The Babies I Didn't Get to Hold but One Day Will

(a blog dedicated to moms who have miscarried.)

I guess I’ll always wonder about them while I’m on earth.

Wonder what they would have looked like, smelled like, sounded like.

Wonder about what vegetables they would have thrown on the floor or crayon color they would have reached for first.

Wonder if they are boys or girls, one of each.

Wonder how they would have felt in my arms.

I guess I’ll always have questions about what they are like in heaven.

Do they play with my Papa Jack or laugh at Uncle Dee’s jokes?

Are they held by my father-in-law, Wes, or cuddled by Memama?

Do they think about me?

Do they know they have a mom on earth who thinks about them and somehow, though she never knew them, loves them?

I have so many questions.

And for a while I refused to ask them.

I don’t know why exactly.

I think it’s because when I would think about these questions, it made the babies feel that much more real.

And, as much as I am ashamed to admit this, I didn’t want them to feel real because real can hurt a whole lot.

I just wanted to hang out with my good friend, “Denial.”

But denial is never a good friend.  

I also think that I went through a time where I didn’t think my sadness was valid.

I would talk to myself (I do that a lot) and would say things like:

“Jenna, let yourself be sad for a little bit, but then move on because your pain isn’t near as bad as hers.”

Or, “Jenna they were each so young. You didn’t carry them but for a couple of months each. Why are you sad? You didn’t even know them!”

And so I wouldn’t let myself ask the questions about what they would have looked like or sounded like or felt like in my arms, because those questions made me sad.

And I didn’t think my sadness was warranted.

But the questions wouldn’t stop surfacing.

Every time I saw a pregnant friend.

Every time I saw a commercial for diapers.

And days like today – Mother’s Day – the questions still linger.

Not too long ago, through the help of friends and family and a book by Kathe Wunnenberg (click here for book), I reached a place where I decided asking all my questions was okay.

So I did.

My husband and I planted two rose bushes in their honor, and as I water I have given myself permission to ask and ponder the answers to my flood of questions – questions about the babies I never got to know but one day will.

The first rose bloomed Easter weekend. As you can imagine, I was a blubbering mess. Couldn't stop staring at it!
(photo cred to my sweet hubs who snapped this when I wasn't looking)

But deeper than the questions about the babies, I finally allowed myself to ask questions about God.

Then, I took it a step further.

I started asking my questions about God to God. (There's a difference.)

I noticed that the questions all seemed to revolve around this little, yet head-swimming word, “why.”

I asked Him:

Why I had miscarried.

Why the babies were brought into my life if He knew they would die.

Why He had let me hurt like this.

Why He didn't rescue my babies when I prayed. 

Why I couldn’t hear Him.

Why I had to go through this.

Why, why, WHY??

I was angry. I was sad, confused, afraid. A real mess.

It wasn’t until I took KatheWunnenber’s advice, that I started to get some answers.

She says,

If you are drowning in the sea of “why” try changing the “y” to an “o.”

Choose to look beyond the “why” and to the “Who.”

So I started trying to do that – focusing on who Jesus is instead of why this had all happened.

And slowly (and I do mean slowly) I began to feel the sand of the beach, solid land under these feet – these feet that had been flailing and kicking in the deep waters of “why.”

Asking “who” led me to solid ground.

Because asking “who” led me to the heart of Jesus.

And the heart of Jesus is the only sure foundation I have to stand on.

Who is Jesus this Mother’s Day?

Who is Jesus everyday?

He is the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6)

He is the beginning and the end (Revelation 1:8)

He is selfless (Romans 5:8)

He is faithful (Psalm 36:5)

He is a good Shepherd (John 10:11)

He is salvation (John 11:25)

He is alive (John 20:6-7)

He is with you (Joshua 1:9)

He is love (1 John 4:8)

He is in control  (Colossians 1:15)

He is good (Psalm 86:5)

And oh so much more...

I still don’t have all my questions answered.

But I’ve noticed that as I have focused on “Who,” the “why” has become less important.

If you have miscarried, I hurt with you today.

I am so sorry.

That’s why I have an invitation for you.

An invitation to join me in asking “Who” today.

Will you look at who Jesus is with me today?

Let’s think about:

Who our babies are with today.

