I went many years before I would tell this story to anyone
for this reason: Embarrassment over a temper
tantrum I threw that ended in a very personal experience between me and
Heavenly Father. This is something that
happened almost eight years ago. I started feeling prompted to share it a
couple of times starting about four years ago, and for the last few months I
have felt I should write about this experience in my blog so I am finally doing
it. To be honest, I felt like I was
finished with my blog. The purpose for
it was to help me heal and be whole again through writing out the pain and the
blessings I experienced. What I feel now
compared to how I felt when I started this blog is such amazing change. I am starting to recognize myself again. There were so many years I didn’t even
recognize myself because of the heavy weight of the relentless burdens I felt. But I’m finding that, valiant, righteous
woman again. For many years I would read
through my old journals and I would notice what a better person I was before
the severe experiences of life. They had really taken their toll.
A month or two before I found out I
was expecting Abby, Parker started violently screaming every time something
happened he didn’t like or if he had to go through a transition. I wrote about this in greater detail in an
earlier post but it was a very exhausting and depressing experience for
me. During this time for a few weeks I just didn’t feel right. I told Brent I wanted to get a pregnancy test while we were in town. He was convinced it wasn’t possible for me to
be pregnant. It took four years for me
to get pregnant with Parker and Parker had just barely turned a year old. We weren’t ready for another little miracle,
not while our first little miracle was so impossible to deal with. At that time, we lived in a tiny condo in the
middle of Bailey, Colorado. It’s a long
story how we got there but I do remember we had felt guided to the remote area
and I loved it….until we had children. After
that it was just torture. It took 45 minutes
to an hour one way to get to the closest affordable store down in a Denver
suburb. Parker would relentlessly scream
if he had been in the car too long and the day we came home after buying the
pregnancy test was no exception. I had
become sick because I was unknowingly pregnant.
Brent had to keep stopping the car to, well, let me be sick. To add to this it was the 4th of July weekend
and every celebratory person and their cousin headed to our mountains for
camping. There was also a major rain
storm that backed up traffic and the trip took two and a half hours to get
home. Parker screamed for most of that. We
were completely rattled and it put us in a terrible mood to find out the news,
that I was expecting another baby.
Going up and down that beautiful
mountain during this time in our lives was absolute torture and I was convinced
we should have moved off the mountain before we had brought Parker home from
the hospital, much less have another baby on top of it. Brent no longer worked for the law firm that
had insisted we live in the mountains (because they were in the mountains). But we were trapped. We purchased our home a year before the
housing prices dropped. We were still
completely unable to sell our condo or even rent it out. I would make the long and terrible drive up
and down the mountain while my moody baby tortured me with his relentless
screams.
There is one day that is still
vivid in my memory. It's the reason I'm wrighting this post. My OB’s office was
as far as a drive for me as it could be.
I would travel to the bottom of the canyon then continue to drive an
additional 20 minutes to the hospital.
During this time in our lives Brent would ride a bus to downtown Denver to
save on gas and parking costs. He would
drive his car 10 minutes to a bus stop, take a bus down the canyon then into
downtown, ride a trax system 6 blocks then walk two blocks to his office. There was only a morning bus and an evening
bus. On this particular day, I called to
let Brent know I was going to a doctor’s appointment, and he asked if I could
drive to downtown to pick him up because he would be finished with his work
early. In good traffic this would add an
hour to my commute back home, but I loved the idea of Brent returning home with
me instead of late at night like usual, so I set out to downtown. About halfway there the traffic completely
stopped. Parker was full blown screaming
at this point and there had to have been at least another two hours ahead of
me. I had no other choice but to cut
across town and head back to the mountains without getting Brent. By time I reached the mouth of the canyon,
Parker’s screaming was still building momentum and I had a good 40 minutes ahead
of me. My nerves were absolutely shot
and I was beginning to become unraveled.
All I wanted, dreamed of, and prayed for, was to move off that
treacherous mountain. It was so
beautiful the first two years we lived there without children. Even though the drive was long it was
pleasant and peaceful. But as soon as I
had to drive back and forth with a stubborn, moody infant with his relentless
screams in the back seat the drive was bondage. I didn’t even notice the beauty
all around anymore. It was like a chain
was wrapping around me, suffocating and overwhelming me. I felt a panicked anxiety in the center of
my chest that was brewing into anger and I finally lost it.
I started screaming at the top of
my lungs and yelling at God. We had
always been so faithful to Him and this was unfair. How could I have another child in that tiny
condo that was only big enough for two?
We were about to become a family of four! How could I add another screaming child to
that drive and mentally survive it? How could we all be safe in the blizzards
that plagued the mountain each winter?
How could I handle being so isolated and alone when life was so
overwhelming, when I needed friends and support? It all came out. I had never lectured God before and my
screaming and whaling only frightened Parker and made him cry louder. I finally got to a point that I could breath
instead of scream. I waited a minute,
forcing myself to calm down. I began to
pray again. I asked for forgiveness then
I asked for help to calm down. I don’t
know how it was possible to hear the whispering of the Holy Ghost in that
crazed state of mind, but I felt prompted to turn on the local Christian
station. The first words that came out of the radio were “I love you, I love
you, I want you to know that I love you.
I’ll never let you go. No, no.
And I’ll be by your side where ever you fall. In the dead of night whenever you call,
please don’t fight these hands that are holding you. My hands are holding you.” I was stunned into silence. I began to weep. I
wrapped my arms around the steering wheel as I slowly moved back and forth on
the winding mountain road. I don’t even
remember hearing the crying any longer. Maybe Parker finally stopped, but it
was just me and my Father in Heaven and He was telling me how much he loved
me. It was as if the steering wheel had
become the chest of God for me to rest on and a peace settled upon me.
Our young little family continued
to live in that condo an additional year and a half before Brent was out of work
and we lost it. Those were some of the
darkest and loneliest times in my life. I didn’t know that day that things were going to get so
much worse for our family before it got better. But, a God in Heaven had spoken
to me and gave me a renewed strength. I
downloaded that song and over the last eight years I’m sure I’ve listened to it
over a thousand times. When my sanity is
slipping or my doubt is high I turn it on and listen to Heavenly Father tell me
all over again how much He loves me. It
gives me brighter hope and greater strength to never give up no matter what
life is putting us through.
Here is the link to the song By Your Side, 10th Avenue North
