modest enough. On her bedroom floor, I would pick up 3 or 4 outfits she changed out of almost daily. I would watch her dance in her pink gymnastic suit or swimsuit costumes year-round.

I would crack up when she did her mean-girl growl and her ninja fight moves at the boys yelling "hi-YAH!!"

It was all a privilege, and I got that. I raised her for 4 years, 3 months, and 2 days. But that's where my mothering has to stop. And there is nothing I can do to change that. I put in all the effort and love and thought and time I could to be what I considered to be a good mom, but I don't get to raise her. That will have to wait until another lifetime.

"We're not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be."—C.S. Lewis

I'm reading a book about a family whose 5-year-old daughter was run over by her older brother in the driveway. Their father is a successful Christian ministry songwriter and performer. He wrote these words following his daughter's death:

"This is not how it should be
This is not how it could be
But this is how it is
And our God is in control

This is not how it will be
When we finally will see
We'll see with our own eyes
He was always in control

This is not where we planned to be
When we started this journey
But this is where we are
And our God is in control

Though this first taste is bitter
There will be sweetness forever
When we finally taste and see
That our God is in control"

—Steven Curtis Chapman

This is not how it will be. How I love that line.

Ultimately, I know we have control over the biggest factor in our lives—how we choose to respond to those events and circumstances. I just hope I can follow this counsel:

"Therefore, dearly beloved... let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed." —Doctrine & Covenants 123:17