Seeing God’s Faithfulness

This year, the day before Ivy’s birthday, I went for a walk feeling unsure of how to carry all the emotions I was experiencing. This day is also the day of my divorce. I remember sitting in the courtroom, flustered and overridden with the weight of how the decision to sign would change everything. Tears were streaming down my cheeks. Why oh why did it have to happen on her birthday? This day represented not just a celebration of life but of a death also. A death of a marriage that wasn’t able to thrive. A day when my baby was born from the very union that should have lasted until ‘death do us part.’

Feeling the heaviness by the overlap of these two events, I decided to take a different route than I normally do and happened upon a wall. It was stunning. Boston Ivy vines consumed the whole wall, clinging and climbing on every brick.

And that’s when it struck me…Ivy. Her name means faithfulness and God’s gift. She came after my miscarriage—a gift I didn’t know I’d ever receive again. And now, years later, God used a literal wall of ivy to remind me of His unwavering faithfulness- that it’s just as covering…just as present. He’s carried me through loss and rebuilding, and even when I’ve felt directionless, He’s been establishing my steps.

These days I’ve been surprised by grief and overwhelming emotions of having to be everything for my children and at my job while not being good enough at any of it. However, looking at these vines and what it symbolized, I felt a sense of peace. In no way am I meant to do this road alone. God has been faithful to provide and establish my steps. Why do I even doubt that He will continue to do that? That He has a plan in all of this? Why am I afraid to hope that God will redeem my past? All He asks of me is to abide in Him and cling to Him… much like these ivy vines. I don’t have to have it all together and we’re not meant to. His transformative work in us is done best when we let go and allow Him to guide our steps.

That particular ivy doesn’t grow in winter—it dies back. But spring brings it to life again. New life…real transformation…only comes after death. Just a week after Easter, I stood in front of a resurrection metaphor, rooted in the very thing that once looked barren.

Ivy’s birthday doesn’t have to carry the sting of what was lost. It can be a marker of what God gave, and what He’s still transfoming.