sharing

Our church is having a lay witness mission retreat weekend. It's been amazing and wonderful to hear how God has or is working in people's lives. He is so good! Well, I woke up at 4:30am and couldn't get back to sleep.I prayed and thought a lot. I was thinking about this weekend and last night during testimonies, my friend said I should share about my pink sunsets and I quickly brushed her off and said no. I didn’t feel like He wanted me to at that point. And I hate speaking in front of large groups. So I laid there thinking about that and maybe what I should have shared and didn’t. So finally when I couldn’t fall back asleep after an hour, I got up and wrote this out. I still don’t know if I should (or even could) share it in front of people… but this is what God has put on my heart to get out. I think writing it out in words helps me process and understand it better so that maybe if I’m called to share it, I might be able to get through it… perhaps. But maybe I’m not. I did share a little bit of it during our small group coffee session so maybe that was enough, but I still more peaceful after writing it all out. Now it’s too late to go back to bed though. ;o) So here it is...

As most of you probably know, I’m a mom of three beautiful boys and little princess Elliana. And as all of you know, she is beautiful. I tell her that multiple times a day, all day long, and I don’t care if I’m creating a monster… I want her to know that and I can’t wait for the day that she looks at herself and says “I beeedeefuw”. In August, Elli had a rough month. I ended up in the ER for a very painful day, then at Blank for a not-fun test the next day, and then at a specialist with her the next day, only to tell me she is fine, she will grow out of it. We put her through all of that for nothing. Only to bring her the very next week to a previously scheduled surgery to fix her decayed teeth. We just have notoriously bad teeth in our family, Cole had to have the same surgery when he was two. I knew it was going to be fine, but Elli was naturally pretty scared of doctors and any building that looked like a hospital at that point. My mom and Dave were unable to come with us, so once again it was just me there with Elli. Thankfully, my friend Amy said she’d like to come and wait with me and I gratefully accepted her gift and she met me in the lobby. After I explained the situation to the nurses of why Elli was scared, they let me gown up (which Elli did NOT think was pretty on mommy) and hold her and look into her eyes and tell her it was OK and that I was there as they put her to sleep and I laid her on the operating table and kissed her a dozen times at least (much to the amusement of the nurses I think) and went to wait for what they said would take three hours. I knew it was dental work so it wasn’t anything to be too worried about, I knew it needed done and Cole had had it done too so I really was really OK. Amy and I sat and read our bibles and chatted. But they came and got me after just one hour. The dentist brought me into the little consultation room. He told me that the decay had gone too far … all the way to the nerve, and that they had to take her front four top teeth out. And he handed them to me in a little envelope. They couldn’t fix them like they had planned. I burst into tears as he told me that my little girl was going to be without those teeth until her adult teeth came in (my kids are late teeth getters and Luke just got his at age 10, so we’re looking at 7-8 years). I think he felt bad that I was upset. He basically told me kids are resilient. I went back to Amy and sobbed in her arms until they came to get us that she has woken up. She had a rough time waking up so I was concentrated on taking care of her, because that’s what I do best. I mother, sometimes smother. But we got through it, the bloody puke even came out of my clothes! But… Anyway, I really struggled with this. I didn’t want Elli to look “different”. Some people even said she looks like a cute little vampire. Now I know that vampires are “in” right now, but I don’t read those books or watch those movies, and I wasn’t amused. I cried a lot that week. I cried every time she tried to eat something and I watched her struggle with how to bite and chew it. I cried when I heard her sound different when she talked, knowing she was now going to grow up with a lisp, and that people would make fun of her for it because kids are cruel. I am ashamed to say this, but I cried when I saw my baby smile. And I didn’t want to feel that way about my beautiful little girl. People tried to comfort me by telling me they could barely even notice it and wouldn’t if they didn’t know about it. I knew that. I knew it didn’t matter what other people thought. Luke would be the first to tell you that it doesn’t matter what you look like