Healing

The picture challenge today was healing.  Again, a timely one.

This afternoon I had a visit with a wonderful older lady from my church whom I recently met.  She is probably around 70, and is the wife of a pastor, just like me.  She had quite a difficult childhood with an abusive father, and living such a different lifestyle.  Part of her growing up years were spent in Brazil in a house with mud walls (which she helped build) and a thatched roof.  She is just the sweetest thing - and full of great stories.  After my husband and I had dinner with her and her husband a few weeks ago, I just knew I had to see her again.  So I arranged to go over to her place for tea. 

Though we have only just met, I wanted to share our struggle and journey of infertility with her.  I can tell she genuinely cares about me and something in me was just drawn to her.  So I told her about our story.  And you know what?  She really, truly understood.  Now she has 4 children, who are all grown up (and one of them was adopted) but she also has lost 4 babies to heaven through miscarriages.  With her first pregnancy, she was 5 month (FIVE MONTHS!) pregnant with twin boys, naturally.  This was her dream she said.  She told me that she remembers wearing a specific beautiful dress with a smocked top and her little belly popping out.  And then she lost them both.  What is worse was that NOBODY helped her through.  Nobody asked her how she was doing.  In fact, of the community she was a part of, she said it was like there was a big ring around her and nobody wanted to come near.  And so she suffered the pain in silence, all alone.  She knows what it is like to stand in church and hear a baby cry and see the mother rush it out and wish that it was your child.  She knows what it is like to be in public places and have a smile on your face, even though your heart is breaking inside.  She knows what it is like to long for something so much, and know you are not going to have it - at least in the way you always imagined. 

Hearing her story was healing for me.  She didn't always have an easy life.  But here she is, near the end of her life - and happy, fulfilled, joyful.  She prayed for me.  And I believe her prayer means something.  I believe all prayers are heard... but those of faithful, old believers are extra special to God above.  In her prayer she said, "Every young couple longs to hold a tiny baby in their arms, one that is theirs..." and I just felt such hope, like it just has to happen to us. 

On the way home, a song came on that has such strong lyrics that I just burst into sobs.   It's a Christian song - a hymn, but it tells the story of how we are not alone.  Here are the some of the words that spoke to me:

In Christ alone my hope is found,
He is my light, my strength, my song;
this Cornerstone, this solid Ground,
firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
when fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My Comforter, my All in All,
here in the love of Christ I stand.

No guilt in life, no fear in death,
This is the power of Christ in me;
From life's first cry to final breath.
Jesus commands my destiny.
No power of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand;
Till He returns or calls me home,
Here in the power of Christ I'll stand

Oh, and the photo for the day.  I asked my friend today what she does at home all day.  She showed me these.  She makes cards.  They are actually made of real flowers that she arranges and then copies on a fancy machine.  Aren't they so beautiful?  I just want to reach out and grab the flowers - they look so real to me!