1 Year After Our Miscarriage
Facebook reminded me I posted about baby #3 for the first time a year ago. When I saw the photo it made my heart ache and I honestly flipped past it as fast as I could. I didn’t want to think about it or feel it. Today, I am okay with feeling it and that is what grief is like. Some days you feel like you can handle it and others you just can’t. The possibility of losing the baby had never even crossed my mind. I know that is crazy to say because 1 in 8 women have had a miscarriage, but I was never worried. 13 weeks in... we lost what would be our first son. Losing our baby made me feel uncertain and fearful in several ways I had never felt but I was sure of the fact that God was with me. He was with me in the sonogram room when the first words out of my husband’s mouth were “God we trust you.”. He was with me those 3 days waiting for surgery as I couldn’t sleep without worship songs playing. He was with me in the shower when I was alone as the water and tears became one. He was with me before I went into surgery and Clay, my husband asked to sing to the baby one more time. He was with me when I woke up from surgery all alone, pad between my legs, and the instant awareness… I was no longer pregnant. He was with me when I found out the baby was a boy and genetic testing came back all clear. He was with me every time my kids asked me “Why didn’t we get to meet the baby and why did he have to go to heaven?”. He was with me then and He has been closer than ever. I stayed aware of the fact that I couldn’t handle it on my own. I knew I needed His presence to occupy every space and I invited it non-stop.
Naturally I am a people pleaser and I can care about what others want before what I want. I was able to release so much of that because I wanted to have it together all the time but I couldn’t. I wanted to handle it “right” in the eyes of others but in grief “right” doesn’t exist. I wanted to lead myself but I could only lean into Jesus. God gave me courage because everything I thought was the right way to be wasn’t even an option. I had to find a new road to walk down with Jesus leading me on. My life is about other people in that I will love and care about them, but they don’t decide what my life will be like. I do.
I look back and I am grateful… not for the miscarriage but for how God has worked and is working in me. Gratitude is a hard subject when you are facing loss. How can you lose something you love and feel grateful at the same time? It seems impossible… at least it did to me. I had to find things to be grateful for and at the top of the list was how close God felt to me. The second thing was my family and two healthy daughters. When I started thinking this way, I found that even in my hardest time, I could see clearer how good God has been to me. I wouldn’t let the enemy win in my thoughts about who I know God to be. When I would hear the whispers of what God didn’t do it was like the devil whispering to Eve in Genesis about who God isn’t. Every time I would hear that voice, I would take out my phone or journal and write who I know God is.
A year later, I am grateful for who God is. I am grateful I am seeing God use every part because it gives my pain a purpose. You reading this gives my pain purpose because it’s being used to help. I am grateful for this new courage to be fully me. I am grateful for new confidence and authority. I am grateful for pain that has opened up a deeper part of my heart to love in a way I didn’t know was possible. I am grateful for a new excitement for heaven because my baby boy waits for me there. I am grateful for a God who comes close in the middle of our brokenness.
When you find yourself in your most difficult times, answer these questions:
1. What does the Word say God is?
2. Who has God been to you?
3. What can you be grateful for right now?
You got this Mama!
Whitney Jones
