Already All I Need

I’ve had a big cry brewing for several days now. I’m finding that my “normal” for now is to have a moment (or a few) daily where a few tears come and go at random times as I go about my day, and about once every week or two I’ll have a giant sobfest. Like overwhelming, comes on like a flood, "ugly cry" sobfest. And that’s ok. Those are the moments when I get alone with God and just let it come. I can’t always do that in the middle of life because kids, adulting, responsibilities. My heart might be in pieces, but life still goes on. The laundry won’t fold itself. The dishes won’t wash themselves. My two earthside babies need more than a mommy who constantly sits in a puddle of tears. They deserve more, so I soldier up and carry on.

My to-do list was a mile long today. I woke up feeling energized and ready to tackle it. But it just wasn't happening. I felt like I just needed to give myself a minute. A day of rest. Don’t worry, I’m still taking care of my kids. They’ve had all of their meals and are clean (mostly😉) and are happy. And they’ve been entertaining themselves a lot today which is a miracle in and of itself. I choose to see it as God’s mercy. 

For the past few days I’ve been feeling led to listen to my birthing playlist again. I have an “Ellie” playlist that is what I listen to most of the time. It has a lot of songs from my birthing playlist and some others that God has led me to add to it along the way. But I knew I needed to go back and listen to the original again. I just hadn’t felt emotionally ready, to be quite honest. After some brief productivity this morning, I felt the need to just let myself “be” today. I’m calling it a "grace day." Grace day because people keep telling me I need to be gentle with myself and give myself grace. And grace day because it’s just one of those days that I simply cannot deal without having His GRACE to carry me through. 

So in the spirit of this “grace day,” I sat down on the couch with my coffee after I got the kids down for their nap, took a deep breath and pressed play on my birthing playlist. Then the tears came. And I just let Him hold me. What I experienced right here sitting on my couch reminds me of the verse in Zephaniah when God says, “The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save. He will rejoice over you with joy. He will calm you in his love. He will rejoice over you with singing.” Every single one of these songs He led me to listen to in the weeks before Ellie was born and during her birth, before I had any idea what was going to happen. But He knew, and He was gently preparing my heart. Yet another reminder of His faithfulness. Maybe one day I can write more specifically about each one…

While I was listening, He led me to an article written by pastor and author John Piper, a longtime favorite of mine. It was a letter to a woman asking for advice on grieving the loss of her stillborn son. He writes:

There is a paradox in the way God is honored through hope-filled grief. One might think that the only way he could be honored would be to cry less or get over the ache more quickly. That might show that your confidence is in the good that God is and the good that he does. Yes. It might. And some people are wired emotionally to experience God that way. I would not join those who say, “Oh, they are just in denial.”

But there is another way God is honored in our grieving. When we taste the loss so deeply because we loved so deeply and treasured God’s gift — and God in his gift — so passionately that the loss cuts the deeper and the longer, and yet in and through the depths and the lengths of sorrow we never let go of God, and feel him never letting go of us — in that longer sorrow he is also greatly honored, because the length of it reveals the magnitude of our sense of loss for which we do not forsake God. At every moment of the lengthening grief, we turn to him, not away from him. And therefore, the length of it is a way of showing him to be ever present, enduringly sufficient.

It seems impossible to keep up with the goodness of God, especially in the moments when He so undeniably carries me with His grace. It was all so overwhelming (in a good way) that I thought I can’t possibly contain this experience to one song or even describe a sequence of a few songs. I was going to try and write out some of the lines that especially stood out and spoke to my heart, but as I looked through the playlist to choose which ones I wanted to include, I found this song. It was the first one that played when I turned on the playlist a few hours ago. And it sums it up exactly. No other words needed.

Already All I Need – Christy Nockels

Asking where You are Lord, wondering where You've been

Is like standing in a hurricane trying to find the wind

Hoping for Your mercy to meet me where I am

Is forgetting that your thoughts for me outnumber the sand

You fill the sun with morning light

You bent the moon to lead the night

You clothed the lilies bright and beautiful

You're already all I need

Already everything that I could hope for

You're already all I need

You've already set me, already making me more like you

You're already all I need

Jesus, You're already all I need.

Walking through this life without your freedom in my heart

Is like holding onto shackles that You have torn apart

So remind me of your promises and all that You have done

In this world I will have trouble, but You have overcome

And every gift that I receive, You determined just for me

But nothing I desire compares to You

In your fullness, You're my all in all

In your healing, I'm forever made whole

In your freedom, Your love overflows and carries me

You carry me, yes You carry me, You carry me

He’s already all I need. He was already all I needed before I knew just how much I needed Him. I’m in awe that He hand picked this song for me to meditate on in the weeks leading up to Ellie’s birth. And that He hand picked it for me today. At the risk of sounding cliché, it was EXACTLY what I needed today. 

One of the things that He has continually impressed upon my heart is what a gift Ellie is. I say is, not was, because she still IS very much a gift. Her little life has already done more than many accomplish in entire lifetimes. I know I will never be the same. And for that I am grateful. But y’all. These words. 

“And every gift that I receive, You determined just for me. 

But nothing I desire compares to You”

I am completely undone. I will forever be so honored and grateful that He chose me to be Ellie’s mommy. What an amazing gift! But even that is just icing on the cake because HE is already all I need. And in His healing, I will forever be made whole. Maybe not on this side of heaven, but oh, how I look forward to that day!