As an introspective and emotional person, I have always found solace in writing. Growing up as the sixth child of seven in a very busy, and sometimes frequently always loud home, when I would lose myself in the chaos, it only took putting ink to paper to find myself again. I filled journals with my thoughts, poetry, tears. It was how I handled the difficult or major things. I never felt much of a need to write down my feelings otherwise. This practice served me well as I grew, and I carried it into my adult life. As I contemplated marriage, had babies, moved. As my husband lost jobs, I lost babies, we lost family... I wrote.
Writing is my outlet. Whether it’s good writing or not, gibberish or coherent, it allows me to freely and safely express myself, my deepest longings, thoughts and fears. Through it I unpack, sort through and face it all, and I am more apt to transition to a place of healing from the painful things, or a better understanding of anything major. Writing out what’s in my mind and heart has always been much easier than speaking it, and has served as the means by which I am able to process life as I see it.
This past December I had my seventh baby. I was three and a half weeks from my expected due date and suddenly was facing high blood pressure, HELLP syndrome and an induction. I had a scare an hour after my baby was born where I was unresponsive for some time, and in that time I had somewhat of an interesting experience I am still trying to understand. The whole twenty-four hour + event left me raw, exhausted to my bones, and completely unable to process anything the way I normally would. Moreso, I was unable to write. Anything.
I was quite numb for the first two months after. Emotion spilled out less than a handful of times, briefly, but even then I could not write. I remember lying in bed one night, balancing my baby on my legs, staring at her and crying. She had just recently become less of a stranger to me, and I was marveling at her beauty, our growing bond, and the grace of God. It was one of only a few times I had been able to look at her without numbness at that point.
It wasn’t until the next day or so that I realized something. I had been striving for several weeks to somehow write an article about my labor that I didn’t remember, and I had been completely unable to. I’d start, then stop. Erase it all. Begin again. There were too many holes, too many gray areas. There was too much I felt but couldn’t express. Too much sifting through murkiness, only to end up with hands as raw and empty as I felt inside. I was grieving hard the fact that I could not write, that I couldn’t go through the process I normally do. I hadn’t been able to journal at all about it, and could not take from that what I needed to write the article. What I realized was that the Lord had been whispering to me in various ways all this time to come to Him. To find my outlet in Him.
I didn’t have an ‘aha’ moment with that or even a great spiritual event afterward leading me to my state of ability to write. Nothing like that. It was a slow progression over the next week or so, realizing that though I usually prayed and wrote (and often wrote my prayers as my means of processing), this time, with this, the Lord wanted me to pray only. To come to rest at the foot of His cross and abide there for a time. I didn’t have anything I needed to be able to process otherwise and there was no way of obtaining it without that time with Him.
When I finally surrendered to that idea, putting aside my notebook and my laptop, something in me started to crack open. Whenever I felt any sort of pain or became aware of the lingering numbness within me, I consistently returned to Him. Again and again, I prayed and cried, and I felt reassurance dawn over and over, tip-toeing ever so gently into my heart. Pieces of the puzzle began to take shape, their smooth edges fitting just so with others. The ones that were still hazy with jagged edges unable to be clearly defined had to be set aside. I had to accept that I would never have the whole picture. But what I did have, I was able to take from. I was able to write about my feelings, my ordeal, and from there I was able to form the article I eventually ended up submitting to a magazine.
Now I am 14 1/2 weeks out from having had my precious baby. I don’t necessarily feel healed completely. But I do sense a shift in direction on my path. I suspect that in the next few weeks and months, more things will present themselves to me to sort through. What I went through was no small thing and I am learning more and more how dangerous HELLP syndrome is and could have been for me and my baby. Although I am more able to function and deal, some days are harder to grasp the light of than others. Some days still leave me somewhat raw. But I know that no matter what, any ability I have...to heal, to write, to laugh, to love, comes from Him and Him alone, and I am nothing...I can do nothing, even write my feelings...without Him.
Writing is my outlet. Whether it’s good writing or not, gibberish or coherent, it allows me to freely and safely express myself, my deepest longings, thoughts and fears. Through it I unpack, sort through and face it all, and I am more apt to transition to a place of healing from the painful things, or a better understanding of anything major. Writing out what’s in my mind and heart has always been much easier than speaking it, and has served as the means by which I am able to process life as I see it.
This past December I had my seventh baby. I was three and a half weeks from my expected due date and suddenly was facing high blood pressure, HELLP syndrome and an induction. I had a scare an hour after my baby was born where I was unresponsive for some time, and in that time I had somewhat of an interesting experience I am still trying to understand. The whole twenty-four hour + event left me raw, exhausted to my bones, and completely unable to process anything the way I normally would. Moreso, I was unable to write. Anything.
I was quite numb for the first two months after. Emotion spilled out less than a handful of times, briefly, but even then I could not write. I remember lying in bed one night, balancing my baby on my legs, staring at her and crying. She had just recently become less of a stranger to me, and I was marveling at her beauty, our growing bond, and the grace of God. It was one of only a few times I had been able to look at her without numbness at that point.It wasn’t until the next day or so that I realized something. I had been striving for several weeks to somehow write an article about my labor that I didn’t remember, and I had been completely unable to. I’d start, then stop. Erase it all. Begin again. There were too many holes, too many gray areas. There was too much I felt but couldn’t express. Too much sifting through murkiness, only to end up with hands as raw and empty as I felt inside. I was grieving hard the fact that I could not write, that I couldn’t go through the process I normally do. I hadn’t been able to journal at all about it, and could not take from that what I needed to write the article. What I realized was that the Lord had been whispering to me in various ways all this time to come to Him. To find my outlet in Him.
I didn’t have an ‘aha’ moment with that or even a great spiritual event afterward leading me to my state of ability to write. Nothing like that. It was a slow progression over the next week or so, realizing that though I usually prayed and wrote (and often wrote my prayers as my means of processing), this time, with this, the Lord wanted me to pray only. To come to rest at the foot of His cross and abide there for a time. I didn’t have anything I needed to be able to process otherwise and there was no way of obtaining it without that time with Him.
When I finally surrendered to that idea, putting aside my notebook and my laptop, something in me started to crack open. Whenever I felt any sort of pain or became aware of the lingering numbness within me, I consistently returned to Him. Again and again, I prayed and cried, and I felt reassurance dawn over and over, tip-toeing ever so gently into my heart. Pieces of the puzzle began to take shape, their smooth edges fitting just so with others. The ones that were still hazy with jagged edges unable to be clearly defined had to be set aside. I had to accept that I would never have the whole picture. But what I did have, I was able to take from. I was able to write about my feelings, my ordeal, and from there I was able to form the article I eventually ended up submitting to a magazine.
Now I am 14 1/2 weeks out from having had my precious baby. I don’t necessarily feel healed completely. But I do sense a shift in direction on my path. I suspect that in the next few weeks and months, more things will present themselves to me to sort through. What I went through was no small thing and I am learning more and more how dangerous HELLP syndrome is and could have been for me and my baby. Although I am more able to function and deal, some days are harder to grasp the light of than others. Some days still leave me somewhat raw. But I know that no matter what, any ability I have...to heal, to write, to laugh, to love, comes from Him and Him alone, and I am nothing...I can do nothing, even write my feelings...without Him.
