Love is a Choice — Wedded Wednesday

Love is a command, not just a feeling. Somehow, in the romantic world of music and theater we have made love to be what it is not. We have so mixed it with beauty and charm and sensuality and contact that we have robbed it of its higher call of cherishing and nurturing. I, Issac, Take Thee, Rebekah: Moving from Romance to Lasting Love by Ravi Zacharias

A few years ago, I heard Voddie Bauchum give a three-part sermon on marriage at Buckhead Church. (You can listen to it here.) It was chock full of good stuff — what he must be, what she must be — but one piece that stood out and has stuck with me the past few years is how he defined love. Voddie said: Love is a choice. It’s not a flight of fancy or romance or getting swept away. It’s a choice.

That struck me as important even when I was single. Now that I’m married, it feels vital.

I love my husband, not because he compels me to love him; or because a wing’d cupid made it so. I love him because I choose to love him. I chose him. Part of our courtship story that I haven’t written yet — but will — is that when he told me was moving back to Minnesota, only six weeks into our relationship, there were people who counseled me to cut my losses and move on. “You’ll meet someone else,” they told me. And, yes, I probably would have. But even that early, I knew I was in. I chose him.

And I choose him today, 17 months into our marriage. Sometimes I have to make that choice daily. Like when does one of umpteen things that drive me bananas. Say, for example, somehow someway not being able to tell that the silverware drawer is not, in fact, closed. As he, say I don’t know, grates cheese on the counter right above it. (How?)

Love is a choice. How are you choosing to love your spouse?

Named

While I do think about the miscarriage — of the baby we lost — every day, I’m mostly no longer sad about it. Well, not actively sad about it, anyway. But today I felt sad.

I went in for my annual exam today, and as I sat down in the lab chair for the blood pressure check (114/70, by the way; not great, but not bad), it took me right back to early summer, when I had to go sit in that chair week after week for blood draws to make sure the pregnancy hormone in my system decreased accordingly. (And let me tell you, it feels pretty unjust to suffer early pregnancy symptoms — heartburn, nausea, exhaustion — even after your pregnancy has ended.)

In the room catty corner to me, I could see a pregnant woman settling into the recliner by the Doppler machine. She put her feet up and flipped open a People magazine, waiting for the doctor or tech to come in and listen to her baby’s heartbeat. Whoosh whoosh whoosh.

Today it feels unfair.

Because of my faith, I do believe that the baby we conceived, the life that began within me, is not simply just gone. In the early days after, I dreamt about her a lot, and one night, she told me her name. Did she tell me, or did God whisper it in my ear, I don’t know. But I know it didn’t come from me, as her name is not one that was ever on any kind of list, nor is it the name of a family member or a friend’s child. I call her by name in my heart. I mouth it silently and hear it in my mind.

Some day I’ll meet her, the daughter I never got to see or touch. And I’ll say her name out loud.

In the Land of Infertility

There’s a scene in Julie & Julia where Julia Child reads in a letter that her sister is expecting. She starts to weep and says, “I’m happy for her. I’m happy, I’m happy …”

It’s a weird place to be, the land of infertility. You can be happy for others, while simultaneously sad for yourself. It’s odd. That’s not the right word, but I can’t think of a better one. I often can’t think of the right thing to say about any of this.

The emotional pain of losing a pregnancy happens in stages. My first post-loss hard stage happened in mid-summer, when other Feb 2010 mamas were heading into the second trimester and were publicly announcing their pregnancies. The next stage is now: the sex-of-the-baby announcements. I saw three today, between Twitter and Facebook. (Two girls and a boy, for the record.)

You’re happy — so happy — but still so sad for yourself.

Most days I’m fine. Some days I barely think about it at all. I will always carry the loss in my heart; but what I am struggling with most now is the unknown.

I just want to know — is it ever going to happen or is it not? Because if it’s not, I just want to know. I’ll be okay — we’ll be okay — either way. Of this I have no doubt. But getting to that place, it just sometimes feels like too much.

I read the other day that ectopic pregnancies occur in less than 1 percent of pregnancies. Less than 1 percent. But yet, thanks to the web, I talked with several women who also had ectopic pregnancies. And like Dr. Cox once said on Scrubs – statistics don’t mean anything to the patient. Because that less than 1 percent statistic happened to me. Trouble trying to conceive — as rare as it supposedly is — is happening to me. Statistics mean nothing.

The only thing I can think of to say, in navigating this land, is “it is what it is.” It’s something that we say a lot, because what else is there to say? It is what it is.

This Isn’t It

Ten years ago today, my childhood friend Kim Jones was shot and killed by a gunman who entered her Fort Worth, Texas, church during a youth group gathering.

She was 23 years old.

Six weeks before she died, she gave her first (and last) talk to a group of youth in the Middle East. (Where her parents were living at the time.) She said:

We are all just travelers, we are all just on a journey. And we’re heading for our home. I think sometimes we lose sight of that. And sometimes we start to focus so much on this world and we forget that God has said in His Bible that this world is not our home. We are strangers and aliens in this place. This isn’t it! And someday, this body of mine, it’s going to die, it’s going to pass away. And listen to this, this is the most amazing thing. We are forced to live out the rest of eternity based on the decisions that we make today.

And reading that again today reminded me that I am living for eternity. It’s something that I have been thinking about a lot lately, especially in relation to building our family. Sometimes — when I almost want to panic at the thought of always being childless — I have to stop and remember: this isn’t it. This is a blip. My life is but a vapor.

Someday I will be in heaven. I will be with my Savior. And will I be feeling sorry for myself because I never got to mother a live baby? No, I won’t. I will be worshipping The King, who dried every tear.

I cling to that some days, when this world gets me down. This isn’t my home. This isn’t all there is. This is just the warm up; the prelude; the beginning.

And that’s why while we mourn for our loss of Kim’s life, we do not mourn for her. She is home.

Fun at the Fair

The 2009 Minnesota State Fair concluded yesterday. It may be my most favorite thing about my new home state. Where else can you see baby animals, eat fried food and ride a chair lift all in the same place? And this year was extra special as my Atlanta friends Mary and Sarah came for the long weekend, and Sarah brought her now 12-month-old daughter Molly Beth.

You can click through any of these photos for more Fair pictures, or to leave comments on the Flickr images.

(All photos taken with Canon 5d and Canon 50mm f/1.4 lens.)