Keys to Old Places

October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. Today, 1 in 4 pregnancies will end in loss and 1 in 8 women will have difficulties getting pregnant. I never thought I’d be apart of that statistic.

Two years ago today I lost my second baby as we moved into our recently purchased first home. Here’s a little glimpse of my journey since then as I now, two years later, prepare to bring my first-born son into the world.

October 10, 2020 :

Beaming with excitement, we covered the walls to our very first home with paint and dreams of what these corners would hold. There was a very tiny beating heart hiding within the secret place of my womb, and we merrily spread our tent pegs to make room for his or her growing life. I kept peering into what we would continue to call the baby room as we prepped and painted from top to bottom the home that would hold us in the few years to come. It was as I spread crisp white paint across the canvas of our master bedroom that I felt the gushes of hope deferred like waves crashing over me; crimson red. After cleaning up in the restroom, I came back to our empty bedroom, collapsed on the floor, and wept. Because this was not our first loss, it brought with it questions of if this home would ever be filled with our baby’s cries and laughter. Instead, to my dismay, it would be filled with the cries of a mother void of a child to hold in her arms.

October 10, 2022 :

We never stopped calling the baby room just that - the baby room. We hoped and hoped that one day it would be. I spent many hours in a room awaiting its fulfillment, as earnest in prayer as Hannah longing for a son. Two years later, and in juxtaposition, my womb is full but the room is still empty, awaiting new owners with new dreams of promises to come. Within those two years lived in those walls, in the same bathroom where life was lost, two lines would appear on a pregnancy test, and alas, a promise fulfilled would grow and flourish in a mother’s womb. But this father and mother would continue to venture forth, expanding spiritual tent pegs instead of physical ones and selling their first home that never heard the cry of their little one being brought forth into the world.

Fulfillment often appears different than we can simply imagine with the mortal eye. We long to build home, God longs to make his home in us. We ache to bring forth the fruit of our womb, he longs to see his life replicated in us. We long to extend our tent pegs, to hear the pitter-patter of children’s feet run through this home we have prepared, and yet our Heavenly Father prepares a different kind of home and legacy for us. And we, clinging to the Father, bend beneath wave after wave, allowing his Truth to change us, preparing us for an eternal home not made with mortal hands.

So as this body grows and adapts to make room for a child soon to be born, I must make room in my life for God’s seed to take root and be formed in me. It will inconvenience me. It will be uncomfortable at times. My own body will look and feel foreign as more and more of his life takes residence in mine. And we will surrender our idea of home as we follow the Maker and make his presence our dwelling place. We surrender keys to old places, give him our “yes” once again, and follow him who is simply worthy of our everything.

He is the seed. He is the promise and the promise keeper. He is our home.