It's time for me to share my inspiration for this new blog theme: our unborn daughter, Jubilee Ruth. We had her for about seven weeks, and now she is gone. But God is bringing so much life out of her death. This is [the first part of] her story.
A little over a year ago, November 7th, 2009, I was sitting in church listening to a conference speaker talk about the Year of Jubilee. I wrote about this concept the other day - freedom, justice, redemption, rest, celebration. Such a rich and beautiful thing. As I sat in the sermon, I wrote this in my journal: JUBILEE: A beautiful name for a daughter. Freedom, celebration, worship, justice, rest, the setting right of things. Jesus initiated the age of Jubilee - the gift of God. Healings, ministry, the poor's needs met. Laughter, exuberance, Life. It's the vision of eternity with You. The vision of those far away brought near, the outsiders invited in. As I was about to stash Jubilee away on my ever-growing list of potential baby names, the full name "Jubilee Ruth" dropped into my mind, seemingly from nowhere. We weren't talking about Ruth; I wasn't thinking about Ruth; I've never particularly favored the name Ruth for one of my own future children. I figured it might just be random, but I wrote it down in my journal anyway. We weren't planning on getting pregnant anytime soon so I didn't think much more about it after that.
Fast forward about ten months, to the fall of 2010. I found myself in a season of sort of catching up from the previous 4 straight years of transition. I've moved six times in those 4 1/2 years and lived in three different states. In that same time, in the midst of all those moves, I have also graduated from college, gotten married, had a baby, been a full-time student at two grad schools, and been involved in five churches. Needless to say, it's been a lot, and somewhere along the way I lost my ability to fully process each new transition as it took place. Every time things changed, even in good ways, there were also things lost - relationships, communities, certain dreams and freedoms. And though I longed to find it in God, I felt no over-arching sense of rootedness to carry me through. It was too much change to process, and I increasingly became numb spiritually and emotionally. It seemed like every time I tried to approach God for that sort of intimacy I used to experience so richly with Him, I just hit a wall. I didn't know what was in the way, but I was tired of trying to figure it out.
So this past fall, God finally began showing me the nature of my stuckness: I needed to grieve. Definition of grief = emotional expression. It's getting the difficult emotions out. Every single transition has carried its own set of un-grieved losses and disappointments, and over time they clogged up my life-receptors so much that I wasn't even able to enjoy the good things in my life, not fully anyway. So step by step, almost systematically, God has been bringing up losses and hurts that I need to feel, tears and anger and all, so that I can move forward.
In the midst of that, He has also been showing me that I have actually become afraid of growth and good things in my life. I am so scared that they will just be fleeting and temporary, like every other season of my life has been over these past few years. Bottom line: I don't trust that He is good, and that He loves me, and therefore has my best in mind. I was at the point where I was starting to kill any new dreams or hopes that started emerging, because I was so afraid of just being let down, hurt, and disappointed.
So it's November 10, 2010. I'm fully in the midst of the grieving process, and I feel God daring me to dream and hope, even though I'm so terrified of disappointment. It was a Wednesday, and I went home from my internship feeling sick. When I got home, I started reading the Old Testament book of Ruth. I had been going through Larry Crabb's book called Shattered Dreams, in which he fleshes out Ruth and Naomi's beautiful story of God's redemption. In reflecting on it, I got to thinking about that concept of Jubilee that I had pondered almost exactly a year earlier. I can't explain why, but I felt compelled to dive into that concept in a new way. My husband and I are both seminary students/grads so we have lots of random biblical reference books around. So, I pulled out the Dictionary of Biblical Theology and looked up "Jubilee." It cross-referenced me to the "Sabbath" entry. It turns out that Jubilee is really a Sabbath Year - like I wrote about before, it is the culmination of Holy Rest for the Israelites. And in a new way that day, I saw the significance of REDEMPTION in the idea of Jubilee - redemption means literally "to buy back what was sold," which is a huge part of the year of Jubilee. Restoring all land to its original owner and forgiving all debts. Again, I meditated on the richness and beauty of it all.
As I was reading through Leviticus 25 that day, the place where the Year of Jubilee is laid out, I discovered that that chapter is also where the law about the kinsman redeemer is introduced. Ruth's story of redemption hinges on this idea of a kinsman redeemer, which, it turns out, is part of the Jubilee law. Without going into too many details, a kinsman redeemer was a close male relative of a widow's dead husband who would take her on as his wife, in order to both provide for her needs and to provide a male heir in the name of the deceased husband (if one did not exist already). In that culture, this ensured the widow's current and future provision. In Ruth's story, Boaz becomes her kinsman redeemer, and ensures the security of both Ruth and her mother-in-law Naomi. He also fathers an heir for Ruth's deceased husband, and the book ends with a delightful picture of Naomi (who lost her husband and both sons) holding her grandson on her lap. Life out of death. Beautiful.
So I'm reading this, and all in a flash, it hits me. Jubilee Ruth. The seemingly random name that dropped into my head almost exactly a year ago. At that time, the name Ruth had no meaning for me, either in connection to Jubilee or for me personally. But I realized then that the two names are inextricably connected. Beautifully, intricately, and perfectly connected. In fact, the story of the one depends upon the other. They both revolve around REDEMPTION. It was about at this point that my heart started pounding and I got goosebumps. That name was not random at all, and I knew beyond doubt that God had given it to me. Why would He give me a name if there was no child to give it to? More goosebumps.
It might be helpful to realize at this point that Nate and I were decidedly NOT trying to get pregnant. In fact, we had made sure there was only a .01 chance that that could happen. Up to that point we weren't even really wanting a baby yet, per se. It hadn't felt like the right time. But nonetheless, and even though it seemed ridiculous, I called him that day to pick up some pregnancy tests on the way home from work. He did, and I peed on one, and it was negative. As I expected.
Because of where I've been at with God, this whole experience left me in a quandary. Do I allow myself to get excited, hopeful, full of dreams about a potential future daughter? Do I let myself believe that God might actually be giving me something good that will last? I oscillated between caution and elation, really wanting to stay grounded but not being able to help my excitement. I have always wanted daughters. A whole slew of them would be just fine with me. The thought of another baby girl in our family, and one with such a beautifully rich name, filled me with anticipation. But then, I would tell myself, her name means redemption. Life out of death. Who knows what kind of grief or adversity might accompany her arrival? With a name like that... And besides, I wasn't even pregnant, and the odds were unlikely that I would be unless I made a conscious choice to allow for conception.
Despite all of this, all my fear, all my efforts to be “realistic,” I found my heart could not help its excitement. And so I decided to take the plunge that God was offering. I told Him that, no matter what it meant, I wanted Jubilee Ruth.
A couple weeks later, at the normal time, I got my period. No big deal; I expected that. We had not made any changes in our birth control situation. However, I knew that my heart had changed toward the idea of another baby. Ever since I told God that I wanted my Jubilee girl, all I could think about day and night was a baby girl, how much I wanted one, and all the things I could sew and create for one.
About a week after my period, I had the weird feeling that I had gained some weight. I weighed myself and sure enough, 7 pounds in one week! That was odd. In fact, the only other time in my life that happened was when I was first pregnant with… Wait. That’s impossible. I had my period one week ago. I looked under our bathroom sink and realized I still had one pregnancy test left from that day when Nate bought some for me. I figured, what the heck. Pregnancy tests never last long if they’re around my house anyway. So I went ahead and peed on it.
And was promptly in shock. I saw two lines on it. Not one. Two.
I blinked a couple of times. I was home alone but said out loud, “I’m actually seeing this. Right? This is actually real.” Pregnant. December 3rd, 2010.
{read Part II}
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