Who the real Father of our babies is.

Who created them and calls them by name.

Who holds our future in the palm of His hand.

Who cries with us when we cry.

Who restores our brokenness.

Who loves us, and our little ones, more than we will ever know.

(If you want to know more about who Jesus is, contact me here. I would love to chat with you more about it. )

When Life Feels Out of Order

A lot of people call her Romadene.

Others, Mrs. Preston.

And a few "mom."

But we grandkids?

We have always just called her “Mimi.”

And if you met her, she would instantly become your Mimi too.

She’s just that way. 

The teacher that everyone remembers from Elementary school? That’s my Mimi.

The casserole that empties the fastest at the church potluck? That was Mimi’s.

The fridge stocked with popsicles and Dr. Pepper? Mimi’s.

The woman that never had a hot meal because she was serving everyone else? The soprano, the white curly perm, the one calling everyone else “sweetie”?

All Mimi.

When my sisters and I were little grand-girls, we would all sleep on her living room floor during Christmas. She was the best pallet-maker ever, piling one blanket on top of the next. And then she would tuck us all in like little burritos.

But today she isn’t the same.

Her health is failing and mind is wandering.

Dementia has crept in like an unwanted guest, and though we have asked him to leave, he refuses.

I know she’s afraid. She’s confused.

She’s wondering why she can’t do things like she used to.

And it breaks my heart.

I miss who she used to be.

The roles have reversed.

Now we are making her the casseroles.

We stock her fridge with Dr. Pepper.

And the other night, instead of her tucking me in, I crept into her room and knelt down by her bed. 

I asked her if she was comfortable, told her how much I loved her and said, “Sweet dreams, my sweet Mimi.” Then I asked her if she wanted the door closed or open. “Open,” she said.

I used to like my door open too.

When roles reverse, the world just doesn’t feel right.
Life feels out of order.

It feels backwards, uncomfortable, like two left shoes.

Jesus understands role reversals really well. More than I ever will.

From Mountain Molder to mountain climber.

From Breath Giver to breath taker.

Star Placer to star gazer.

From God to man.

And then, on the cross, He went from sinless to sinful.

He took it all on – all my bitterness, all my selfishness, all my envy, all my sin.

And He took yours too.

This reversal has made some skeptical, others doubt.

It may seem backwards, uncomfortable, like two left shoes.

Yet, in this reversal, everything was made right.

The world met grace. The world met love. The world met God.

This role-reversal with my Mimi feels uncomfortable now, but what if God uses it to make something more right in me?

What if as I suffer through how backwards this feels, I move forward in understanding? 

Understanding more about the suffering Jesus endured to offer the biggest reversal ever made – 

my sin for His grace.

And understanding this love a little more, makes my heart a little more right.

We have been chatting about good in goodbye the past couple of months on the blog. 

Is there such a thing?

I think this is another good I have found lately.

That as I’ve said goodbye to who my mimi was (still praying for a miracle along the way).

As I tuck her in, instead of being tucked in.

The reversal makes me think of Jesus’ reversal that much more - what He gave so that I could have.

 “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

 (Are you going through a role-reversal these days or feel like things are a little backwards? If so, what are you learning through it? Comment below.)

My Computer Crashed ... And So Did I

(Any Good In Goodbye Continued...)

My computer crashed the other day.
And so did I.

I don't know what came over me.
But as soon as the screen froze and went dark, something dark came out of me.
I lost it. Completely lost it.
I began to cry thinking I had lost months worth of work and memories that I had never backed up on another hard drive.
But it was more than that.
Turns out, my melt down had more to do with pain and bitterness backed up in my heart than anything not backed up on a hard drive.

I began to slam kitchen cabinets, stomp around the living room, clang dishes.
Brett, my patient husband, looked at me and asked if I were alright.
I gave him the evil eye and screamed, "I'm going for a drive!"

Peeling out of the driveway, I couldn't even see out the window because of the tears.
I needed windshield wipers for my eyeballs.
Between my dramatic, animal-like yelps, snorts and gasps for air (I can be a pretty ugly cryer), I screamed at God.
It was some type of gibberish only He and I could understand.
It included a lot of " Why?!" and "Where are you?!"
After I pulled back into the driveway and calmed down, I wondered "what in the world just happened? Where did all of that come from?"

