Category: Grief

I see you counting down the days and hoping that maybe this month it will happen.

I see you as the quiet tears fall down your face when you realize that once again, it’s not your time.

I see you sat in waiting rooms, dreading another blood test but knowing you would do anything to hold a baby in your arms.

I see you become an expert on levels and numbers and being so focused that some days you feel like you are losing your mind.

I see you sit in the doctor’s offices holding onto your belly and praying that it’s not true.

I see the pain in your eyes as you try and hold onto the hope that maybe they were wrong.

I see you weeping as you hear the news.

I see you as your heart breaks and you wonder how you will make it through.

I see you as you listen to all the details without hearing a word they are saying.

I see you as you realize the end has come before it really had a chance to begin.

I see you as you drive home silently not knowing what to say.

I see you as you grieve the loss of the life that was so short lived.

I see you as you hold your baby for the last time.

I see you as you to try to comprehend what is happening before you.

I see you as you weep in the quiet, cold hospital room.

I see you as lay there thinking that this pain will destroy you.

I see you as you say goodbye before you had enough hellos.

I see you as you try to figure out how to love one someone so much but then have to learn how to let them go.

I see you as they wheel you out of the hospital with empty arms.

I see you as you enter the house that was ready for a baby you will never bring home.

I see you feeling so empty and alone and wondering if you will ever be the same again.

I see you because I see me.

I see all the times that I felt so alone, confused, and heartbroken.

I see every doctors appointment, every diagnosis, every loss and some days I still feel them like they were just yesterday.

I see you, and I want you to know you are not alone. The grief and loss will hurt and probably for a long time but there are others that have walked this path before you and what I can tell you is that one day maybe weeks, months or even years from now the pain will begin to subside.

Although you will never be the same, you will learn to navigate this life even with the scars. If you allow the Father to carry you when you no longer have the strength, allow yourself to feel the depth of the pain and the loss, you will make it through and one day you will smile again.

The best is yet to come is a phrase I have heard many times before but over the last couple of years I have at times found it hard to believe that to be true. As I sat holding my sleeping toddler on Christmas Day evening the tears started rolling down my face as I remembered the last 2 Christmases and how they had both been tinged with grief and sadness. Christmas 2013 was just 8 weeks after we lost our son and Christmas 2014 we lost my grandma just a few days before. I had come to the end of those years exhausted and heartbroken and honestly I couldn’t see past my grief some days but as I held my little boy this Christmas I realized how much hope I had this year. It wasn’t because everything had been perfect. This year has had its own struggles and challenges but it’s also a year where I have begun to see the answer to many prayers, some of which I had never even spoken out loud.

As I started to reflect and pray about the New Year ahead I felt a new level of resilience and strength that I haven’t felt in a long time. 2015 has not only been a year of answered prayers but has also been a significant year in the healing of my heart and body. Until you experience grief, you never realize how long it takes and what an effect it has on you, physically, emotionally and spiritually. After experiencing years of infertility and miscarriage and then losing our newborn son I was bruised and battered from the battle and was almost “waiting for the next shoe to drop”. Every part of me was exhausted and there were many days it took all my energy just to get out of bed and face the day. But slowly over time I began to heal physically emotionally and spiritually.

As 2015 began I felt like it would be a significant year but I couldn’t say how or why. Then in the early summer of last year, it became very clear why this year would be significant in more ways than one. In May God called us to a new city and a new job. He called us to continue to trust him on the journey he was taking us on. When we said yes he began to show how much he loved us and remind us how faithful he really is. I’d like to say that I didn’t need him to prove to me that he was trustworthy but in my frail human nature there were many times over the past few years that I felt he had let me down. Even though He knew he had shown his faithfulness a thousand times before he knew what my heart needed.

That’s the incredible thing about God, though, he doesn’t just love me, He loves me extravagantly. He doesn’t just provide for my needs, He exceeds my expectations and gives me more than I could’ve asked for. He provided for every detail of our move from the jobs we got, to the house we live in, to the wonderful family who cares for Jackson when I’m at work.

