A Time to Dance

This post is long overdue.  I suppose I have a good excuse.  I'm looking at him right now- nestled in my arm, preventing full range of the keyboard to type this message.  Matthew Jonathan Koudelka arrived two days "late" according to the medical world, but not a minute outside of his Master's perfect timing.  It's quite the story, so I thought I would share.  Since Jonathan and I do not discover the gender of our babies until birth, I will be referring to Matthew as "the baby" throughout the post.

If you had the displeasure of being around me during the late stages of my pregnancy with Julia, my third born, you know I was going practically out of my mind with anxiety about the birth of the child.  This time was different.  I did not give in to the crazy nesting phase that told me I needed to work myself to exhaustion everyday, and having learned through Julia's birth that even when everything goes "wrong," it can still turn out wonderful, I wasn't allowing myself the usual "when is labor going to happen?!" woes.  My husband kept marveling at how sane I was.  I kept marveling.  I was two weeks away from giving birth and perfectly, blissfully sane.

Then disaster struck.  To me, the stomach flu is right up there with nuclear warfare.  I'm sorry to appear to over-dramatize, but I grew up in a family of seven children.  If one of us got the stomach flu, it was a matter of time before you were next.  And once it was in the home, it was like a guest that overstays its welcome until spring.  If you mention casually that your stomach hurts, I am likely to flee to the nearest hand sanitizer and avoid you like the plague until I am certain that you are not contagious (which in my mind means some time next summer).  Call me overly paranoid and I won't deny it.  There are few things I hate more than when my kids get sick with the stomach flu.

So here I am, two weeks away from my delivery date, enjoying my sanity-induced, peace-filled slumber (not the usual late stage lack of sleep as I try to will myself into contracting), when I am awoken by my brother who lives with us.  He is sick.  Very sick.  And I start freaking out.  I wake my husband, informing him that no, I am not in labor, but The. Worst. Possible. Thing. Has. Happened.  I can't fall back asleep.  I can't stop fretting, so I start praying and pleading.  It was the longest time I have ever remained in constant prayer.  Somewhere in the night I received a sense of peace.  I felt that God had assured me that He was going to protect me and my family.  I ran with the comfort, straight to my pillow to eek out the last few minutes of sleep that the night held before the rest of my family awakened.

Brad was quarantined to his bedroom and I began a sanitation process that could only be described as thorough and Hazmat-worthy.  I was determined that I would not be dealing with the stomach flu in my household minutes before welcoming a newborn into the world, but even more than my determination, I remind myself of the confidence I had that God had assured me that I would be protected, along with my family.

Fast forward two days when I find myself on the bathroom floor denying the inevitable, waiting for my husband to arrive home so he can tend to the children I have abandoned.  Only, as he drives home, it hits him too.  I have been on the bathroom floor for several hours when I allow the full extent of my emotions to wash over me.  God has abandoned me.  God has lied to me.  God is angry with me.  I don't understand God.  I don't understand His ways.  I don't understand His purposes.  I don't understand His messages of peace and comfort.  This was NOT supposed to be happening.

I am ashamed with my feelings, but they are undeniably real to me as I grow weak with dehydration and pain.  I can't pray.  I am angry.  I am hurt.  I am terrified.

I realize how weak my faith is to have been shaken by a bout of the stomach flu, but it wasn't the illness that did the shaking.  It was what I had interpreted to be God's intentions, and discovering I had read Him all wrong.  My husband, who is now just as ill as I am, drives me the long way to the hospital where I receive fluids and face the fear, as the monitor detects contractions, that I might go into labor in the midst of this misery.  Even as I plead with God that this not be the case- that I not have to welcome this precious life with a face mask and fear- I know that I am entitled to no such leniency.  I feel completely powerless and under the heel of God's Will.  I have no bargaining power in a faith that has waned away with the day.  I have lost sight of His love which is all that has ever given me hope in this world.

