Out of the darkness....Grace

I find myself contemplating a lot lately the depth of the darkness I have traveled over the past years.  The deepest struggles have been in faith and belief - my faith and belief in God, in our life as a couple and as a family, and in purpose.  I have been shattered, bitterly angry, jealous to the point of frustration, weary, and torn, and yet I live - out of the darkness....grace.   Prior to the beginning of our struggle to bring a healthy baby into the world three years ago - our lives were full - full to the point of not being able to fit anything else it - there was not an inch of wiggle room for anyone or anything else.  The pace was frantic, exhausting, and highly stressful - it felt like we were caught in a whirlpool of madness with no way out.  When I was pregnant with Ethan life continued the crazy spin, but the direction seemed clear until he passed from our arms, then life came to a screeching halt.  The thing is nothing else around us stopped spinning, just we did - people still demanded much from us, the bills still needed to be paid, we still had obligations, but we were stuck seemingly helpless watching the spin.  None of those things that we had kept spinning before - those things that we felt were so vitally important to life - those things that sucked so much life from us were important anymore.  Then came the darkness.  Joy was sucked from every moment, hope was a word of our past not our future, and helplessness caved in.   Nothing we could do could change where we were or what was happening to us - we did not choose it, but we had to walk it - out of darkness....grace.   There were many moments of total darkness over the past year, and I still daily live with an ache where my heart should be, but I also see the grace.  Each and everyday, though they have been painful since the day Ethan left us, have been gifts.  Everyday the sun shone, we breathed and lived and were held by grace.  Every day things and people poured through my life as raindrops of grace - whether it was a yard full of golden dragonflies all summer, the sweet love and laughter of two precious boys, the tears of a friend, or the compassion of a neighbor all raindrops caught within my outstretched hands quenching a thirst I knew I had but did not know how to express.  In the moments of feeling completely misunderstood a hand reaches out and I reach back and from the darkness comes grace.....  As I continue on the path of living after loss I find myself carried by grace - I now know with all of me that my God never left me - He does not forsake me - I walk and live and breath today by His hands of grace.  I stand breathless in the waiting - knowing that though the storms come so too does grace.