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Motherhood is a journey of surprise.

This is my seasoned wisdom to pass along: You must learn to listen for the surprise or you might miss it. You must learn to love surprise or you might waste it.

Each of my three children have brought their own unique surprises. Each surprise has changed the core of who I am.

Jeremiah Ryan Knight brought the first wonder on May 5^th, 2012: the sensation that LIFE truly begins with motherhood. The moment I held his little 8 lb body I had the distinct sensation that nothing before him truly mattered. His birth birthed me as “Mom”. Motherhood transformed me into new and different person. That was a surprise and a gift I hadn’t imagined.

I was also surprised by the joy of seeing my face in his face. But I was truly astonished at how this Little Mirror caused me to see myself with greater clarity. Over time, as he continued to grow, these moments of reflection were quite comical. When he was around 18 months old he began blinking dramatically and forcefully with a full face scrunch when he was mad. After months of puzzling over why he was doing this and where he got this odd behavior, my husband noticed that I did a “blink” in a moment of pain! It was an “ah moment” when we realized he was mimicking me! I never knew until that moment that I “blink” when I’m unhappy!

Looking back, that was the first time my Little Prophet revealed something of myself to me.

Throughout his six years on this earth, God has spoken to me through him again and again. In the sweetest of childish ways, he opens my eyes to my own imperfections and areas of unrest in my heart. Jeremiah’s evening prayers are sometimes startling indications of my own need to experience the Lord’s grace afresh: “I pray that Mommy wouldn’t feel guilty;” “I pray that Mommy would know that she’s a good Mommy;” “I pray that Mommy would learn to pray as good as I pray.”  His observations continually reveal something of myself to me.

My second child, Tirzah Catherine Knight was a surprise that changed me just as dramatically as her older brother, Jeremiah. Her stillbirth at 40 weeks was the birthing of me as a “Bereaved Mother.” Time stopped on August 20, 2014 and life was forever divided into “Before” and “After,” in the same way that Jesus divided history. While Jeremiah is my Little Prophet revealing my face and exposing my heart, Tirzah has been my Little Priestess guiding my eyes heavenward to Jesus.

I believe that when I’m old, and my body is worn, and I’m on my deathbed, I’ll say, “I’ve waited so long, Tirzah. My whole life I’ve longed for you, every moment of every day, and NOW it’s time.”

The Spirit spoke to me, “THIS is what it means to long for Jesus. Long for Him and wait for Him just like this.”

My daughter, Tirzah is ever-present in my mind and she has become a lens through which I interpret and experience all of life. We, as humans, tend to hold a worldview that experiences reality backward; as if this life on earth is the more true reality because we feel it with all of our physical senses. We tend to think of eternity and heaven distantly, abstractly, and probably not very often. The surprise my daughter gave to me is freedom from that worldview. Now I see that Tirzah is more alive than we are; our bodies are in a state of decay, awaiting death. She has the more true reality in the Kingdom of God that is indestructible, incorruptible and endures forever.

She has awakened me to these truths: Eternity is more real than this world that is passing away; Resurrection is our only genuine hope; God is passionate about LIFE, and He is a god of purer love and mercy than our fallen hearts can take in at this time.

My third child was born on August 25, 2016: Judah Hudson Knight. His birth came with a surprise too: The cry of LIFE. After the silence and pain of Tirzah’s birth, Judah’s life-cry caused my whole being to shake and moan with a primeval depth that I couldn’t control or stop. Perhaps it was a release of the hold that death had on my heart. It was a cry of healing and of new life: for both of us. “Enjoy him,” was the mantra a good friend said to me over and over. I can truly say that new joy was birthed in me when Judah was born and his life has brought a season of praise.

Judah is my Little Kingly Prophet, bringing a taste of the goodness and beauty of God’s Kingdom to earth.

Each of my children came with surprises that I learned how to listen to and see.

You must learn to listen for the surprise or you might miss it. You must learn to love surprise or you might waste it.

The astonishing surprise of motherhood has been how my children were given to me truly to shape my own soul. God brought me a Little Prophet into my life to reveal my face and expose my heart; followed by my Little Priestess orienting me toward eternity and true life, and finally sweet Kingly Judah bringing a taste of what shall be made full in eternity: “Shalom Restored.” 

The winter in Northern California has been filled with mild temperatures this year instead of the usual blistery weather.  The cold rain would feel more appropriate and yet the sunny blue skies seem to mock us as Death knocks on our door.

Marjorie, my mother-in-law, is in the process of dying and most likely only has a few days to live.

Death is not a stranger in my home; he is well-known Adversary and the threat of his return brings to mind thoughts of hard battles, long fought and scars remaining.

