Four Months.

Wow...four months already? Four months so soon? It's hard to believe that it's been four months since I had her. Sometimes it seems like an eternity and yet sometimes it seems like just yesterday.

One of our priests at church has been transferred out of our parish to help at a retirement center for priests. Today was his last day. He was the priest who celebrated Mary Grace's funeral. It was sad. It's been four months and she's gone and now he's gone. Of course it didn't help that they played Eye Has Not Seen in church today. Here are the lyrics that touched me:

Our lives are but a single breath.
We flower and we fade.
Yet all our days are in Your hands
so we return in love what love has made.

What a beautiful verse, and yet such a poignant reminder of what we've been through. I like to think of us having returned Mary Grace in love to the Father.

Meanwhile I'm still waiting for new life around here... I don't feel like our family is anywhere near complete... but what if God's plan is that it is? What if it's just supposed to be me, Robert and Isabel? That's really difficult for me to accept. In fact, right now, I'm sure I don't accept that. And by that I mean, I will simply keep trying. It is discouraging to feel like a failure when I don't get pregnant month after month, and discouraging to keep losing babies when I do get pregnant...especially when they have all been random losses. I know we all want what we can't have, but is wanting more children to bless our family something that I can't have? Maybe. And maybe one day I will have to accept that it will just be the three of us here on earth.

And maybe God isn't done with my suffering yet. Because it is a type of suffering that women who have been trying to conceive for months go through. But I can keep my eye on the prize, and I can remind myself not to whine about not getting pregnant and not to despair over the losses that we've had...I can remind myself that my suffering has redemptive purposes when Christ uses it to help others.

So thank you Mary Grace on your four month anniversary, and my other little ones in heaven, for what you are helping Christ accomplish through me. And please ask Jesus to send us some baby dust to help us conceive a new little blessing.