11 Months

The fact that this is the last "month marker" we'll pass for Isaac is hitting me hard this morning. I wish so much that I was picking out invitations and planning his first birthday party; but instead, Spencer and I are figuring out how to remember Isaac on October 7th in a different way. For the last few months, I had sort of felt like I was in a holding pattern, but these past couple of weeks with fall beginning to make its presence known, and with October 7 drawing nearer, I have found myself missing Isaac in such a fresh way.

At some point, and I am not quite sure when, I went from missing the little baby boy who was born on October 7 of last year, to starting to miss the 9, 10, and now 11 month-old baby boy who I long to have here with us... a little boy who can crawl, pull himself up, has a few teeth, or maybe even take a few steps by now (at least, if he took after his mom!). It's all hard to put into words... the fact that you can miss someone in a fresh, new way. But I do. A lot.

There's this old saying that goes, "There's no rest for the weary." In some ways, our schedule over the last year would indicate that. As I was driving (somewhere... I don't remember) the other day, I began thinking about that phrase in a different way... how we KNOW rest for the weary. I suppose my Reading/English teacher mind comes up with things like that.

I began thinking about the last two years of our lives, really... my mother-in-law's diagnosis of cancer (from which she is now cancer-free!), my miscarriage at 13 weeks, and then our sweet Isaac. Suffice it to say that Spencer and I have felt extremely weary over the last two years... particularly, these last 15 or 16 months. Yet as I thought through all that the Lord has allowed us to endure, I also was struck by His promise in Matthew 11:28-29, a passage that seems to be popping up everywhere lately...

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

I am so thankful that the worn out, the wounded, the hurting, the burdened, and the weary can KNOW rest. I know we have... in the midst of loss, grief, heartache, and missing someone more than I thought was humanly possible, God has been faithful in allowing us to rest in Him.

So, the next time life takes you down a path where you feel like there's no rest for the weary... remember that the weary can KNOW rest when those burdens are placed at the feet of Jesus.