It took me a few mugs of coffee the next morning to realize that my crash was a result of weeks upon weeks of not being completely honest with God.
We have been chatting a little bit about seasons of goodbye. And to help us find the good in goodbye, I have been turning to some of my favorite verses in John 11.

In this chapter Jesus' close friends, Mary and Martha, say a tragic goodbye to their brother Lazarus who had just died.
When Jesus arrived on the scene Martha "went and met Him" And the  she says one of my favorite lines: "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.'"(11:20-21)I love that.

I love that there is no sugar coating her emotions, no polite "hello, how are you," no fake smile. Instead, before He even gets to her house, she runs to Him and lays it all on the table.
"If you had been there..."

During this season of goodbye, that's something I've thought a lot.
God, if you had only been there...
If you had...
But instead of being honest with God and sharing these thoughts, what did I do?
I kept busy, I kept emotionally tidy, I kept a distance from God.
And when I did talk to Him it wasn't sincere.
It wasn't my whole heart.It was formality, a have-to prayer, slivers of my heart that I didn't mind Him seeing.

But the truth was, I was hurting.
The truth was I blamed God for the hurt.
The truth was I didn't trust Him anymore, and this kept me from talking to Him honestly.

In our story, Martha teaches me a good lesson.
Be your true self with God, your whole self.
That might sound obvious, even dumb.
But sometimes I find myself hiding my true feelings from God.
And because I  hide my questions, my anger towards Him, my confusion, my doubt.Because I don't give Him all of me, then big parts of me are never healed.
They just sit, bottled up,  rotting in a corner.
And I thinks that's why I crashed that night, alongside my computer.
When we bottle up, we blow up.

But Martha didn't do this.Martha wasted no time. She ran to Jesus and was honest with her hurt.

When I finally did this that night in my car, something happened.
A weight was lifted. All the anger, confusion and hurt was released.
And by sharing my whole self, my true self, God began to restore the trust I had lost.
Why?

Because I was letting Him into every corner of my heart.
And when we surrender it all, He restores all.

I guess that's a 'good' I have discovered while walking through hard goodbyes.
We learn what being our true selves with God really means - not bottling up but instead sharing it all, our anger, mistrust, bitterness...
And as we do, our relationship with Him strengthens and our trust in Him deepens because we are inviting Him into every part of our heart.

Two Little Words For Those Really Hard Times

("Any Good In Goodbye" Continued)

I don’t know who hurts more when I have a hangnail – me or my mom.
She winces as if it’s her own when I show her my finger.

Why would my hangnail hurt my mom just as much as me?

I don’t know. I guess it’s because she loves me that much.

We tend to take on the pain of those we love.

When my first-ever boyfriend moved away my freshman year of high school, I came running into the house after saying my last goodbye. I was in hysterics. The tears could not break lose fast enough to keep up with my devastation.

I just knew my life was OVER! 

When I got home, I didn’t even make it to my room. I fell on the floor, face buried in a couch cushion.

And my mom –

the mom who knew everything would be just fine; the mom who has the eternal perspective to know this heartbreak did not have the last word; the mom who could have easily told me to just get over it … Yeah, that mom?

That mom dug my face out of the couch cushion and gently rested it in her lap. She stroked my hair. She repeated over and over how sorry she was. She hurt with me. And I felt less alone.

Suffering is hard enough, but suffering alone? Unbearable.  

As I’ve said goodbye this past year, I've learned empathy does not heal the wound. 

But it does make the process of healing a lot better.

Why? Because you feel understood, loved, but most of all…

You feel less alone.

I think that’s why I have held on to the shortest verse in the Bible so tightly during the suffering of goodbye. Just two, little words that aren't so little.

“Jesus wept.” (For the entire story, click here.)

Some of Jesus’ closest friends were a set of siblings – Mary, Martha and Lazarus.

In John 11, we read that Lazarus grew sick and died.

After Lazarus’ death, Jesus goes to visit Mary and Martha.

And when Jesus walks with Mary and Martha to visit the gravesite, Jesus begins to weep.