One thing I’ve learned, is that Death is a Thief. And he has different methods. Sometimes slow. Sometimes swift.

Marjorie was a woman who drank in life through her physical senses. She enjoyed birding, star gazing and playing the piano. As she loses the ability to do these things it is like seeing the light of life slowly dim as Death hovers overhead with a slowly consuming darkness.

This has been a slow process of dying, not like the death of my daughter, Melinda.

We called her “Mindy.”

Mindy was born with hydrocephalus because of a cyst in her brain. The grief of her birth prepared me, in part, for her death, because part of grief is to bear great emotional and physical pain. After Mindy’s death, my body felt physical pain every morning for months.

Early on in Mindy’s life, I learned a great lesson: Mindy’s challenges were about HER, not me. My grief was stored away in a compartment of my soul in order for me to focus on supporting her development.

I was surprised and proud of how well she overcame her challenges as she grew. She would say, “I am enthusiastic!” I would describe her as intense. She would talk with anyone and was blossoming as a writer. I can’t help smiling as I remember one 5th grade writing assignment. She wrote matter-of-factly: “I am thankful for clothing because if we had no clothes we would be naked and could not go anywhere.”

I cherish the notes that she wrote to me. Each one is still a blessing. The week before she died, she ended a note with, “You are the BEST, big Daddy in the WHOLE world. Love, The Best Daughter in the Whole World.”

We had moved when Mindy was in 4th grade so very few people at school or church knew of her birth and the challenges she was overcoming.

It was the season of Thanksgiving when our lives changed forever.

Mindy had a headache for a couple of days and was feeling ill. I thought she was getting the flu. Now, looking back, I think she was going into shock.

My memory of the day plays in my head with eerie detail, and I lose my sense of time as the present and past seem to meld together.

We were planning on taking her to the doctors the next day. Our family of four was crowded into a two bedroom apartment and she was allowed to go to sleep on the Master bed. I was in the room doing some work on the computer. I had printed something out and I think the noise bothered her because she asked if I had to do anymore printing. I told her I did not. She made a strange sound and when I checked in, her lips were blue and she was not breathing.

Time stopped. My heart seemed to stopped. I felt numb and frozen, unable to take in a scene that could be anything but real.

I felt a jolt and the thought came to me I had to take action. I snapped out of my frozen state and called to my wife to call 911. I started CPR and then the paramedics arrived.

I had great desire for Mindy to live. I prayed. I saw my Heavenly Father standing by Jesus seated on the throne in Heaven. I knew He was watching over us and a supernatural peace settled upon me, even though I knew there was no guarantee of a good outcome.

Mindy was pronounced dead 3 hours later.

The nurse said we could stay with Mindy as long as we wanted.  I thought, “How do I decide when to leave my daughter forever?”  I don’t think I ever really made a decision.

In the aftermath, my wife described feeling unsettled, lost and having poor concentration.  Later I thought: “Whether slow or fast death is disruptive.”

In the book, Body Sense: The science and practice of embodied self-awareness, by Alan Fogal, he shared brain research showing an actual physical co-regulation that develops between people through relationship.  This explains the utter shock to our spirit, soul and body at the death of someone close.  We lose the presence of a co-regulating power in our lives.

Our Creator never meant for this to happen. He didn’t design relationships to be severed.

Death is an enemy.  It is a defeated enemy but it is not yet destroyed.

“The last enemy to be destroyed is death” ~ 1 Corinthians 15:58.

Now I feel its sting.

With Marjorie, my mother-in-law, it is hard to find words to describe the sting.  I sense a haunting, hollowness in me sensing I will be missing something but unable to describe what it is I will be missing.

With Mindy the sting is similar.  Mindy died when she was 11 years old. Now she would be 28 years old.  What am I missing now?  What would she be like now?  I do not know the loss I have experienced because I have not experienced an enthusiastic, intense 28 year old Melinda.

And yet I have hope. My hope is in a mystery. Here is a paradox: the older I am, the younger I am because I am able to return to the thrill and enjoyment of mystery.

The solution to death is one of the greatest mysteries of life:

“Listen, I tell you a mystery; We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed – in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.  For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable and we will be changed.  For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.  When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’”  ~1 Corinthian 15: 51-54

May we all be faithful because Jesus is faithful until this day comes.

Even so come Lord Jesus. 

