CPR for the soul

i figured out the other day why our miscarriage seemed harder at times to deal with than losing our daughter at birth.

i was so confused at first with this revelation because sydney's death certainly was harder to take, it hurt more somehow because i had bonded with her and connected with her...nothing was wrong with her at all. it was my body that failed her...my body again failed the last pregnancy as well but i wasn't even out of my first trimester when we lost it and it seemed a little surreal because my two best friends were losing their pregnancies too, all of us at the same time. it still hurt but it wasn't the same. i held sydney in my arms, touched her lips with mine, felt her skin, caressed her hair..i had to hand her over to a nurse and leave her there and go home..she was in my arms once, she had weight to me...the miscarriage, as surprising as it was to me because i had never experience one before, would seem easier to get through or get on, not get over, but on with...move forward from. yes-it took a toll on my body, it hurt like hell, flushing that toilet took me hours while in tears, pleading with ian to convince me that i was not killing our child....but not hard like being cut open and having your dead perfectly whole child pulled from you, lifeless. i would be ok because i had seen worse. i had experienced far more trauma to the mind in leaving our sweet girl behind in a hospital and sending her to a funeral home than what had happened with our miscarriage, right? really? did i know better?

the thing i soon realized in the months following our second loss was it seemed harder. the depression was there, it was heavy and i was a hermit in my home for a long time, not ready to brave the public laden with perfect pregnancies and joyful little new babies in slings around their momma's tummy....i used food to soothe my hurt and i am paying for it now, but it just seemed really hard to get past...i thought the brevity of sydney's life and death would surely be something harder to take....

and then it hit me. one day..it just hit me.

the year following sydney's death, i hated God. i walked away from Him time and time again, angry and bitter, hurting with my heart in my hands...not trusting Him to give it back to Him....the first month without her i was on painkillers and sleeping pills to help with the pain from my surgery and the symptoms from post traumatic stress that i had experienced from going to the hospital in pre-term labor and learning ten minutes later that she was dead....i did not eat for a month....i shifted back and forth in conscious states of surreal dream land and reality but didn't really feel "here"....i did not talk to God, unless i was screaming at Him in anger....or pleading with Him to give her back or take me instead....the whole first 6 months without her i walked alone, with God far behind me.....not caring one bit where i fit into His plan or His will...because i did not want to.

over the course of the year, i slowly returned my heart to my God..i slowly fell back in love with my Savior...He was there all the while, waiting patiently for me, tenderly while i sat stubbornly in my pain and grief...He let me figure out and sort out the things in my head and my heart and was never far from my side, even when i was angry and trying to make sense of our loss...He sent me lovely women through other blogs that nurtured my heart and spiritual soul when i could not bare to water it myself...He covered our family with prayer from around the globe when i could not bare to talk to Him myself even alone....He gave us family and friends who were patient and gentle with us and reminded us of His love for us, even we were sure we didn't feel it anymore.....after all the avoiding my Lord, He had never left me....i slowly regained spiritual consciousness again after flat lining for so long....my eyes were soon opened in a new way to the knowledge of a Sovereign God who makes no mistakes, has purpose for all things and loves me so deeply that when i hurt to the bone, so does He. so many things had to happen all at the same time for this to happen in my heart. God made it so and i responded....

so the big aha moment for me came this last month when i realized why the miscarriage seemed harder to bounce back from than i had thought. i was awake. i was awake when it happened. i was aware. i was no longer flat lining in the depths of my soul. i was teachable in ways that i had not been in the months following our loss with syd. after syd's death, i didn't want to learn ANYTHING, i did not want to discuss the idea of a Sovereign God who is in charge and allows such tragedies to blow into ones life. i didn't want to hear all things happen for a reason or that God knows what He is doing....i had major earmuffs on. HUGE hands atop ears pressing the earmuffs down hard upon my ears, even drawing blood somedays, just to avoid hearing any Truth that would sting....

by the time we lost our third child, i was awake again. but in a new way that i was not aware of even before we lost sydney. i had reconciled my theology and my heart and my ideas of a loving God who is in control..i had reconciled them to my pain. i knew that all good things are blessings from my God but that also with that comes the hard trials and grieving losses, those come from Him as well....my mom and i were talking today and she said we have to get to a point where we have to recognize the good times and the bad times are both a "God thing"...you can't get all excited about good news or answered prayer and say it's a "God thing" how that happened...and then when bad times come, a really hard time of suffering say otherwise...you can't have one without the other....He is not a coin we flip for luck.....

the miscarriage proved hard for me because it meant that all the things i had learned the last year, all the Truth i had leaned on had to become real, all the lessons i learned from our sweet syd about Christ had to be put into action...it had to serve as my meter in which to measure my feelings with....not my heart. because my heart told me life sucked. my heart told me i was once again being punished while all others around me prospered. my heart told me, you have failed..once again, you have failed....but when all of that is hung up on the wall next to TRUTH, next to the Gospel that lives in my heart, next to the Christ that brings me Hope...i know i have to CHOOSE differently, i have to react with a trust and a faith that comes from knowing what i know, not feeling what i feel.....and here comes the hard part. you can't ignore it. after sydney, i ignored it. after the miscarriage, i knew i could not ignore it because i had learned the hard way that doesn't work. you have to fight it, even when it doesn't feel right....you have to choose Joy. after syd died, i sat on joy and squashed it for a long time. but soon, she taught me and God taught me that if i am going to walk the talk, it will be hard. not an easy stroll through the park but an uphill trek somedays in the most crazy wind and weather...so i kept on walking, after the miscarriage, i walked but it hurt because i knew God's Sovereign will for me was to have that third child created and given back to Him as well....it was never mine to begin with. doing the right thing is never easy, it sometimes hurts and feels unnatural. but doing the right thing always matters and makes a difference. but it's not easy.

sometimes, i think living spiritually flat lined for a time would be better. it was indeed easier to ignore what i thought might be true against the raging sea of pain inside my heart. at first. ignorance is bliss right? no accountability. no pressure or guilt of failing at something because you aren't even trying in the first place? i thought so. but no. it is not the way to live one's life. there must be an ongoing measured up and down of the heartbeat line on a screen if you live your life in Christ...flat lining happens to all of us at one time or another...but once you wake up from that soulless coma you were in, don't you want more? don't you want to live more abundantly than ever before because your eyes have been opened to the promise of Heaven? the promise of a time when we will be redeemed, restored and reconciled to our God once again this side of heaven? if you are asleep, it might hurt less to live..but you miss out on the joys and the beauty that is this life that God gave you....whether it sucks somedays or not...whether you have an urn in your house or you visit a sweet tombstone each month with flowers...whether you have lost life over and over again, God will redeem all those tears and heartaches...they aren't in vain.

our sweet sydney taught me more in her short little life than many i have known for decades...God used her to open my eyes, to wake me from my spiritual coma....and yes there is still heartache that follows us, even last year when we lost another child...but my heart is teachable now in ways that it was not before. my mind and spirit are less stubborn to the fighting of the hard times...because i know they will come and continue to come....i know all these things, IF I LET THEM, will refine me, IF I ALLOW GOD TO work in my heart...He can bring about change....change is ALWAYS possible. don't ever let anyone tell you different...God is the ultimate artist of the most beautiful and dramatic change to ever take place..on the cross. it changed everything for us....from sin and death to life and Glory...if that's not change, i don't know what is....

our hearts can be restored and changed...they can.

you just have to be ready and available.

you have to be aware and teachable

...and yes. you have to be awake.