How much does a memory weigh? / When it falls over me like a heavy blanket / In the darkness of my dreams, / It’s like a hand crushing me with its weight. / How strong is a memory? / When it grips me like a fist / In bright daylight, unashamed of its evil, / It’s a captor’s hand leading me to places of terror.

A child, I stood parched for water, / I searched for a brook of life to nourish, / To carry me down the stream to wholeness, / And cleanse me from all that left its mark. / Yet you were a polluted water, / Your fatherly care poisoned me from within / Through toxins entering inside my skin, / And gathering on my hands to rot all life away.

As the Christmas season approaches, memories around my twins’ traumatic birth start to tumble in my heart. How do we quiet our hearts to enjoy Christmas this year? How do we find the peace that was announced on Christ’s birth? I think of Mary, the mother of our Savior, and the example she left us.

April was c-section awareness month. All month long I scrolled past social media posts empowering me to stop seeing my scars as a failure but as celebration of what my body could do. Those posts angered me. My body did fail me, I thought. There’s a bit of truth to that, but I’m learning that there is still cause for celebration—though not in me and my body, but in a God who is much greater.