In Sad Times Like These

Dear Blog readers.

Thank you so much for all your cards, packages, emails, facebook messages and love and support these last few months.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted and when I have it has been about trivial things. Please forgive me. I often think, I should post. But posting means writing something and writing something means siting down and thinking and thinking tends to make me cry. For the first few months after Elijah passed all I wanted to do was cry. Isaac and I learned that if we kept it in and waited to cry then it would come in a mighty wave instead of a flowing faucet. So we cried whenever we felt we needed to. I remember the day when we hadn’t cried in two days. I remember thinking that coping was getting easier. Now just two days short of five months since he was born I’m still sad. Elijah was such a part of our lives, an active boy from just 12 weeks along that he was a regular part of our conversations. He would interrupt us with a kick or a wiggle. It’s not that we think of him less now but now he’s not actively involved in our lives. He has changed our lives, and continues to as we move through this phase of “getting used to what we didn’t expect”.

Life tends to happen that way, sending us something that we didn’t ask for and something we feel we are unprepared for. I guess that’s God’s way of showing us how strong, not only he is but how strong we can be with him.

The first year I lived in Africa I felt that God was teaching me that I could do big things. Now I’m realizing that I, (with the help of the Holy Spirit, Isaac and many others) can manage through big things. Not only can I start and accomplish big things but I can take those big things that come, uninvited or not.

I remember my parents having to say good bye to me at university and having to “let me go”. I feel that every parent has at some point in a child’s life to “let them go”. For Isaac and I our “letting go” was earlier than we expected. We never thought that the day before he was born we would have to let him go.

Someone told me that a large percentage (I don’t remember) of couples lose child end up losing their marriage as well. For Isaac and me, we don’t understand the statistic. We have been each other’s strong towers, a place of refuge, a shoulder to cry on, and a person to point each other in the right direction when we get too discouraged to pray. This experience is one we are taking together, no blame, no shame, just love for one another and united love for our boy, our first child Elijah Mubezi.

I guess I have a hard time blogging because it is a place that I can put down my thought and right now my thoughts are with my son.

Thank you for continuing to think of us, read our story, pray for us, and support us. We still need cheerleaders to encourage us during this season of our lives.

Blessings,

Rachel