Speak Life

It's become a bit of a theme this year, mostly thanks to one of my friends who got me onto the song by Toby Mac and continues to encourage the declaration of hope, life and positive truths.

If you don't know the song, it says,

Though it's crazy, amazing

We can turn a heart with the words we say.

Mountains crumble with every syllable.

Hope can live or die

So speak Life, speak Life.

To the deadest darkest night.

Speak life, speak Life.

When the sun won't shine and you don't know why.

Look into the eyes of the brokenhearted;

Watch them come alive as soon as you speak hope,

You speak love, you speak Life.

It is an encouragement to speak life to people - to keep hope alive - but our words have even more power than that. Our words have power in the spirit. They have power against the darkness. They have power to literally speak life into death, because we have Jesus and we speak in His name.

I have been challenged in my prophetic abilities lately. I have been going through a personal situation and hearing conflicting messages from God about it. It had me really confused... "How can all these words from God be true?"... until I realised that I was hearing in the prophetic and the present. At the same time. My friends too, were seeing visions and hearing words for me of life and hope.

God finally told me, clearly, what is the reality of my situation. It is not the preferred outcome. At the same time he gave me a vision of church bells. He said, "You are hearing echoes of what is to come."

I was hearing in the prophetic while also hearing in the present. I was hearing life and death at once. I was hearing the reality of now at the same time as all the promises and truths yet to come.

On further reflection, I know that God is across time. God is speaking into the present but he is also currently in the future so of course He is speaking into that time.

God is life. He is the author of life. He will not speak death or brokenness into being. That is why we must also speak life. Even into situations that are bleak. Even when death appears certain. If I want to be in alignment with God, I must speak life. 

I asked myself if that is ignoring reality? But it isn't. It is more about acknowledging reality and then speaking above it. 

The grief of miscarriage

This is for those beautiful people who are going through an early miscarriage.

The day after we buried our first baby, the grief set in. My friend had talked about the ache. Now I felt it.

The ache is in your chest, it is physical pain. I had never felt it before in my life.

It didn't take long for me to realise my body was in grief. My spirit was in grief at a deep level. My mind was separate from it.

I think this is why they say you can't understand what miscarriage feels like until it has happened to you. Because your body and spirit feels the loss of a pregnancy in a unique way.

I felt and thought many things.

I felt over-dramatic. Like I was making a big deal out of nothing. My baby was less than a centimetre long. It wasn't really a baby was it? It was a blob.

I felt different. I saw many sweet miscarriage quotes and pictures on Pinterest. They spoke of heart beats, they had little footprints. My baby didn't have a heartbeat or footprints. She was a little blob.

I felt shame. I certainly didn't blame myself for the miscarriage, but I was ashamed to have fallen into something negative and depressing that would make people feel bad and uncomfortable if they found out.

I felt empty. It felt so wrong to have the gestational sac buried out in the garden. I wanted to somehow put it back inside me. It was supposed to be inside me. I wanted Charlotte back.

I felt silly. Because I phoned and asked for a copy of the ultrasound scan that showed the little blob and some bleeding. I wanted to see it again. I wanted to keep it.

I felt alone. I knew no-one in my city who had been through a miscarriage. All my support was long distance.

I felt confused. Who should I tell about this? I am not a terribly private person but I didn't want to break the social norm and tell everyone. I didn't want people to think I had over-shared. I told a handful of friends. I told all my piano student families because I needed to justify time off. I tried to keep it a secret from our entire church.

I felt blank. There were things I knew I should feel but I couldn't feel them yet. Our feelings come as we are ready and capable of dealing with them.

I felt angry. I was at peace with having had the miscarriage and knowing God's plan, but I still would feel angry sometimes. I needed to yell and hit pillows even if I knew it was irrational. I needed to scream at God.

I felt like I was feeling the wrong things. I was supposed to be jealous of babies. But that would be like losing a one year old baby and being jealous of a ten year old. Being around babies felt fine. Hearing of people in early pregnancy felt awful.

I felt frustrated at my husband. I wanted him to be sad! He didn't feel the grief I felt. He didn't feel most of what I felt. He was sad in a different way.

