Thriving in the Barren Place by Paula Romang
A Story Over Coffee
When I write, I imagine that you and I are friends—the sort of friends who frequent one another’s kitchen tables for long talks over coffee. Over coffee, we would share our lives, the story of the journey we have walked, the stories that make us belly laugh, and the hard chapters that we tell through tears. I have such a story to share with you.
My husband and I are the parents of twin boys. Matthew and Luke were born six weeks early via urgent cesarean section; Luke spent ten days in NICU and Matthew came home after a two-week stay. Luke was tiny, but healthy. He had a robust set of lungs and a hearty appetite. Matthew was a struggling baby boy fighting to master the basics. He aroused all my motherly compassion as I worked hard to keep him alive and making progress. Doctors were concerned yet cautiously optimistic. He could rebound nicely, or have severe special needs that would greatly affect his life and ours. We would have to wait and see.
The realities of Matthew’s special needs continued to emerge. Luke met his developmental milestones with ease; Matthew significantly lagged. The gap between their development increasingly widened. My expectations slammed headlong into the realities on the ground. I was repeatedly body-slammed in a massive collision with disappointment. The exhaustion, thankless and never-ending work of caregiving began to grind me down. My faith, up to this point, was well-informed and on-point, but untested. It was now being tested.
I believed my job as a good Christian was flawless performance of all Christian disciplines. God’s job was to give me my version of the trouble-free Christian life as a reward for my devotion. I was quickly discovering that was untrue. My search for the truth led me straight back to Scripture. In Scripture I found more than the answers I sought: I found Him. He showed me that all I need, I could find in Him—and the route to Him was through Scripture. More Scripture equaled more of Him. He began to show me that this One “. . .who inhabits eternity . . .” would also dwell with me. I was all in. He kept taking me back to the Scriptures and asking me to learn of Him there. He kept pointing toward the living changing relationship that He offered and desired with me.
Matthew’s special needs continued; he made little progress and struggled to eat, sleep, and hold up his head. Reality was quickly dawning; Matthew had significant special needs. Day after day, I watched as my dreams for my son slipped silently away. He would never know life as a happy, typical boy.
Stepping more fully into that relationship with Him required that I trust Him at a deeper level than I had ever trusted Him before. It meant I followed where He led me, and He was leading me straight into the biggest and longest-running storm of my life. His promise to me: I will never leave you; I will be your strength and song the entire journey. It will be the hardest thing you have ever done. It will require more of you than you thought possible in this life, but you will never regret it, and you will never be the same again. How could I refuse? The Ancient of Days desired to engage me in intimate friendship? Though it cost me everything, it was an offer I could not refuse.
He was the Way, the Truth and the Life as He’d always been, and He was there rising from the pages to meet me in my need. He met me at my kitchen sink, and listened to each of my desperate searching questions.
In the Psalms, Scripture modeled prayer in a raw, unvarnished manner, so I did the same. I began to engage in conversations with the Ancient of Days that started as I made my first pot of coffee, and ended somewhere in the night, as I slumped exhausted against His chest.
I soaked my battle-weary soul in the healing waters of Scripture. Psalms written millennia ago sounded oddly familiar. They sounded like the prayers I lifted to Him day and night, and scratched into my dog-eared journal each morning over strong black coffee.
This Jesus Who rose from the pages of Scripture came to live with me in my labor-intensive, heart-breaking life tucked away in obscurity. He saw each of the exhausted, heartbroken tears that I swiped away on my sleeve, and each act of menial service done for Mark and my boys.
My Jesus showed me that suffering was not the exemption for His saints, it was the rule. In the storms, He knit my soul to His as we weathered the storms together. This revelation shaped my journey with Him from that point onward.
Matthew’s severe special needs were confirmed by a developmental pediatrician. He was given the broad diagnosis of pervasive developmental delay. Soon after, his seizures emerged. I knew this journey would be hard; I didn’t know it would take everything I had. However, just as He promised, my Jesus never walked away. He was with me in the hospital room as a neurologist introduced me to medical terms and medications I didn’t want to know. He sat beside me as I stared numbly into the dark hole of my future as mom to my precious, helpless son with severe disabilities.
