Walking Into The Light

Walking Into The Light

“Aw! How old is she?!”

I didn’t look up, but continued unzipping my infant daughter’s ladybug sleeper and unsnapping her onesie, both of which were soaked through with urine.

My husband turned toward the curious women and smiled. “Three days old.”

I am not usually the type to ignore people, but I just didn’t have it in me to converse. We were about to be readmitted to the hospital because the entire world had narrowed down to bilirubin levels, the possibility of anemia and the breaking down of red blood cells—all due to my newborn and I not having compatible blood types.

And I was angry about it.

I was angry because anger wasn’t as visible as squalling, and squalling was the only other option I had. So, I both brandished my anger and hid behind it, using it to keep me moving past my emotional and physical exhaustion.

Finally, they called our name. A tall, gray-haired gentleman strode over to us and said he’d lead us up to the room. He told us our daughter was beautiful, and then he said that he was sorry we were going through this.

Two hospital construction workers tried to get on the elevator with us, and the gentleman (Randy, I later learned) asked if they could wait so he could safely take a newborn up to the Pediatric floor.

I looked at him—saw his smile, heard his kindness–and felt tears burning my throat. I turned around and faced the back of the elevator so he wouldn’t see. But he saw.

I heard him whisper, “I’m sorry. Did I say something wrong?”

“No, no.” I laughed through my tears. “You’re just too sweet.” And I could feel that wall of my anger beginning to crumble, brick by brick.

Two days later, Randy—the receptionist with a pastor’s voice—waved at us in confusion as we entered the hospital again. Leaving our two other daughters was as hard as the unknown. My five-year-old had followed me around our bedroom, trying to help me pack my bags for the third hospital stay in the past five days.

“I’ll put your jewelry right here, okay?” she’d said, dropping a pair of turquoise earrings into the sock compartment. “Make sure you pack Emmie some footie pajamas, so she can sleep, too, okay?” She looked at me, her sweet face wearing an expression far too concerned for her years.

“Okay.” I closed the dresser drawer and leaned on top of it, waiting for composure, and then I turned and held my eldest daughter close. “I’m so proud of you.”

At the hospital, Randy once again led us to our room, but back to the Labor and Delivery floor rather than Pediatrics since the pediatrician did his nursery rounds first and wanted to give my daughter the best possible care.

The room was small; the parallel grid of window blinds overlooked a parking lot and a building that appeared abandoned.

After Randy left, my husband and I stood in silence. “Remember after your surgery,” I murmured, “when I wanted to get our girls and you and stay in bed forever?”

He nodded. Of course he remembered. Neither of us could possibly forget.

“Well,” I finished, “that’s how I feel. I want to put us all in bed and keep everyone safe there. Forever.”

He looked at me, his mascara-smeared wife, and there was such genuine compassion in his eyes that I thought I might cry again. “But that’s no kind of life,” he said.

My husband stayed in the room with our newborn daughter, so I could take a walk before he left to return to our girls. And as I walked, as always happens, I started to see the world through different eyes. Outside the historic train station, a young couple ate ice-cream cones on a wrought iron bench. A woman took pictures of her family, and a sales clerk from one of the boutiques came to stand outside, her thin nose ring glimmering in the sun. It was magical. It was beautiful and healing and helped widen that narrow world of mine, bringing the goodness of life back into perspective.

We cannot hide behind anger and fear. We cannot cocoon our families in a bedroom until our children are emotionally stunted and yet safe. We cannot allow the hardships of life to make our world smaller and more contained.

We must walk into the wideness, and the wildness, the beautiful danger of all that uncontained light. We must see the magic of the everyday—the melting symmetry of an ice-cream cone; a couple holding hands; a neat stack of wood next to a dove-gray wall; seed pods clattering from trees like wind chimes.

All of this was provided by God. All of this is His. And He—the ultimate Father—also yearns to gather us to Himself, to keep us safe and close, and yet He too knows that we must experience both beauty and pain to become the kind of compassionate souls He yearns for us to become.

How do you approach life’s hardships? Do you hide from them with anger or let them change you? And our beautiful baby girl #3 is now home and doing well.

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My childhood neighbor and friend, Rebekah Love-Dorris, recently launched a copywriting and designing business, Isaiah 35 Design. She graciously composed the book trailer for The Divide, along with some beautiful promotional memes. Her assistance couldn’t have come at a better time, and I am most grateful for her and her business. To learn more, visit: Isaiah 35 Design.

Also, I was honored this week to have a guest post, “The Great Divide Between Faith and Action,” at Proverbs 31 Ministries, which was shared the same day we realized our daughter’s jaundice levels were so severe:

Family is the hardest area for me to relinquish. I love my husband and daughters so fiercely, I try to keep them safe by controlling their environments. This “trying” stems from my false belief that their lives are best when their worlds are perfect; I’m finding, however, that God proves Himself most faithful when they are not.