strange comfort

i have been doing a lot of driving these past two weeks and while most of the time it has been less than inspiring, on the way to michigan last sunday night, God got my attention...

do you ever think 'man, what if i had never____?' or 'wonder what would've happened if i had_____...?' and then just let your mind trail down the path of 'could've beens' both good and bad until you can imagine how that one single event could've changed the whole course of your life?

i do this from time to time. i used to more before cohen was born. now every time i unravel and re-imagine my life and cohen gets cut out, i am done. i can't imagine no cohen. but sometimes i do think about what would've been if i had traveled more or less, if i had taken a year to go around the world, and even simple things like how would our lives have changed if we had never gotten a puppy. the end of my wandering is sort of inconsequential at best and sometimes i think i'd be better off to discipline my mind to stay focused on what IS...you know what i mean?

oh the many plights of being a woman! *grin*

anyway, back to the other night. cohen finally stopped crying and i turned down the sirius singer/songwriter station (#30 coffeehouse) and just enjoyed the silence. i wasn't really thinking about anything...just dutifully watching the mile markers pass. when out of nowhere a memory came to mind. its funny that i call it a 'memory' because i think it might've been only the second time i ever remembered the moment.

cohen was about a month old and all three of us were flying into nashville while shawn was finishing vocals on his record. cohen and i were only staying 2 days (for our anniversary and cohen's would've been due date) and then we were going to ohio. there was some issue with the rental car so i sat down and held cohen on a bench and shawn left the luggage all piled around us while he went to take care of the situation. it took quite a while and people kept stopping and looking at how tiny cohen was and remarking about his size. everyone pretty much said the same things to us at that point...either how scary it must've been to have such a tiny babe or that someone they knew had a preemie or questioned if i had an easy labor. it was all very rote.

then a large (tall and soft) african american man and his wife came through the double doors from outside into the transit area of the airport. they both smiled, but his smile was magnetic. his eyes lit up. 'jolly' is the word that comes to mind. they stopped and had some of the normal-preemie-baby conversation with me. then a few minutes later, the man came back. he said "you know you said he came early, but no one comes early. everyone comes just when God intended for them to be born". i was sort of taken back and just smiled in response. at the time i remember thinking that i was surprised how comforting his words were when i didn't feel like i was in the need of it.

i didn't think about that exchange again until last sunday.

then i started to do the what ifs...only this time, i wondered what would've come about in our lives if cohen had been being born that week rather than us taking him on his very first trip via plane... as i traveled down that train of thought, i realized a lot of painful things in my life would have been eliminated if our little monkey would've arrived 'on time'. that whole week would've looked different. we would've been home in seattle together celebrating our first days with a healthy, bigger baby. shawn would've been finished with the record already and wouldn't have had to cut out of the shane and shane tour early. if cohen would've shown up as expected, so many things would be different for us now. its almost like his birth set into motion a series of painful deaths in our life. (i am not talking physical here)

as i thought about that, i was surprised at my response... i was not a) mad at God for appointing cohen to come early and allowing all of these trials in our life and b) i really wouldn't have changed it if i had a magic God-sized wand that would allow me change the course of history.

i kind of sat with that for a while as i drove 96 west. it felt good to be at some level of peace with the scenery in my life in this season. i felt a little release somewhere deep inside me as i glanced in the rearview mirror at my sleeping little boy... the timing of his arrival has caused an unraveling of our lives and yet i feel the new life growing alongside him everyday. somehow when he smiles, i know in a deep, often uncertain place in me that God knows what He is doing and is working all things together for good. its not all good, but its all being worked for good.

thank you Jesus