on the outside. I’ve taught them that. (granted it’s usually when he’s arguing about wanting to wear sweats to church and I’m trying to make him wear nicer clothes, he’ll pull out that card and says “Mom, it doesn’t matter what you look like on the outside, it’s what’s inside that counts”. I mean what do you do?) And Elli was still Elli. She was still beautiful and I still kept telling her that. She just said “My owie teef are all dawn” and was happy as can be. She figured out how to bite things off with the side of her mouth and now that her gums are healed, she eats apples and bites them with her gums! So thankfully, she wasn’t too affected by it…. but I was still struggling. I was pulling away from God and was internalizing everything. I went to the altar that Sunday and tried my best to just pray thankful prayers. I know that in third world countries without dental care, that kind of decay could have very well killed my child. But all my mind could tell God was “why? Why didn’t you heal her instead?” I ran out of here and sobbed in the prayer chapel in the arms of Jo and Lisa for a while until I could calm down. I checked on Elli in the nursery who was happily playing and smiling that beautiful smile. I went back and sat through the rest of church. I felt so guilty. How could I treat Him like that after ALL that He’s done for me? What kind of person was I? It’s just teeth and so many people suffer though so much more than this, get over it already, I told myself. I went through the motions for the rest of the day. I didn’t even open up to my CORE group that night because I was too ashamed of myself. We were driving home from the Rubel’s house that night and directly in front of us, the sun was starting to set. Many of you know my story of pink sunsets, and if you don’t… just ask me and I’ll tell you the significance of what that means to me. The radio was playing some song about being far away from God. And I knew at that moment that I was. But that He didn’t go anywhere, it was me who was backing away from Him. I was driving and crying and Dave asked me if I was OK and I said no. I parked the van in front of our house and I grabbed my camera bag and told him take the kids in, I’m going for a walk. I could hear some of them whining and crying that they wanted to go with me and I heard one of them say “I know, she’s going to go take pictures of that pretty sunset“. Even Elli will see a sunset now and say “look pretty sunset!”. My kids all notice sunsets now. So I walked the block to the end of town and walked down the gravel road a bit and starting taking pictures of that beautiful sunset and pink clouds … and praying. I thanked Him for speaking so directly to me with this sunset and I asked Him to help me. I heard Him say “My beautiful daughter Michelle, I love you and I know that you trust Me.” I told Him I indeed did and that I had given Elli to Him back when we had complications when she was in my belly, that she was His princess and that no matter what happens, I trusted Him and loved Him and would give Him the glory. He gently took me in and told me that I wasn’t seeing the big picture. That I needed to put the camera down figuratively and stop looking through the lens and see the big picture. I didn’t know what His plan was. I don’t know how He is going to use Elli through this. You see, I thought He was punishing me for my sin. I have always struggled with vanity. I don’t like the way that I look. And every time I try to change it, I fail. I preach to my kids that looks don’t matter. I am even teaching the high school girls of this church studying the book “Redefining Beautiful” by Jenna Lucado and let me tell you, I am the one learning those lessons! But I am a hypocrite. And I was struggling so much with guilt, thinking why is He punishing Elli because of MY sin? That hurt me to core and broke my heart. I didn’t like who I was and that I even had those thoughts. God is good and I know that. But I was broken. I stood at that pink sunset and once again felt the arms of my heavenly Father wrapped around me. He picked up the broken pieces and lovingly put me back together. He told me I was beautiful. Broken or not. The sun set and I went home. The next day, I took some photos of Elli and posted them on my blog. Unashamed. She looked nothing but beautiful and strong. Way stronger than her mama. And that’s the way I want it. I know she’ll be stronger for this. I know I will be. And I’m glad that He used her. I’m always glad when He uses me. She will be too someday. But right now I’ll settle for her not knowing anything but “my owie teef are all dawn”. I wish I could say the same thing… that my vanity is all gone. But we’re working on it, or I should say He’s working on it… and I’m accepting it into my heart and I’m working on getting it to stay sunk into my head as well.