Finding Strength in Brokenness

Everyone one wants to believe that they are strong.  Strong enough to get through anything and come out better in the end for enduring through it.  Everyone wants the kind of strength that makes them beautiful and powerful and makes others feel stronger just by being around them.  I want this kind of strength.  However, I am learning this kind of strength takes time and more than time, it takes allowing yourself to be broken.  Three and a half years ago my strength was tested.  I was pregnant with my first child and from the moment I saw the plus sign I was in love.  By the third week, I was singing lullabies to me belly and trying to find the kind of mama I was going to be.  The kind I wanted to be.  It is weird how something that never was can be so much.  Our first baby left us much too soon.  And with that grief came a world of comfort, encouraging words, the wrong words, words that were a good effort.  And at the right time came gestures that just seemed to fit.  My mother in law mailed us a quilted pillow with the same pattern that she had made our wedding quilt.  There was no note indicating that it was meant for our baby or as a comforting gesture, but somehow we knew it was.  We placed the pillow on our bed and the comfort of our missed baby nearby.  Now that we have been blessed with more children, the pillow sits in the chair we use to rock our babies to sleep. 

A few nights ago during Elena’s 4-6am awakening, I rocked my precious girl to sleep against the pillow.  Being the gassy little stinker that she is, she spit up all over the pillow.  I laid my baby girl down and frantically began to scrub the pillow.  Before I knew it tears had filled my eyes and sadness in my heart.  I felt like any imperfection on this pillow would dishonor our first baby.  As I realized how I was reacting I took a deep breath and held my baby girl in my arms and kissed her cheeks and her eyes and her hands.  

Sometimes I think I fear being a horrible mother because I am afraid to fail at the second chance I was given with my son and my daughter.  Other times I am afraid if everything is perfect I am moving on too much.  Does that make any sense?  I LOVE my children.  I mean love them SO much.  They bring me such joy and I love being their mama.  But, sometimes I feel like someone is missing.  I wish they could have known their brother or sister, I wish I could know what he or she would have been like.  Would he have had Franklin’s silliness?  Or Elena’s strong will? 

I know that this is the type of situation that will make me the kind of strong person I want to become.  And I know that I have a lot of brokenness to endure.