I think the biggest thing I will take from 2015 is that the Father loves us in our brokenness and continues to lavish his generosity on us even when we are unsure and find it hard to trust him. He builds us up piece by piece and makes us stronger than we were before. People sometimes tell I’m strong and brave because of all that I’ve been through but honestly, it’s just my Heavenly Father in me that makes me strong. Without Him, I am frail and broken but in Him, I am whole, brave and strong.

So as I step in 2016 I step with new strength. I feel like this year He is calling me to be decisive and determined, to take on new ground. The word he gave me this year is resolute. Resolute means determined, faithful, and unwavering.

As I dug more deeply into what that word meant I found that the synonyms of it are faithful, loyal, constant, staunch and steadfast. As I read into each of those definitions the Lord began to highlight all the areas in my life that he wanted me to be resolute.

He also gave me the verse 1 Corinthians 15: 58.

The NIV translation says

“Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”

And The Message translation says

“58 With all this going for us, my dear, dear friends, stand your ground. And don’t hold back. Throw yourselves into the work of the Master, confident that nothing you do for him is a waste of time or effort.”

As I read that verse I felt the Lord calling me to look at the areas of my life where I do things out of obligation or guilt or out of misplaced responsibility. He revealed to me that if those are my reasons then it will always feel like a waste of time but if I am doing them for him with determination then I will have a whole new perspective. If they are things that he has called me to do then that this the attitude I should do them with and if they are not what he has called me to do then maybe I should let someone else do them or just let them go.

I don’t know how the last year has been for you maybe it’s been filled with heartache or maybe it’s been filled with joy or maybe it’s been a mixture of both. Whatever it has been I urge you to reflect on the last and all that it has taught you and then ask God to show you what he has for you in this new year. Maybe 2016 is about healing for you or maybe it’s about breakthrough, maybe it’s about strength or maybe its persistence. Just allow the Lord to show you and then dig deep into what he is calling you into this year…. the best is yet to come!

Jackson was 5 months old on Saturday! I can’t believe that 5 months has gone so fast and that I have only blogged once since he came home!

The last few months have been a whirlwind. First Jackson arrived and so we were adjusting to being new parents and then I changed jobs which was another adjustment. We had the holidays and all the chaos that those bring plus right before Christmas my grandma passed away. That was a very difficult time for me and I still miss her every day. I think because of all the grief and loss I have been through in the last couple of years, it brought it all to the surface again and I felt so broken. Then right after Christmas, my house flooded and then in the same week my pastor and the youth pastor at my church (where I also work) resigned and moved away.

I have spent many days in the last few months feeling like I just was just trying to catch my breath. Like I was standing in the waves and every time I managed to stand back up I got hit by another wave. Now not all those things were bad things though many were. It was more that it was all happening at the same time.

I was chatting to my husband the other day and he was saying how I just didn’t seem like myself and I realized that I needed to start blogging again. During my time of grief, it was an outlet for me to express how I was feeling and process some of what was going on…and the funny thing is I hate journalling! When I sit down to journal it just doesn’t happen but somehow blogging almost seems like a conversation and so the extrovert in me finds it a lot easier to process this way. I think somehow it made me feel less alone. That somehow even though this was something only I could walk through, I had people walking with me, praying for me and encouraging me along the way.

Now as I have thought about the last few months it has definitely been a seen of transition. Transitioning from being a couple to a family again, from working one job to working another one, from living in a house that was reasonably organized to living in a house with no insulation or flooring! It was also a transition to get used to my grandma not being around and that was a hard one. Still, now I think to myself sometimes that I should “call nana and tell her that” and then I realize I can’t.

I think that’s the hard thing with transition though whether it’s combined with grief or not because I think that most of us don’t really like change. Even if we like the new, exciting things I don’t think many of like the process of getting there.