Marjorie Jane Dawson Woodruff: September 27, 1926 – January 11, 2018

Melinda Jean Pierson: August 4, 1989 – November 27, 2000

 

Easter has always been a special celebration for our family. It has become even more meaningful and taken on another layer of significance since our daughter, Tirzah Catherine, passed from this earth into the arms of Jesus (4 years ago this August). On Easter we celebrate the Resurrection, and it is because of our certain hope in the resurrection of Jesus that we know we will see Tirzah again. I have always prayed that her life would have significance on this earth, and that her life would share a message of LIFE.

Her tombstone has the verse 11:25 on the front: “Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.”

This Easter, I want to share that LIFE is IN Jesus! His life, death, and resurrection were all to give us LIFE.

This past Christmas I had a really sweet time sharing with Jeremiah about Jesus’s birth and why he came to be born.

On Christmas Eve, we were making cookies for Santa and watching Rudolph when Jeremiah said to me, “There are some people on the naughty list that won’t get presents.” (I think he was a little worried that he might be in that category!) Here’s how our conversation went:

Me: “Jeremiah, who is on the naughty list?”

Jeremiah: “Everyone?”

Me: Yes, we’re ALL on the naughty list; but we don’t earn gifts, especially the gift of Jesus that Christmas is all about.

Me: “Who is on the nice list?” Jeremiah: “Jesus.”

Me: “that’s right! ONLY Jesus! But the miracle of Jesus is that he took all the punishment of the WHOLE naughty list on himself when he died on the cross… AND he gave us the rewards of the Nice list, even though we don’t deserve it: and those are the gifts of adoption as God’s son and the gift of eternal life. It’s called “The Great Exchange.”

Me: “Jesus and Santa are on the same team. It’s all by grace, and the gifts from Santa are just a celebration of the greatest gifts of Jesus!”

On Christmas Day evening after we had our Jesus Birthday Cake, Jeremiah prayed: “Dear Jesus, Thank you for this time of Christmas, and Jesus, thank you for saving us for our sins. Amen.”

So this Easter, as I think of the resurrection of Jesus, and think of Tirzah, and how she’s already enjoying the gift of eternal life, I hope that you will join me in coming eagerly to the gift of Jesus:

“But Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When he was hung on the cross, he took upon himself the curse for our wrongdoing… He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree… By his wounds you have been healed. ~ Galations 3:13; 1 Peter 2:24

Introduction:

Whether you’re new to Delight of my Life or have been following since the beginning, I want to introduce to to my new page and invite you to join the conversation.

The goal of my blog is “creating community around an honest journey through the joy and grief of life.”  Blog topics include Child loss and Grief; Attachment Theory in Parenting; Mental Health; Christian Theology and Ministry; Veterinary Medicine; and Community Stories.

Why a blog anyway?

After my daughter Tirzah was stillborn at 40 weeks on August 20, 2014, I began writing “Dear Tirzah” letters. I believe these letters were true communication with her; that she can see me and hear me from Heaven. These letters became a source of healing for my broken heart.

I decided to dedicate a blog to Tirzah, using the meaning of her name, which is “delight of my life.”  I wanted to share my own journey of grief, in order to help other women grieve, and help people understand how to support their friends and family through loss.

Over the past three years of walking this grief journey, I’ve found that *grief expands* and *trauma begets trauma*.  Loosing a child is so life-shattering that it has a ripple effect that goes far beyond only the initial trauma of death. Therefore, my blog has grown to include other topics of trauma, mental health and parenting.

You may find this to be different then other “loss communities” that zero in on the topic of grief. My writing will address many peripheral topics, that will be relevant to many other people as well.

My hope is that my writing and the community formed around this blog will be a blessing and life-giving. I hope that together we will learn how to better listen, better suffer, and each grow in knowing our own story, and therefore where we need kindness, repentance, and freedom.

What can I expect?

My plan is to increase my posting, hopefully to 3 times a week. I hope to have a predictable rhythm to posts: starting with a post on prayer at the beginning of the week, midweek featuring a community story, and on the weekend posting on a main category topic (grief, mental health, theology, etc).

How can I join?

 

You can follow my blog and get my posts in your email! I welcome comments and feedback to my posts!

I want to grow a community section. I eagerly desire your questions, and stories! I have a blog email: catherine@delightofmylife.com. Please submit stories of child loss, grief, trauma, joy, goodness and blessing… anything in your life journey! You can request your post to be anonymous, and I will not post anything without your approval first.

A friend suggested that I have a veterinary category to my blog! Besides a Jesus follower, a wife, mother, and blogger, I am a veterinarian!! I love the idea of writing in this category, because I do love this field, but am not currently working. Please help me keep my passion alive, and submit your pet questions or stories!

Think with me for a moment and imagine… In your life, who have you known to have kind eyes toward you? Whose face and eyes have been a safe place for you?

