The nursery is burning. Linen curtains whoosh into cinders in an instant, dropping to the floor without a trace. Were they ever there? The white bassinet I have saved for years is a melted mockery of twisted plastic. Nothing can be salvaged. All is ruin.

The nursery, of course, is my uterus. Her outpouring of red ruin ignites the scene in my mind–drip drip, the curtain rods fall.

“My heart is like a house,” sang the Booth Brothers. “One day I let the Savior in. There were many rooms where we would visit now and then. But then one day He saw that door. I knew the day had come too soon. I said “Jesus I’m not ready for us to visit in that room.”

My heart house too is an evolving place. Once open and spacious, the rooms of my heart have begun to be closed off. “I don’t want to talk about it,” I say to well-meaning friends. The door is tugged a little tighter to ensure the latch will not fail me.

I long, more than anything, for a home filled with children’s feet racing up and down the stairs. “Mom, we’re out of cookies!” should be yelled often. “Dad’s home!” and the front door slamming ought to be our daily 5pm recital. A home where every child is safe and nurtured, conversations and Cheerios flow freely, and no one is tucked into bed without the knowledge of their love and acceptance.

While I wait for this, my large home waits, silent and solitaire. Every appliance hums too loudly in a dwindling space with closed off rooms and diminishing hope.

In 2018, at a Florida prison crusade, Dwayne Mullet said, “A faith that cannot be shaken is a faith that has been shaken.” Ah, cool statement. I flippantly used it to caption an Instagram post. I don’t use it flippantly now; I am living it, and it sucks.

My prayers these days are minimal and desperate. “Don’t let me go” is often all I can choke out. My doubts and my emotional pain are so great that my headspace is loud and my voice is muted. “Hope deferred makes the heart sick” and I know that to be true.

“I have no idea why this is happening,” a friend says. Long silence while we rock on the porch glider. “But He’s a good good Father.” My instant gut response is “Is He though?” I don’t know how to reconcile what I am feeling with what I know intellectually. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and He will give you the desires of your heart.” I feel my belief in it slipping away, like water my hands cannot retain, and I panic. My own doubt scares me more than the circumstances I am facing.

“It’s really loud in my head,” I tell my husband, breaking the silence between us that had been filled with birdsong and insects humming. We keep walking around the lake, pausing for Monarchs and open throated birdsong. “It really scares me.” He is silent, only his eyes emoting. “You’re welcome for giving you a glimpse of what I’m feeling,” I tease him. “Oh yeah, yeah, thank you, I guess? For telling me what you’re experiencing.” We ride the motorcycle home together, and it’s only when we are roaring home in the dusk, wind whipping my shoulders, that I begin to feel myself come back into my body again. My anxiety all day had been so heightened that I was one step away from disassociating completely.

“I’m going to talk to Jesus,” I say, heading onto the upstairs balcony with my ice cream and my dog. Black raspberry chip ice cream pairs well with a faith crisis. Ask me how I know. Planes crawl across the sky. Ice cream melts down my throat while the tears run into my ears. “Hey Jesus can we talk? I need to give you some fears. If I keep hanging onto them, they’re going to crush me. They are crushing me.” I give him my fear that I’ll never be a mother. I feel an actual physical release in the muscles of my forehead and my shoulders unwind. Exhale. I didn’t know I was carrying that. More anxieties I gift him. “I’m giving you the fear that infertility is going to wreck our marriage. Also I’m sorry I’m giving you such crappy gifts!” I hear His chuckle. “Your marriage has never depended on you. A three fold cord is not easily broken.” My cognition says “What? It’s never been up to me? What do you mean?” and He slides in again, “Casting all your cares upon Me because I care for you.” He wants these crappy gifts. He wants my hands emptied. He’s not repulsed by my anxieties or my self-moisturized face. He is drawn to my brokenness.

I won’t pretend I don’t have doubts. I won’t deny I would take a coma right about now. I am still somewhere between angry and numb most days. I don’t know where my embryo went, why she never implanted, or if any of the six in the freezer will have any better outcomes. I still doubt His goodness. I am still a wreck.

I feel like a two year old having a temper tantrum on the Target floor, crashing out because I can’t have the CareBear stuffy I want. I can’t ascribe His purposes to my life right now. I can’t pretend I want to put on my mascara every day in the futile hopes I won’t cry it off.

I don’t have a tidy symmetrical bow to this era, or this post. I might crash land it, because that would keep it on brand for this season. I know less than I ever did. I am gutted. I am living with a burnt nursery and closed off rooms.