I felt like I wanted to run away from the ache. Sometimes it was physically strong in my chest and I couldn't make it stop. Sometimes I would cry but then I would stop because tears made no difference. I would try to find something to distract myself from it but I didn't feel like doing anything.

I felt shaken. My faith was shaken. I visited my friend's stillborn baby's grave. She had peace and the joy of heaven in her eyes but I felt physically sick. I looked around the cluster of children's graves with their decorations; a whimsical Willy Wonka world amidst the name plaques and the stillness. How God? I asked. How can you let them die?

Amidst all of this, I was far from totally broken. I was back and forth and my heart would often be in contrast to my mind. I didn't feel totally devastated. I felt like my baby was deferred, not gone for good. I still believed I would have a baby soon. I was blessed to have never been through 'trying for a baby' and I had never fully expected this baby to survive. This was not a shock. This felt like the way it was always going to be and I had peace. My little girl Charlotte was happily in heaven. God was holding me.

I learnt not to expect grief to be sensible or to follow a pattern or to stay on one side of the fence or the other. I learnt even more to let myself feel what I felt. To express whatever came out. To embrace the process. God was very gentle and comforting.

We mustn't be afraid to vent at him and we mustn't be afraid of pain. The moment I let him right into my anger or grief and share it with him is the moment I find release.

Your miscarriage was God's plan?!

In considering the possibility of another miscarriage, I am thinking about life and death. A friend said she cannot understand how a miscarriage can be God's plan.

The thing is, God creates life, knowing well that it will die. He still creates life. Because that life is in his plan.

God got around my fearful attempt to avoid getting pregnant this time. He chooses.

People ask, "Why would God create a little life for it to die so soon?" "How can God let a child die?" "Was this baby an accident?" "I don't understand how a miscarriage can be in God's perfect plan and purposes!"

These are heavy questions.

I do believe that if our world was untarnished by sin - by The Fall - my babies would not have died. But this isn't a perfect untarnished world as God originally created it to be. It is tainted and God allows death. He sees far beyond what our intellect does and it is better for me to be eternity-minded like Him.

I do know that my babies are blessed to never have to live a moment on this earth, they are with Jesus, never knowing hurt or pain or suffering. They are living in the perfect fullness of the love of God with all their needs and desires fully met. How is that unfair to them? 

If I say it is unfair to me, then I am looking with earthly perspective. God gave up his own son. Jesus said take up your cross and die to yourself. This world was never going to be easy. Yet we are so blessed to have God's kingdom on Earth. 

The thing with sickness and suffering is that it is often fully orchestrated by the enemy. God never intended for it. If we have cancer or arthritis or depression we cannot say, "This was God's ultimate plan."

But a miscarriage.... a baby.... The enemy cannot create life. Ever. He will always bring death. God creates life. He creates life even knowing it will die in the womb. Because that life is part of his plan.

My babies were not an accident or a scheme of the enemy. Their names were called by God before time began, they were formed by him in the secret place and they are now with him forever. He didn't kill them, he created them for eternity.

And they have been and will be used in my life for great purpose.

Like a child

A post I never published that I think deserves a share.

November 16th, 2014

Miscarriage. I don't know if I can do this again. 

I know I seem like I cope well with these things and I truly do, but sometimes I don't. 

Sometimes I cry so hard I choke and I feel like my world is inescapable and way too hard.

God does so much when we fall to our knees. When we are weak, He is so very strong.

Our hearts cry, "Jesus, help!" 

Jesus says, "Be a child."

That is honestly what he said to me this time.

I am proud to be strong enough to cope with hard situations. Little children, however, don't feel proud when they stifle their tears and don't need a parent to help. They don't think like that.

I feel great when I show the world, even those closest to me, that I am coping well. Little children fall apart with no shame. 

What is it to be a child in the kingdom? It is a putting down of self and a picking up of shameless humility. It is a taking off of masks and a choice to move into authenticity. It is allowing God to meet us where we really are. I think it is also allowing people to meet us where we really are. 

Today I am going to take off my brave face and see what happens. You might consider joining me.

Two special cushions

In August I lost a pregnancy at eleven and a half weeks. The baby never grew past six weeks. Two months later I lost another one at four weeks. Both little lives were girls. God named them Charlotte Hannah and Zoe Grace.