Jesus –

the Jesus who knew everything would be just fine; the Jesus who has the eternal perspective to know this death does not have the last word; the Jesus who could have told Mary and Martha to get over it (after all, He was about to raise their brother from the dead) … Yeah, that Jesus?

That Jesus wept with Mary and Martha over the loss of their brother as if it were his own. 

John tells us that his "spirit was troubled." 

He didn't just cry; He wailed.

And to know this.

To know that He cries.

To know that the Creator of the universe not only understands our grief but experienced suffering in a way you and I will never live. 

To know that He not only cares about my feelings but feels my feelings. 

Something about that makes saying goodbye, makes the suffering in this life, a little easier.

As He has lifted my face out of the couch cushion and has stroked my hair …

As we've cried together over brokenness, something has happened.

I've, in turn, understood His suffering a little more. I've experienced Him more. I know Him more. 

And that intimacy is one of the "goods" I have found in goodbye.

I don’t know who your hangnail hurts more – you or Jesus 

He gets you, He understands you, He empathizes with you.

You are never alone in your suffering.

Is There Any Good In Goodbye?

A little precursor note for you:

Over the past year, it seems I’ve had a lot more goodbyes than hellos. 

I am abundantly grateful for the support I have, so I do not write about this season of goodbye fishing for sympathy/attention. 

Instead, I hope over the next few weeks, this blog can just turn into a classroom for both you and me as we share with one another what we have learned through loss and learn about how God sees it. 

My prayer is that we encourage one another (so please comment!) and that these posts bring us comfort and hope as we look to a day when we say "goodbye" to goodbye forever.

Why is the word “good” in goodbye?

Is there really ANY good in it? 

At face value, there doesn’t seem to be much.

In fact, I’d like to have a stern convo and a firm handshake with the person who created the word.

Sure, there are byes that are easily good.

No one cries when they say bye to braces, bye to acne, bye to the polyester gym shorts they made us wear in middle school P.E.

Those really are GOODbyes.

But then there are goodbyes that don't feel that good; they maybe feel okay. 

'Okaybyes.'

They are the byes that hurt but still leave you believing that life will be alright. 

I had some 'okaybyes' this year.

An 'okaybye' to a job that I loved for six years and a team I loved even more.

An 'okaybye' to my childhood home. I’m the nostalgic weirdo that has to say goodbye to inanimate objects. So I said goodbye to my room where my old Backstreet Boys poster hung and goodbye to the yard where we buried our retriever Molly.

Maybe you said an 'okaybye' to a friend who moved away, a lost piece of jewelry from your grandmother or said an 'okaybye' to college.

'Okaybyes' are more grey than dark. Light still creeps in from the end of the tunnel.

But what about the byes where light almost feels completely absent?

The byes that aren't good or okay. They are heart wrenching. 

The byes that make our stomach hurt.

The byes that seem too soon. 

The byes that leave a hole. 

The byes that empty out the Klenex box and fill our minds with questions.

The byes that make waking up the hardest decision of your life and brushing your teeth seem pointless.

Who cares?! They’re just stinkin’ teeth!

Those feel more like 'badbyes.'

How are we supposed to get through 'badbye'? It doesn't look as if any good is in them.

My husband lost his dad to brain cancer recently.

He was my husband’s hero and best friend, healthy, active, gentle and loving. 

And then all of a sudden … he was gone.

I remember walking through the grocery story right after his death thinking, “How can everyone be so normal right now? How can she be chatting on her phone and picking up a can of corn as if life is okay? It’s not!”

In my heart the world had stopped.

But I guess the world missed that memo.

You’ve had your own share of 'badbye.'

Maybe you’ve said byes that are much more often and much more painful than I.

So can there really be ANY good in it, any good in goodbye?

Well, s-l-o-w-l-y God is showing me some of the good - in the 'okaybyes' and even in the 'badbyes,' starting with the shortest verse in the Bible:

“Jesus wept.” (John 11:35)

I’ll go into why this verse has brought me comfort a little later. 

But for now, want to read the surrounding verses with me (John11:1-45)?

Over the next handful of posts, I'll be hanging out in John 11, pointing out some verses that have gone deep. 

Would love for you to hang out there with me as we talk about the hardship and even the beauty of goodbye.

(Would you like to join in on the conversation? What “goods” have you found in goodbye, if any at all?)