It's Been Two Years

Between my junior and senior year of college, I started to get sick to my stomach for no apparent reason. Nausea and stomach pain soon became the constant norm, and it was particularly bad in the mornings. I dropped about 15 pounds, ate a lot of Club crackers, and frankly, I was a miserable wreck. We visited multiple doctors, had dozens of tests run, and no one could give me answers. They ended up taking out my gall bladder, but that didn't solve the problem, either. I remember sitting doubled over in pain one day and telling God I didn't care if He made me fat, I just wanted to be better. [Ha - I took that one back.] But I was desperate - for answers and for relief. I was at the point where I was sick all day every day and I just wanted to feel normal again.

Randy, amazing guy that he is, still married me. About 7 months into marriage, we made the decision to go off birth control because it was intensifying the nausea and it was also making me a bit crazy (think buckets of tears every single night, bless the man). And 13 months into marriage, surprise! I will never forget the feeling of seeing those two lines on that pregnancy test. Complete, unadulterated, mind-numbing, heart-racing panic is really the simplest way to describe it. ;) But the shock eventually wore off and we truly were thrilled to become parents. My nausea and stomach pain continued throughout my pregnancy, some days worse than others. I drank a lot of ginger ale. 

But 9 months later when I finally got to meet our sweet Landon with his beautiful dark hair and adorable button nose, I stopped getting sick. I woke up every morning without nausea. The awful stomach pains disappeared. Wouldn't you know it? 

For reasons I don't understand and can't explain, having a baby healed my body.

Landon is four and a half this month. I feel like he was born yesterday and yet it's like I've always known him. He is happy and stubborn and tender and exhausting and amazing. His story is a big part of who I am today.

Our journey really began two years ago this month. August 26th, 2013, a sweltering hot Monday morning in Pensacola. A little after 11:00, the neurologist who'd evaluated Landon several weeks before sat down across from us. "He came back positive for DiGeorge Syndrome," he said, kindly and a bit hesitantly. It's crazy how seven little words can turn your life upside down before you even realize what they actually mean. But I've told you that story.

These two years have not been easy. If I'm being honest, they have been the hardest years of my life. I feel like I've aged in a thousand ways and I have extra wrinkles to prove it. But I've already told you about my dark days, my struggle to be content, my anger against God's plan. I have had a lot of breaking points and felt the very real, lonely burden of special needs parenting. (One day I will write a blog post on the specifics of all that. I've started and stopped a hundred times.)

But if there is one thing I see over and over again in Landon's story, it is the amazing love of God for me. I know that doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense, particularly when you know how I've struggled. But here's the thing. I needed healing - and I didn't even realize it. Truth is, I am a huge control freak. I want my universe in order all the time. I want my house and my children and my circumstances to be exactly as I think they should be. And that control makes me impatient and angry and annoyed and honestly, quite overwhelmed at times. 

So you know what God did? He knocked the bottom out from under me. He took Becca's well-laid plans and destroyed them. He made me realize I have no control over anything, even when I think I do. 

But he didn't do any of that in spite. No, He broke me in order to heal me. In God's gracious, undeserved kindness, He gifted me with a little boy that is healing my wayward, stubborn, controlling heart. He chose to prune me and change me more into His Son's image through giving me Landon. And because He loves me, because He delights to do me good, and because He wants to draw me close to His heart, He is using Landon to make me less dependent on myself and more dependent on Him and His grace. He is opening my eyes to sin I didn't realize I had. I am (slowly) losing my grip on control and learning to cast myself on Him. 

Healing is often painful, slow, and at times, it seems impossible. Particularly when you're Becca and born with the stubbornness of a mule. But the end result? Worth it.

You know when you have a secret, a really, really good one? You can't tell anybody, and no one would really get how excited you are about it, anyway, because it's particular to you. That's how I feel. Landon is my secret. I'm amazed and overwhelmed and a bit giddy that I get to be his mommy. That doesn't mean I walk around on Cloud Nine all day. Ask my best friends and they'll tell you quite a different story, usually spelled out in "I'M GOING CRAZY. HELP ME" texts. But in spite of the struggles, the heartache, the anxieties, and the fears, my heart is bursting with love for this amazing boy full of personality and humor and a whole lotta crazy. Landon is not DiGeorge Syndrome and he never will be. He is Landon and he was perfectly created by a wise God. And he is perfect for me. 

When I held Landon for the first time four and a half years ago, I never thought he was somehow the key to bringing healing to my sick body. But more than that, I had no idea God would use Him to begin a journey of healing my soul.

And none of this could be true without the beautiful, wonderful Cross of Jesus and the inexplicable, boundless love of God that sent us His beloved Son.

Our pastor closed with these words from Romans 8 a couple months ago, and I haven't been able to get them out of my mind (emphasis mine):

If God is for us, who can ever be against us? Since He did not spare even His own Son but gave Him up for us all, won't He also give us everything else? 

Can anything ever separate us from Christ's love? Does it mean He no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death?

No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us. And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God's love.

No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.

God is weaving a tapestry that I still cannot see completely. But He has let me take a peek at its beauty. And while I am amazed by His work in the shape of Landon, I am truly in awe of the Artist.