Heart of God

Thank you to everyone for your support with my last post. It is bittersweet yet comforting to know I am not the only one angry at God, people, the world, fate, death...

I started reading The Shack. I have to say that it has been a Godsend. It has helped me to confront the emotions that up until recently I had been shrinking from. I am angry. I am wondering why. I still don't ever want to get it. But, if I might encourage anyone, I urge you to read this book that brings you to the very heart of God in the midst of losing and grieving a child.

I told my husband a few months ago that the only thing worse than what we experienced with Jenna is having your child kidnapped, never to see them again. He agreed. This book embraces that heart-wrenching situation, showing just how much God gets our anger. So many people commented on the last post how God can take our anger, which I totally agree. If He created us with the natural instinct to love our babies, how can we not be angry when this tragedy strikes and we are forced to live and breathe without them?!That is asking for something unnatural.

While I don't wish to live the rest of my days caught up in this frustration and anger, I am not going to run from it. I know that God intended for me to love Jenna, and losing her has created a gaping hole that hurts  everyday. I get to love her memory, but I will never get to show her how much I love her down here. And there lies the root of the heartache. My loss of the chance to love her.

Unmasked

Before I write this post that weighs so heavily on my heart, I feel like a disclaimer or some type of warning is necessary. First and foremost, if you find yourself offended at its contents, you must know I started this blog for only a couple of reasons...

1. To be honest with myself and God about this grief as a means to find some kind of healing

2. To let other babylost mamas know they are not alone in this grief of losing a child by sharing my Jenna Belle

So now for my heart.

There were seven to eight of us expecting babies back-to-back in my world IRL. And God looked down as we were all planning or not planning these families and knew one would be required in Heaven far sooner than his/her time. That's how I look at it anyway.

He picked Jenna. My Jenna. I can't even imagine wishing this pain on anyone else. That's not what this is about. But I have asked God probably a thousand times, why me? That question is so childish and its significance is fleeting but the reality is that I feel like I have been picked on. Like I have been reprimanded for wanting a family which I thought would come so easily.

Out of the seven or eight of us, a couple of women were expecting rainbow babies. That was especially sweet. A few gracefully accepted the awkwardness after Jenna died and let me know that they still cared within weeks. A few others which had never buried a baby, kept their distance for safety I am sure, and meant no harm. But it complicated my world. Their sudden distance made me feel like I was a plague and I wanted to scream IT CAN HAPPEN TO ANYONE...

But I didn't. So I scream it here. IT CAN.

This grief is exhausting to say the least and it hardly suits a Christian I think at most times. Of course, my idea of the ideal Christian hardly battles anger, frustration, envy and strife, right? Well right or wrong that is what I am feeling. I have battled feelings that I wish I never knew. As a result, I have minimized my concerns to my heart with God, my husband and close family and a handful of true friends. I don't want to destroy any of these relationships because of my grief.

A lot of times I feel like anger toward God is sinful and tell myself to stop being angry. That hardly works. So I just started telling Him how angry I was. How much I hate that He took my Jenna and how it has complicated my world. I feel like when I started to do this, it was as if He was really listening. I can't even describe it. I really believe He heard that prayer. He wanted honesty, not a facade of "okayness". I have had a lot more peace accompany my sorrow since I told God how honestly angry I have become. I know He is working on me and helping me sort through these feelings of anger and the root of bitterness.

I am to the point where I need help so bad, I could care less what the world concludes about me. I am desperate. I need God's help and am very aware that I have been closer to Him than I am right now. I am very aware that I have probably contributed to the complicated relationships with other expectant mothers in my world. I am very aware that this grief has probably taken me to the lowest place yet - hell on earth. I am very aware that I am not the same person I was a year ago. Or even a few months ago. That girl had hope and a God that could only perform miracles. I am no longer than person. My God can heal but He doesn't always heal. This is my reality.

I cannot keep this bottled up for long and I can never predict where this grief will take me next. It is a roller coaster that fares into the darkest pit of human grief and sorrow.

"Thou, which hast shown me great and sore troubles, shalt quicken me again, and shalt bring me up again from the depths of the earth." 

-Psalms 71:20

Those Pictures

I wasn't ready again. Daddy needed the SD card so I copied and pasted those pictures on it in a safe place. But it was hard. I hadn't seen those pictures since you died. Actually I hadn't seen you like that since you died. I had never seen those pictures. I knew they existed, but I have not been able to bring myself to look at them. To remember you like that. It is so hard.

Five months today.

There is not a lot to say, except that my heart hurts so bad. I never imagined this would ever happen to me. Growing up I did not know babies could die - that's how ridiculously naive I was. Ridiculously carefree...

I want to be that little girl again that loves children, longs for babies, and envisions raising them; not wondering if I will ever get to bring a baby home from the hospital.

I have a hard time convincing myself that I am not angry. Secret's out, I still am. I just miss you... Those pictures, they brought it all back. I wasn't ready. But once I got a glance I couldn't not look. You are beautiful, Jenna. Even in death.

I asked Daddy if it was wrong that I couldn't look at them. He said no. He understands. He really couldn't look for long either.

I remember getting to hold you for the first time, only for it to be the last time too. I felt like time was swallowing me up as the hour was approaching to switch you to that other breathing machine so I could hold you. I wanted to hold you, but I didn't want to let you go.

How does one prepare to say goodbye when you know its too soon? How did I not die of a broken heart that day or these past five months?? FIVE MONTHS! It hardly seems like that long ago.

I know that the God that gave you to me has also been faithful to not let my broken heart kill me. It broke a little extra today.

I wonder if there will ever be a time when I can look at these pictures and not cry because the missing hurts too much? Does that day really exist? I hear it does. I hear that one day I will be in a "healthier" place to confront those hard memories. That's what I hear. That is what I look forward to. I look forward to a place where your memory doesn't break me.

