A few weeks ago, Mackenna and I were driving home from an ice cream date and she was asking some questions about her great grandparents. I told her a few things about them and talked about how she’d get to meet all of them in heaven some day. The conversation continued on something like this…
“So did all of my great grandparents go to church? And make good choices? So I’ll see each of them in heaven?”
“Well, you know that’s not how anyone gets into heaven, right? It’s not about going to church and making good choices! You can go to church your whole life and not end up in heaven. Being a Christian means having a relationship with Jesus. It means you’ve asked Him to be the leader of your life. You know that you need Him; you talk to Him, learn about Him and desire to obey Him; and you trust Him with your future. We’ve talked about this before, you know that right?”
“Oh yes, I know that. I’ve asked Jesus to be in my heart and I KNOW I can trust Him because He has really been with me and walked beside me every step of the way with my diabetes!”
My heart began to swell as she communicated how she’d felt Jesus’s comforting presence in her journey with type 1 diabetes. And I added, “Yes, and because of your diabetes, you’ve gotten a special taste of God’s…” and then I paused as I searched for the word I was looking for.
But she jumped right in with, “great love for me.”
(And then my heart burst wide open with gratitude as I repeated the truth that she just declared.) “Yes, because of your diabetes, you’ve gotten a special taste of God’s great love for you. That’s absolutely right.”
As of today, Mackenna has lived with type 1 diabetes for six entire years. On the day of her diagnosis, I had a moment to myself in between the clinic visit and the drive to the hospital and I had one thing I needed to say to God. I wasn’t mad at Him. I didn’t ask Him to take it away. I didn’t even ask Him for a cure. I bawled my eyes out and I begged Him to not allow this diagnosis to steal her joy. I cried out, pleading for protection and grace over her sweet, silly, joyful spirit.
I was scared this disease would change her. But I was completely unprepared for how it would change her for the better. Never in a million years would I have thought my daughter would learn about how much God loves her through an all-consuming, never-ending trial. If that’s what it takes…If she needed to walk this difficult path in order to fully grasp His great love for her, then it is all worth it! Because there is NO greater joy than His love for us.
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He wasn’t supposed to be.
We were done having children. Not surgically done having children, but with three active kids already and our unwelcome fourth “child”: type 1 diabetes, we had no room for another child. We were done.
Our youngest was almost four years old. He was potty trained. We had gotten rid of the crib, the baby toys, the strollers. We were done.
I had just two more years before all our kids would be in school full time and I was beginning to dream about what God wanted for me in that upcoming season. We were moving forward, away from sippy cups and nap times, toward ball game schedules and music lessons. We were done having children.
Do you know who decides what’s supposed to be? I know. Well, now I know. And it isn’t me. I don’t get to decide what’s supposed to be. We don’t get to decide. God decides. He decides what’s supposed to be. God decided we weren’t done having children.
My fourth pregnancy was very surreal. From the moment I saw two lines on that expired pregnancy test until the moment I was in the operating room getting my spinal block, I kept uttering the same sentence. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
At ten weeks along, when we went in for our first OB appointment and ultrasound, I cried and thought “I can’t believe this is happening.” It’s not like I was sad, or angry or frustrated. I was just in utter disbelief. This isn’t what I had planned. I was done with diapers and had finished all of the necessary potty training of children and had already put in all of the middle-of-the-night feeding time. My future suddenly looked drastically different than I had imagined it.
At fourteen weeks along, when I met with my doctor who had performed my previous two c-section deliveries, she had reviewed her notes from my last delivery nearly four years before. She had recorded that my uterine wall was too thin. Paper thin. And that another pregnancy would be high-risk. She said the words “uterine rupture” and “early delivery” and I cried. “I can’t believe this is happening.” This pregnancy now seemed laced with fear, along with disbelief. A rupture of my paper-thin uterus would likely be fatal for both the baby and myself. It wasn’t supposed to be this way.
At twenty-two weeks, when we went in for a level two, full anatomy ultrasound and I saw our baby boy moving and kicking with every single part of his body in perfect working order, I cried again. And when they measured the thickness of my uterus that time and it was “normal”, I cried again, joyfully thinking “I can’t believe this is happening.” Disbelief, fear, and now joy and awe at the God who decides what’s supposed to be.
At thirty seven weeks, we walked into the hospital as I thought, “I still can’t believe this is happening,” and a few hours later heard the sweetest sound of our healthy baby boy making his presence known to the world. He cried and his lungs belted out a victory shout to the God who writes better stories than we could ever have imagined. Victory and honor and praise to the God who knows better than we do, who loves us more than we could begin to imagine, who carries us past fear and disbelief and into joy.