The story of Charlotte

The story of Zoe

When we lost Charlotte, my husband bought me a beautiful cushion with butterflies on it. Butterflies have been a special symbol of my healing and transformation over the last few years. Charlotte was part of that transformation process. I learnt so much about faith and standing on who God is, rather than the promises I think he has made.

I only had one lonely cushion though. I hunted online in all sorts of places for another cushion to complement it but I never settled on anything.

During my second miscarriage I was lying in bed and I looked over at the butterfly cushion. That moment Holy Spirit said, "Look on the Target website, there is another cushion for Zoe." 

I grabbed the iPhone and did a search. As I scrolled the cushions I wondered which one was the one? As soon as I laid eyes on it I knew. It was beautiful. it had the same background fabric, it had a butterfly on it, little flowers, and it was one of my favourite colours. There was free shipping online that day.

Zoe brought me healing too. Her name means life. When I lost her, I felt that it was the first hard thing that had happened to me that God was fully in and through and around. (I don't mean God wanted her to die - let's talk about that later.) I had total peace about it. I didn't feel angry at God, I didn't shut him out of my heart at all, I came to his loving arms and I finally felt totally safe. I felt like I could unpack all the hard things that had happened to me over the past five years and he would comfort me and love on me and be my safe place. 

My friend had one word from God about my second miscarriage: cleansing. God was cleansing me of all the junk from one trial after another. He was cleaning out my heart. He cleaned out my grief over Charlotte. He cleaned out whatever remained of the fear, uncertainty and frustration that I had carried from countless trials long before Charlotte. I felt cleansed. I felt more healed. I felt ready for my next baby. I was no longer desperate for another girl. I was ready for my baby boy.

My girl: Zoe

The evening I realise I might be pregnant, it immediately dawns on me that the occasional pain in my side could mean it is ectopic. The possibility of surgery weighs heavy again, as it did two months earlier with my first miscarriage.

My husband prays for me and a heavenly peace fills me along with revelation that I am safe, no matter what happens. That my safety is 100% certain in God. What else is 100% certain? Gods love. I am sure of God's love. In my mind I turn this truth into a song lyric: "My safety's as sure as your love for me."

The next day I recognise at least three pregnancy symptoms. I am pregnant again. I don't know how I feel about that. My miscarriage was only two months ago. I surrender to God's plan. I am careful to cast down imaginations, to not entertain fear. Not to figure out the future. I have come so far since the last pregnancy. I thank God for his healing.

I am crying and crying that night. A deep conviction has come. I have been pushing away god's blessings and plans for me. I wanted squeaky clean perfection. Perfect kids, perfect friendships, perfect house, perfect everything. Perfection suddenly seems so sterile and cold, so empty of the rawness and randomness of life. God made creation so messy. I want to embrace messiness, it is where I find revelation, joy, grace. Perfection is sterile and empty, like a stark white laboratory. Why did I want it? I am so terribly sorry God. I embrace mess; I want it.

I take two tests. One that night, one at 4am. They are so faintly positive. But a faint line is a line. I am pregnant. My side is a little achy.

I don't sleep again. I write a song.

During the morning I briefly wonder what my baby's name is.

"Zoe". That came out of nowhere. I wonder if it was God or just a random thought. I have told myself I won't ask god for any details. I don't want to know.

"This is just a pregnancy to me, not a baby." I tell my husband.

I push the name Zoe from my mind but it won't leave.

I see the doctor the same day. He is not concerned about the pain, it is not a gynae pain. I am four weeks, two days pregnant.

"I welcome you baby. I love you. I welcome you for however long you're meant to stay." I say to my belly when I arrive home. I am expecting the baby to have a short stay.

We will see what happens.

A few hours later I begin to miscarry. Again. It happens to be pregnancy loss awareness day.

During the night I feel the sickness of death over me. I am crying. "Was I really pregnant?" I ask my husband. "Yes, you were."

I know life begins at conception but do I have a baby in heaven or is this pregnancy somehow empty of a soul?

Zoe. Did God give me that name or did I just think it up? I take the name into my hands. I tune in to Holy Spirit and put my mind to rest. "Zoe Grace." My first baby's middle name Hannah also meant grace.

Okay, I will look up the meaning of Zoe and see if it fits. I google it at 5:30am.



