The Hurricane

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” – Soren Kierkegaard.

I had originally planned on waiting to tell this part of the story, as it seemingly has nothing to do with our current journey with the Foreign Service. But, as I worked on writing our present story, I realized it cannot be understood unless you also know the past that formed me into someone able to understand her present. So, with that in mind, here is the true beginning of the story.

     It was October 10^th, 2018 when the 3^rd strongest hurricane to ever make landfall in the U.S., Hurricane Michael, hit the town of Panama City, where our little family lived.  My husband, being in law enforcement, had to stay behind while I evacuated to Orlando, a 6 hour drive away.  I drove away in the 6 am darkness the day before it hit, 34 weeks pregnant with baby #3, my 3 year old and 2 year old sleepily buckled in their car seats.  At the time we didn’t know how bad it was going to be, and I thought I’d be driving back to my husband in a matter of days.  Little did I know it would be five weeks before I would see him again.  I was on the phone with him as the hurricane started impacting the area.  As he was watching air conditioning units be blown off of buildings around him, Don said “This is going to be BAD.  You have to go to Chicago (where our closest family was).  You can’t come back here.”  As he started to lose reception, I tried to argue and plead with him, saying I didn’t care how bad it was, I just wanted to go home.  But he was right.  When it was all said and done, there was no power, no water, no basic infrastructure…and no functioning hospitals in which to have our baby.

     After the plane tickets to Chicago were booked, I sobbed as I spoke to my mother on the phone, trying to make sense of how my life had spun out of control in a matter of hours.  With all the wisdom of a seasoned mother, her roots firmly planted in her faith, my mother gently reminded me in that moment that Mary, the mother of Jesus, had also traveled far from home to have her baby.  She reminded me to cling to Mary, to pour out all my anxieties and grief to the mother whose own heart, immaculate though it was, was pierced with unfathomable sorrows on account of her child. My mother spoke truth to me about who I was and whose will I was called to follow.  Mary uttered a deep and resounding “Fiat”, an unwavering “yes” to God’s will.  She did not place any limitations on her yes, it was not a conditional offer.  It was a YES to anything and everything that God willed for her, no matter the cost.  Instead of trying to grasp at the straws to put my life back the way I wanted it, I was being called to lay down my own selfish plans at the foot of the cross, and proclaim, as Mary did, “May it be done to be according to your word.” (Luke 1:38).

     As Mary did, I pondered these wise words from my mother.  But I regret to say, I did not allow them to change my selfish heart.  Over the next few weeks, though countless blessings were showered on me by family and friends, my heart remained bitter.  I and my 2 small children stepped off the plane in Chicago in 40 degree weather in flip flops, tank tops, and shorts.  It was all we had with us.  Yet waiting at my in laws’ house were closets full of warm maternity clothes and children’s clothes, all donated to us instantly in the hours after the hurricane.  My sister in law had printed out family photos of us and placed them in the bedrooms to make this new space feel like home.  She had even made me an OB appointment.  A high school friend of my husband’s even leant us his car while he used a work vehicle.  Aunts who came to do fun crafts with my kids, a neighbor experienced with autistic children who came to see how she could help my son (who has high functioning autism), adjust to the transition, my sister in law who hosted a birthday party for my son at her house…truthfully, the blessings and the kindness shown to us were endless.

     I wanted none of it.  I wanted my husband, wanted to not solo parent these high energy children for 5 weeks while extremely pregnant, wanted the beautiful Florida weather instead of the Chicago frigidity, wanted my bed, wanted my friends, I wanted MY life.  I desperately wanted to give birth in the hospital in Panama City where I actually worked as a nurse, where I knew the nurses, the doctors, the routines, everything.  Instead I would have to give birth at a big Chicago hospital where I knew not a soul, and then return to a house that was not my own to recover.  There were many other sufferings, in hindsight insignificant, but which at the time seemed to be unbearable crosses.  My anxiety was so sky high, I struggled to sleep.  Many nights I would wake up, mind racing, at 3 am and be unable to fall back asleep.  My autistic son was an absolute mess with all this abrupt change.  He would have hour long screaming tantrums, often multiple times a day.  He even managed to break his arm while we were there, and I hauled him to a Chicago ER alone at 37 weeks pregnant.  We sat there in the hospital, a broken little boy and his broken hearted mama.  Oh Mary, is this suffering just an infinitesimal shadow of the suffering you experienced at the foot of the cross?  There too, a broken boy and His broken hearted mama. 

     Goodness, how I missed my husband!  Many nights after the kids were finally tucked into bed, I would sob to him on the phone, an absolutely exhausted, stressed, overwhelmed, shell of the woman I was just a few weeks prior.  The hospitals in Panama City were still unoperational, but I was so desperate to get my life back that I would grasp at any possibility to change my circumstances.  I suggested that we could come home and I could deliver at a hospital about an hour and a half away.  My husband, always the cool-headed, rational one in times of stress, gently reminded me that this was not a good idea.  I was too pregnant to fly, there was still no basic infrastructure in Panama City, and with baby number 3, we might not make it all the way to that hospital in time once labor started.

     Don was thankfully able to join us in Chicago when I was 39 weeks pregnant.  “Good,” I thought, “now we can have this baby and as soon as she’s safely out, we can fly right on back to Panama City and I can start putting my life back together.” 

Except she wouldn’t come out. 

Our first two children were born early, but this stubborn one’s due date came…and went.  Yet again, I refused to be Mary.  I refused to be the handmaid of the Lord, letting His perfect will in his perfect timing, be done in my life.  I would be Eve instead.  I would grasp at the fruit that was my life, my future.  I would take control for myself.  And so I called the hospital to schedule an induction.  But as I spoke to the nurse on the phone, she regretfully informed me (knowing absolutely nothing of my situation), that the labor and delivery ward was full, they were not scheduling inductions right then.  Except she didn’t use those words.  The exact words she used were

“There is no room at the inn.” 

You see, our Father was not done with me yet, not by a long shot.  Oh, our Father!  He is so good, so good all the time, even when we cannot see it.   Earthly fathers must at times discipline their children, not because they wish to cause them pain and suffering, but because they KNOW their children must learn certain things in order to succeed in life and in the world.  So my Father had more to teach me, so that I would be prepared for even more difficult journeys ahead.  Through the words of that unsuspecting nurse, he gently reminded me, yet again, that I was to be his handmaiden, that I must follow Mary’s example.  I must lay down my grasping for control, lay it down at the foot of the cross.  Instead, I must surrender, totally, unconditionally surrender, to His perfect will for my life.

     Five days late, in a Chicago snowstorm (but apparently right on time if you ask God!), that beautiful baby was finally born.  When she was 11 days old, our whole little family flew back to Panama City, to our house that still had a blue tarp covering most of the damaged roof, to start putting our life back together.

Today, our little family is again in a situation where we are called to give up all control. Now, because of the suffering from five years ago, I am more prepared to give up my will and accept His, whatever that may be. Just as blacksmiths use red-hot fire to make iron and steel into a malleable form, just as exquisite diamonds are formed through intense pressure and heat, just as a potter presses and guides his clay, God was using the fires of suffering to transform my cold and selfish heart into a new creation.  The steel needs the fire, the diamonds the heat, and the clay the push of the potter’s hands, though they know not yet what they will become.  So I needed the suffering of the hurricane to become the woman who could embark on this journey.

Fiat. Let it be done.