When you know loss too well

When you enter into “happens often” to “we need to run tests” to “what is going on?” …

When a positive pregnancy test does not equal joy, expectation and relief but instead fear, anxiety, grief

When your once positive fades into negative just a few days later, just as your heart and mind were starting to feel a little better

When you start to understand why people wait to tell

When you begin to cringe at pregnancy announcements, not because you aren’t happy for them, but because your first thought is “I hope you get to meet your child”

When you know that you are never safe

Not after the first positive test

Not after the blood tests that confirm

Not after a sonogram

Not after the first trimester

Or the second

Or the third

Or the birth

Or the first birthday

….

Your feeling of safety when it comes to your unborn children has been completely violated before they are even given a chance to live.

When you see a baby and that reality for yourself seems further and further away.

When a baby shower turns into a bittersweet celebration.

When holding a precious baby turns from being enjoyable to therapeutic, cathartic, heartbreaking.

When your period becomes the enemy.

Blood means death, not life.

When life doesn’t allow for time to grieve, so you push on and work hard to keep everything together, only to have moments of completely overwhelming grief that come at unexpected times.

When you realize that your life is not your own.

Your timing is not your own.

Your wishes and dreams potential to become reality are not your own.

Your children’s lives, born and unborn, are not your own.

Your plans for your life are not your own.

When you hear the news of another experiencing all of these things, and you still don’t know what to say.

Because this pain should not be happening.

When you cry and grieve with others who cry and grieve with you and you cry together over lost lives and lost dreams and lost joy.

When you still hope for the future.

When you wake up and keep going.

When you break again.

When you understand what this is like, all of this, and you wish you didn’t.

When sharing your news each time feels like the boy who cried wolf and you are so scared people will stop believing you.

Stop caring.

When you feel like you are going crazy and imagining the positive tests.

When you take pictures of the positive tests to remind yourself that you aren’t.

When you don’t want to hear congratulations because it doesn’t feel like there is anything to celebrate yet.

And you are scared that you are jinxing the process if you receive these greetings too soon.

When you know that you aren’t supposed to have this much fear,

that you should have hope,

because you know Who is in control,

but you are still hurting and scared and feel alone no matter who is around, who has shared this experience or who is trying to comfort you.

In honor of my four little loves that I wish I could have met and for the countless others who left lives and wombs too soon, but never left the hearts of those who carried them. This is for all of you.

Running on fumes

Many of us have heard the analogy of time with the Lord “filling our tank” or “running on empty”, similar to a gas tank in a car. There are also times where it feels like I am coasting and running on residual fumes to get through the day to day. Similar again to the car scenario, my life’s “performance” is less than stellar and I putter around from place to place hoping what I have left will get me there.

Has anyone else felt like that?

Often, we rely on the hard core, sold out seasons of our life to get us through to the next high ground, and that time in the valley can be extremely dry if we aren’t feeding ourselves properly.

“Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.” Psalm 127: 1-2

These seasons of residual living are unsuccessful for a reason. As this verse says, all our work is in vain if we aren’t putting our trust in the Lord as we plan and live. If we depend solely on our hard work for our next meal, we trust solely in our efforts for results, we will be living a sub-par and anxious life that God never intended for His children to live. Each morning, if you are like me, you may try to snag a verse here and there, listen to Christian radio stations and coast into your day at work, but if you are not desperately depending on the Lord for your next breath, trusting in Him for your next day, your next meal, you will labor anxiously and get only what YOU are able to instead of partaking in the huge blessing of letting God show himself faithful.

“Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” -1 Peter 5:7

When I was younger, I was blessed with a home where my mom, after a hard day’s work would cook us a meal pretty much every night. There was always plenty and on the seemingly frequent occasion that we had a guest or two over, we all had more than enough to satisfy our hunger. She did/does some amazing things with food! There were times I would look in the pantry and think… “What on earth is she going to make with all of this random stuff?” because to me, none of it seemed to go together. But sure enough, every time, she made some concoction that ended up being my new favorite, and could usually never repeat it again because it was an “end of the month special” that she had made up as she went with what she had. Let’s just say that skill hasn’t quite shown itself to be hereditary yet as I struggle to come up with something with a full pantry!

What I saw that was the most impressive about the way my mom prepared, and I pray for the same diligence in my life, was the fact that any time I woke up for any reason before 6 AM, she could be found in the kitchen or living room having her time with the Lord. I am convinced that this is why we always had plenty, even when the pantry looked empty. She trusted the Lord to provide and He always did, in other crazy, divine ways that can only be described as being gifts from the Lord because of their specificity and timeliness. My husband tells me of similar experiences he had growing up in his family too. I pray that we use these models of faithfulness in our family and do not lean on our own understanding and work to provide emotionally and physically.

Lord I pray that this would be how we live and remember:

“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world….But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ-by grace you have been saved-and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus So that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus For by grace you have been saved through faith, Ant this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, crated in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk I them.”-Ephesians 2:1a, 4-10