I naively believed that grief has an end.

It doesn’t.  Not on this side of heaven, anyway.

It’s hard to explain our grief. There is no obituary, there’s no funeral or memorial. Just waves of crippling loss that threaten to overwhelm us.

We’ve traveled this journey of infertility for almost 10 years.

My soul aches as I write those words.

10 years. Hoping. Praying. Waiting.

And after years of battling an illness that wrecks my body more each year, we’ve come to a point where we have to make a decision about my health that will leave me permanently barren.

There’s finality in this that feels like running full speed into a brick wall.

Truth be told, our default in the hard stuff is to isolate. To hide ourselves away from the world and wait for the worst to pass.

But as we’re processing through this pain, we’ve both felt God impressing on us to share our story and invite those who love us to walk with us as we grieve, as we discern, and ultimately as we heal.

This is us.

Wounded, raw, and grieving.

Struggling to hold it all together, but trusting we don’t have to, because we belong to the One who is before all things and Who holds all things together (including us).

And in our grief we continue to Hope. Pray. Wait.

Because even when the miracle doesn’t come, we still trust the Miracle Worker.

Though the darkness threatens to overwhelm us, we hold fast to the glimmer of hope that God sees us, and even now, He is at work in our circumstances to bring about His glory and our good.

We find joy and peace in His presence.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Romans 15:13

Merry Christmas, friends.

Love,

Todd & Nichole