"You're joking." I say out loud in shock and awe. I cry knowing that this pregnancy is life. And knowing so deeply that it will bring me life.

My tears of grief flow strong and deep but God holds me.

Zoe Grace. For a moment I wasn't sure, but now I believe that you are my girl and I love you.

But God I want to keep them!

I have been away all weekend with a wonderful bunch of people having an amazing time with God. Recently God has brought me into a place of rest as I rely on him to meet my needs... So that's what I was doing for the first couple of days away.

The thing about the 'surrender to God' lesson is that sometimes my heart doesn't go along with the plan and decides to cry and scream for what I want. Pretty much just like a toddler without the lying on the floor part... Well maybe sometimes with the lying on the floor part. That is okay, as long as it is part of a process and I don't get stuck there.

I was really encouraged by hearing someone speak about surrendering our soul to God - bringing our mind, will and emotions into alignment with our spirit's desires. I had an even deeper revelation that it is hard to give up something if we don't believe God will fill our need in another way. In order to surrender fully, we have to trust that he will always meet our needs.

So, two days ago I was kneeling on the floor in a room full of worshippers and I was really feeling grief. Grief comes in waves. In the last three months I have lost three very very precious things. It has not been an easy journey and although i lay them at the feet of God, i often want to pick them up again.

In this moment I was crying to God "I want to keep them, I want to keep them, I want to keep them!" Part of me asked myself if I should really be letting myself feel and say that. I decided it is healthy to be honest and raw with God in our worship. There have to be moments when I choose to be real.

So I am saying, "God I want to keep them!" 

In response to my heart's cry, God spoke so clearly, one simple phrase.

"I wanted to keep my son."

Wow.

I cried more tears as I knew God understood my pain but was calling me to lay down my desires to him even though it was hard; even though I hoped God would somehow change his mind and want to bless me with what I had lost. Is it really God's nature and plan to ask me to give up such precious things?

The uncomfortable answer is yes. But it is a yes filled with hope, the assurance of God's love and his promise to always meet our needs.

"As your love, in wave after wave, crashes over me.."

One week and four days ago we were in Caloundra on the Sunshine Coast. I looked out the living room window and was thrilled we had a beach view. The sand was only 100m away tops. Because we don't have flags at home, I was assuming we would head straight into the waves but actually this was Queensland. The sea was way too dangerous. I was determined to get into that sea though so in true Tasmanian style, in the early days of October, we sat in the sea. Water sloshed in front of us and rushed against our legs, crashing into our stomachs and occasionally sending us sideways. It was wonderful.

Later that night I was curled up on the couch listening to Bethel's 'You Make Me Brave' album on my iPad. I suddenly realised how many songs on that album referenced the wave theme.

"So let go my soul, and trust in him. The waves and wind still know his name."
"I'm fully letting go. I'm surrendered to your ways. The anchor for my soul. Father you will never change."
"You will lift my head above the mighty waves. You are able to keep me from stumbling."
"I am your anchor, in the wind and the waves. I am your steadfast, so don't be afraid."
"And when I was drowning in my doubt, your mighty hand lifted me out, and now we are walking on the water."

Yep, I sense a theme here! The song that God particularly spoke to me about was 'You Make Me Brave'. It says "You make me brave, you make me brave, you call me out beyond the shore into the waves. You make me brave. You make me brave. No fear can hinder now the promises you've made." It is a drawing out into the depths of God's plans for us.

God whispered to my heart that the rough raging sea I had sat in earlier that day was dangerous but that he was calling me out into a raging sea that was 100% completely safe. It was like a vision I saw a couple of years ago of those triangle flags on a string, separating off a dangerous outdoor area. A white van was inside the flags - in the danger zone. God told me that what seemed dangerous in my life was actually safe. I could drive into the danger zones. At the same time he gave me a vision of yellow and red safety flags on the beach, that signal safe and unsafe swimming zones. I saw the yellow as safety but the unsafe red became pink. The pink was God's love. Even the unsafe zones were safe in God.

The song continues "As your love, in wave after wave, crashes over me, crashes over me. For you are for us, you are not against us.."

Lately God has been teaching me about letting go and revelling in his love. In a wild free way. He has been highlighting sexuality in marriage as an expression of the intimacy he created us to have with him. Surrender, freedom, enjoyment of his love, safety, trust, intimacy, passion. The opposite of control and measured steps.

