lucky and oh so wonderfully blessed

"12 round ones for luck in the New Year" photo by Gina Matchinsky

January 7, 2014 question is: You are lucky; how so or not so? 

Let me first define what luck is? According to dictionary definition, luck is a fortuitous event that just happened by chance. It is associated with good fortune that does not have a logical circumstance like hitting a jackpot or a sudden windfall or manna from heaven. It is instant success without hard work that is why people resort to all sorts of things just to get lucky. There are lucky charms, amulets or talismans and even feng shui stuff for good luck or to ward off bad luck.

So do I consider myself lucky?

I'd like to think of being lucky as being blessed though. I take it as good and great things that God permit to happen in my life. In that sense, I know I am. And those are the times in my life that I felt deep in my heart that there is a God and even with all my trials and tribulations, faults and imperfections, that He still loves me and blesses me.

There were many instances that I felt blessed but there are 2 that stands out the most and show striking proof.

I have 3 children right now. Eldest is a girl, middle child is another girl and the youngest is a boy born in 2005. But before my youngest son, I had another son who died inside my womb on my 8th month of pregnancy in 2003. Having 2 girls already at the time, I want to know what it felt like to have a son. When the ultrasound result came and I learned it was a boy, I was overjoyed. But the pregnancy was so difficult. I felt so tired all the time and my tummy got upset with most food but the food I can tolerate caused me allergies. So I got thinner and gaunt looking and I had allergies on the soles of my feet I had to crawl on all fours because it was so painful to put weight on the soles even just to go to the bathroom. But I bore everything because of the thought of my first son. Only that son died inside the womb on the 8th month because of the knot on the umbilical cord that tightened. He was not strangled, just no more sustenance getting to him because of the knot. How could there be a knot there when the other side was the placenta connected to the baby itself on the other end attached to the navel through the umbilical cord? Like some kind of hand tied it there. After all that I went through and for him to die just like that was too much. If he was not meant to be, why let me suffer so much?

On the way home from the hospital I was crying real hard and screaming even if it hurts a lot not caring about the possibility of the stitches opening (I had a CS operation because there was no contraction). A lot of women coming out of the hospital had babies in their arms on the way home, I didn't.

I got home to a closet full of baby things ready and my breast aching with milk and no baby.

Since then, I cringe seeing women with babies and women with little sons. They have what was taken away from me. I stopped my freelance business like some sort of protest act. I even wrote on my diary then that I want to know in my lifetime the why for Leo James, because that was how I would have named him. I felt God had been unfair. He could have taken the sons of those who want to abort their children, why mine when I have always been a devoted mom to my children, me who wanted that son so much?

Then I got pregnant with another son again in 2005 who successfully made it through without mishap. And just like a miracle, my expected delivery date for him was exactly the same day as the one I lost, October 10 just a different year but I had him a week earlier since it was my 4th CS operation already and they fear the baby will grow more and might rapture my already thin womb.

So my youngest son was born on October 3, 2005 instead. And it felt like actually showing me that I got a replacement. And he is a good boy, too, and is so smart! Probably giving me a smarter kid so I will not have a hard time teaching another child. That boy restored my faith, made me acknowledge how all knowing God is and how he works all His grand purpose in His own time. It made me realize that God loves me enough not to let me lose faith. He restored my son to me and that made me live again.

Another instance that I felt blessed was when God permit for me and my soul mate to meet and got married. He was on the opposite side of the world and had a fear of flying. I was still married and in a bad situation. But he was able to overcome his fear of flying and went to the other side of the world just to meet me. And I was able to fly to his other side of the world to go to him which was not an easy feat considering the number of people rejected to even enter that other side of the world. I hurdled several tough interviews just to get through. Then I was able to get my divorce which would have cost us so much but we were able to get it without spending exorbitant amount and finally got married. I know that they would not have happened so smoothly and in a short span of time if it is not God's will. And by making it happen, I felt really blessed, and loved, and lucky.

So to answer the question, among other instances, I feel so lucky and wonderfully blessed for that other chance to live and the second chance to love.