Epilogue

"In the midst of our grief and struggles, we were also living with an experience of special grace.. a sense of God's presence, as if the veil between the temporal and the eternal had been lifted."

I believe this is because so many of our friends and family were praying for us. People I didn't even know very well were praying for us.. God is closer to us when we are hurting, and I've never felt Him so close as I have during September and October. Everything I had one of my episodes, I could hear him almost audibly saying "trust me". Sometimes it would drive me crazy because I wanted to trust that he would give it back.

"At the same time, I was experiencing God's grace through friends and the sweetness of the Holy Spirit's presence, I was also just plain getting beat up  by grief, sometimes when I least expected it."

I guess this started happening in November. I was going back to the hospital every week for over a month for a blood test and every week I would get the call that the test was still positive. I joke that my body still wanted to be pregnant... but the truth is that with twins, your hormone levels are so much higher and it takes that much longer for them to go down. By the beginning to middle of November, my test was negative and the reality started to sink in.. More like it hit me like a demolition ball.

I had decided at the beginning of this disaster that I needed to spend more time with God.. The God I knew was full of grace so why would this happen to me?? Then I felt him  tell me that I needed to re-learn about Him. Turns out I didn't know him as well as I thought. I was picking and choosing what I wanted to believe. I was building my very own Creator. He would answer my prayers and bless me and al I had to do was talk to Him when i felt like it. The fear of God was non-existant. The whole "give and take away" didn't apply to me.

The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away;
Blessed be the name of the Lord.
Job 1:21

Out of these ashes
Beauty will rise
And we will dance among the ruins
We will see it with our own eyes
Our of these ashes
Beauty will rise
For we know joy is coming in the morning

-Steven Curtis Chapman's new cd "Beauty Will Rise" The whole cd is filled with psalms and prayers after the loss of his little girl who died tragically after being hit by a car driven by his son. This cd and his wife's new book "Choosing to See" have helped so much to understand pain and loss and choosing to believe God has a plan. I've quoted here a few times earlier because when I read these words, it was everything I was feeling put into words. I couldn't have said it better.. If you've experienced loss, you should read her book. It's not all sad.. it's also full of funny moments about their journey as the Chapman family.