The raging sea is wild and overwhelming, it tosses you about. He is calling me to walk in... to swim out and surrender to the wild currents of his plans and his love and his blessings. And it's in that free, uncontrolled place that we will find the deep pleasure of love as the waves crash over us. It is totally safe and it is totally good!

The story of a miscarriage: Charlotte

I wrote this post to share on a friend's pregnancy loss themed blog, but since writing it I feel God calling me to start writing again, on my own blog, and to post this here. This is a bit scary! I still hold this close to my heart but in faith I am taking a step out of the box/boat and putting this story out there for some of you to read. May God speak to and touch your heart.

Last month I had a miscarriage. I was eleven and a half weeks pregnant with (according to the ultrasound technician) a six and a half week sized pregnancy. At nine and a half weeks my baby still looked like a tiny blob on screen. I don't know whether that blob had a face or a spine or a body or a heartbeat, or ever would have. For some reason at the time I felt there was never a heartbeat. It was just a little shape in a large black hole.

I later concluded that at some point my baby went from life to death before there was even much sign of life. Yet god named her Charlotte Hannah and showed my husband her wavy blonde toddler hair, and my friend her 'graceful, strong' womanhood. How does that even work?

Miscarriage is a heart-changing, heart-breaking, deep reaching, intense thing. I never understood that before but now I really get it. And I want to share my story. I want to give a voice to early miscarriage because it is a silent suffering that society says we shouldn't share or discuss, probably partly because it is uncomfortable. It is so often full of unknowns, deep hurt, and the deeper questions. I also want to share a story of grappling with faith. God has been teaching me a lot about faith.

 *     *     *

I knew I was pregnant before I took a test. I had plenty of signs and symptoms and at four weeks and two days I just knew. I felt total peace about it, despite my physical health issues. God had brought us on a journey of working through fears, letting go of control and trusting him with the timing of a baby; that it would not happen too soon. Earlier this year someone had shared a prophetic word with me that "pregnancy would bring me healing". God had taken me on a hard journey for weeks of laying down my expectation of being healed before having a baby, a baby I had been promised by God years earlier. I had finally put it down about a week before our baby was conceived. God's timing.

I remember that within the previous few days I had been in tears longing for the little boy God had prepared my heart for and given me a name for, months earlier. I had always wanted a baby girl first but late last year I felt my heart shifting and I knew God was changing my heart for a boy. I wasn't actually ready to be pregnant. I didn't want to get pregnant yet. But I desperately wanted a baby. Now I woke up with a longing heart and I again said "God I want my baby boy." God answered, "He is with you already." I wondered if he meant that I was pregnant but I felt that he said my little boy was in my heart. I loved him and he held a place with me.

I remember lying in the bath later that day and knowing that this baby was a girl. But I was expecting a boy.

"This is the wrong baby," I thought.

The next morning I told my husband I thought the baby was a girl. He said "I had a picture a few days ago that I didn't tell you about." He’d had a vision randomly drop into his head of a toddler playing. She had wavy blonde hair. Now we knew he had seen our child.

When I saw the positive pregnancy test that night, I felt total peace. We both did. Peace that I hadn't expected us to feel. It felt right, safe, joyful. God wrapped us in a warm fuzziness. We excitedly shared the news with close friends. Yet I said straight away, "I think its fifty percent likely to be a miscarriage." I didn't know the purpose of this pregnancy. I knew God had created a baby, but it didn't seem like the right timing and it wasn't a boy.

The next day I felt so fulfilled to finally be a mum that I thought, “I don’t mind if I never get to hold this baby.” I just needed to be a mother. I needed to have felt pregnant and carried life. Finally I was a mother.

Pretty soon people started to encourage me that I should consider this a baby to keep and I started to believe them. I thought God was encouraging me to have faith. I said "God tell me about my baby." I saw a vision of rows of text and I knew they were death notices in the newspaper. I thought God was promising a death notice - that when my baby died it would have a real death notice. It would not be a miscarriage. I threw my faith into that little vision. But that faith - faith in a positive end result where I was holding a live baby- took my heart and mind into turmoil over God's promises.

