Sometimes God acts in a whisper and sometimes He acts in thunder. That day, December 1st, He acted in thunder.
For eight years now, I've woken up on December 1st, thinking to myself, "I shouldn't be alive." I shouldn't be here, making my kids breakfast, making doctor appointments, making dinners, arguing and laughing with my family, going through times of heart ache and happiness. I shouldn't be making this journey anymore; my time should have been done eight years ago on December 1st. I should have died at the age of 35; I should have a gravestone saying I died in 2009. My family should have celebrated eight Christmases and Thanksgivings without me. They should have all celebrated their birthdays without getting gifts or cake from me. I shouldn't have a place at the table, or my favorite throw on the couch that I use for naps. Dennis shouldn't still be sleeping on his side of the bed, or be asked to sleep on the couch because he snores. The kids should be getting school lunches, not home lunches, because Dennis hates making lunches. I shouldn't be here.
This is what rings though my head every year on December 1st. It is a mystery and miracle that I am alive. I do not feel sadness or any emotion other than awe on these anniversary. Awe that God acted so intentionally that day. Awe that I am still here.
When I was recovering, people would say to me, "God must have big plans for you!" And I looked for those plans. For years afterwards, I asked God, "What plans do you have for me?" Because it had to be big, for God to act so dramatically in my life. There had to be a reason why He would let me die just to bring me back in the same day. There had to be a reason. I needed a reason that I could attach this craziness to. I had to find a reason so I could say, "That is why He let me live!" And the mystery would be solved.
But nothing big happened. I continued to live my life and pretty much picked up where I left off. Still, I looked. Henry was born--and I thought maybe that was the reason. But it still didn't make sense. Why did the trauma of what I went through be necessary for me to have Henry? I would have had Henry no matter what. I had always been open to life.
The answer came quietly to me throughout the years. This is where God acted as a soft breeze, as a whisper--whispering the "big plan" to me in my ears through little snippets of my life. And yes, the plan is big--so big, that at times, I feel I can't do it. I need God to accomplish it.
To be a mom. To be a wife. To continue on with my vocation, but to embrace it. I had not fully embraced or even believed in my vocation as a wife and mother before my heart attack. I had always wanted to be something more. Even now, eight years later, I still struggle with "ordinariness" of my vocation. I struggle with embracing it. Because though it's rewarding, it is also a difficult vocation. To do the same thing every day, to be with the same people I love, every day. To be sacrificing, every day. It is hard. It is full of suffering--though with happiness and joy too. But the constant call to love, is hard.
The other day, Anna--my little heart attack baby, I call her--gave something up of her own free will to ease someone else's hurt. I was there when I saw her make this sacrifice and when we were alone, I asked her, "Did it hurt to do that?" She nodded yes. I told her, "Then you have loved."
And this is my calling, God's "big plans", to love. In His mercy, He spared me and gave me a little more time to try to get this thing called love done right. I have not loved freely, I have not yet loved until it hurt. I have not always chosen love. There are times--too many times--that I still choose me. I choose comfort, "me time", alone time. Loving can be very hard--those times to love when there is no reward is when love is truly love with no self-love in it. That is love. I haven't yet accomplished this love in my heart, so I'm very thankful for the extra time God has given me. It is humbling to be here, knowing that I'm not "ready".
I'm here to finish what I started. To live this life that God gave me to the very fullest and the very best that I can. Because when that time comes for me to die--again-- I too, will be asked, "Did it hurt?" And I hope that I can honestly say that the answer is yes.
Because then, I will know that I loved. And that I finally did what God set me out to do.
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