The dictionary says that transition means “the process or a period of changing from one state or condition to another” and to be honest I think that means we are almost always in a state of transition. Hopefully, as a Christian, I am striving to be more like Jesus every day and that is going to mean that change and transformation have to happen in my life.

Transition is also a term that they use for the part of labor when you are getting close to the end when your baby will be born but also I’ve heard people say its also the part when you think you can’t take it anymore. I think that’s really interesting, right when you are about to get breakthrough is also the point when you want to give up.

I have certainly had many of those moments over that last few months; moments when I just wanted to give up. But what I’ve discovered is that perspective changes everything. Some days I would be so focused on the difficult parts of the changes that I couldn’t see all the amazing things too. The changes were stretching me and it was tiring and even painful at times. I was felt like saying I’m too tired, too busy, too sad to keep going and then I remembered God was still right there. Now that might sound silly because of course He was still there but it wasn’t about whether he had left me or not it was about whether I was listening to him or was my head so full of all the things that I couldn’t do that I couldn’t hear his voice.

So I decided to start changing my perspective and remember to listen to my Heavenly Father.  In many areas, I have already seen that breakthrough and for the places that I haven’t, I am relying on him for the strength to get through the time of change and transition.

The other thing I’ve realized is that during a time of transition you need the right support. Whether you are a new parent, or you are starting a new job it’s always easier if there is someone who is a few steps ahead of you. I even found this with my grief journey. It helped to have people around me who knew how I was feeling but also knew that I would make it to the other side.

Finally, I’ve realized that it’s better to keep your “eye on the prize” rather than on where you are at this moment. So whether that’s remembering that one day your baby will sleep through the night, or one day your job will be easier or even that one day your pain and loss won’t hurt so much. Whatever it is your breakthrough will come and eventually be on the other side. Now I also don’t mean that you should always be focused on the future but more that you can have peace in the present knowing that it won’t always be this way.
So during this time of transition and the many more that are sure to come I reminding myself to spend time with my Heavenly Father and listen to his voice, to find the right support and to remember that the breakthrough will come!

Recently I attended a memorial service for families who had lost babies at the hospital where we had our son, Oli. I knew it would be a day full of emotions. As I stood in that chapel with so many other families I was struck my how many broken hearts there were in the room; each one of us was in a different place on our grief journey. Some had just lost their baby and their emotions were still raw. Others were months or even years into their grief and the emotions were less raw but you could tell the pain was still there. There stood so many mothers who just a few months before had been overjoyed at seeing that little blue line and in a moment it all fell apart. Some had lost babies before they were born, others like us had lost them after a few short days in the NICU and others had lost them later on.

As we all sat there tears streaming down our face, listening to the music wondering why it was us sitting there grieving our children, each one of us missing our babies, the Chaplin stood up and gave a brief talk. He spoke of the journey of grief and the long road that we must each travel and then he said something that has stuck with me ever since. He explained that as a father he had walked his own journey of grief after losing his daughter to SIDS but as he walked that journey with his wife and countless other people he truly believed that, “no one could ever know the pain of a mother’s broken heart.” He was explaining how we each go on our grief journey as mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, and grandparents, yet there was something uniquely profound about a mother’s grief.

I don’t know if its because we carried them and so it feels like we lost a part of ourselves or that its just the way God created us, to be forever connected to our children. I think it’s a just part of God’s heart that he gave uniquely to mothers. Now please don’t hear me say that a father’s, aunt’s, uncle’s or grandparent’s grief isn’t valid or true. I think that everyone who has lost a child experiences pain & loss I just thought it was interesting that from a father’s perspective who lost a child and someone who has walked with so many through grief and loss that he thought there was something unique about a mother’s pain.

As I have been thinking about this over Lent, I started thinking about Mary and the loss and pain she experienced. I wonder how Mary must have felt on the day she discovered that Jesus was going to die. I’ve always wondered if she had always known. My guess is that even though she knew that he was her Savior that her heart as his mother would have continued to hope that there would be another way. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to stand at the cross watching your Son die knowing that it was unjust. The pain must have been unbearable as she watched her son take the pain and suffering of everyone on his shoulders.