I didn’t feel very attached to my baby until much later on. I was scared to let my heart return to wanting a little girl in case I lost her. For a while I hated her because she wasn't my baby boy. It grieves me to say that because now I love her so much that I would give anything.. my job, my cat, my house, my friends.. I would give anything up to get her back. I hated God too. I was mad. How could he take my heart from wanting a girl, to wanting a boy, only to force me to go back to wanting a girl?! I mean, seriously! I was so frustrated and confused and desperately trying to understand how all the circumstances I was seeing could fit into the puzzle I had been constructing for years based on the promises God had given me. But they just. Didn't. Fit. Not if this baby was to be born.

I spent an afternoon sharing this with a friend and I realised that God was calling me to trust him because He is God, not trust him based on what he had promised. He was calling me to a new level of faith after years of walking in faith of his promised healing and a promised baby. I repented and we prayed. I felt the weight lift of trying to figure everything out and I found peace in God's love. Then I had my first ultrasound.

Five days after praying with my friend, with my heart racing and my stomach sinking, I stared at the screen. It wasn't meant to look like that, I knew, I had seen YouTube videos.

"It's wrong. Something's wrong. He says it looks like 6 and half weeks but it can't be!" I texted my best friends and my mum while walking back to the car.

I knew I was seven and a half weeks pregnant. I knew my dates were correct. No one was worried though. Not the ultrasound guy, not my friends, not my husband. Everyone had so much faith. I wanted to believe them so I did. I stretched my faith muscles. But it didn't fit.

I spent so many minutes over the next week sitting on the couch dragging little boxes around on google calendar trying to make a way for the dates to be possible. "It doesn't matter, you don't need to know your exact dates," said my husband. But I did need to know. I couldn't rest until it made sense. Maybe God had made the dates really bizarre just to mess with my control freak tendencies and teach me to trust Him. He could technically make a baby when he wanted to, and have it implant when he wanted it to right? God is God, right? I asked and asked God for a date, and grappling at straws I eventually moved the "seven weeks pregnant" date about four days later than it had been and settled with that.

I didn’t feel an urge to take vitamins and that lack of urgency surprised me. I was expecting to feel a tug from God about their importance but I didn't at all. I thought "Oh another sign that this might be a miscarriage." I took the vitamins anyway.

I kept asking God what he wanted me to do about my job. A late February/early March childbirth was the worst timing possible for my work. And I needed a solution but God wasn't giving me one.

 "Should I work through the holidays?"

"No."

"But that's the only way around this!! What else can I do?! Oh maybe the baby is going to be born in March and I can work in February." 

Problem tentatively solved in my mind. But it still didn't seem quite right.

I had a baby items list. I started reorganising the house. I contacted the midwives. I was fully preparing for a baby girl to be born into our family. But I was tired and struggling. Tired of trying to trust. Tired of trying to figure out. Tired of trying to let go. My controlling tendencies went into full swing in every area of my life that wasn't to do with pregnancy, because I couldn't control pregnancy. Suddenly I was pregnant and suddenly everything I had expected and hoped for in God was topsy turvy. I felt so out of control.

I was supposed to go to the doctor at 10am Friday morning at nine and a half weeks pregnant, which the doctors were calling eight and a half weeks pregnant and I had decided was exactly nine. (I'm laughing.) The appointment had been booked four weeks earlier. I read the calendar time as 11am. Twice. At 10:30am my husband realised and we called to check the time. We were astounded that my doctor, with a reputation for being way off schedule, had been running on time and I had missed the appointment. We rescheduled for 12:40pm. Half an hour after rescheduling, I saw blood and then the cramps came. If I had already been to the doctor that morning I doubt I would have gone back.

By the time I saw the doctor I knew deep down that something was wrong. I was scared, but I turned on my super faith again. I got a form for an ultrasound and within an hour, still with no more bleeding, I had convinced myself that this would be okay.  God had promised me a death notice in the paper for my baby, right? It wasn't going to be a miscarriage. I had total peace and calm, a God given calm, on the way to the ultrasound, expecting to finally see my baby with a heartbeat for the first time. The picture came up and there was nothing but a small white shape, so tiny that it was blurred and hard to understand. There was no baby.

