11:02pm

The last time I ate homemade lasagna was the night Danny Jared was born. My mom had made it from scratch, along with homemade bread in the breadmaker I got for Christmas the year before. I threw it up all over the bathroom floor. The marked sign of transition, unrecognizable to me that night.

When my bag of waters broke, I was laying in our bed, easing in and out of contractions. I remember watching the big tree outside the window. The leaves were dancing. I wanted to be anywhere but there. It felt like Morgan’s labor all over again, which was devastating to me. I knew I could not face another lengthy labor again and fail. I felt afraid and alone. We did nothing for an hour, mostly because we didn’t know what to do. I was drifting. I was trying to breathe, trying to stay brave, trying to see it out to the very end. Staying in town meant a repeat Cesarean section. Going to Idaho Falls meant laboring for an hour in the car. When the pain was more than I could bear, I knew we couldn’t make the drive. I’ll never forget the prayer we had together, on the bathroom floor. I offered up my one dream to Heavenly Father and I knew I had to let it go.  

Ninety minutes later, baby entered the world, unassisted, alongside a doctor who adamantly refuses "patients" like me. Any way I unfold the thought of this, it proves to be a miracle to me. The politics, the timing, my body. God’s hand was in mine that night.

Rick Warren said, "Your most profound and intimate experiences of worship will likely be in your darkest days -- when your heart is broken, when you feel abandoned, when you're out of options, when the pain is great - and you turn to God alone."

I'll never forget the few excruciating moments before I felt Danny enter the world. In those moments, I was so aware of how stretched  I was, in every painful sense of the word. But especially my spirit. When I was surely on the edge of dying, he came from within me and out into the world. My body was shaking, but if I was cold, I didn't know it. I physically felt wrapped in love. In every corner of the room, it was there. God was there. And here was my warm little miracle on the chest of my body that had grown and brought forth, on its own, a whole new life. I'm so grateful.  

That night, I was given a glimpse of how present God is in our lives. Even when we feel He's far away, or worse, not even there - it isn't so. He knows us intimately and love us more than we'll ever know.