I have no idea what Mary’s thoughts were or even how she managed to make it through those days. But, over the last few months, I have had a glimpse into what that must have felt like. I have always been struck by the fact that even in his final moments Jesus made sure his mother had someone to look after her. He knew that her grief would be unbearable. Until this year I had never really thought about how her grief must have continued even after he ascended to Heaven. I had always got stuck on the fact that he had risen and was in Heaven but his mother was still left without him. She still had to go on every day without the son she had raised and watched grow. Even though we know our children are safe and in Heaven, it doesn’t take away the pain of wanting them here with us.

Jesus was not only Mary’s son but her Savior as well and so he knew she would need someone to stand with her in the days, weeks and years ahead. This last year I have learned a lot about the power of people standing with you in grief. Some days are good and we don’t need people as much, some days are hard and we just need to know someone is there. Grief is so unpredictable and this can make it hard for people stand with you in your grief. A knowing smile, an outreached hand, a thoughtful text all make us feel slightly less alone. Even though it doesn’t take the pain or loss away it makes slightly easier to bear.

I think sometimes people get afraid that they will say the wrong thing and so don’t say anything at all that, I think a lot of the time that’s worse though. We just want to feel like we are not alone and that are children are not forgotten. I had one friend send me a gift and a card a few weeks after Oli had died,  it just said that she couldn’t imagine what I was going through but that she guessed it was hard to see everyone going back to their normal lives when I was still dealing with such unbearable loss. She wanted me to know she hadn’t forgotten. I wept as I read the card but they were good tears. They were tears of a mother whose heart was thankful that someone loved me enough to take the risk. Handling people in their grief is risky and unpredictable but I can tell from someone who has experienced it and continues to experience it, it’s worth the risk.

So I will leave you with this, at some point we will all know someone who experiences grief and probably the loss of a child and the question is will you choose to have the courage to stand with them when they need you the most?

Will you STAND with them when the world falls apart and they have no idea how they will make it through?

Will you STAND with them as they say goodbye to a life gone too soon?

Will you STAND with them as they pack away their hopes & dreams in little boxes that will never be opened again?

Will you STAND with them when it takes all their strength to just get out of bed?

Will you STAND with them when they need to cry?

Will you STAND with them when they just don’t want to be alone?

Will you STAND with them when they have nothing to say?

Will you STAND with them when all they want to do is talk?

Will you STAND with them on the good days?

Will you STAND with them when they start to laugh again?

Will you STAND with them remind and them that you will never forget the precious life we lost?

As I came to the end of the most difficult year of my life I began reflecting on what remains when everything else falls apart. When the world falls apart and nothing makes sense anymore what can I hold onto? As I reflected on this I was reminded of the verse in Corinthians about faith, hope, and love.

 “And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.” 1 Corinthians 13:13

Hope is an interesting concept for us as human beings. I believe we are designed to instinctively put our hope in things. We make plans based on what we hope for. When I was pregnant I bought a stroller and decorated the nursery. I planned a baby shower. Now, none of these things were bad things (I had to prepare for the upcoming arrival of our son) but the problem is that when it doesn’t happen the way you expected you are more disappointed. It’s a natural human instinct to put our hope in things, especially when we believe they are what God has promised us. But that’s when our idea of hope can get blurry.

With everything that has happened in the last 12 months, I’ve wrestled with the idea of hope. I have hoped for things that I have seen happen but I have also hoped for things that have not happened or didn’t go the way I expected. I hoped that Phoebe (second twin) would survive and be healthy but that didn’t happen. I hoped that Oli would be well and that we would bring him home but that didn’t happen either. Those were big hopes and I fully believe that they were godly things to desire. The struggle for me was how to keep having hope after things had gone so wrong. How could I keep hoping in the midst of such devastating loss?

