8 Hurts.

8 years ago today everything changed.

I often find these night-before times challenging.

Tonight, it hurts.

Sam is 8 tomorrow. This time 8 years ago I was going into labor and I was ecstatic, scared, excited- so many things. Jas and I were busting to be parents, my pregnancy was a dream, the baby was healthy, I had dreamed of being a mummy and it was about to happen! I remember in all of these emotions, sitting on the edge of my bed that night and praying this prayer:

"Jesus, do whatever it takes to rid me of this anxiety, so that my children never have to suffer."

I didn't realise the answer to that prayer was 12 hours away, and I didn't realise just how much it would cost to see that prayer answered. I had an easier way in mind, just take the anxiety I had suffered all my life, away. In one big magic trick, ready... And gone. But Jesus loves me way too much to let me get what I want without the character and hard yards, and I am forever grateful for what has been established in my mind and heart as a result of His answer to prayer.

Something I struggle with most, is the loss of memory. I can't remember Sam being smaller than he is now. I can't relate to him ever being small. It is something you cannot explain unless you've experienced this condition. But I know I was there and that I loved him, and even if I was all there and experienced it fully, those days would be gone regardless.

Since moving, I live an hours drive from my parents. I was driving home from my parents today , and I had done the same trip the day before, but yesterday I was late and I was rushing. I couldn't remember what I was rushing back for but I had planned the entire day to be able to get from that place to this place, on time-intact.

Today, on the same drive, I had no idea what I was racing to yesterday, but yesterday it mattered! Not even 12 hours later and what was so very important in that moment, had passed. It was gone. All of the effort for yesterday, had no meaning or place in today. Sometimes it can get so easy to give the past way too much credit. Whether it was amazing, or horrible, it is gone. It's done with. The moment is over.

I realised then and there, on that boring drive on a road I have taken a thousand times, that in this moment, all value is held. Bella is humming, Sam is talking, I am pondering. The person driving next to me is living in their moment, possibly organising tomorrow, or relieving yesterday.

How much time do we spend in the past and the future? Because we are in neither of those places. We are here, now. Sometimes being stuck in the past and obsessing about the future can leave today a little neglected. Actually, a lot neglected. I spend a lot of time in the past, trying desperately to scrape for memories, and I spend a lot of time in the future wondering how my healing will play out, what kind of teenagers my children will be, how old my parents will live to. If I'm honest, I probably spend the majority of my time NOT in the present time. Places to go, people to see, bottoms to clean. I'm racing from one place to the other, organising tomorrow while trying to process yesterday.

Everyone says it, but life needs to be lived one moment at a time. Soaking in the depth of what is happening around us in that second. How long Bella's hair is, how big Sam's feet are right now, how oldish my Mum's hands are looking today ;)

These are the moments that, combined, make up our life.

So as I tuck Sam in, wipe the trickle of grief from my eye, and look on the wall at his baby footprints, I am reminded of all of the promises Jesus has given me along the way, and I hold tight to that day when I feel fully restored. And until that day, I will continue, in no strength of my own, to love who I can with what I have. Jesus suffered. So much more than the physicality of it all, He knows suffering well, so never feel alone in the darkness. He walks with you.

Here goes the eighth year of this journey. Hold tight, it's gonna get wild.

All my love xx

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