“Are you OK?“
In mid-conversation, I froze.
I’d trespassed into a place in memory I’d suppressed for so long that when it leaped out at me like a lion, I froze.
Sunk in a memory 3 years ago, I faded from being present.
On a Canadian winter night, face down in bed, cheeks soaked with tears, I’d willed to end my life, and my 32-week old baby’s.
Many with good intentions shared that my mood would affect my child, hoping it’d motivate me, as if the severe antenatal depression were within my control.
But deeper into shame I sank- “Then better to end it than to rob a child of a fair start at life,” I thought.
At a little classroom in Sunday school yesterday, as we celebrated Esther-Praise’s 3rd birthday, I remembered a prophecy- a guest speaker at a Christian conference had shared with me in my third trimester, “I see a Beauty and the Beast image of a glass jar protecting a rose. Your child is the rose and God is saying He is protecting it. Does this mean anything to you?”
I told myself, if I could make it through this pregnancy, my faith would emerge different. Though battered, it’d be refined, purer than gold. So, I held on.
But even after her birth, I struggled with guilt. Maybe I’d damaged her. Surely, I’d done her some disservice.
Yet, every day, she lives up to her name 心乐 (heart of joy).
This April, as we celebrate her third birthday- I wonder to myself, what if she were a metaphor for a destiny God has sowed inside of you?
What if depression is the tool by the enemy to abort your destiny?
Beloved, just because you can’t cope with life in one season, doesn’t mean you’re unworthy of carrying your destiny to birth.
As I look at the trademark joy in Esther-Praise’s life, I am struck by His miracles. If you’re going through a tough season, hold on. The world may say you’ve sunk too far, failed too much, done too much damage for God to redeem you- yet God’s way is different. His grace guards our destinies, redeems our pasts, relaunches us into our future.
This April, as we celebrate this sweetpea’s life, would you entrust your destiny to Him too, to our God of miracles?