As I pondered this a deeper question emerged; do I really understand what hope is, and am I putting my hope in the right place? Many of us use hope in statements such as “I hope I get that promotion” and “I hope it doesn’t rain.” I’ve said many of these myself but I don’t think this grasps what hope is really about. Hope in an earthly sense is about expecting something to happen based on what we know. The problem with that kind of hope is that our knowledge only goes so far. We can’t see all the pieces and so when it doesn’t go the way we expected we feel let down. We can’t understand why God didn’t intervene and do something. After losing Oli I really struggled with the idea of hope because after losing the twins and then finding out I was pregnant again with Oli I had started to let myself hope again. I made plans based on the fact that Oli was going to be born and that I would be his mum. I started attaching things to what I was hoping for.

We look at verses like Jeremiah 29:11 and think that means that bad things won’t happen to us but that’s actually not the promise in the verse. The promise of the verse is that He knows the plans and that regardless of what we can see, he will continue to work for our good and that give us hope. But this kind of hope is different. This is the hope in who God is and that is something that won’t change.

After losing Oli I thought about the things that I knew God had promised me and what I could be sure of. When the world around you has been shaken you have to find what’s unshakeable. As I thought and prayed about this I realized that God never promised me that Oli would be okay or even that I would be pregnant in the first place. He did promise that he loves me and that he sent his Son to die so that I could live. He did promise me eternal life and that he would never leave me. So even though things didn’t work out the way I had “hoped” I’m learning how to trust and hope in who He is and not what I think he is going to do for me. And that kind of hope is like the hope spoken of in Hebrews 6:19  “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure”

It is something we can hold on to regardless of circumstances. His character never changes, so even when everything is shaken and the word falls apart we can hold onto the unshakeable.

And when we start to have this kind of hope it allows faith to rise within us.

The bible says “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11: 1). So it’s not about wishful thinking or about hoping for things that we have no guarantee of. Faith is an assurance in something and someone who has shown himself to be trustworthy. Faith is about trusting in a God that sent his son to die and who rose from the dead. Faith is knowing that we have salvation because of what he has done for us. It’s about trusting in the bigger picture about continuing to believe he has good things for me despite the painful events of the past few months. It’s trusting that one way or another God’s promises always come to fulfillment, but it is not always the way we thought. We can have faith in a God that love us and that will never change.

When I was growing up I was told that love is not just a feeling but a choice. There are days when I choose to love the people in my life even though they annoy me or make bad choices. But there is also a kind of love that I discovered this year that is unlike any other kind of love, and that is the love of a mother for her child. When I saw Oli for the first time there was no question about whether I loved him or not. The feeling was so overwhelming and so deep that I could never deny it. After losing him I began to reflect on the kind of love God has for us and the pain he must feel when we turn away from him. When you have loved someone that deeply, the pain of loss goes that deep, too. I cannot imagine what it must have been like for God to watch us turn from him after all he had given us. Although I cannot fully grasp the depth of love and therefore loss that God feels for his children, I feel like I’ve begun to get a glimpse of it. This year has given me a greater understanding of the kind of overwhelming incredible perfect love He has for us and how it reaches us in our darkest hours. The amazing thing about the kind of love He has for us is that it’s perfect. It has no faults. And that kind of love is like a light. It pierces through darkness and fear. Where there is light there is no room for darkness. Light and darkness cannot occupy the same space. As it says in 1 John 4: 18 “ Perfect love casts out fear”. God’s perfect love cannot occupy the same space as fear.

This year I have experienced things that I would have thought would have gripped me with an overwhelming and unending fear like losing the Ezekiel, Phoebe & Oli. But what I discovered is that even in the most painful and scary moments, if I allow God’s perfect love to occupy my heart, then there is no room for fear. The thing with this kind of love is that we have to allow it to occupy those spaces in our hearts where fear lurks. We have to give God permission to meet us in our fear with his perfect love. It might sound crazy but when I held Oli for the last time and said goodbye, I felt no fear. Instead, I felt completely enveloped by his perfect love.

