The phrase I’ve been trying to lean into this week is “fully grieving but not despairing.” So, today, I’m sharing one of my most recent journal entries where I’m processing what that looks like for me. It’s a little raw, but perhaps it might resonate with you.
16 Feb 2019
Our baby is gone. Two miscarriages back to back. The phrase I have been leaning into is “fully grieving but not despairing.”
And that’s a tricky thing…to allow your heart to fully explore the pain, and yet not allow yourself to spiral down.
And the questions come in like rapid fire. And some of these questions we just don’t get to have an answer for…the ultimate question is “why did this happen?”…and sometimes we don’t ever get to know. But it will send you on a massive loop of frustration as you try to find the answer to that one.
Then there are the “what if” questions that come in.
“What if this was my last baby?”
“What if we try again and have another miscarriage?”
But I’m starting to realize that there aren’t answers to these painful questions either…and there also isn’t the grace to face them as the final outcome.
But each question can be put to Jesus because He cares about the desires of our heart.
The key seems to be not staying there…locked into the cyclical questions. We so often lay these questions on the alter, but then pick them up again and mull over them in our hearts. And here is where despair lies in wait.
And instead, I think the Lord invites us to ask the questions and then listen for His truth…and His truth is what will set us free from the despair that tries to lock us in.
His truth is that He is a good God that loves my hurting and confused heart.
His truth is that if we face another loss, His grace will be there to see us through.
His promise is that he will grow our family.
And more than anything, I get to celebrate everything He has already done…every answered prayer, every blessing, every miracle. And if I need to, I can borrow from someone else’s answered prayer to draw strength. There is just something about gratitude that shifts the position of my heart and takes the edge off of grief.
The enemy would like to say “look at what you have lost” and I reply “Yes, there is loss. But look at what has been done for me and what is yet to come.”
And once again, it seems like the remedy for the grief is thanksgiving. It always goes back to thanksgiving.
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