Savor
I have about three drafts of essays that I have considered publishing over the past few weeks; writing hasn't been something I've been doing as much publicly as I have been processing privately many different things through writing. My Biblical counselor encouraged me a while ago to start journaling, and at first, I wasn't really sure that it would be helpful to me. But I'll say that on nights when I am awake at 3AM replaying a conversation in my head or am anxious about something, it has been helpful to turn on the light in our guest room and sneak under the covers in there to write. The three drafts I have that are unpublished will likely remain that way because they were a form of journaling to me, a way to express some things that I was feeling through the written word so that I could then put those things to rest.
I've been wanting to write about my word of the year for a while but haven't quite known how to do it in a thoughtful way. I am sitting in a season that I thought I might never be in, a season where I am anticipating so many things ahead-- childbirth, meeting our son, learning the ropes of motherhood, finding a new rhythm in marriage, considering what my work life will look like. During our years of recurrent pregnancy loss, I remember feeling like I would never take it for granted if we were ever able to maintain a pregnancy. I think I've maintained that pretty well and try to maintain a posture of gratitude for where the Lord has us currently. It is hard because I am naturally someone who wears my heart on my sleeve-- I love to share in the joys and sorrows of my day to day with those around me. Some consider this oversharing; for me, it's part of a call to vulnerability and sharing my testimony that I do not neglect. But this also comes with a responsibility for how others feel when I share; for example, baby bumps were hard for me to see on the internet when I couldn't seem to grow one myself. So to now have one feels like a responsibility that I have to manage- do I show it to others in photos as I do other things in my life, or do I conceal it to avoid hurting someone else who is sitting in the season where I once was not long ago?
I've recently had a few experiences that have made me want to guard myself more, to share less of myself and what I am walking through in order to minimize judgment from others, to avoid being seen as "too much," and even to avoid being misunderstood by others. I had a conversation a few weeks ago that left me feeling horribly misunderstood, and I had to decide if I was going to share more with this person in order to defend myself or if I was going to humble myself and say less instead of lashing out back at them as I felt had been done to me. I chose to be humble instead, which has not proven to be easy.
At the end of the day, I have always felt that sharing my story and what God is doing in it is part of my life as a writer and ultimately a part of my testimony as I share about His goodness in my life. So I'd love to share more about my word of the year, savor, today, at the risk of all of the aforementioned concerns-- being judged, being seen as "too much," and being misunderstood.
My old church pastor, Mike Ashcraft, of Port City Church in Wilmington, encouraged a practice of choosing a word of the year at the start of every new calendar year. He even wrote a book about it years ago, titled My One Word. This isn’t necessarily an original thought anymore, but at the time, it was quite a departure from the typical New Year’s Resolutions that I was accustomed to and that I really loathed. I adopted the practice of choosing a word of the year, and I even started ordering a necklace stamped with my word of the year annually from a friend who makes beautiful jewelry that she sells on Etsy. My words have held vastly different meanings to me and, in some cases, have served as a double meaning; I’ve chosen words like truth, endure, nourish, joy, hope, and most recently, savor.
I’m a gatherer of people— that’s just something I love to do. I’ve long thought of the author Shauna Niequist as one of my kindred spirits in this regard; almost everything she writes about gathering people around a table resonates deep in my bones. In her book Bread and Wine, she writes “I can’t imagine life without a table between us.” How poetic, how beautiful, to imagine all of life as a gathering around a table amongst people we love. I have a small print of this handwritten by Lindsay Letters hanging in our dining room to remind me of the spirit of gathering people. This word, savor, brings to mind these images of sitting around a table, savoring time with family and friends, savoring the taste of food and wine, the smells of candles burning and the aromas of delicious foods wafting through the air, and pressing the memories of these moments deeply into my skin, into my core.
But more than the imagery of savoring life around the table with other people, what I’m really wanting to savor this year are the memories of seeing my body grow and change in ways that I only previously could dream of. When you’ve seen a positive pregnancy test five times already without any evidence of a child in your arms, you do start to wonder if your womb will always be barren. You read the stories in the Bible of women like Sarah and Elizabeth who God eventually blessed with children, but you find it hard to find yourself in that story. I protected my heart fiercely in the early days of this sixth pregnancy; I told numerous friends that I was watching closely for signs of loss, told them that I was not expecting much from this pregnancy, especially in the midst of the hurricane that left western NC in ruins.