I felt gutted but also okay, I felt shocked, but not shocked, and I felt relieved. I think it sounded harsh and wrong when I told my friend that I was relieved straight after the scan, but that was what I felt. God's promises were true. Everything finally made sense.

We went to a meeting that night. I soaked in the worship playing from a CD, in sombre silence in the now much more comforting and trustworthy arms of God. We went home. I was somewhat in shock - the stage of grief where you reason and rationalise and you don't feel much. I knew that the hard feelings were still to come.

I waited two weeks for the miscarriage. I am thankful for the wait – the mental processing time – but I was scared (terrified) of ending up in the hospital with an operation that my doctor said would not mix well with my sensitivities to drugs.

I worked the first week of waiting because I needed to be around the kids. I didn't work the second week because I had stopped feeling pregnant and I needed to rest and give my body space to let go of the pregnancy. I tried to push it along but nothing changed.

On Thursday evening I was completely freaking out about the possibility of having to go to hospital. I know there was a group of people praying for me that evening, far away. Meanwhile, as I talked and prayed, I came to a point where I suddenly had amazing peace.  It was peace that even if I went to hospital and had an operation or drugs, I would be okay. I could trust God no matter what. I wasn’t afraid of hospital anymore. I remember that being the most beautiful feeling; a rare peace I have had glimpses of in the past years of difficult circumstances and turmoil but that never stays around for long.

Within a couple of hours of finding that peace, the cramps I had felt for two weeks got stronger. I didn’t know if I could sleep through them, but I did. I am so thankful to have slept and to have had the miscarriage in a dopey half asleep state. At 2am I woke up and knew that I wouldn’t be going back to sleep. I love childbirth videos and I have watched many peaceful labours. I have looked forward to and mentally prepared for my own labour long before I was pregnant. I kneeled in bed, completely relaxing into the cramps with my husband by my side and worship music playing. The pain was achy but so gentle. I was so peaceful. I didn’t want to get away from the miscarriage, I embraced it. I wanted it; the birthing process. I had said goodbye to my baby a couple of days earlier and only then was I ready to let go.

We buried our baby in the garden in front of a bird of paradise plant that randomly appeared last year. I never opened the gestational sac. I felt it was right to have had an unseen baby, formed in the secret place. I always believed that God had made the birds of paradise plant grow there but I didn’t know why. It was a perfect little grave spot, in the corner with a garden bed edged in stones.

A friend sent me flowers. She asked what type and I said “God will know.” They were beautiful white lilies just like in our wedding. She didn’t know about our wedding flowers. The flowers gave me so much peace. They reinforced to me that our baby was part of our love for each other.

Everything worked out so beautifully in the end. God held us through the whole process.

I didn’t know what the point of this writing would be but I can see a theme running through of God’s faithfulness and our own faith in Him. I grappled with promises versus circumstances but God proved faithful to his original word. I grappled with my own fear versus trust and tried to put my trust in flimsy signs or my own interpretation of God’s word. Sometimes we want so badly for something to be true, but God has been calling me to higher truth; that He is God and I am to trust him because He is God. Not because he said he will do something in my life or on this date or in this way. He is calling me to let go of reasoning, rationalisation and trying to work out what He is saying about circumstances. He is calling me to just let go and have peace that he holds our world in His hands. I am thankful for my baby and for this journey. I don’t fully understand it but I am thankful.

Metaphorically Pregnant

I've been in a season of waiting. Waiting for God, waiting for complete healing, waiting for spring to come. While I wouldn't say I've been satisfied in this season, I haven't had the urge to run either. I've felt a peace in sitting still, waiting for the next move.

A few months ago I was house sitting with a couple of friends and before sleeping one of them prayed for me to sleep well and to have dreams from god. God answered that prayer!

The dream was vivid. I was in early labour. I knew I was having a baby but I was still going about daily life. I was at the library and needed to return a book at the counter so I asked a friend to return it for me. I was in pain but I was okay. I felt capable and controlled. A friend asked if i'd like her to come back to my flat (I had a flat?) with me while I had the baby. I thought that would be wonderful because I didn't want to have the baby alone. My husband wasn't in the dream at all - it was as if I wasn't married.

I woke the next day and knew it had been from God. There was a strong sense of capability in it - that I had been able and willing to ask for help where I needed it but had not been needy or dependant in a desperate way. I hadn't needed my husband, or been crying out for friends. They had been there to help but I was centred and self-confident. I was coping and I was okay.

