Real Life

I’ll be honest. I didn’t want to write on this blog ever again. I am doing it because I believe it to be the right thing to do. I have wrestled with God over this issue, but He has assured me that He doesn’t want me to miss an opportunity to share with others who He has been for me through this very painful ordeal. I protested that it shouldn’t be so easy for everyone to know all of these personal things I’m dealing with just by visiting a website…. “They should call me if they want to know,” was my selfish thought. It seemed so impersonal. And I’ll admit, those emotions are still there a little bit, but I believe He wants me to share some of this journey, and I truly want to go there with Him and let Him fulfill His purposes in this way. I’m choosing to obey, trusting that emotions will follow at some point. It already forces some accountability, and I know that is a good thing. I don’t presume to know how God will use this, and I have no idea how it will hit anyone reading this, but I’m just going to write about it as I feel led by Him to do. I have no idea if this will be a venue that I will use very often or not – I may write on here every day, or it may be every few weeks. I don’t know how He will lead in that way, but I want to be willing to be vulnerable with you all, even if it hurts like crazy. I still want to use this blog to celebrate the little joys of life with Jonah and update you on his sweet little life, and I plan to continue doing that. There is a place for writing about those kinds of things. But the Lord will have to show me when that is, because I feel that, for now, this blog’s purpose is entirely different.

There are a lot of real girls in this world. But not every real girl is edifying. I believe very strongly that we do not have the right to complain about anything. We can be real about our struggles, disappointments, and pain, but how we represent the Lord in that “realness” makes all the difference. It has everything to do with whether or not we will be effective in our purpose here on earth. I am not about to say that this hasn’t been the hardest week of my life – it has. I’ve known no pain, so far, like this. That is just a fact. But I also am not about to say that Christ hasn’t been everything to me this week – He has. If He hadn’t taken me on this journey of a love-relationship with Him that He’s had me on the last several years, I would be nowhere near prepared for this tragedy. But He has graciously taught me, in the past, truths that in this moment, as I am being tested, have provided me so much strength and hope. I cling to those truths with my life. Truths such as these: He is perfect and holy and sovereign and ALWAYS RIGHT. He LOVES me like crazy and is not allowing suffering as a punishment but as a means to draw closer in intimacy with Him. His PRESENCE will comfort me even if no one else can. He has a PURPOSE in this pain and considers us worthy enough to go through it so our lives will look more like His. There is beauty in sharing in Christ’s suffering because there is a FELLOWSHIP with Him not known apart from that togetherness with Him in pain. He wants me to live SURRENDERED to His ways, and He plans to use this to help get me to the place where my THOUGHTS are taken captive to truth, my mind is solely trusting in Him.

I do not know how someone endures this grief if they do not have truths like those to hold onto. My heart breaks for those girls. It is painful for anyone to endure, but to only know the pain and none of His grace in the midst of it would be absolutely heart-breaking. I believe that is how people completely lose trust in God – by neglecting truth and only living by the difficult emotions we find ourselves dealing with many times in life. I can see where it would happen easily. It is why I am so grateful that He will not let go of me and that He keeps sending me voices of truth, even if they are hard to hear. I hope that, over time, I will be able to share more and more of this experience. It would be impossible right now to show you every glorious thing God has done this week because in order for you to understand that, you’d have to know every dark place I’ve been this week. I can’t take you there; it would be impossible. But I do hope to increasingly share it. It will just have to be little by little. I’ve learned that the particular experience of miscarriage is a very isolating one. There are other types of loss that are similar in this way, but this is definitely one that you find yourself pretty alone in. In the moment, no one else can experience what you, as the mother, are experiencing. No one is feeling the exact same loss or grieving in the same way. It is great to be comforted by those who have experienced it before as well as by those who never have – comfort is good, regardless of the giver’s own personal experience. I’ve lost some people very dear to me before, but in those situations, there have always been others, family members in my case, who are experiencing the same loss. (i.e. When I lost my dear Nana, I had a brother and three cousins who also were grieving the loss of a grandmother that day). So this has been new for me. And it has brought about a whole lot of facets of grief that I’ve never known or had to deal with. But just as no one can experience the same pain I am, right in the same moment, over exactly what I have lost, no one can know the beauty and wonderfulness of being comforted by Jesus Christ Himself in the same way I am either. I know that God wants to reveal Himself in a big way to everyone, and I want that for everyone I know, but it also is extraordinarily comforting to know that He is so involved in my life that He has intended some very good personal things just for me to experience this week. And I would have missed those if I hadn’t also experienced the pain that only I could have over the loss of this child. I would have missed Him.

I am making a choice to trust the Lord with this, to stay on top of my thoughts, to wait for Him, to go through the grieving process in the right way, to fully engage in what He has for me through this, and to be transparent in this trial so that others can know how sweet He has been to my hurting heart. Please pray that that would be true of me. I know I am not the first person to endure this, and hardship is not new to anyone reading this. We all live on this earth and have journeyed through some type of valley. I’m sure many of you have also experienced His perfect love and abundant life while in those valleys. If not, my prayer is that you have that experience and know Him in such a deep, meaningful way. If these things I write on this blog can help you in any way to get there, I’d count it the highest privilege to help show the way to His throne.

As God has repeatedly demonstrated to me numerous times this week His ability and willingness to answer prayers, I am becoming more in awe of Him and hungrier for more of those prayers. I am so grateful for the ones you have already offered in my behalf and ask for continued prayer.