Once we “graduated” from reproductive endocrinology, thankful to have finally conceived and maintained a pregnancy naturally without the use of advanced reproductive technologies and a little help from blood thinning injections, I decided to start allowing myself to enjoy this pregnancy without living in constant fear. There were still many “checkpoints” ahead; we weren’t through first trimester yet, still had genetic testing ahead, still had an anatomy scan ahead, still had 32 weeks of a pregnancy left.
As we shared with our families around the holidays about our growing and healthy baby boy, the word savor kept coming to mind. This is often how my word of the year comes to be; I start praying for God to reveal a word to me for the following year, and then I start to pay attention, to listen to the words He is whispering. This is the one that He kept whispering. I didn’t quite know what it meant yet, until one night when I was lying in our hotel room in Scotland with Scott watching The Sound of Music. Our babymoon involved a whole lot more lying in bed watching Julie Andrew’s movies and reruns of The Great British Bakeoff while eating takeout than we had pencilled into our itinerary. He had his hand on my growing belly and we were reflecting on when we would travel again, when we would bring our baby boy to see all of the beautiful places that we had traveled to and when we would explore new ones with him. I started to think about that word again, savor, and I realized that God was asking me to savor this pregnancy and to live in a spirit of gratitude throughout it.
I made a decision in that moment to focus in on the beauty of pregnancy instead of the difficult aspects of it. I’ve done my best in this pregnancy not to complain about symptoms; I do have them, and I do talk about them when asked, but I try to remember to be grateful for them instead of seeing them as inconveniences in my life. After all, they reflect a healthy growing boy inside of me, a blessing I only dreamed about for years. First trimester fatigue has hit me hard in every pregnancy I’ve lived through so far (yes, I do consider myself to be a first trimester expert at this point; as for second and third, I’ve only lived through those once, but first trimester is my jam), and yet, as I would lie down to take a nap in the evening after a long day of work or studying, I tried to maintain a posture of gratitude for what the fatigue represented, the reason underlying it.
I thankfully had very minimal nausea in my first trimester, had some food aversions but nothing too extreme, and generally felt pretty well overall. But there were things I could have complained about; and when the ultrasound tech would ask how I was feeling, I would tell her the truth, but would say, “But I’m not complaining, I am so grateful to be here.” She knew. She had held my hand through two D&Cs and had delivered bad news to us three times after ultrasounds that revealed a nonviable pregnancy. One day when I said this to her she said, “it’s ok to be miserable and grateful all at the same time.” I tucked away what she said and kept it to myself, still feeling like I wanted to savor the symptoms I was experiencing instead of complaining that I was miserable; truthfully, I really wasn’t.
Now as I enter the final weeks of pregnancy, I have more to complain about. I still try not to; I admit that I am tired. Anytime someone asks me how I am now, my first thought is to say, “I’m utterly exhausted.” But I try to say instead, “I’m tired but good.” Because I am. I am tired, and I am fighting to keep my eyes open most days at work and fighting with my body when I want to scrub bathroom floors and feel every ache in my back and hips, but I am good. We are good. We are weeks away from meeting our sweet boy and for that, I am so grateful. For that, I am savoring these weeks that we have left.
Savor is also for the season ahead after this pregnancy. I really desire to be pregnant again someday, but we have no idea if it will be possible. It took us so long to get here and there are no guarantees in recurrent pregnancy loss. But instead of wishing away the days and hoping to be pregnant again, I hope that the Lord will help me to savor the days of newborn haze and sleepless nights, of dirty diapers and late night feedings. I hope that I can say about the season ahead, “This is hard but it is also good.” I hope that as I rock my baby in my arms late at night, that I will remember the nights I cried over not having this, that I will remember the nights I prayed for this season. And I pray that I will not wish it away but instead, that I will savor it deep in my bones.
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