When we imagine our lives, suffering is hardly a chapter we write in. For me, it was a topic I always shied away from, the chapter I would skip over. The notion of suffering being a “gift” or a “blessing,” I would scoff at.
Suffering, however, would write itself into my life and my motherhood, more than I ever could have imagined.
Sometimes the hardest part in coming to terms with suffering are the memories we have already imagined. For me, this was the picture that would be resting on my shelf, a picture of steppingstone children, born one after another, standing side by side, awkwardly, silly, gangly. I could see it, and I wanted it so desperately. But God had different plans, and that picture soon began to fade into impossibility.
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