Picking up the Pieces and Healing Tears

I know this is going to sound ridiculous, but last night I felt so much better after I just let it all out. I waited until after I thought my husband was sleeping and I cried and cried and cried. I had a mountain of grief sitting on my chest and a million different emotions that can hardly be handled that were desperate for some relief. So I cried and it HELPED.

Nothing got solved, just released. Maybe that's what it was.

Aside from the million emotions, I didn't get a chance to blog away my heart. This added to the reality of facing my grief, which at times, is unbearable.

On a different note, I find it difficult to talk with people. Just simple conversation makes my brain crazy. It's not that I don't want to (or maybe I don't?) but it is so hard to FOCUS. I have never been more scatter-brained and that makes me crazier. I also find myself avoiding certain people because I don't want to talk about the frivolous things in life and they don't want to talk about my baby who died too soon. So I become a hermit who crawls out when I MUST be ok or when I finally reach a "safety zone".

On top of that, I haven't been able to go see her. Her marker is so pretty but its ugly too. It just urks me that she is in the ground. My brain knows she is in Heaven, but my heart can't get past her body being buried - the very one I felt kicking and moving inside, is buried. I can't write in words what that does to me. I hate it. I used to love going to see her and I wish I could see past the marker that so delicately marks her putrid grave. Why did I spend so much time trying to make it look so pretty??!! It is not going to matter! I thought it was the last thing I could do for her. Now it just keeps me away. I feel guilty, angry and disgusted that I can't make it better. It hurts so much to see her like that. I mean to go this Friday. She will have been gone four months. I want to go Friday, but it's going to be hard.

I thought about it like this.

In this house there is this beautiful, fragile yet perfect glass vase. And it sits in a place where it can display its beauty to everyone in the house, at all times. But one day it gets knocked over and it doesn't just break - it shatters throughout the entire house, in every corner and under every stool, table and furnishing. No matter where you walk in this house there are sharp remnants of this once-beautifully adorned glass vase. But the beauty is gone and all that's left is a mess and pain with every step you take. As I think about the glass pieces everywhere I go, I can't help but think I am just leaving the glass pieces on the ground to continue to wound my already wounded heart. How do you pick up the pieces? How do you tell yourself it's time to find a way to heal? When does the pain stop tearing you apart everywhere you go? When do the little things in life that bring you back to the darkest hour stop bringing you to tears? How does life return to a sense of normalcy after your innocence is gone? How do you pick that first piece off the ground and not feel guilty?

I don't know. But I do know that it has got to start soon. Some sort of stepping forward. Not "moving on" or "getting over it" as people say without the slightest idea of how those careless words rend your heart, but a true finding of what it means to live with this grief and without the guilt of leaving her behind.

It won't happen overnight and I know these next few months and even years will try my relationships. I hope that my friends and family can be patient. I pray that I can have grace. I know that I serve a good God. There are few things that I know for certain anymore but one is that He is right there, ready to help me pick up that first piece. And the second and the third.

...forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark...

Philippians 3:13,14

Thank God for the Roses

Lately... I have been having some rough days. I literally felt like I was drowning in this sea of grief, with no relief. I have been angry about what happened and the frustration that tags along with the loss has been eating away my joy. Not to mention all the millions of other emotions that follow anger...

But today I tasted the goodness of God. I forgot just how good He really is. He was there with me today. I carried a newborn for the first time after my sweet Jenna Belle today. And I think He must have been carrying me. Some might think it too soon but it helped me. It wasn't my baby - that part hurt. I realized what I am missing out on. But just to hold a miracle from God and know that healthy babies really happen. And to smell the sweet baby smell and to rock the baby to sleep - it really really did something. It gave me hope and something to look forward to. Something to treasure and be thankful for. Someone told me God won't let you stay down. Every once in a while, He'll send you a rose. Thank God for the roses.

Thank you, Mrs. Carol for sitting with me.

"Thou, which hast shown me great and sore troubles, shalt quicken me again, and shalt bring me up again from the depths of the earth."

- Psalm 71:20

Pierced & Comforted

Well, at church Sunday night, I was caught off guard. Completely.

Right before our pastor dismissed the service, he announced that there would be a couple dedicating their newborn to the Lord. He reminded us that this would not save the baby's soul but was a demonstration rather of the parents' willingness to give this baby to the Lord. The pastor went on to say, as he usually does, that we appreciate a healthy baby. Healthy baby. He said we don't take that for granted around here.

Boy, was he right.

Healthy baby. Just the idea seemed like an impossibility since our first and only baby wasn't. Then I remembered Jenna. Well actually from the moment he mentioned the dedication I was thinking about her. But when he said healthy baby for some reason I just could not take it.

I really thought I had reached the farthest level of pain, but I hadn't.

There are days that I feel numb, and that bothers me. But then I realize this is a randomized pattern of emotions I just go through. Normal? Not sure yet.

But that is just the way it is. Something like this beautiful dedication was in the past just another routine ceremony I got to witness once in a while. It was especially precious when it was my niece and nephew. But Sunday it hit real close to my heart. I think it actually pierced me that night. I wanted to dedicate my baby in front of the whole church. I wanted God and the whole world to know that we would raise her right. In the Word of God. In a good home. In the house of God. Guilt and a bit of confusion lingered over my mind for a few days that the dedication made me cry in a hurtful way. I woke up three days later breaking through all the emptiness that usually reminds me of my loss each morning. I laid in bed for a while and I was thinking about the dedication. Out of nowhere, I vividly remember something coming to my mind that must have been heavensent. I realized I don't have to dedicate her to the Lord, she is already with Him! Boy that did it for me. It hardly mattered that we did not get to dedicate her anymore.

Surely that was the goodness of God.