An Open Wound

 Dear Friend,

I imagine you are older and much wiser than I.  I'm feeling a bit lost out here right now and could use a friend. 

Please don't take offense to any of my ramblings. These are things I feel impossible to share with my ordinary pen pals. I want to try to be completely honest about everything. Is that possible?  Can I be honest with myself as well as you? Is my writing to you a search to connect sincerely with someone or is at an avoidance of connection with real people with their own messy problems? God knows. 

I have reached mid life. There are two challenges weighing on me: making peace with my own death and returning to childhood in spirit.  Death suddenly feels much nearer, though it's impossible for me to know how close in time it really is.  Still, as time passes, my own physical frailty and vulnerability becomes more apparent and I know that because of Christ, I must not just tolerate, but embrace the possibility and inevitability of my own death.  

The second challenge is not so heavy, but no less difficult.  When I reflect on my past and ponder the future, my mind and soul returns to the happiest part of my childhood, symbolized for me by a place.  This place is peaceful and bright, full of fresh air and the smell of early summer.  It was in this place I still knew a measure of innocence and uncomplicated trust. It was in this place I felt connected to God's forests and streams and meadows, and to a community and culture.  
I can never get back to that place as it was, because it has forever changed, and the people who loved and nurtured me there are gone. But I must get back to the spiritual place of child-likeness.  

"Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven."
Matthew 18:3

I just experienced my second miscarriage (and 6th pregnancy). I felt God's help and mercy in the midst of it, and I know there is a purpose in this pain.  Our wounds are not always apparent. Sometimes there is an open bleeding wound on the inside of a person. And though we lose much blood, and look into the face of death, with God's help we trust that He can bring life out of it all. How to become a little child again in the midst of these things?

Goodbye for now and may the Lord bless your soul,
M