In the days following Oli’s death, I have truly felt God’s love surrounding me all the time. Sometimes it is quiet and gentle, like his hand resting upon me, and sometimes it is powerful and overwhelming like a wave, but it’s always constant and it never fails me. So even though I come to the end of this year knowing loss and pain like I never have before, I also have experienced a love like never before. As I allow him to love me in the way only He can, my fear begins to disappear and hope begins to rise in my heart again. So as I stand on the edge of a new year I know that his love will continue to find me and that I can trust in His gracious plan for my life.

I remember the moment I found out I was pregnant with Oli. In our apartment in Phoenix surrounded by boxes, just hours before we left on our next adventure across the country. I was so overwhelmed in that moment. Could it really be true? Were we going to have our miracle baby? Doctors had told us just a month before that we would probably never be able to have children and there it was that little test showing me that God had different plans.

As I sit here and reflect on the last few months. I am amazed at all that has happened. There has been hard times and good times and many questions along the way. After losing the twins we spent a lot of time reflecting and asking God what we should do next. Everything we had known and expected had fallen apart and we were left with just what we still knew to be true. Even through the heartache, we knew that God was good and this His plan for us was still the same. We asked Him what the word for the season was and we felt very clearly that he said the word for us was still Family. In the midst of losing such anticipated, loved and hoped for members of our family we felt like he was reminding us that he didn’t change and that his plans were still the same.

As we reflected on what that meant for us in the aftermath of losing the twins and in the new season we felt he was calling us into, we felt that he was calling us to a new place.

Now the new place was actually a call to return home, to return to where He had originally called many years before. But the call to return to this place was still full of uncertainty and questions.  We had no idea whether we could find jobs or where we would live but even in that uncertainty we knew he was calling us there and we trusted that the pieces would fall into place.

During that season God gave us this scripture:

Psalm 107: 4 – 9

Some wandered in desert wastelands, finding no way to a city where they could settle. They were hungry and thirsty, and their lives ebbed away. Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress.He led them by a straight way to a city where they could settle. Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for mankind, for he satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things.

It was such a poignant word to us at that time as we both felt like we had been wandering around in the desert both literally but also in many other ways. The stark landscape and extreme temperatures meant that in many ways Arizona was a difficult place to live. When it’s 120 degrees you wonder whatever made people settle here! Now Phoenix has certainly been a place of blessing for us and we are thankful for all the investment we have received here. It is here in the desert that God restored and redeemed our marriage and provided for us again & again. But it is here that we also experienced the hardest time in our lives.

Losing our twins definitely brought me through my own personal desert experience. With my mind full of questions and confusion I often felt that I was wandering in a desert wasteland. But even through that experience, I learned many things and my relationship with the Father is deeper than ever before.

Through the desert I discovered that he never left me, even when I felt like everything had fallen apart he held me and provided for my every need. When I felt like I had nothing left I clung to Him and His unfailing love and he brought me through.

Secondly, I learned that the desert isn’t the end of the road. Even though at times it felt like I would never get through the grief and loss- I cried out to the Lord. I cried out to Him in my pain and my grief and my confusion and He heard my cry. Even as I wept He already knew the plan He had to redeem and restore all that we had lost and calling us back to Pawleys Island was just the first part of that plan.

As we began to pack up our stuff in Phoenix and prepare for the new season I knew in my heart that somehow everything we had hoped for and dreamed about would finally come to fruition. Now I wasn’t sure how it was going to happen but I knew it would and being the loving Heavenly Father that He is, He was true to His promises. He provided me with a job that I love and incredible people to work with. He provided my husband with a job that fits him perfectly and feels like such a gift. He provided us with a home that is three doors down from where my sister lives, is walking distance to my husband’s job and 5 minutes from the beach. We never in our wildest dreams thought we could own a home in a place like this. He has exceeded our expectations at every point along the way.

