Last year on September 23rd we lost something so wanted and so dear to us. At 11 weeks pregnant, I miscarried a precious little baby. The loss was devastating, as any loss is. And it has been quite the journey of suffering that we have gone through.
But my story of loss was only the beginning of the story. God had something in store that I could never have imagined, that I couldn't see in the midst of the agony of losing a baby.
This loss was different than my previous two miscarriages. Mostly because I was different in this season of life than I had been the previous years. God had already taken me through a season of learning (and failing a lot) to trust in Him. He had been working on my heart to see a different side of His character; His compassion for our suffering.
I'm just going to be honest and admit that my two previous losses ended in me being angry with God, blaming Him for allowing it to happen. I rationalized that He's God and He could have miraculously saved those two babies, but He chose not to. I saw God as cold, distant, not really caring about the real and painful things going on in my life.
I look back on those days, those months, those years and I cringe because I now know that God was mourning with me in my loss. It wasn't just my loss, it was His loss too. A dear friend, who also experienced a significant loss told me that she didn't blame God, wasn't angry with Him because she knew that God was mourning with her. That this sort of thing, death and disease and suffering, was not how He had intended it. But because of sin, death is now a part of life and God grieves with us when these tragedies occur. I will never ever forget her words because her view of God, her love for Him and her understanding of His love for her completely changed my life. And I started to see this truth that she spoke in my own life.
Having this understanding doesn't change the hurt. It doesn't really ease the pain. But it totally changed my reaction to what happened, and it completely transformed my prayer going forward.
The loss was devastating. I still feel the pain. My hurt will never completely go away.
But the one thing that changed for me was my prayer afterward. I prayed for redemption through this loss. I didn't know what that meant and I didn't know what that would look like. But that was and has been my prayer since that awful day in September.
And God answered my prayer in two very specific ways. The first was through my story. I wrote a blog about my experience and I prayed that somehow, someway, God would use my words to speak to people. I'm not the only one that has experienced this or any kind of grief and suffering in life. And I prayed that my words and thoughts would resonate with someone, anyone, and it would be a positive thing in their life. Friends, God answered that prayer in a tremendous way. So many women reached out to me and thanked me for sharing my story because they had also suffered in that way, and it was, in a weird sort of way, refreshing to hear someone sharing their painful story of loss too.
For some reason, miscarriage has been a taboo subject and many women carry this secret grief around, never letting anyone know that their lives are crumbling and they are deeply mourning.
It was hard to write my story, hard to share my grief with so many. But God redeemed that aspect of this loss, and I clearly saw His hand working through it.
The second way God redeemed our loss is even more crazy and amazing and awesome! There aren't enough adjectives to describe it!
Satan has a way of messing with us and making us believe his lies. The lies that he was feeding me were that God wouldn't give me another baby because I wasn't a good enough mom for the three that I already had, and the other lie was that I wouldn't be able to get pregnant again (and why should I whine and complain about that anyway, when God had already blessed me with 3 healthy kids?!).
I honestly fell into his trap and believed I wouldn't be able to get pregnant again. For several months we tried, and each month I was devastated when no little plus sign emerged.
But God continued to speak His truth to me, and His Word continued to spring up. Mark 5:36 says "Don't be afraid, just believe". And I have clung to that verse, not knowing what God had in store for our lives.
And here is the crazy, amazing, funny, awesome God we serve: We are pregnant right now, and this baby is due on September 23rd, the day that we lost our baby last year! If that is not a redemption story that ONLY GOD could orchestrate, I don't know what is!
Every single time I think about this crazy journey and God's amazing redemption story that is specifically for me in my life at this time, I cry. I just cry because He DOES care. All those years I thought He didn't care about the little things, didn't care about the things I was going through personally. It's just that I couldn't, or chose not to, see it. And here, right now in all of this, He is showing little ol me that He does indeed care.
Friends, He loves so deeply, cares so compassionately, pursues so intently. We only have to be accepting and allow Him to show us.
