Weary

I am all out of faith right now. I am so weary with believing and not seeing results. Oh, I know that God hears and answers each prayer. But how long must I wait? How long must dreams lay dormant before You resurrect them?

Please forgive my unbelief Lord. I cannot muster any faith at this point. I believe Your Word is true. But why does it not come to pass? Why is there only silence echoed in my prayers?

I am so tired of waiting for promises to be fulfilled. I feel as if I have been waiting forever.

There is no formula for faith. No step-by-step instructions. I feel as if I always take the rough path rather than a smooth road. I feel as if I am in a country where I do not know the language, yet I am expected to participate in a complicated business transaction. I feel lost.

Perhaps it is all the old questions that are raised anew. Ones that didn't get answered before, rather they were shoved aside so that I could go on with life. They rise from sepulchres of disbelief where I had buried them, bidden by resurrected sorrow and pain.

And so, I hold on to what little hope still smolders as embers in my heart:

"This too shall pass."

Sharing Sorrow

This weekend I found out a very close friend had miscarried. They were going to be expecting their third child, and it was hopefully to be a boy. So now she is left with shattered joy and a broken heart. She is left with questions that don't have any answers, yet, like me she asks them anyway. All too well, I understand the shock, pain and disbelief she is feeling. I remember feeling so alone. No one in my family understood what I was experiencing.

September 4, 2006 was when I miscarried. In vain I tried to find support, searching for women who had been through what I had been through and could tell me that I could get through it to the other side. There were plenty of secular forums for miscarriage, but they carried no hope. Frustrated, I decided to journal it out.

So for those of you who have been there, and for those of you who have not, I lay my raw emotions, questioning faith and broken heart bare for you to see. Perhaps, through my pain, another woman can find hope that life continues and healing does come...

"But I was still on my period and those are usually mutually exclusive terms --pregnancy and period. Now I was worried about the bleeding whereas before I was having a normal period. Now it was not so normal. I recall feeling so helpless every time I went to the bathroom as I saw more clots pass. Could a newborn growing baby survive the bleeding? With no other information, I decided to believe that God could maintain the life within me as He was the One Who gave it in the first place.

Fervently I prayed and stood in faith as day after day passed with still more bleeding. Then on Sept 4, 2006 I started to cramp badly and ended up in the ER. They did several blood tests and then an ultrasound. The ultrasound finalized the awful truth…there was nothing in my uterus. Nothing left except my broken heart. I remember still believing until the doctor uttered those words. Was it faith or denial, I still cannot tell. But when they finally told me the results of the ultrasound, then reality came crashing down on top of me. Suffocating me. Stripping me of any faith or hope. Leaving me emotionally naked and beaten.

To leave the hospital so broken was so incongruous compared to the births of our two sons. Now I had to go home and tell my husband and children. Not to mention everyone else that we had told. It seemed so cruel to have to relive those moments so painfully still raw and listen as others tried to find something comforting to say. What is the proper response? "Thank you for your thoughts but I still feel like crap." Is that okay? And with a miscarriage so soon into the pregnancy, people around you forget much sooner than if you were bigger and farther along. Does it make it less painful to have it happen earlier on? I hope to never have to find out.

Alegria Corazon… what a beautiful name for what would have been a beautiful baby. I wonder what she would have looked like? Would she have dark hair and eyes like her daddy and brothers? Would she have been less active in-utero than her brothers were? Was she even a she… I don’t even know that much…
What will it be like to meet her for the first time in Heaven? Will she know how much I loved her? Will she know how much her death hurt me and broke my heart? Will she know how excited we all were to have her? How her brothers kissed my belly and gave her hugs? Di d she feel any pain as she died?

Now I am not so sure I want to get pregnant. But I cannot allow the fear of this happening again to run my life. We just passed two cycles and according to the doctor, we have less of a chance of having another miscarriage. What caused the first one? That is what I want to know.