Then the second to last day before we left He provided us with the ultimate gift and the thing we had prayed for, cried over and spent thousands of dollars trying to achieve.  Literally 48 hours before we left Phoenix I found out I was pregnant. The thing that doctors had told me would never happen, had happened and with no medical intervention at all. I remember looking at the pregnancy test in shock and awe. Half of me wanted to scream and shout and tell everyone I knew but the other half of me still remembered the pain that came after the last time and I was so afraid to let myself believe it was true. Was I finally going to have what I had always dreamed of? Would I really be able to hold this baby in my arms and watch it grow up?

The next few months were filled with many challenges including me being hospitalized with a blood clot just a week after we arrived in Pawleys Island. Each step of the way, at every doctor’s appointment and in every moment of doubt I had to remind myself that this child was a gift from God and that I had to trust him with this child every day, no matter what.

Everything in me wanted to hold on to this baby with all that I had but in those moments my loving Heavenly Father would whisper gently to me – “Open up your hands, trust me with this child.” Even though he never promised me that everything would be okay and that this baby would make it to full term, I knew that this baby was safer in His hands and it ever would be in mine. So day by day I learned to trust Him again.

And even now that I am through the first trimester and the risk of miscarriage is significantly lower I still remind myself to give this child to him daily and trust that He will take care of it.

Because one thing I know is that “The One who calls you is faithful and He will do it”. Not me, He will do it and no matter how hard I try I will never be able to create a life for myself better than the one He has planned.

Have you ever experienced a time in your life when the worst has happened? Maybe you lost your job or got a divorce, or a loved one passed away. As I sit here reflecting on this Holy Saturday I think that’s how the disciples must have felt all those thousands of years ago. Their Savior and friend was gone and they were lost and confused. They were grieving and in pain. Everything they had hoped for was gone and unlike us, they didn’t know Easter Sunday was coming.

As many of you know I recently experienced a very painful time in my life. Losing our twins was certainly the most painful thing I have ever experienced. All the hopes and dreams we had for them were gone in an instant and like the disciples, we were left lost and confused.  So what do we do when our lives feel like they are stuck in the day in between? When the worst has happened and we don’t know what do to next. When we are confused and lost and overwhelmed by grief and pain.

When I visited Minnesota recently I landed in Minneapolis and as we flew in I was amazed by how white everything was. The whole city was covered in snow. The trees, the houses, the roads. And although it was breathtakingly beautiful there was something very somber about seeing all that snow. In the winter you can’t see the green grass or the leaves on the trees. The animals are all hibernating and there really isn’t much evidence of life at all. I think that’s how it must have felt on that first Holy Saturday. As the disciples considered all that had just happened and that their Savior and friend now lay dead in a tomb there would have been no signs to tell them what was really going on, under the surface, beyond where they could see.

The amazing thing about the winter though is that even as the snow lays on the ground and there are no visible signs of life, just under the surface beyond where the eye can see things are beginning to happen.
I think when we consider Easter it is easy to skip over the importance of this Saturday. It’s easy to focus on Good Friday and the fact that Jesus died for our sins and then to focus on the joy of Easter Sunday and the fact that he has risen again. But the day in between was just as important. God was working even though we couldn’t see it. Jesus was completing the work he started on the cross the day before.

The last few months have felt like a cold and dark winter for me, at times I felt like there was no hope. But what I have discovered is that even in my darkest hour when all was lost He was still working and I’m beginning to see the signs of Spring.  As He begins to show what me He is doing and how He is carving out a new life for us in a new place, hope is beginning to rise. He’s reminding me that He sees it all. He sees my pain and my grief and all my hopes and dreams and He has not forgotten. He has held me in my darkest days when I was lost & confused and has already begun to redeem and restore all that I have lost. As we live in the day in between and as we wait, we remember the promise of the resurrection that Jesus lives and that even when all seemed lost God was already working His redemptive plan. A plan to save the world and restore His children and their relationship with Him.
Its like when you see the first buds of spring break through the snow. Its still cold, the snow is still on the ground but its beginning to melt and the promise of Spring is just around the corner. And as the disciples discovered just one day later, God always redeems, always restores and always has the victory! Christ is risen! And I will hold on to that promise and that hope till the Spring comes.

