Bravery

If you've known me for any length of time, you've probably heard me (lovingly, semi-jokingly) refer to my children as "wimpy." If you picture my household of boys as the stereotypical group of climbing, rough-housing, dare-devil male monkeys, well . . . you're wrong. While Calvin is out to prove every word of this paragraph incorrect, my first four boys are, by and large, sitters: they love to draw, read, play board games and card games, build things out of LEGO and magnatiles, etc. With the exception of Levi's newfound interest in soccer last year, they are, for the most part, artists and intellectuals, and I've never felt the need to push them too hard in other areas.

Until this summer, that is. We simply couldn't ignore their need to know how to swim any longer. (Actually, I personally don't care much, as I don't find swimming all that enjoyable. Give me a novel and a lounge chair in the shade, hands down, every time. But my husband and most of the rest of the world place a high priority on children knowing how to swim, and I can't argue with the logic.)

As such, bravery has become the key word in our house this month. For the first two weeks of their four weeks of swimming lessons, I said it nearly every night at dinner as we recapped the day: being brave doesn't mean you're not afraid. Being brave means being afraid and doing it anyway. We've seen them be brave in so many ways over the past three weeks (with one more week to go):

• in going to a different class than his brother
• in letting go of the death grip around his instructor's neck
• in jumping all the way in, head submerged and all

And once they started being brave at the pool, they started being brave everywhere!

As it turns out, Isaac and I had an opportunity -- a most unwelcome one -- to strengthen our own bravery muscles this month as well. It so happens that after you've had a miscarriage, it requires a certain amount of bravery to take a pregnancy test when you suspect you've conceived. And then some more courage to call the midwife, knowing (because I went through it with Calvin) that I'd be immediately embarking on a regiment of progesterone shots, which would mean sore, itchy hips, one side barely healed before the next side got its shot. And then, perhaps the most/worst of all, going in for an ultrasound at ten weeks, hoping for the best but solidly expecting the worst.

I added a new phrase to my vocabulary last week: chemical pregnancy. It's not nearly as fancy as it sounds, but it is a lot more technical than "really, really early miscarriage," which is what it is. The ten-week ultrasound showed nothing at all in my uterus. I had expected a miscarriage, something to grieve, but the emptiness was unexpected. It happens to so many women, so many pregnancies, that it almost doesn't feel worth acknowledging. But the progesterone shots prevented any sign of miscarriage, and I had hope dangled before me for a month and a half. That's a hard pill to swallow.

Because I am raising only boys, I think a lot about boys being brave, doing hard things, flexing their little underdeveloped man-muscles. I want to raise men who will give their wives the progesterone shots without flinching. But over the past weeks -- the past few years, really -- I've been forced to confront my own capacity for bravery. It's really much bigger than I ever would have imagined. (All praise to God for a lifetime of faithfulness on which to base one's courage.)

If I were trendier, more more social-media savvy, I'd have a great meme here, with mountain scenery and a quote from Toby Mac or someone similar on being brave. I'm not, so I don't. What I do have is one of the very first verses I memorized with Levi (and then the other boys in turn) when we started our Cincinnati church's memory verse program some six years ago: When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. (Psalm 56:3) That's all bravery really is, isn't it? Being afraid and doing it anyway. Being afraid and jumping in the water. Being afraid and facing -- even rejoicing in -- a pregnancy that might end. Being afraid and knowing that God has it all quite safely in his hands.