Tidings of Comfort...

If you'd asked me two weeks ago how I'm doing I would've said, "Great! Really feel like I'm over the worst of it."

Then holidays come. Holidays and events where a new baby should be present. Or I should have been unable to attend because I had a new baby. Instead, I see someone else's baby who looks about 6 weeks old and think, "that's about how big my baby would be" and become a mess of tears. Or see a friend's newborn babe and hear her birth story and rejoice with her, yet have the ache after we part when the realization hits that there was none of that for me. There was no "how is baby nursing? Do your boys like the baby?" questions coming my way this time. 

And I ache. And the tears are on the brink constantly. And my questions go deeper still. Why? Really, Lord, I want to know why!

My life shouldn't be easy right now. So, in many ways, I feel crippled by the fact that I can keep up on my laundry. I can make meals and dinner plan for my family. I can sleep all night long without someone needing me most nights. And yet because I can, I find it a struggle to want to. I don't even know if that makes sense. The idea that because I don't have someone small making my daily life more complex in nature, means that the very little complexity becomes overwhelming and so I just don't even try. It isn't every day. But this last week, it has been most days.

This morning I gathered with long time friends at the coffee shop by my house. Our conversations started light and cheerful, it was so nice to be together, sipping hot coffee, like we used to when we were all moms of one non-mobile baby. It wasn't long before our hearts were open however, and the aches that we couldn't stand to bear alone opened wide and the tears began to flow, all together. The pain was felt and shared together and some of the burden lifted. Nothing was fixed. Nothing could be. But for a little while this morning, I wasn't aching alone. 

There is much in this holiday season to rejoice in. But while others are making tidings of joy the anthem, my heart cry is for tidings of comfort. Because right now I don't think more joy is going to touch the ache I have.