 

I have a new found respect and honor for my mum. My mum & I have always had a good relationship. We went through the normal teenage years were we argued and I felt she didn’t understand me. Through my early twenties as I was discovering who I was I was convinced that I was nothing like my mum. I never doubted that she loved me and that would do anything for me but I just thought we were nothing alike. From being a little girl I was full of emotions and my mum is very logical and straight forward. With the best intentions, she would always show me the good in a situation and help me to see that things weren’t as bad as I thought.

People would always tell me how much like my mum I was and I always thought it was just that they didn’t know me that well. Over the last year though I have discovered much like her I am and what a privilege and blessing it has been to be raised by such an incredible mother.
When my siblings and I were young my mum stayed at home with us while my dad was a Pastor in inner city London. She continually made sacrifices for us, she sacrificed her time, her money and her freedom. She raised us to be strong Christian people with good character and she loved us all deeply. I can say without a shadow of a doubt that there has never been a time in my life that I didn’t know she loved me, even when we disagree. But loving people that deeply comes with a cost and that cost is the inevitable pain you will undoubtedly feel.
My mum once told me that when she looked at me the first time she realized that if anything ever happened to me it would break her. There is an unexplainable bond between a mother and a child and that bond has the power to break your heart into a million pieces.

I have observed my mum during the difficult times in my life and I have seen how much she wants to protect me from pain and heartache and how much it pains her when she can’t.

Most recently I looked into her eyes as my heart broke at the loss my own children and saw the pain she felt for me. Her own child was in unexplainable pain and there was nothing she could do about it. She could protect me from it or fix it. All she could do was hold my hand through it and trust me to Jesus.
Now one question I have pondered a lot recently is at what point do you become a mother?  Is at the moment that you hold your child for the first time, is it when you see them on the ultrasound screen, or when you see those two pinks lines on a pregnancy test. And the conclusion I have come to is that you are a mother from the moment God begins knitting them together in your womb. As he knits them together that bond begins and I believe that it is never broken not matter how long you got to keep them. Now I only got to keep my babies for 10 weeks and in the scheme of life that seems like such a small an insignificant amount of time but even so, they are my children and I am their mother.

I saw a quote recently that said “A wife who loses a husband is called a widow. A husband who loses a wife is called a widower. A child who loses his parents is called an orphan. But…there is no word for a parent who loses a child, that’s how awful the loss is!” Neugeboren.

Honestly, I believe there is no word because you are still a parent, you are just a parent without a child. And that is a kind of pain and loss is like no other. Although the overwhelming grief is starting to ease there still feels like there is part of me missing and there is. I am missing my children and a part of my heart will always be with them.
My husband and I decided to name our twins. We wanted to acknowledge their lives and to recognize that they were our children if only for a short time. We named them Ezekiel James and Phoebe Joy and although I don’t know for sure that they were a boy & girl that’s just what my heart told me and I feel like God has confirmed to me on numerous occasions. I have a necklace with their initials on that I wear every day and I had a picture created with their names on it. When we have future children we always tell them about their older brother and sister.

At first, after we lost the twins I said that I never wanted to get pregnant again because the pain & grief was so overwhelming that I couldn’t imagine risking having to go through that again. But as time has passed I have realized that whether we adopt or more biological children I am still risking the chance of pain. And unfortunately, until we get to heaven pain in inevitable especially if we allow ourselves to love and be loved.

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements….. To love is to be vulnerable.” C.S. Lewis

Have you ever had a moment in your life that you knew would change you forever? Maybe the day you met your husband or wife, or the day you held your first child. For me, I’ve had a few of these in my life. Most recently the ones that have had the greatest effect on me were the moment I told my husband we had to separate, the day I realized he really was a changed man and that I could see us working it out and the day I found out I was pregnant.