Pt 2: Surprising lessons from our recent loss
A few days after my ultrasound, morning sickness kicked in in full force. I was actually thrilled about this. I usually get sick right around 6 weeks, and that timing would line up exactly with the ultrasound dating. I also shared with several people and can’t hearing story after story of how they had had the same scenario, and baby just wasn’t as far along as they’d thought. A later ultrasound revealed a healthy, growing baby.
So that encouraged me. I found myself with all the familiar feelings of nausea, food aversions, all that good stuff. It was so comforting; I had never been so happy to feel awful! This continued for almost two weeks. I definitely felt weak, emotionally and physically, but there was nothing to do but keep putting one foot in front of the other. On a Thursday morning, I spoke to a lovely group of moms at Hearts at Home, then drove for my next ultrasound, feeling very hopeful and encouraged. I tried not to have expectations, but inwardly I thought through some scenarios for telling our families. I knew our kids would be wild with excitement, as they both want another baby. I prayed over the phone with a friend, and headed in.
As the technician began, I could see the dating/measurements on the screen: about 7 weeks. That lined up perfectly with my midwife’s prediction, so I breathed a sigh of relief. But then she finished and went to consult the doctor. Usually, I knew, they let you listen to baby’s heartbeat before they finish.
I sat in the chair, focusing my thoughts on truth, reminding myself over and over that no matter what happened, God was good and it would be ok. Beside me, a blurry black-and-white photo slipped out of the machine. There was my tiny baby. I stared at it, wondering weird things like, “Would they print me a photo if the baby were dead? Maybe that’s a good sign?” She came back in.
“There is no cardiac activity, so our work with you is done.” She opened the door for me to leave, then looked at the photo and hesitated. “Do you want the photo?”
I told her yes please, and thank you and the room started spinning and I walked, without seeing, back into the waiting room to pay my bill. The receptionist said to wait until she could figure out the a correct coding. So I sat in the waiting room and picked a spot on the ceiling to stare. Not yet. Don’t cry yet. Don’t cry yet. Hold on. Just hold on. I thumbed a two-word text to Jeff: No heartbeat.
After ten minutes or so, she figured out the coding. I smiled and thanked her so much for her time and she looked in my eyes and saw everything and her face silently said, I’m so sorry.
I walked out into the incongruent brightness of the sun, finally found refuge in my car, and … I don’t know how to describe it. Maybe you’ve felt it, where grief feels like it will swallow you whole. Where suddenly the accumulation of grief rushes up, and it’s not just one dead baby, it’s all of them and all of it, and I told God it feels like by the time this life is over I will just be a crushed, ragged, ripped-to-shreds heart that has been broken so many times it’s beyond repair.
And as I poured my heart out to God, looking for some comfort, some sympathy, the same verse came to mind again and again:
Be patient in affliction, be constant in prayer.
Romans 12:12
Honestly I felt a little like, That’s it, God? My heart is crushed and Your answer is “be patient”?!
Be patient in affliction, be constant in prayer.
Back home, I tried to avoid the questioning eyes of my kids, and fled to the refuge of my bed. Again, everything in me wanted to slip, sink, let myself go down into the depths of sorrow. All of it overwhelmed me. Another miscarriage? I’m traveling every weekend for the next month! When will it happen? Jeff’s going to Kentucky for a week, what if it happens while he’s gone? Will I be okay all alone? How can I keep traveling and speaking and going about life with a dead baby in my belly and not knowing when I will miscarry?
And, so strangely, over the next few hours, God’s good Word to me was not at all what I expected. It caught me so off guard. I didn’t like it, but had to believe. If He’s a good God, and His Word is good, then this word must be good. Out of Ezekiel, of all places:
The word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, with one blow I am about to take away from you the delight of your eyes. Yet do not lament or weep or shed any tears. Groan quietly; do not mourn for the dead. Keep your turban fastened and your sandals on your feet; do not cover your mustache and beard or eat the customary food of mourners.”
Ezekiel 24:15-18
So I spoke to the people in the morning, and in the evening my wife died. The next morning I did as I had been commanded.
With kindness in His voice, God told me to “groan quietly; do not mourn for the dead.” In other words, Dry your tears, wash your face, and serve others. Put their interests above your sorrow. Don’t cancel anything. Don’t change any plans. Walk out the events of this next month and be patient in affliction.
Even re-writing this, tears well up a tiny bit. This was a hard word to receive. I wouldn’t have believed it was God if it hadn’t been straight from the Bible. I knew not everyone would understand (I didn’t, entirely!). They might think I was just faking, or pretending to be fine. I didn’t exactly know how it would work. But I got up the next morning and hosted company and served pumpkin bread with a smile and prepared for the next day’s speaking events and in alone moments cried quietly and asked God to please help me do what felt impossible on my own. I’m sure you, friends, have had to do hard things like this too…
More in a bit–good, joyful stuff! Thanks for hanging with me through the sad. It’s okay, really. He’s in it all. Bless you, friends. Thanks for reading.