As Matthew’s seizures escalated, and his disabilities increased, I became well-versed in hospital stays. My life was becoming a long haul of perseverance carried out in obscurity. My Jesus and I carried on our day-long conversations. He was telling me the old truths were still the right ones, even as the storm around me escalated. He was still my Strength and Song even as darkness loomed. I began to see where this road was leading us; I was losing my son. Jesus was always there, holding me steady, and asking me to trust Him, even He prepared to deliver Matthew from his disabilities through death.
I watched helplessly as Matthew suffered; I lost him a little more each day. My soul was being slowly ripped in two, but He was there. Holding me, supporting me as I buckled under the pain and impending loss. Even then, I was held fast in the everlasting arms of the Ancient of Days, standing firmly upon the bedrock of Scripture even as my questions raged on and my exhausted, bleeding soul cried out for relief.
My consolation in my pain was that my beautiful Jesus was with me in the fire. He was in the dark kitchen with me in the early morning, in Matthew’s room late at night, in the seizures, and in the daily gunk and grit of caregiving. He was beside me in the ER, in every hospital room and PICU stay. He was with me as I collapsed into a fetal position, weeping on the shower floor. My Jesus was leading the way the night I took His hand and stepped into the icy black waves of death, and waded out with Him and Matthew until the moment He told me to release my precious son into His nail-scarred hands as He carried Matthew safely over—and it was done.
In the days that followed, He asked me to take up pen and ink and tell the story that crushed me, but also led me straight into His everlasting arm. Telling our story would involve reliving it all on some level to do justice to the story itself, and the imbedded truth within it. My Jesus had already taught me that pain is not my enemy; healing often comes through pain.
However, this path was different. Gone were the long days and nights of caregiving. These were the days of learning different disciplines—learning the writers’ life. These were the days of bleeding upon the page, of honoring the loss with weeping and pushing through the pain to remember it all to tell the story well—to honor Matthew’s life and struggle and tell the story in all its raw beauty.
Along this writing journey, I learned that I had done a remarkable thing in His strength. I had done something He asks only of some; I had survived it in His strength. I had an amazing story to tell, and I must do so in His name.
On my journey with Matthew, one of my consolations is that I can honestly say I left it all on the field, as they say. I gave everything I had and allowed my Jesus to take everything that He asked me to give. My prayer with this writing journey is that I can honestly say the same. I gave it all—I left it all on the field—on the page, perhaps. I want to cross the finish line with arms raised in victory knowing that I finished well.
One golden morning, I will scoop Matthew into my arms again. I will finger his soft brown hair and lose myself in the depths of his dark eyes once again. I will listen as he tells me his story—the one he could not tell me here. Yet even greater, will be the moment when Matthew and I both fall—laughing and weeping for joy in the everlasting arms of my beautiful Jesus—the One Who inhabits eternity, Who stooped to dwell with me.
So there you have it, my friend--the story of the journey I would never have chosen, yet will never regret. It was a journey that broke me, and took me to the end of myself. It was also the journey that led me into intimate friendship with the Ancient of Days—and I will never be the same again.
About Paula:
Paula Romang is a committed Christ-follower, wife, and mother whose faith has been her bedrock through seasons of heartache and loss. She is the mother of twin boys, one of whom had special needs. Paula is also a bereaved mom who walked the painful road of grief after her son Matthew’s passing at age twelve. Paula says, “I write to tell our story, and the truth I learned on a difficult journey. I write for anyone who has walked a hard road. I write to leave a well-lit path, and offer reassurance and encouragement on how to survive a difficult journey by being anchored in the truth.”
When Paula is not writing, she recharges through baking, cooking, gardening and singing. Paula also enjoys teaching and hosting Bible studies in her home and drinking copious amounts of coffee.
Paula grows as a writer by reading great writers like C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton. She recommends Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott as a book all writers should read.
Paula’s book, Thriving in the Barren Place: How Trust in God Fueled My Journey Through Heartache and Loss will be released in Spring 2025.
Paula holds a BA in English from Bryan College and an MA in English from Northwest Missouri State University. She is a Bible study and devotional writer for the online ministry Gracefully Truthful and shares her reflections on faith and life at www.paularomang.com. She and her husband, Mark, live in the Midwest, where their son is completing graduate work.
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