Torn

I've been ruminating on this post for a while, but now is the first chance I've had to actually write it. Not to mention that God just reaffirmed the idea in my mind more today, prompting me to put thought to "paper". I am thankful for those good conversations with friends that remind me that one, I'm not totally crazy, and two, God is truly working on something. So here's my hopefully not totally crazy, God is truly working thought process.

Lately the best way I've been able to describe my emotions is torn. I feel torn between two emotions, two states of mind, two desires. In general it makes me feel slightly insane because the two conflicting emotions are so drastically at odds. They don't work together, they don't quite make sense, but they are both so very real. Here are some of my dueling realities:

I feel so incredibly torn between sorrow and peace. My heart is so tremendously broken over the loss of Hope; those moments of sadness are so intense and so hard to cope with. My heart aches and I wonder how my life will ever be the same again. But then I look at God and I experience peace, peace in knowing He's at work, peace in seeing His hand time and again, peace in trusting that His glory will win out. I don't truly understand how these emotions can co-exist, how I can feel anguished and broken, yet rest in knowing God is at work. How can I be striving so desperately in my heart to soothe the ache and still have a quiet in my soul knowing that God is with me?

I feel torn between emptiness and fulfillment. I can't explain how many times a day my heart feels hollow, empty. It's not just my heart either; I look at my stomach and I experience fully my empty womb. What was once full of life is now devoid of it. And yet I spend an afternoon with my husband, holding his hand, hearing his wise words, and my heart is brimming with love. I watch my family laugh and cry together and realize how satiated I am with affection and warmth. But the strange thing is that I can often feel both, simultaneously. My empty heart can throb but my eyes can also brim at the intimacy I share with others. How can I be full yet empty? How can I be filled up and still ache for more?

I also feel intensely torn between my own sorrow and others' joy. I wish I could explain the overwhelming despair I feel when I see another pregnant woman or watch other moms with their children. The deep grief I experience in realizing my lost opportunity, my lost moments, my lost journey is raw and unfettered. And I hate that feeling. I hate that I have a hard time even looking at a pregnant friend or family member. I hate that I have to avert my eyes or distance myself because the tears will start and not be able to stop. I hate that I find it hard to rejoice in others excitement, that hearing their new memories pains me so. But I am able to step back and recognize how joyous these events must be for them. I am able to hope for a beautiful, healthy baby and a rich life for their children. I could never wish my sorrow on any of these mothers. I am so very sad for myself and so bittersweetly happy for them at the same time. I live torn between my own grief and their rejoicing. I live in the in-between, pulled on by two desires, two very real truths. How can I weep and smile all at the same time?

I feel torn about grieving Hope and hoping for another child. I feel like my sadness is and should be very real for my little girl. I feel as if no other child will fill the place of beauty and wonder Hope brought to our lives. My heart believes that no experience could ever live up to the joyous and miraculous journey of being pregnant with my first, my little girl. And still, I feel that we must hope for another child; I feel like that would be the best way to honor Hope's name and what she offered to our world. I desperately want the experience again of discovering we're pregnant and dreaming of the life we might share with our child. Herb so wisely said that just because we're joyous about a new child, doesn't mean we will stop being sad about our Hope. But how is it that we can Hope and grieve in the same breath, in the same moments? How is it that we can love what we have and miss what was lost instantaneously?

Our thoughts and emotions are often at odds with one another. We can cry and laugh at the same time. We can love and hate someone in a given situation. We can be content and still dream of more. We have the God-given capacity to be both. I can only imagine how very torn God felt the day His son hung on the cross; what joy He must have known in reconciling His children to Himself, but what tears of sorrow He must have shed at the price that that reconciliation cost, His only son.

Maybe we are supposed to be torn, maybe it is part of living in this fallen world. We are able to know greatly the beauty of God's creation, His plan and His character, but we are also plagued with the knowledge of brokenness that sin brings to the world. We know both, we must live with both, and thus we should be torn.

I've come to terms with being torn, it is my reality for now, or maybe for always. Yet it is my hope that while I may be torn it will not be in a way that tears me from the arms of my loving Father.