“I feel like I am grieving the loss of something, but I do not know what that is.”
—Me, explaining why I haven’t been to Bible Study lately
Finding out my son is faced with a muscle disease has been the most faith shaking and faith building experience in my life. The phone call from the doctor saying he has a muscle disease and that now we just have to put a name on it sent me into grief. Grief for a loss I did not understand.
“What have I lost?” I would ask myself. He’s here, and we aren’t looking at muscular dystrophy, a fatal muscle disease. So, why am I grieving? I asked for clarity and comfort. I asked for strength. I just kept asking, and one day I received.
I love podcasts, and one of my favorites is the For The Love with Jen Hatmaker Podcast. I was listening to the Chrissy Kelly: How To Survive When Your Dreams Dissolve episode. It was an awakening of the soul—I realized what I had been grieving this whole time!
I had lost expectancy. I could no longer know what was going to happen, as a mom. Plans of sports, school, careers, graduation, marriage, all of the hopes I always took for granted, they are all up in the air.
As a mom, especially if you have twins or more, you learn to expect the unexpected. Some ideas and plans you learn to let go of, but not normalcy. You don’t expect to let go of simple ideals. Yet, when you are facing the unknown, you have to die to the design of normal mom plans. It is earth shattering, yet it has been extremely freeing!
Once I heard this episode and learned the name of the loss I was experiencing, I was able to move forward. I also had to do a bit of work to let go of the concept that I had control in any of this. That is where faith shaking turned into faith building. I have given this to God, for real this time. Now, I do not expect anything other than the comfort in riding the waves of the unknown, the comfort of deeper faith.
So go forth and learn to love the unexpected. It might just be more beautiful than you ever dreamed.
Photo by Dan Wilkinson.
About Connie Miller
Connie Miller runs Altered Call, a blog about her personal experiences with God that have shown her our Creator just doesn’t seem to fit in the box He was displayed for her. She also likes to call out harmful theology and fundamentalism whenever she sees it. She is also a mommy of boys, including a set of twins, the youngest one already on a journey of his own with health issues, which has brought her much closer to God.