I didn't have much awareness of an actual baby inside me in this dream. I was just having labour pains. I have dreams of childbirth sometimes but this one I felt was symbolic. A metaphor of the birth of my healed self - of transformation or new things, a new season, a butterfly emerging from a cocoon. 

Though the birthing process was painful, I was coping and I was okay. I was incredibly encouraged by that. God was giving me a picture of what the healing process would be like for me. (I already was and am currently going through the process.)

The morning of the dream, I curled up on the couch in the house we were staying at and I read Romans chapter eight in The Message version of the bible.  I had been reading it over and over again that week, taking in the truth of grace and 'no condemnation'. This time the next part of it jumped out at me. With tears in my eyes I read the words again:

"That’s why I don’t think there’s any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what’s coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens. 

All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy. 

Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good." (Romans 8:18-28 MSG)

Wow. I was so encouraged.
A few weeks ago I was having a hard time and my husband Thomas told me he felt God wanted me to read the book of John. I thought "Okay, I'll have a read." I flicked around in there for awhile asking, "God what are you trying to show me?" Then I saw this:

Jesus realized they wanted to ask him about it, so he said, “Are you asking yourselves what I meant? I said in a little while you won’t see me, but a little while after that you will see me again. I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn over what is going to happen to me, but the world will rejoice. You will grieve, but your grief will suddenly turn to wonderful joy. It will be like a woman suffering the pains of labor. When her child is born, her anguish gives way to joy because she has brought a new baby into the world. (John 16:19-21 NLT)

When her child is born, her anguish gives way to joy. I knew then that although I suffered now, it would not last. It would be replaced with joy. Grief would be replaced with joy. The verses gave me a new burst of hope and resolution that made more tolerable the pain.

So I keep waiting for that joy of metaphorical childbirth. Also, often the labour dream God gave me comes to mind and I say, "Hey God, the dream is still true!" Because even though this healing process is emotionally and physically painful, I am delighted to realise that I really am coping and I am very much okay.

Grief

Grief. It's been a topic on my heart lately, watching a friend go through it. But also watching it bubble up inside of me, with much tinier spurts and trickles than I think should be there. I think it was only a few weeks ago that I decided I needed to acknowledge the reality of my experience. Life has been pretty crap. Until this admittance I had an impressively glass-half-full view of my entire existence considering I'm not usually on the positive bent.

My new confession: life has been really amazing, really special and really wonderful while being really taxing, really painful and really unfortunate. The two sit side by side in my mind and heart: amazing and awful. Like glowing sunshine and vibrant rainbows next to storm clouds and silhouetted dead trees. Let's throw in some battering wind as well. They leave me wondering whether one is a lie. I'm confused. Can they both be true?

I've been getting frustrated at the sunshine in my heart. There is a hope and a peace in there that is fit for a bible passage. It pretty much transcends all understanding and guards my heart and mind. (Referencing Ephesians 3 here if you didn't know.) "Stop being so hopeful! Go away and just let me feel proper grief for once!" I say (yell, plead, beg). I know it is there (the grief). I don't know how much is there but there is more than a few tears and a bit of pillow bashing. "God open my heart, pour it out, bring these feelings out." But still amidst some sorrow and frustration there is that glow that can only be of God and it just. won't. leave. I'm not truly sure whether I want it to leave because it is comfortable and soothing and tells me that everything is going to turn out fine. Amazingly wonderful even. And I know this is true. I have known for a long time and I can see it coming.

It struck me that my grief is a little different to those who are grieving for loved ones or lost property or pets. I am grieving for a life that didn't exist. It is grief for what could have been, not for what was and no longer is. Does that make it less valid? I'm not sure. I do know that I need to go through it. My grief is a little more forward looking and a little less backward looking. It has a giant pool of hope attached. God is a restorer. I believe I will look back from the joy of healing and restoration and remember my years of pain. I also believe that at that point I will be ready to fully feel the grief of a lost existence, even if that existence is only an imagination of what could have been.

For now I just say, "You know, life was really quite rubbish, but God was really amazing."

I look forward to healing. I cry a bit about the past. And I wait.