God at work, part two: healing and a new ministry

part of what God's been working on in my heart these days is healing.  it's been a long process, and it's not over yet.  but the more i draw close to Him through prayer and reading scripture, the more i can truly feel Him binding up my wounds. 

i never realized until this year just how many scriptures are about the sorrows we all will experience here on earth and how, with God's grace and mercy, He leads us through the trials we face and we become stronger because of them.  i'm guessing that i never noticed them all because until this past year, i had never had moments where i truly didn't know how we were going to make it through each day; where waking up each morning meant we were another day closer to my son dying.  the promises to me in those scriptures were the only hope i had to survive the nightmare i was living.

and now when i re-read those scriptures, i am at peace.  comforted.  but i'm especially joyful, because my God did not let me down.  every promise came true.  and now i know, from experience, that He is absolutely trustworthy and good. 

and that, my friends, is where i began noticing healing in my heart. 

in the past couple of months, i've seen healing in my life in other ways:  i've held my first newborn that wasn't jonathan. my sister's baby, sophie, was born in march.  i found out that my sister was pregnant a day or two after i found out that jonathan would die.  i wasn't sure how i would feel about sophie after she was born, but to my surprise, i'm actually OK about it all.  i've even enjoyed being around her (and not in some i-want-to-steal-your-baby kind of way. in case you're wondering.)  but mostly, i know that jonathan fulfilled a purpose in his short life, and he did it well. and i'm proud of him; proud to be his mommy. i wouldn't want it any other way.  no other baby could fulfill what jonathan accomplished.

sweet baby sophie

i've also attended my first baby shower, which happened to be for my dear friend lindsey, who i occasionally mention in this blog and as you'll remember, she lost her baby gabrielle at 22 weeks. she's now due in a couple of days with her baby boy, luke. being at her shower was not uncomfortable for me at all, and i wouldn't have missed it for anything. my gift to her included about five baby items that i enjoyed handmaking for her.  and that's another example of how i know i'm healing:  it doesn't bother me one bit to make cute baby items for other people's healthy babies or for baby showers.

two of my favorite friends, cathy and lindsey

and that's why now i feel is the time to start using my sewing ability to encourage others who are walking a similarly difficult road as i am.  it's one of the two things i have in mind to do for jonathan's legacy.

it all starts with a story about my sewing room. 

about two years ago, when my sewing hobby was becoming a small business, i decided to turn one of our extra bedrooms into my sewing room.  some people have guest bedrooms, some people have dens or offices, and i've even heard of some people having man-caves.  so having a sewing room was like having my very own get-away room...and freed up my dining room again for dining.  but not that we ever use it for dining anyway.  (who does??)

so you can imagine my predicament when i became pregnant with baby number two (jonathan.)  i hoped he would be a girl so i could stick her in a crib in kate's bedroom and keep my sewing room.  and yes, i realize how selfish this is, but at this time i was busy, busy, busy and needed a place i could spread out and work.  and, i had my sewing room just the way i wanted it.  i know:  selfish.

when we were in my OB's office on june 22nd of last year, getting that fateful ultrasound, we actually found out that we were having a boy before our doctor discovered any problems.

i was in shock that i was having a boy.  i had been sick for several weeks, just like i had been with kate.  i just assumed because of this, i was having another girl.  and in that moment of shock, several things ran through my mind as i tried to grasp i was going to have a baby boy.  and one of those things, i'm embarrased to admit, was that i was going to have to give up my sewing room.

a few seconds later, my doctor discovered our baby had a cleft lip, a marker for a genetic disorder, specifically trisomy 13.

so, given what transpired in the days and months to follow, with the diagnosis of trisomy 13 and severe heart defects, and then jonathan's eventual birth and death....whether to keep a sewing room or make it into a nursery becomes completely, absurdly trite, doesn't it?  what i wouldn't give up to have my baby boy here, happy and healthy. 

well, in a horribly ironic twist of fate, i got to keep my sewing room after all, and learned a hard lesson in perspective through my circumstances.  i quit sewing for several months and canceled all my orders.  most of what i sew is for babies and toddlers anyway, so there was another reminder i didn't need during that time.

it wasn't until the end of september that i picked it back up, when i realized how sewing could be therapy.  when you sew, you focus and concentrate on every stitch, every cut, making sure it's precise.  there isn't much room to think about anything else, lest you make a mistake.  even at the end of my pregnancy, when i would sew, it was the only time i wasn't thinking about having a baby that was going to die.

seven months later, sewing is still therapy to me.  i'm back in the swing of things and people are having lots of healthy babies, so business is good.  but i also want to do something to honor the babies who have been diagnosed with a poor or fatal condition prenatally, and those babies who are born still or die shortly after birth.  i am completely convinced that each of these children have just as great a purpose in life as any healthy child, but with a shorter life span.  and as proven in jonathan's life, as well as many other babies who have died that i know of, God can take the least of us and glorify Himself the most.

more details to come.