I wrestle with God like Jacob in the wilderness and I wait for my wound, my battle scar.  Because I can't deny His existence; It's been there too long, so I'm not coming out of this unscathed, am I?  That's what scares me.  That's what makes me feel unable to face God and the rest of the world.  I've used my own confidence in my faith as the reason I am entitled to the goodness in my life.  Because I believe so confidently, God will take care of me.  And now facing down the toilet- what I thought I had been assured I would not face- I feel my confidence being flushed, wretched right out of me.  Surely God won't care for me now, because my belief that He is good is fading with my strength.  I feel toyed with.  I try not to admit it, but I do.  I can't hide these emotions from Him, so I expose them in my flood of tears.  Verses come to mind of protection and love and assurances and I feel like I can't discern their meanings anymore.  What is "protection" and how have I misinterpreted what I "heard" last night?  If not God's voice, than whose?

I call to mind the sufferings of Job and David and the disciples and think of what a joke I am compared to their un-yeilding faith.  I can't make pleas to their god.  They never doubted He was good.  I have fallen from favor.  I can't ask for mercy.  I can only submit to what is to come.  I switch into this cautionary relationship with God.  He is Potter; I am clay, but suddenly the clay fears the Potter's intentions.  I ask for my faith to be restored, but I don't even feel entitled to that request.  I feel like an unfaithful lover, asking for trust.  Because the truth is, I know God loves me and I know He has a plan for me, but I suddenly feel very, very unworthy.  For the first time in my life, I feel totally unworthy of His love and it does not feel good.  Maybe I am not making the connection clear here, but I always felt (whether I admitted it or not) that His love was quite contingent on my faith and my feelings toward Him.  Quite frankly, I didn't feel loved in the throes of illness, because it wasn't what I wanted!  And feeling that way- even while knowing in my very heart of hearts all of the promises of God's love- made me feel at risk of being abandoned by God.

The following day, as I slowly recovered, I felt a gratefulness to God for the healing I didn't deserve and the baby still safely nestled in my womb.  But I still felt unloveable.  I felt as one does after knowingly disappointing another- cautious, uncertain, ashamed.  I approached God only with feeble prayer, as I faced children succumbing to the same illness.  What could I ask Him for?  Certainly no request of mine should be honored I thought, so I mumbled "Your Will" and wondered how much more of His Will in opposition to mine I could take.

I was exhausted, mentally and physically, but mostly I felt alien to my own thoughts; unable to go back to the place of peace that had always been my faith.  I could not trust that God would love me when I was angry at Him.

My husband called from work, doing his daily check-in with his very pregnant wife, and shared some good news.  An unexpected financial surprise.  I started sobbing.  Hysterically, he would probably say. "Why are you crying?" he asked, confused by my sudden affront of emotion.  I tried to explain to him what a relief it was to hear that God was still blessing me even when I was doubting Him.  It didn't make sense that He would and yet, it made perfect sense, because if there is one certainty about God that I have always known it is that His love doesn't make sense!  It is not reasonable, not contingent or conditional, not logical, and not in any way based on how I feel about Him.

It didn't make sense!  And suddenly, that was why everything started making sense again.

We survived the stomach flu.  The baby stayed safely in my womb for an entire two weeks longer than I expected, as I typically deliver early.  Each day that we stepped further away from the incident of illness was like a reminder of what "protection" means.  It doesn't mean we don't face the battle.  We face and we persevere.  But beyond feeling protected from the physical fears of this world, I felt through this a spiritual protection of my faith that has given me a deeper understanding of God's love.  Not because I love, but because He loves.

Having endured labor three times without any medication assistance, I knew I needed a focus for this approaching labor.  I'm not sure why, but through every labor I have danced.  I am a very uncoordinated individual and was reluctant to dance even at my own wedding because of the likelihood of injury, but when in labor with Colette, for some unknown reason, I began dancing and it brought great relief to the pain then and each labor after.  It's kind of a Woodstock-ish sway, and I probably look completely bizarre to the nurses, but it works.  With an expectation of this upcoming dance, I selected a song: "10,000 Reasons" by Matt Redman.  I had heard it for the first time several months ago and had immediately selected it as my labor song.

When labor finally began, I whispered quietly to God, "Let's dance."  And we did.  It was a dance of forgiveness, a dance of restoration, a make-up dance of sorts.  I danced like a child standing on her Father's feet, just following His steps and feeling loved.  And He danced with me that dance that makes every little girl feel that love that even her disobedience and unfaithfulness cannot turn away.

Matthew Jonathan Koudelka danced into our lives on December 20th.  His name means "Gift of God."