I wrote this on Joel’s one month birthday. It was a rough day.

It’s July 9.

I had a hard time getting to sleep last night, and then when I woke up I felt guilty because I hadn’t been awake at 1:45am. I wanted to be awake at exactly the moment Joel was born one month ago. I don’t really know why, I have no idea what that would accomplish but I wanted to mark the moment.

One month ago this minute I was in a hospital bed at one hospital, while my baby and my husband were at another. My husband was hearing awful things about our son all by himself while I slept. My baby’s brain was dying while a machine forced him to breathe.

I hate that day.

Cognitively I believe I should love that day, I love Joel, and it is the day he was born so I should love it, but I really hate it. Pretty soon will mark the moment that Joel’s neonatologist called my room and I sat with my mom while he told Leo and I that he was concerned about several things, but that there was a genuine chance that our son may not live. I didn’t believe him.

I missed the moments overnight when I gave birth to Joel. The awful grueling final moments of 23 hours of excruciating labor and over 4 hours of trying to push my son out backwards of the way babies are supposed to come out. I won’t share those details with you, I have relived them so many times and they never cease to be horrifying.

I wonder if I can love Joel and still hate that day. It was an awful, awful day.

But there are shining moments in that day too. Seeing Joel’s perfect little face for the first time, he was so adorable. Seeing my husband so proud of his son I thought he would burst. Witnessing the kindness, compassion and diligence of strangers who would have done anything to save my son, and get me to him.

I praise God for those moments. I praise God for Joel, and my husband.

And this…is the struggle; this battle between two opposites for identical space. This is what it means to praise God in the storm, isn’t it? Casting Crowns’ song lyrics read like this:

And I'll praise you in this storm
and I will lift my hands
for You are who You are
no matter where I am
and every tear I've cried
You hold in your hand
You never left my side
and though my heart is torn
I will praise You in this storm

That’s just the chorus; the rest of the song is more of our story, in their words. This is the test. This is the moment I decide if our humanity or God’s divinity wins, because every ounce of my humanity wants to HATE that day with a fire that could burn this city. (Keep in mind we live near Detroit, probably wouldn’t take much of a fire…perhaps I should have conjured another metaphor…but I digress…) My inappropriate use of humor at this moment is telling though, isn’t it? Because I don’t have that kind of hate in me, and praise God for that. God wins, my faith wins, and ultimately I win. Because even though I might hate that day, I will praise God for every moment. I know that I was in his hand, and so was Joel and so was Leo, for every single awful moment of that day; and for every single wonderful moment too.

This is faith. This is my faith. I will always hate that day; I don’t have to love it to praise the Lord for it. And I will always love Joel, and love the Lord. One awful day can never change that.