This particular rock and I have a history together. We first met eight years ago. Eight years ago on one of the darkest days I’ve ever known. Nearly 90 miles separate us, but on that day, I came to visit and to take solace in its cliff-side view of the sea. I came for many reasons.
I came to sit, to breathe, to find courage to live — but most of all to pray. I came to beg and plead with God for a child — to lay my heart, hopes and dreams bare. I came to remember what faith was and to find a way to fit it back into my life alongside all of the heartache over the consecutive losses Ken and I had faced together.
One year later, I came again — this time with Ken. Together we pressed our backs into the same cold, damp rock, turned our faces to the sea and prayed. The prayer was different than the prayer of a year earlier. This time we begged God to spare our child. A little girl we had never met. A little girl with a grim prognosis, not yet born. A little girl we so desperately wanted.
And God answered.
If I ever doubt the power of prayer or the faithfulness of God, I will remember today…