(14) "The Target Effect"...

The Target Effect ... while driving to Target becoming a target of a revelation/explanation from God. -- words from my mom

I love how God speaks to me whenever He wants and at completely random times. LOVE IT!! Well, today His randomness caught me on my way to Target, as I was turning off the feeder road into the shopping center. Yep... I can get that specific. When you hear Him, you know. And you know what He said to me?

"Meredith, I chose you because you are strong."

(DISCLAIMER: Before I get too elaborate, let me explain. This is His revelation to me... about me. This is not a revelation about Brendon, or about us as a couple. The Lord will speak to Brendon without me hearing and the Lord will speak to us as a couple together. So if any of this starts to sound selfish, it is not meant to be. It is just what He revealed to my heart because He knows what my heart has been struggling with.)

Yep. He chose me because I am strong. I was chosen to lose my daughter because of my strength. Sounds wrong and doesn't make sense, does it? Well believe me. It has taken me 5 weeks to even hear Him whisper that. And while I might doubt it sometimes, I know that my heart is healing enough to let Him tell me.

When the Lord decided my daughter had fulfilled His Will here on earth, he did not take her because of something I had done in my past, or because my body failed, or because He wanted to test me. That is not how He works. I am not being punished, my body is healthy, and I am not in the middle of a test. He wanted to show me my strength. He wanted to show me my capacity to love. It takes a lot of strength to get out of bed everyday. It takes alot of strength to face the world while you fight a battle in your heart that no one sees. It takes a lot of strength to even begin to think of a future. It takes a lot of strength to love in the midst of pain.

Our daughter was a gift. She was given to us. She was on loan. She was never fully ours. The Lord knew, unbeknownst to us, when He would take her back home. She was never outside His reach and He held her in His hands the entire time. This is a concept that Brendon and I had talked about in the beginning of the pregnancy but never knew that it would become our reality.

You might think that after this revelation, that I should be okay now, that maybe I am fully healed if I can talk so frankly about this topic. In actuality, I am not... I am far from it. There are bad days and good days. The hole that is in my heart is enormously large and very dark. I miss our daughter with every fiber of my being... the pain of missing her can make me physically hurt. The fact is is that I am still healing and I might never fully heal, but I will become stronger. But that is the whole point... to become stronger in the face of pain and suffering.

I have learned that strength comes in many forms and is also revealed in places where you might think strength would not be.

Strength is:
- allowing yourself to succumb to pain
- putting one foot in front of the other
- admitting that your heart hurts
- clinging to what you know is true
- smiling even though it hurts
- taking one more breath
- letting the tears flow and the body heave
- listening to what your body says and no one else
- healing on your own time
- staying in the dark place, even though it is extremely scary
- seeing the light at the end of the tunnel
- knowing that you are not alone
- learning who you are in the process
- loving despite the searing pain in your heart
- being able to dust yourself off and quietly move forward