There is a shadow of extreme guilt that follows me around, haunting me at every turn. Why did I have to take hormonal birth control? I knew it would mess me up, but I had no idea that the consequences would be this awful. I feel directly and solely responsible for what happened. How do I forgive myself for killing my baby????? I cannot help but think that if I had never taken the Nuvaring, I would happily be growing out of all of my clothes right now.

**Side note here: When I say that the hormonal birth control would mess me up, I meant that the chemicals and hormones would interfere with my body's natural cycle. I had no inkling that one of the side effects of hormonal birth control could be a viable pregnancy and then miscarriage. I carefully researched the Nuvaring and its side effects as my husband and I believe that life begins at conception, and we didn't want anything that would interfere with a fertilized egg (conceived baby) implanting into the uterus.**

I don’t even know how far along I really was. The only date I have to remember is three days before my birthday. Sept 4th will forever be seared into my memory. I will never forget.

How can you love someone so much that you have never even met? How can it hurt so badly to know someone passed but you only found out about them a week ago?

Miscarriage grief is silent and overwhelming. It is not as if a relative had lived and then died. While a baby is definitely a life from conception onward, society considers it not as bad. Miscarriage grief lingers and others do not understand because so quickly do they forget, for there is nothing to remind them. Forgotten and alone. That is how I feel right now.

Maybe there is no help because people do not want to admit that it could happen to them. If you don’t acknowledge it, it cannot hurt you.

Well, that is all I can muster for tonight. I am going to sleep and hopefully tomorrow will be better."


There is more, but that was the first day I journaled it all out. It was painful to be that raw and honest with myself and my emotions. But it was the beginning of healing for me. Once I could express the turmoil of my soul, I could then slowly pry my battered heart out of the jaws of grief that had gripped it.

---------------------

I wish that I had words of comfort to bring to her, but there aren't any that erase the pain. And so I pray for God's transcedent peace, His loving healing touch and complete restoration of her body and soul. I will travel the journey through grief with her, perhaps carried together the burden will be lighter.

Night Owl Confession

I am a night owl...everyone else in my household is not.

Does anyone else have trouble going to bed after the kiddos and hubby are asleep? I just love the solitude and tranquility of a sleeping household. But I don't love the fact that if I sleep in late, my whole day has passed me by. Thereby leaving me stressed and crunched for time. Not to mention the guilt of letting my toddlers fend for themselves with DIY peanut butter sandwiches! But I LOVE staying up late...*sigh*

In order to get up before anyone else, I would have to be up around 5 am! I am SO NOT a morning person. I don't start to process anything until after 10 am...lol! Why, oh why am I this way??? *frustrated sigh*

I think more clearly at night. In fact, I do my devotions at night. I wish the rest of my body was on the same time track as my mind..lol! But one wants to go one way and the other part wants to sleep in!

It isn't really insomnia, because it is self-induced and thoroughly enjoyed!

Didn't the Proverbs 31 lady stay up late? Did she burn the candle at both ends?

I am here to tell you that burning a candle at both ends only leaves YOU with burnt fingers..

Embracing Equality

Recently I was listening to a Christian talk show on the radio and the sermon was on the "equality" of women in relation to men. My ears perked up and so I listened more closely. The pastor stated that equality is not synonymous with "the same as." Society would have us believe that we CAN be the same as men, but God shows us in His Word that He meant for us to be different. We are women, uniquely created for a specific purpose.
As I listened to this sermon, God started speaking to my heart. He spoke in mathematical terms (which I found highly ironic as math is my least favorite subject..LOL). In algebra, an equation means that both sides share the same value yet not necessarily the same function.
For example:
2 x 3 = 5 + 1, both sides are of equal value but there are very different functions to each. In God's eyes men and women share the same value, yet he created the sexes for different functions. Men were created to be the protectors and providers. Women were created to be the supporters and nurturers. We have a specific purpose that He created certain traits and talents for.
It is the height of "feminism" (meant in the Biblical sense, not the societal sense) to care for our families, create a sanctuary within our homes, support our husbands emotionally, spiritually and physically. We glorify God by doing that which we were created for. And I, for one, feel the most valuable and fulfilled as I care for my family--embracing my "equality."

.