learning to accept the grief

We lost a baby this year in July.

I was ten weeks pregnant when I miscarried. We had known for a while that we were pregnant, had told our families and our children. They were excited. We were excited. I spent all last winter wishing that it was the Lord's timing to have another child, but we waited and waited because things were so rocky and hard in Iowa, we felt we needed to make it through our first year of ministry there first.

But then we moved back to Washington and I was pregnant and everything was crazy, but I was so glad, so looking forward to meeting this new child. Everything changes when you know you are pregnant. You think about how the winter months will be while you are pregnant, what the baby's birthday will be, how far apart each of the siblings will be and how the new little one's presence may affect the family dynamics. How it impacts where you will live. It impacted which job Keith took, because I knew I couldn't handle it if he took one of those trucking jobs that took him away from home for a week or two or three at a time. Not when we'd been through so much this year and had a baby on the way.

God worked out the circumstances around the actual loss of our little child. The family we were living with was on vacation that week, and Keith was only working a part-time, temporary job. And the Lord was with us, and our kids were with us and we talked all about how our little one was going to heaven, and the kids cuddled me close on the couch all week and talked to the baby while he or she was still inside, knowing they wouldn't get to see him or her until heaven. And they are looking forward to heaven all the more, knowing they now have two siblings there, and they can't wait to meet them.

But a parent's grief, it doesn't fade away. The few people who know of our loss never talk about it to us, perhaps not wanting to stir up the pain. Priscilla and Abraham remember and speak of their sibling, now and then, and it hurts but I am glad, relieved that they have not forgotten. I see our children wrestling on the floor and I give thanks to God for them being here with us, often especially for Ezekiel because his birth was rather scary, and then I remember they are not all here with us. That this little child... who I believe was a girl... won't get to ride on her daddy's back, won't get to wrestle with siblings or shriek in indignation when someone takes the marker she was using, won't get to cuddle in my arms while I rock her to sleep. She is with the Lord forever. Complete in Him, untouched now by sin and all the pains and cares of this life. But my heart still breaks, I still miss the kicks that I never felt her kick, still miss the surprise of seeing her for the first time, still miss the hundreds of thousands of moments together that would have followed those.

Last week I grabbed the kids' hands for prayer time at lunch and began to sing, "Let the Circle by Unbroken." It just came to mind and I began to smile because it is so sweet to have our dear ones here with us, and then I realized that not all of them are, and I choked and couldn't continue singing. Someday the circle will be unbroken, but not here.

Grief is unfair at times. It cuts in when I don't expect it to, when I think I'm fine. It can fog my vision from seeing the dear ones right in front of me and it can steal my joy. But it is also necessary, healthy, even though I despise this season of grief and pain and loss.

We don't get to choose the seasons. We can fight against them or press into them. It is November now in the outside world, and I am relieved, because it has been November and January in my heart all year, and it is good to have the bleak outside sympathize with the barrenness, the stripped-away-ness of my heart.

It's not right to say I hate this season. I don't hate it now, although I have had many moments of despair in these last months. We have been through some really hard painful times prior to this year. Very painful, heartbreaking seasons of life. We have lost another baby before this one, have had lifelong promises broken, have had dreams stolen, have had friendships crumble, have had our financial situation crumble and deteriorate. Have lost homes unfairly and have lost a job or two unfairly too. But this year has hit hard and deep.

We are still reeling from the loss of Keith's position in Iowa, the place we had made our home. That was the sucker-punch to the gut that broke us and keeps breaking us as we now try to grasp what to do, where to go from here, how to go forward. Keith is working a night job and taking a college course. I hardly see him all week. It affects our marriage, affects our children, affects our family life, affects our ability to be involved with church or community, affects everything. And we have rejoiced in the midst of trials, have really forgiven those who wronged us, have given thanks to the Lord that His grace covers over those who have wronged us as well as we who have also wronged others. But it still hurts to live out the repercussions of that pain and wrongness, hurts to still be grasping our way forward through the darkness.

Yet I am beginning to embrace the darkness. I am beginning to press into it. I have not spent much time in caves, but I imagine it this way - that cavern scene from "Tom Sawyer" comes to mind - that when the lights are out, you can either freak out about it, or press into it. Lean into your other senses. Lean onto the Lord rather than your own understanding. I am blind, right now, to what God is doing. I may have hints or clues or ideas but I am blind to what is ahead of us. Have no idea what this next year will bring. But having left Iowa and still having received more and more hard, hard things after that.... losing our child, Keith working nights, moving to a new community and having nobody to talk to, nobody even to help me unpack or begin to get organized... I am no longer holding out hope that it will get better. In the end, yes, with Jesus, absolutely. But my hope is no longer to quickly get through this season and move on. If we are going to be, as the Israelites were, wandering through this desert for a while, then I know it's so God can prepare us. Can speak to us while we are away from anything else. My goal is no longer to get to the other side, it is to find God here, in the midst of all this pain and heartbreak, the stuff I can't even journal about, let alone say out loud. My desire is to find Him here and walk with Him through this and to know Him in the midst of all this. In other words, I am not freaking out so much about the dark and lostness of this place. I'm beginning to listen, to discover what I can hear here.

There was a time when I used to press into trials more. To embrace them as discipline. I don't know if I resist that now because I am soft or spoiled or because I am simply worn out. I feel worn out, I feel that God is letting me wear out because it's the only way I will turn to Him in all of this.

This is not my favorite season. I cry with frustration over the state of our home. Our messy, undecorated home. I crave having pictures on the walls again. If only I could find them! I crave having the boxes and boxes and boxes of books in our downstairs living space to be organized, put away, to have a home that is lovely and open, a place where I can find the box of Christmas cards and the tape and the myriad of other things I have looked for this week and not been able to find. I hate having everything disorganized, hate seeing myself live out disorganized days because I am so cluttered with things that need done that it paralyzes me.

I am still learning how to walk through this season. I am not doing it with finesse and poise. More like distress and lots of noise. But I am learning to have more grace on myself, too. Learning to go to bed when everything is a mess, because my children need me rested tomorrow more than they need clean dishes. I am learning to cry out to God when I am grieving not getting to see Keith through the week.

I am in a messy place, in every way. I wish there were others who were willing to enter into this mess with us. If there are any, I don't see them. But God is the God who sees me, and He is here in this mess with me, and I know He wants me to turn to Him and dwell with Him in the midst of all this grief and terrible disappointment.

I think... I think I am beginning to get it. Only just beginning. But it is a beginning, a little bit of a start. And the King is here with me, and He will still be with me and will still forgive me even if I utterly fail to rise to the occasion through this season. Because He is faithful even when I am faithless, and He will not disown His own.