Can it really be two years? Two years since I first held you, first glimpsed your chubby cheeks and tiny, folded ears? Two years since your Daddy whispered, urgently, "Grace. Her middle name must be Grace." Two years since this song played over and over on repeat and I prayed, "You hold, God. You hold." Two years since you entered the world, purple and screaming and real and finally here.
Brynnlie Grace, our sweet Baby Girl, two years ago you were born into this life; into my arms. I remember holding a one-day-old bundle of you tightly to me in the hospital room, sunlight pouring through the second floor window, while a hymn was streaming on the computer. I remember tears pouring down my face. Your Daddy wanted to know why I was crying. I couldn't answer. I didn't know.
Maybe it was hormones. Baby blues, coming on strong with this third baby cradled in the crook of my neck. Maybe it was lack of sleep, since hospital beds never do provide all the rest a new Momma needs. Maybe it was the fear about how I would manage three kids and how you would eat and if we would sleep and all the many possible challenges that we might face in the next few days, weeks, months, years... I suppose it could have been so many things.
But I think maybe, Baby Girl, the tears I cried that day were the beginning of admitting that I have been living a lie for a very long time. It is a lie that has been a part of who I am, how I have defined myself, and what I have believed for as long as I can remember. I have been living a lie, and with the beautiful, miraculous, wonderful arrival of you in my world, I am learning how to admit the truth.
This lie carried me. It brought me through dark nights and ugly days in my childhood, days that were filled with struggle and abuse, nights where my very soul was torn apart and my innocence was lost. The lie has sustained me through grief and through chaos; it has bolstered my body through the daily need to just. keep. going. Somehow, your very presence is helping me to find a way to admit the truth.
For two years, I have clenched my fists and gritted my teeth and still held on, against the wave of emotion that washed over me in that hospital room. The same emotion that has threatened to unravel me some days, as I have fought an inner battle between holding on and letting go. I have clung to the lie, but you are teaching me and helping me to see the truth is much more beautiful, although it has tried to bring me shame.
The lie... The simple statement I have believed and lived and fought with, the proclamation that seems good, that others affirm in me, the mantra I have needed in order to survive is simply this: I. AM. STRONG.
The truth... The wonderfully broken and difficult and humbling truth, the truth that brings me to my knees, that I cannot say aloud, that threatens to break me in half when I admit it is this: I. AM. NOT.
I. AM. NOT. STRONG.
i. am. weak.
As I held you in my arms that sunny January day two years ago, the hymn that played in our hospital room proclaimed, "In Christ alone, my hope is found. He is my light, my strength, my song," I think somewhere, somehow, in that moment I knew: I cannot live this lie anymore. It has been hard to speak the truth to myself, and to see the truth as good. I am tired. I am weary. I am not strong. I am weak. These true statements make me feel embarrassed and ashamed.
I want to be more for you and your brothers. I believe somehow that being strong would be better. Yet the good news about the truth is right there in your name, Baby Girl. Brynnlie Grace. Grace. Your Daddy knew that it must be your middle name, as God whispered this word to his heart that day: "But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me." (2 Corinthians 12:9, NIV)
I am trying to believe that I can boast about my weakness, that grace really is sufficient. I am still struggling to admit my weakness and find my way to grace. But when I speak your name, when I call you, "Brynnlie Grace" and you smile and laugh and fling your arms open wide toward me, I think I am getting closer.