Pregnancy Loss: Reflections on our 3 miscarriages
I’ve so missed sharing with you, all of you (guys, you’re welcome too)! I’ve missed writing, as that is often how God helps clarify and solidify what He’s teaching me. I have not had an hour of free time (besides morning Word/prayer times and Sunday afternoons when I nap!), since early September–no exaggeration. We have been in a season of running hard, and I don’t regret a second of it. It has been rich, fruitful, difficult, and so very good.
Seasons are just that, seasons. In two weeks, when the bulk of my speaking commitments are through and Heidi’s play is over, we’re taking off for a week as a family, to rest and play together. I’m excited for that time together, but I don’t feel desperate for it. This season has been good. That season will be good. Paul said he knew how to roll with every season and be content in it, not just when it’s over. I guess that’s part of what I’m learning too.
Many of you have traveled with us on this journey of having more children. Long story short, in 2016, after a 40-day fast, through a number of confirmations and circumstances, Jeff and I both sensed God leading us to get a vasectomy reversal and have two more children. He gave us two names: Honor and Justice. I was completely caught off guard when Honor was lost. I’d never experienced miscarriage, and God used it to bring up many thing in both Jeff and me that needed to be worked through. He gave me a new girl name: Hope.
Several months later, I was pregnant again. Thrilled. This time I carried 11 weeks before learning Our Hope is in Heaven. Physically, that miscarriage was horrendous, but afterward, I felt tremendous peace. The timing just so happened that just two days later we had a beach vacation planned with our dearest friends, and I felt enveloped in a cocoon of love, prayer, grace, not to mention amazing meals and tons of relaxation. There was grief, but it was like falling into a fluffy friendship cloud of comfort.
In Scripture, especially in the OT, we often see names having great significance, often related to the spiritual state of the parents’ hearts, or what was going on in the culture at large. I never experienced any of this sort of significance with our older children, but for whatever reason, this time around names have been very significant. Also, each miscarried child has had a name.
The day I miscarried with Hope, we had our church’s prayer meeting that night–so clearly I heard “Hallelujah.” I wrote the name across the top of my journal page, then jotting down “Halle” (rhymes with Sally) for short.
I loved that name, and was so excited. I thought she would be born next. A few months later I became pregnant, and two trusted friends separate shared a dream/vision that I was having a boy. And I was:
Justice.
Our amazing, chubby bundle of smiles, Justice has forever changed our lives. His late arrival and delivery brought its own series of lessons (Wasted work; Joy; Psalm 131, Preparations; Delivery). We can’t imagine our lives without him.
He was worth the wait.
So you can imagine our joy when, this September, I found out I was pregnant again. Yes! I had hoped to have baby #2 before I turned 40, and this would make my delivery date just a couple weeks before that date. I started praying for little Halle, our little bean-sized baby.
I did kind of wonder what this journey would entail. Last spring, I had two friends separately share the song, “Nothing can take my Hallelujah” with me. I thought, perhaps, difficult circumstances would surround her birth. I thought the physical birth of “Praise Yahweh” would represent joy in the midst of difficulty.
My midwife scheduled an ultrasound at 7 weeks to see how everything looked. We hadn’t told the kids yet, wanting to wait until everything looked good, so I sneaked in an ultrasound while Heidi was at theater practice and Jeff was with the boys.
It showed baby measuring 5.5 weeks, with no heartbeat. My heart sank.
BUT. Both the technician and my midwife were convinced everything was fine. Often dating can be off, and everything looked good otherwise, so they figured it was slightly too early for heartbeat, so we’d “just wait” and see in a week or two.
While in the office, I thought I was fine. But as soon as I got in my car, a torrent of emotion came. I sobbed to God,
“I cannot do this again. I cannot keep having my heart torn apart.”
I begged him to please let this baby live.
Part of what was overwhelming was the fact that I had eleven speaking engagements this fall, including 5 straight weekends of traveling, giving 20+ messages, plus Heidi’s theater schedule of 3 days/week and a solid week of working backstage for dress-rehearsals plus working eight shows. I had already felt overwhelmed by how to navigate all the commitments.
And now I had to “just wait” to see if the baby inside me was dead or alive? We hadn’t shared about the pregnancy. Our kids didn’t know, families didn’t know. It felt strangely lonely to just keep going along as usual, not knowing whether I carried life or death. That evening, after my ultrasound, a friend and I were hosting a baby shower. It was the last thing I wanted to do, honestly. I was exhausted from crying and my flesh so wanted to just be home and be sad all by myself. But so clearly I knew God was saying, Set yourself aside for the sake of serving others.
But it’s so HARD to set ourselves aside. It takes dying! And there’s nothing more clear in Scripture:
“In humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.”
Phil. 2:3-4
Every Christlike act of love takes the willingness to set ourselves aside for the sake of serving others. This is the very essence of what Jesus did, and that He calls us to do.
It takes humbling ourselves to prioritize others’ needs above our feelings. Philippians 2:5-8 says this is exactly what Jesus did.