Looking back over my early life, the safe eyes that I remember are those of my cat, Garfield. Does that strike you as silly… or sad? It is true, and I think it’s true for many of us.

Why are so many people animal-lovers, so lavish with their pets and truly heartbroken when they die? I believe it’s because our animals offer us attunement when perhaps no human does. They look into our eyes without shame or judgment. They know how we’re feeling, perhaps better than any person. In the best and worst of times they offer to us their simple, but whole presence.

Isn’t this what we all desire? What we’re made for? The presence of another who truly sees us and understands our thoughts and feelings.

This universal human need for connection, attunement, and love is by God’s design. It is woven deep into the fabric of our hearts… indeed, studies have shown that we cannot live without the tender love of another person.

Consider newborn babies. Their development shows how radically God has hard-wired our brains for “face to face”. The entire world of a newborn baby is narrowed to facial expressions and eye contact. As a result, they are intensely in tune to the unspoken messages of their care-givers.

In his book, “How to Really Love your Child,” Dr. Ross Campbell writes, “An infant’s eyes begin focusing somewhere around two to four weeks of age. One of the first images that hold an infant’s attention is a human face, but in particular the baby focuses on the eyes… you will notice that the eyes are always moving and seem to be searching for something… Do you know what the baby is looking for? That’s right: the baby is searching for another set of eyes. As early as two months, the baby’s eyes lock on another set of eyes.”

This very basic need is most clearly seen in babies, however, it is a need of every single person regardless of age.

The need for face to face is a God-given design and furthermore, is essential to what it means to be made in the image of God. Our triune God is in essence a God of relationship. We reflect this quality in our life-sustaining need for relationship.

Our need for face to face is reflective of our need for God himself. We were designed to be face to face with our Creator.

“Shining like the Sun: A Biblical Theology of Meeting God Face to Face”  by (my own brother) David Wenkel is a book that exposits this point.

The book’s thesis is this: “Those who meet God face to face are changed. The face is the essence of a person… that reflects the person’s relationship to God.”

This book goes through God’s progressive revelation of His face and presence beginning in Genesis and ending with the person of Jesus and the full consummation in the New Heaven and New Earth.

I found this to be an enlightening and enriching way of viewing the Biblical narrative. It provided a unified story frame that is applicable and transformative to my own relationship with God.

God’s design and purpose in all of history is relationship with each one of us. The focal point is an intimate relationship of unity, and surrounding that are desire, delight, and love… *for us*!!

The following sections are questions that came up for me as I read David’s book.

What does God experience when he looks into our face?

“So God created man in his own image… and God blessed them… And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.” ~ Genesis 1:27,28

When I read these words I have a sense of the sacred, holiness of this moment: God looked into Adam’s face and Eve’s face and he *delighted* in them… He was in awe of his own creation.

We were made for someone to look at us and be delighted.

However, there is a tension, or obstacle here… Evil has come into the picture and through sin has marred and thieved our goodness, beauty and glory. Instead, we are as a leper: sin-sick through and through… and yet, our need for love remains.

Into this impossible tension= our need for life-giving, life-sustaining love… and our total unloveliness (indeed, total depravity) comes a miraculous, stunningly scandalous rescue.

God turned His face away from Jesus so that He would not have to turn away from us. Jesus’s death on the cross means the removal of all sin, stain and shame—for those who receive Him. The total sum of our soul-sickness- past, present and future- was transferred from us to Jesus. He bore our sin, and paid for it with his death, and then he rose from the grave- conquering Evil, sin, and death! *For us*!!

Jesus said, “It is finished!” and “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”  With the just satisfaction of God’s wrath, He now looks at his own with the same eyes of love he has toward His Son: “This is {Catherine} in whom I am well pleased.”  {Call upon the name of the Lord, and insert your own name!!}

This is the Gospel= we are loved when we are most unlovable. God’s face is toward us. His eyes are locked on us in love.

 “Let me see your face. It is lovely.”   (Songs 2)

Because of Jesus, this is now God’s voice to his own: Desire. Delight. Love. *For us*!!

Why are we changed from “face to face” encounters?

When Ryan and I were in premarital counseling, this one point was engraved deeply in my mind: “The feeling of being listened to is the *same feeling* as feeling loved… A person will feel loved in proportion to the extent they feel seen and heard.” 

Seeing and listening is the essence of love.

The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is described as “love”… AND the first name he was given was “El Roi”… The God who Sees.

This is an earth-shattering truth. Let that reverberate in your mind and body: We are changed by face to face encounters because this is the purest channel of love.

And HOW are we changed?

We are changed BY love TO love. We are able to love because we’ve been loved.

