A friend recently handed me a book and told me she thought I should read it. The chapters include titles like ‘Life Is Uncontrollable’, ‘Life Is Wearisome’, ‘Life Is Unhappy’ and ‘Life Is Grievous’*. While it might sound like a bleak book, it is exactly the book I needed this February. Reading it has been equal parts a cold wash of reality and a warm hug of camaraderie. I loathe February. For so many reasons, but mainly because it is full of steady reminders that life is uncontrollable, wearisome, unhappy and grievous. I remember several Februaries ago, our church did a sermon series on Ecclesiastes and I just couldn’t understand why. I already felt the extreme heartbreak of life, the cold brutality of winter, and the lack of beauty around me… why on earth would they spend time preaching sermons about how “It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart”.
It’s been four months since we had another miscarriage. It’s been four months of haunting emptiness, painful thoughts, wrestling and grieving and wondering why. Every single month, I feel the weight of this verse physically 7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. 8 We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10 always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. 11 For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. 12 So death is at work in us, but life in you. (2 Corinthians 4:7-12)
There is something so deeply painful and externally invisible about miscarriage. When I saw the faint double lines in the early fall, my heart grew instantly. It wasn’t a clump of cells or a fetus, it was my baby, our child, our son or daughter. I fought against fear, a fear I knew was possible but hoped was not in our story. Those double lines were something I had been aching to see for so many months. So many thoughts battled endlessly for my attention and I clung to the immense love I had for my child. Nausea and weariness were welcomed and I craved hot, spicy food because it didn’t taste spicy (something I fondly remembered with Felix’s pregnancy). Then one day I realized that the hot sauce was super spicy again and dread trickled into my heart. We went to Meijer to take our minds off of it and I broke down crying in a small side-aisle as the cramps began. Then the double line started to disappear. When I knew the brutality of what was coming next, that child’s space in my heart didn’t shrink back down, it just became horribly empty. On the outside, nothing has changed about me. I haven’t lost a limb, or been wounded in any visible way. But it often feels like my heart is carrying a gaping wound. I feel guilty about dishonoring my child when I’m putting on a happy face, but at the same time, burdened by weighing people down whenever I confess that I’m still struggling and reveal my heart. The tension of having a healthy, joyful toddler while also wanting to grow our family and being devastated over the loss of a baby isn’t lost on me. I’m hesitant to share this post and full of stomach aches thinking about how much I don’t know how to do this. Life is so messy and broken and so beautiful and marvelous all at the same time.
As we approached February this year, I cringed and sighed even more than I usually do. I threw myself into as many projects as I could start at once, trying to grit my teeth and get through it. And then this tiny book was placed into my hands.
Life is hard. No one really escapes. Everyone feels the impact of death, if not through their loved one first, they feel it as their own reality. Our world is designed to distract us from thoughts of death and disease and dying. From ‘to do’ lists and hobbies to drugs and addictions, everyone has their way of hiding from the scary thoughts. But that’s not real life. What if, instead of gritting my teeth, ignoring the pain or pretending I’m fine, I finally see that life does in fact hurt. Of course there are joys and beautiful things… but this world is still cursed and broken. Year after year, February strips away the facade of faux life and forces me to stare into the face of reality. This year in a new and excruciating way. February is my “time for mourning” as the Ecclesiastes author puts it. It’s my time to relive the many painful memories of past Februaries, time to honor and grieve the children who have gone before me to eternity. It is a dedicated time to remind myself that life is a mist, here today and gone tomorrow.
I didn’t plan on sharing about our miscarriage. It feels different than the first one in a lot of ways. I guess maybe this time I’m more afraid of causing hurt to people who I haven’t been able to get up the courage to tell in person… or getting unsolicited advice about what to try next. The first miscarriage was the death of hopes and dreams… the “what ifs” of motherhood. This miscarriage felt more like the death of a family member – a brother/sister, son/daughter, granddaughter/grandson, niece/nephew.
But the craziest thing is happening this year as I’m rounding out the back half of February (my mind is still a crazy mess of distractions and I still have fits of panic cleaning and untamed emotions) but I’m tasting the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living whenever I practice bringing my grief to God. It has been a simple, recurrent theme that three intentional friends have been encouraging me to do. They aren’t telling me to not feel the pain, they are telling me to feel it fully in the presence of God. To bring him every hurt, every painful detail that no human wants to hear, every trigger that hits my heart with unbearable anguish. To face reality. The wild part about facing the bleakness of life with real eyes, is that the God of all comfort is really there for me. He’s gently lifting my gaze again and again. As I study God’s word, interact with God’s people, pray and engage in the ways He has invited me to participate in, the beauty of life begins to show up as remarkable, undeserved, and immensely abundant. Even while I carry around the physical realities of a sin-cursed world, my heart is slowly becoming more focused on a different world. A world where my pain is no more, my tears are wiped away, and a place my Savior and comforter is preparing for me.
15 For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God. 16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. 17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
(2 Corinthians 4:15-18)**
I was washing dishes last night thinking about my friend, Nicole, who passed away seven years ago. Her life completely changed mine just as her death rocked me to the core. Her life was an example of God working in someone so beautifully that you can’t help but be impacted. Her death was a wrecking ball, setting off a series of events in my life that broke down walls I didn’t even know existed in my heart and eventually led us to fostering girly. Nicole is wrapped so tightly into the reason I take pictures and cherish the little moments of ordinary life, the reason I am engaged in my local church, the reason I enjoy hosting and having people sit at my table, the reason I parent Felix the way that I do.
February is a time to look at death and to see Jesus. To stare into death’s face and see hope not despair. Jesus stepped into the darkest place, death itself – taking the fullness of our sin and brokenness – so that our story doesn’t have to end eternal suffering. Staring into death hurts so much. But it is a necessary part of acknowledging true life. I can only push the thoughts and emotional flood into a mental box for so long before it bursts out in unexpected, often detrimental ways. A time for bringing my pain and hurt and loss to Jesus to be comforted.
*To be fair to the above mentioned book, True Life By Carolyn Mahaney, Nicole Mahaney Whitacre, some of the other chapters are titled things like Life Is Enjoyable, Life Is Well-Timed, Life Is Incomprehensible, etc. February doesn’t negate the beauty of summer and the immense blessings that God pours out in the here and now. But there is a time for mourning and for me, that is February.
** The unseen things described in the beginning of 2 Corinthians 4: (Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. 2 But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God. 3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. 4 In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.)