The next weekend, I was flying to Colorado to speak at a conference. I was nervous about flying, but once again, knew God’s will was clear: Trust Me. It would take me trusting Him with my body, my heart, my emotions. I was still very sick with morning sickness, so it was a tiring trip, but the ladies were amazing and I could SEE God be strong as I felt so weak. It felt good to focus on others and get the joy of seeing God move.
On my flight home, as I sat exhausted with my hand resting on my belly, praying, I heard the young guy next to me telling the person next to him how grateful he was that his girlfriend was able to get an abortion for $75 instead of $400.
Tears silently slipped down my cheek. For him. For this broken world. For all that’s just so wrong. For the babies unwanted and the babies so desperately wanted and the incongruity of it all and knowing this is only a drop in the ocean of sorrow that is a reality in our world. And knowing the Father can and will sort it all out but the meantime…
We groan inwardly as we wait eagerly…
Rom. 8:21-23
And I whispered into the darkness, “Sort it out, God. Please. Sort it out.”
{Time to get back to my kiddos; I’ll write more soon}
Why is it so hard to trust the process?
Hello, friends! I’m sorry I haven’t been writing much around here lately. We’re in a busy season, but I do have a story of God’s faithfulness to share with you soon. Hoping to write about it tonight. For today, I wanted to pass along this praise, of how good God has been to us as we journey through the homeschool process. Even if you don’t homeschool, there are so many ways that it’s JUST SO HARD to trust the process, to be patient, to wait, to stay the course. I hope this can be encouraging to you. More soon… Thanks for reading. Read the rest over at Simple Homeschool…
Wins that look like losses
Even now, though I don’t know his name, my eyes fill with tears thinking of him. He doesn’t know that he gained himself a prayer warrior last night.
Sixty-seven youth, aged 8-18 filed into the building for auditions for the Christian Youth Theater’s upcoming performance of Mary Poppins. Widely varying abilities, all shapes and sizes, each one would take his or her turn on stage, all alone, standing on the X in front of the six artistic judges. Each one would sing, some would say a few lines.
All would show tremendous courage.
This was my first experience watching youth auditions, and my eyes welled up with tears more than once. I was so incredibly inspired by the courage each kid demonstrated and truly stunned by the level of talent displayed. These kids can SING! One girl sang I Have Confidence from The Sound of Music and it sounded straight-up Julie Andrews–amazing!
But the very best auditioner of the whole night, the one who brought me to full-tears, the one who showed the most valiant display of courage that maybe I have ever witnessed, the biggest win of the night…
…was a little boy who never even made it to the song.
As he stood up I could barely even see his head, he was very small. Within seconds, as he made his way toward the front, we could all see his state. His dark head bowed low, eyes straight down at his feet, shoulders hunched over. His dark-skinned arms folded tightly in on his chest, his hands wringing back in forth in obvious agitation.
We held our breath. I leaned forward in my seat. Everything in me came alive in attention. Come on, champ. You can do this.
He shuffled his way to the front, he tried to look up at the judges. He tried to remember what to say.
The coordinator smiled kindly and offered, “What’s your name?” He mumbled something no one could hear. She smiled. “Great. What song are you singing?” He mumbled something else no one could hear.
I leaned forward and smiled, fighting back tears, desperately trying to impart some trace of courage into his precious soul.
It was silent.
His fear was palpable.
And then the music began.
Wild panic filled his eyes. I swallowed hard. Please, Jesus. Please.
He stood, stricken, for a few agonizing moments.
And then he fled, in a dead run, off the stage.
We all exhaled.
Oh God. I wanted to leap from my seat and run and find him and swoop him up and hide him in my arms. I wanted to somehow impart to his soul that he is precious. That he was the most brave person of the whole night. That the God of the Universe was so incredibly proud of him and that he had value and worth and he was a PRIZE. That he was a STAR.
The audience applauded, just as we did for every performer. Oh Jesus let him know the applause of heaven. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him in the back, tucked into the arms of his light-skinned Mama. I thanked God for her, I wanted to hold HER, as I knew she probably needed to curl up onto someone’s arms just as much as he did.
She showed as much courage as anyone. A little later I saw her slip quietly out the back door, holding her sweet boy’s hand. Oh Jesus please bless her.
The rest of the night went smoothly. As the girls and I got into our car, we talked about that little boy, how he was the most brave of all. On the drive home, we prayed over him.
I prayed that he would grow to be a mighty man of God, that God would do astounding things in his life and that someday he would look back at this day, the day that felt like a fail, and he would know that it was a WIN. That just going up on that stage was a death-blow to the enemy of fear, and just because he didn’t make it to the song, IT WAS STILL A WIN.
Oh friend–Do you know this? Do you know that just the fact that you are doing [fill in the blank], that is a WIN? EVERY step of obedience, EVERY courageous act, EVERY time you say yes to Jesus and you do that thing that scares you half to death, that is a win! Even if you run off stage at the last minute. Even if you end up in a puddle of tears. May you hear the applause of heaven!
And, may we have compassion enough to recognize that what may be easy for us may take tremendous courage for those around us. May we set aside our preoccupation with strength, beauty, success, achievement, and celebrate the quiet courage that it sometime takes to just show up.
Cheering for you. Thanks for reading.