Bricks

Tonight I had a vivid flash back on our drive home from getting groceries as a family. We were driving North to go home, when we passed by the blood donation bank on our left. I have driven by it countless times since the NICU, but for whatever reason this particular time was different. Instantly I remembered the night of our twin’s blood transfusions. The memory was crystal clear in my mind and I felt the overwhelm in my body. The NICU was full of “too much too fast” moments for me. Their birth, their ventilation, countless resuscitations. Their need for blood transfusions was one of these “too much too fast” events. When we found out about the twin’s severe anemia, I had suggested donating for the babies myself, being I share their blood type. However there wasn’t enough time for me to go through the process at the blood bank with the paperwork needed for the hospital. It all was happening “too much too fast” Because of this, on the particular night I was remembering, we found ourselves praying over two bags of blood one evening in the NICU before our girls received the blood into their small fragile bodies. I can still see the color of the blood in the bag, holding my breath as the blood made its way through the tube and began filling into our little twins. It was excruciating. I never wanted them born early, I never wanted them to be on ventilators, or consume formula, or receive donor breastmilk, or live in the hospital for ten weeks, and I certainly never wanted my children to need a stranger’s blood. But here we were, in desperate need for their safety, and once again I had to surrender control to the best of my ability and allow was necessary not ideal. His will not mine be done.

After this flash back occurred on our drive, I started using some subtle grounding techniques in the car to soothe my triggered body. Shortly into this, Aaron noticed my tears and asked what had happened. I told him it was a flashback. He let me take some quiet moments. I lengthened my exhale and made contact with my chest to bring my body out of the past and into the present. At this point we were parked outside a bank building while I had a sweet encounter with the Holy Spirit. I was studying the building to my right noticing the bricks that made up its structure. I told God that this trigger felt like just one brick of my trauma. Our NICU experience wasn’t just a moment. It was countless moments, days, weeks and months or being out of control, of being scared for my daughters. The amount of moments like the one I had a flashback to tonight, I couldn’t even begin to count. This trauma felt vast. Like this brick wall I was staring at. I let God know the heaviness I felt. I was led by Him to imagine the structure of this building being taken apart slowly but steadily. I followed Him on this imagery, taking one brick, one piece of my trauma apart at a time. I began to notice a large mound of bricks next to the building collecting high. I switched my focus to this messy pile of bricks while I relayed to Him my curiosity of what to do with the bricks in this pile. I felt my heart ask Him the question of, “now what?”

He gently spoke to my heart, “I will build something new.”

How lovely.

To think of my healing from trauma as a vast sometimes overwhelming project, and yet each “brick” of it will be used to create something new. Nothing will be wasted.

Although I would never choose to go through what we did with our NICU time, as healing continues to unfold in me, I am increasingly thankful for the encounters it has provided with Him, and the redemptive plans He has, not in spite of my trauma, but because of it.