The Winter of Our Discontent/Joy Comes in the Morning

Today, I cried over a hospital. As I was walking though the narrow off white halls of Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge, lit only by the blinking fluorescent lights, I longed for Calgary… Now there is a phrase I never thought I would hear myself type, let alone, say.
I missed the familiar, bright halls of Alberta Children’s Hospital, the huge windows letting in the frequent Alberta sun, the silver grand piano in the cafeteria, the guys playing jazz standards at 9:30am and the warm hydrotherapy pool where, when you emerge, they wrap you in a warmed flannel sheet. And that is not the only thing I have missed about Calgary. I miss Ella’s early learning program at PREP, her fabulous therapy team at the DS Clinic and how you can get government funding for everything from education programs to mileage. If you are going to live anywhere with a child with Down Syndrome, Calgary is the place to be.

January signifies the start of our season of discontent. For many, it is because they experience the let down of Christmas, the slowness of pace forcing us to sit idle until Valentine’s day and we have something to celebrate or an excuse to eat as many cupcakes as we can. Friends and family have returned to their homes and the house seems empty without the trees and lights, the mantle naked without stockings, and the kitchen stale without the aromas of roasting turkey and apple pies.

For me, however, January is a season of discontent because it is beckons our season of transition. For five out of the seven years that Ben and I have been married, January, through to the beginning of Spring marks a time of waiting, decisions and general discontentment. It is agonizing. We are forced to once again sit down and think about where would be a suitable place for our family.
Where is best for Ella? Calgary. Where is best for Jakob? Anywhere as long as it is for more than a year. Where is best for Ben? Where there is opportunity. Where is best for me? Not Calgary, unless it has a winter like this year…every year.
Emotions run high and are constantly whiplashing between hope and despair. It is a time when my body copes with the stress in unpleasant and debilitating ways and my faith is challenged as I am forced to “TRUST”. This year, even though I feel revitalized from a slow romantic autumn, I know my heart is weak and I am wondering how I will come out on the other end. Last year….and every year, people said, “You will be stronger in the end.”

I have said to myself a number of times over, “just don’t think about it.” But is that a remedy or a bandaid on the fear that lives deep in my soul and dreams up the worst possibly scenarios in which no opportunities will present themselves and joy will be lost completely. I worry that blessing will come at a ransom I won’t be able to pay and that instead of respite and renewal God might instead, bring refining, like he has for so many years before.

I wrote this yesterday. I knew I was in a bad place, not dwelling in beauty nor abiding in God so I chose not to finish and went to bed early.

“Sing Praises to the Lord, O you his saints,

and give thanks to his holy name.

For his anger is but for a moment, 

and his favor is for a lifetime.

Weeping my tarry for the night but 

joy comes in the morning.”

~ Psalm 30:5

As mothers I think that we understand this scripture in a whole new light. Last night, weary and heart broken, I bribed my son with a treat, asking him to sleep in his own bed all night. (You can just go ahead and slap another gold star on my Parent of the year award.) There are times you have to weigh your battles and let’s just say with sleep, joy came along with a little perspective. 

I don’t know about you, but I tend to worry most when I am sleep deprived and it is usually about things that haven’t even happened yet. 

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart,

and do not lean on your own understanding.”

~ Proverbs 3:5

My understanding and my finite human reasoning succumbs to theories of logic and probability. It has always been one of my greatest allies and darkest enemies. It is when I have no understanding and no control that I find myself saturated in grace. Take for example, one night, two and half years ago. I held my baby girl in my arms and knew something I did not understand, nor did I have any control over. And yet, in that moment I was gifted the grace I needed for the time that I needed it. Perhaps coming to this place, speechless is exactly where I need to be.

“And I used to dream of a life so lovely,

there’d be no room for tears

Now letting go, yeah

Letting go

It’s the hardest part

There’s no fight left on the inside

But maybe that’s where I should be.”

~JJ Heller