By: Kristen Kelley
Perhaps you’ve been here, more than once, now . . . My heart hears yours, too, Dear One. I don’t know the gender of the baby from our second loss – In December of 2017, we weren’t as far along in our pregnancy, as we’d been with Joshua. But how much joy it brought me to give that second Little One a name, and to know that he or she was safely in Heaven with our Lord. This is Finlay’s story. A baby whom I’d carried and loved for 11 weeks . . . A baby whom I’d prayed so hard would be our “rainbow” . . . But it wasn’t meant to be. I pray that as you read the verses and the peaceful thoughts that God gave me in our second grief, your own heart might be comforted, too!
Psalm 63:6 “When I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches.”
I didn’t want to look at another lifeless ultrasound ever again . . . But sometimes what we dread the very most, ends up coming to pass . . . Only those who have walked this road can truly understand. You feel like you’ve plunged beneath a frozen, icy pond, and you’re gasping for breath. You hear the voices of your other children, playing, but you can hardly pull yourself from bed . . . It is the familiar weight and cloud of grief . . . You’re not taking fun family photos, or planning a wonderful goal for the new year, like all the world seems to be, around you . . . You’re just trying to live through TODAY . . . Trying not to be in physical pain . . . Trying to hold back the tears every time an article of clothing makes you remember what was finally a noticeable “bump”, only a couple of weeks ago . . .
Any death can be tragic; saddening; devastating – but a miscarriage leaves a woman feeling HOLLOW, as no other grief in the world can do - especially if you are a Christian mother. Because of your belief in God’s Word, you understand how REAL it all is, right from the very beginning. Life was growing within you, a heart was beating close to your own - and then it was gone . . . Studies in recent years have shown that when we have carried babies in our womb, their cells sometimes even leave imprints on our own, changing us forever. Once you become a mom, you’re truly never the same. Once you have miscarried, you’re never the same, either. Such loss molds your heart in an entirely new way – a deeper way than you’ve ever known before.
They tell you that you feel grief because you have felt LOVE – Oh how true that is! You may be wondering, “How can your heart hurt so much over a fifth baby or a sixth?” Because I have enjoyed the “baby stage” of motherhood so very, very much! I have embraced it as a gift from God. And I truly long for another wobbly little head on my shoulder, at midnight. Perhaps you’d say with the well-meaning, “You already have 4 beautiful children . . .” But a mother’s love does not get divided amongst her children, it only multiplies! And so, yes, a loving mother does grieve – whether it be her first or her tenth child, that she has just lost.
Often in these sorrows, there are no answers. Once again, everything appeared to be “going just fine”. So what do you do when there seems to be no “why”? As the beautiful church song goes, “And there seems to be no reason for the suffering we feel; We are tempted to believe God does not know . . . And when you don’t understand the purpose of His plan, in the Presence of the King, bow the knee.”
ANYONE we love, here on earth, is only a gift for a time. Some are with us for 11 weeks, but never held in our arms; some are by our side for 50 years or more. We ought to love them as God would have us love them – every single day. But we ought to love Our Savior even more.
“All to Jesus I surrender, All to Him I freely give; I will ever love and trust Him, In His Presence daily live . . .” One baby . . . Two babies . . . and any more of those most dear in all the world to me, that God chooses to call home. They are really Thine, Oh Lord!
And then, when we sorrow, we “ . . . sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.” (I Thess. 4:13) Much in my heart has been crushed, and there have been many, many tears. But our 2017 baby was taken to a glorious Heaven, by a good and loving God. And I will see both my miscarried babies in Heaven, someday!
As my husband and I sat together in the hospital room . . . I wrote these words from my heart:
“Heaven is on my mind, today. The sweetest nursery you could ever hope to see . . . Every baby loved, and hoped, and wished for, but never held here on earth . . . Every baby left, neglected, now cared for by the angels . . . Every baby aborted in the womb, but now loved on by millions of mamas in a perfect land . . . Every baby who suffered from illnesses and birth defects, here below, now and forever healed . . . Perhaps there are volunteers who work "nursery" in that Heavenly Place - If so, I will certainly be one of them.”
Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
With My Lord’s help, through the sorrow and the pain, I choose to hold on to FAITH. Faith that God is good. Faith that “ . . . his tender mercies are over all his works.” (Psalm 145:9). Faith that He will heal the brokenness, once again. Faith that no matter how many times I “go down to the grave”, my Lord will bring me up (Psalm 30:3). Faith that joy will come in the morning (Psalm 30:5). . . The words of the timeless hymn sound in my heart, “Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not . . . Great is Thy faithfulness.”
I don’t know your name, or where you’re from. I don’t know if you have a husband or a child at home, to hug, in your grief, or if you’re feeling all alone in the world, right now. But through these first few pages, you have caught a little glimpse of my own heart. You have heard both of my own stories of heartache and loss. I know how much a miscarriage can devastate and hurt. But I also know that My Loving Heavenly Father is truly “the God of all comfort” (II Cor. 1:3), in even the deepest of sorrows. And He will walk alongside you, as no one in all the world can do.