 “We love him, because he first loved us.” – 1 John 4:19

This is the pattern.

Ryan’s experience with his counselor, Joel Murphy, is a wonderful example. My husband is a changed man. He is wise beyond what I could have imagined in loving Jeremiah and I with tenderness, grace and truth. I credit his change and growth to his time *face to face* with Joel. Ryan has received love and is able to give love. This is a visible example of the invisible experience we were made to have with God. We can *only give to others what we have first received.*

How do we respond? What is God calling us to?

First, those who know the love of God in their hearts are called to be face of Christ to others. We must not only share the Gospel of God’s grace with our words, but also with our eyes and our face. Otherwise our words are empty and void.

We must realize this: Our face communicates either judgment or blessing to those we interact with.

Are we actually anti-gospel with our eyes and our face?

The good news of Jesus is that we can draw near to God, finding mercy, in our time of need; this means that when we are most “unlovely”, we can look at God, not fearing condemnation… but finding kindness, forgiveness, and welcome… *For us*

Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God. ~ Romans 15:7

And yet, we punish, judge and shame another just with our *eyes alone*.

Think of your spouse… your children… those you interact with each day… Do your eyes show delight or distain? … Or worse still, do you not see at all? Do you withdraw your eyes and your presence… through escape to the TV, internet, video games… a thousand ways we find to disconnect from what face to face relationship asks of us.

Let me get specific on the range of anti-gospel interactions we have. There are two main categories: First, there are direct actions, and secondly, there are covert ways of withdrawing or withholding love. Both communicate a “conditional love”… instead of love and welcome to the unlovely, there is love available only when the other has earned our regard.

First, there is physical “defacing”- this is the action of slapping across a child’s face, or any person’s face for that matter. Any physical violence to a child’s face or head, no matter how light the force is *child abuse*, and is deeply damaging to a child’s heart. It is an acting out of a desire that most parents will not voice or consciously think: a heart-desire to remove the child’s face from existence. How many people were punished this way as children?

One person I know received blows to his face by both parents throughout his childhood. As an adult he seems to be confident, assured of himself and successful.  But in his private thoughts he struggles to believe that anyone would want to be his friend or enjoy his presence. In his heart he believes that he is unlovable, unworthy, and not good enough. He feels that he is only desirable through performance.

His experience of *conditional love* I believe is a common struggle. Most people have learned a *works-based acceptance* through the actions of their parents, which has been indelibly etched into their hearts.  The actions may be less violent then hitting… but may be a hardness in the eyes or a cold facial expression that communicates anger and judgment.

We may be completely unaware of these mannerisms until we take notice to examine what our eyes and face are doing in our relationships. And because we are not able to see our own face, we must open ourselves up to feedback from those who can see our face.

My four year old prophet-son said to me yesterday, “Mom, I don’t like the look on your face.”  I replied, “I’m so sorry, Jeremiah. Tell me what you see in my face.”  And he said, “You look mean.”  The vulnerability we both had in this moment opened up an invaluable opportunity to connect and repair… for repentance and forgiveness.

There are also covert ways in which we withdraw our eyes, face and presence. Consider the message that banishing a child to a “timeout” communicates: “When you misbehave, you are no longer acceptable to be in my presence. You cannot be face to face with me until you earn it by good behavior.”

For this reason, Ryan and I have been intentional about conducting our discipline of Jeremiah always within the context of relationship. However, I had another very revealing moment just the other day when Jeremiah was shining a flashlight in my eyes, after several requests that he would not do this, I stood up, and said in a huff, “I’m going in another room!” Jeremiah replied, “Don’t leave me!” Again, in that moment, my heart was unveiled by my little Prophet.

Conclusion

Have you experienced what your heart was made for: Have you had a face-to- face encounter with God?

We all need this- if you’ve never had it before, or have been walking with the Lord for many years- we need to be face-to face with God continually.  Like the prodigal, we need to come home every single day.

And like the prodigal, you must come to God with your presence, your heart, and your voice. The promise of welcome, grace and forgiveness is not for those who stand far off… but for those who draw near and actually *talk to God*. To all who *come*, His arms are wide open… and his eyes are full of kindness.

“…God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance…” ~ Romans 2:4

“if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved…  For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” ~ Romans 10:9-10, 13

And then…

Can we search our hearts and ask Jesus to show us how we have been anti-Gospel in our eyes and in our faces toward those nearest to us- our children, our spouses and our closest family?

Can we ask God to give us new eyes… seeing eyes… full of light… and love… grace and mercy… kindness… welcome.

Have you found safety in the eyes of the Living God?

and

Are your eyes a safe place?