Minutes after he was born, my doctor said a few more words that made me cry again. She said that there was a nickel-sized hole in my uterus that was being held shut by the pressure from my bladder. My fear of dying because of a uterine rupture and leaving my husband and children was real and valid. And this time, I cried in relief and in complete reverence for the God who is bigger and mightier than fear and medicine. He decides what’s supposed to be. God decided that we were supposed to have another child, and God decided that I was supposed to be around to raise him.
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My dear Grayson Paul,
You are supposed to be. You are supposed to be a part of our family. Our family is better because of you. I am better because of you. God has used your life to teach me so much about who He is. He loves you fiercely! He decided the world was better with you in it! He has had His hand of protection around you. And I know He is writing an incredible story with your life…a story about overcoming, about unexpected joy, and about His victory over fear and death. I promise to do my very best to use my life to teach you about the God who decided you were supposed to be. We love you more than you’ll ever know. Happy first birthday, Grays-ee-poo!
Mommy
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Memorial Day 2017. We were at the beach. The kids were playing in the sand and we just sat back. We had our eyes on them, but they were old enough to play safely on their own and we were enjoying our adult conversation free from interruptions. They were 8, 6, and nearly 4 years old and as the sand and waves kept their attention, our conversation slipped into the “should we have another baby” realm. My husband was all in favor of more babies. But I was tired. Three kids is a lot, and right between kiddo number 2 and 3, we had an all-consuming, never-takes-a-break diagnosis of type one diabetes added to our plate. I often referred to t1d as my 4th child. I worried about t1d, had to think ahead and plan for what it would need, packed for it when we traveled, lost sleep over it…kind of like another child, right? Between the kids and the disease, and the fact that we had arrived at this sweet place where our kids could safely play on the shore without us hovering, I was in favor of putting the “baby” discussion to rest for good. And the more we talked about how nice it was to go to restaurants again, to be done with diapers, and to not have to push a stroller anymore, the more he realized I was probably right. We decided to put the topic to rest forever and really enjoy this stage of parenthood with our increasingly independent children, and not look back.
A month and a half later I was staring at a positive pregnancy test in complete disbelief. In fact, I could say that I spent my entire pregnancy in a state of disbelief. I couldn’t believe we were shopping for a crib again. That we were going back to diapers and baby spoons and strollers. I couldn’t imagine having not three, but four kiddos in the back of my van. I couldn’t believe this was happening! And honestly, even as I watched my belly grow and even as I helped to transform our home office into a nursery, I still didn’t really believe it. In fact, right before I met this fourth baby of mine, I looked up at my doctor and said it one more time, “I still can’t believe this is happening!” She laughed and said, “Oh honey, it’s happening!” And then in a matter of minutes, I was face to face with this.
It really happened! We took the baby conversation off the table and God picked it up and placed it right back in our laps and then He made a place for him right in our hearts. Grayson Paul. Our bonus baby. The one we didn’t plan on. The one we weren’t expecting. The one that God knew we needed.
He was here and rediscovering the newborn stage was pretty magical. This time around, I didn’t have a two-year-old. There were no other diapers to change, just his.
His newborn cries pulled me out of my disbelief and into a space where I could embrace this new chapter in my story. His story.
We soaked him up. All five of us, in awe of all of him. His wispy hair.
His tiny wrinkly hands.
His feet. Oh, is there anything sweeter than tiny baby feet?
The peach fuzz on his cheeks, ears, shoulders.
And we’ve been soaking him up for six whole months now! Six of the craziest, busiest, sweetest months of my entire life.
Because he’s here. Our bonus baby. And now our family is complete. (for real this time!)
December 8th, 2017.
Mackenna has officially lived half of her life with type 1 diabetes and exactly half without it. Just for today.
Tomorrow, she will have lived with type 1 diabetes for longer than she has lived without it.
LIVED.
She has LIVED with type 1 diabetes. She has lived well. She has learned, grown, matured. She has experienced and explored. She has done age 4 and age 5 and 6 and 7 and 8 and now 9, doing all the things that kids aged 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 get to do.
We see how type 1 diabetes has changed her, how it has changed all of us really. And by the grace of God alone, I can confidently say that the change has been positive. We are stronger. We are closer. We have a better perspective on what really matters. We have a clearer understanding that we really can do all things through Christ who gives us strength (Philippians 4:13). All praise and honor to Him who has strengthened us, sustained us, and never left us to do this alone.
This morning at breakfast, Caleb (age 6) asked, “What if there’s never a cure for your diabetes, Mackenna?”
An innocent question from a curious little brother that could have felt defeating for the one praying for that cure.
Mackenna responded with a smirk, “Well, then I’ll have diabetes forever. And I’ll just keep rocking it forever.”
Yes, baby girl. With that spirit, and with the Lord’s help, you will keep rocking it for as long as you must.
Happy Half Day, Sugar Booger!
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