Where Were You?

I woke up this morning with this weight on my brain, on my heart, on my soul.

Where were You, God? When we found out she hadn't been growing like the other babies?

Where were You? Were You helping someone else?

Crying with me?

Gone?

Where were You God? When each visit after five months offered no consolation? No hope?

Where were You? Holding my hand?

Knowing there'd be a brighter day?

Letting my world decay right before my eyes?

Where were You, God? When April came and they put me in the hospital? Bedrest, thinking at least we still have hope?

Where were You? Giving up on us?

Teaching us a lesson?

Crying too, because You knew my heart was about to be shattered?

Where were You, God? When two weeks in bedrest failed our attempt to help her grow?

Where were You? Singing sweet songs to my Jenna?

Sending angels to be by our side?

Holding the shaky ground we were on together?

Where were You, God? When the doctor told me that Jenna might die during delivery?

Where were You? That room was cold and lifeless...

Were you waiting for the inevitable?

I want to know You.

Where were You, God? When the doctors kept throwing hopelessness into our ears?

Where were You? I longed for the miracle that never came.

Were You looking at the big picture?

Whispering sweet comfort to my Jenna in her isolette?

Where were You, God? When they told us there was no more that could be done?

Where were You? The medications were maxed out and still life was escaping her body.

Were You telling her it wouldn't be long before she'd be whole?

Were Your angels singing to her as she entered Heaven?

Where were You, God? I had to hold my daughter's lifeless body.

Where were You? The reality of Heaven was suddenly so bleak.

Were You there and I just couldn't feel it?

Carrying my crushed spirit and holding my empty hands?

Where were You, God? When I left the place she was born?

Where were You? I had nothing to show for, all those months I'd worked so hard for her life.

Crying for the fallen world that we live in?

Were you broken-hearted, too?

Where were You, God? It's been a long road.

Have You kept Your promises and not left my side?

Have You cried with me each time that I do?

Have You seen all my tears?

Tomorrow she would have been six months, but I am filled with these rhetorical questions. Six months seems like a lifetime ago. Six months has never gone by faster in my life. Six months...

I Found a Rainbow

I don't know how ready I really am about all this but about a week ago we found out we are expecting Jenna's little sibling. I am incredibly happy, overwhelmed at the endless possibilities, and scared to the Nth degree. I would like to share the good news, but will not be updating about the pregnancy on this blog. I have dedicated a whole new blog to my rainbow baby called "Letters to my Rainbow Baby".

www.ifoundarainbow.blogspot.com

Feel free to stop by, but I understand if you cannot read about pregnancy right now - completely. I will, of course, continue to write on Handprints from Heaven as I am still grieving my Jenna terribly. My pregnancy with this baby has only increased my hope in God, but it has not minimized the grief over losing Jenna. And I wouldn't have it any other way. It is my hope that someone can draw strength from what God has allowed in my life with Jenna and now the hope of our newest family member joining us. I am hoping solely on the mercy of God for this baby to have healthy lungs, a beautifully healthy heart and so much more.

The LORD taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy. 

-Psalms 147:11

A Secret

I don't know about you...

but I struggle with the thought that God has a plan. I struggle with telling myself that God knows best. I struggle with the fact that God could have saved Jenna and He didn't. My faith has been dismantled, torn apart, scrupulously analyzed, turned upside down, chiseled, wounded, interrogated, and left desolate to tell whether or not it would survive the past five months.

My faith has changed. 

My faith in the God who could have saved her has come to find out something about Him I never knew. It's one of those secrets of God that can only be manifested in the deepest, darkest pits of absolute pain. To be honest, it's one of those secrets I wish I knew nothing about. But since grief has redefined my life, it is a secret I have come to cherish.

I have heard all my life that Jesus Christ died for my sins and how He bore my sins on the cross so that I could have a way to go to Heaven when I died. One day, I accepted Him as my Savior, believing that He did indeed die and carried my sins to that cross and paid the debt I could never pay.

What I didn't know was that on that cross, he also bore my griefs. The Bible says He is "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief". Acquainted with grief? I have read those words before, but this time those words just flew off the page because that's me! I know grief more than I ever wanted to know it or be acquainted with it. It is deeper and far more hopeless than I ever could have imagined. Grieving a child is what we often say to be the harshest form of grief. I would have to agree. I didn't just bury my baby; I buried a toddler who would never take her first bite, lose a tooth, need a Barbie band-aid or take her first steps. I buried a girl who would never paint her fingernails or wear her Sunday best on Easter to church, I buried a young lady who would never go off to college or fall in love and get married. I buried a woman who would never have children or grandchildren. I buried everything she could have been. I buried my heart and love in the purest form. 

But Christ... He bore my griefs. It comforts me to read that He didn't just heal the sick and raise the dead. He knows my griefs. He knows. He is not just about the happy endings, He is familiar with the sad ones too. He acquainted Himself with this grief so that He could comfort my broken heart one day.

In that same verse, the Bible says that He also "carried our sorrows". The sorrow of those last moments of her life flashing through my head. The sorrow of knowing I will never get to use her beautiful name. The sorrow of knowing that life itself fled my baby girl's body. The sorrow of knowing the doctors did all they could to save her life. The sorrow of knowing that she is gone. The sorrow of the loss that empty arms can never satisfy. The sorrow of the memory of the pain her tiny body went through. The sorrow of the reality of her death at the grave. He carried all these sorrows with Him. 

A lot of people IRL will tell me they are sorry for what happened, and that is really all they can say. Let me just say that I am grateful for their sincere sympathy and understand their loss of words. But Christ actually carried my sorrow. He didn't just tell me He was sorry it happened, He carried this pain and sorrow because He knew one day I would need someone who feels the exact pain that I feel. So when I take my broken heart to Him, He knows all about it. 

And what's even more baffling to me is that He bore all my griefs and carried my sorrows way before they even happened. To think that He carried mine plus the entire world's grief and sorrow just helps me.

When someone shared these verses with me, it was like a light bulb turned on. These are familiar verses but they bring new light in this dark place of grief. 

"He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted."

Isaiah 53:3, 4

You Kept All My Tears

The day Jenna died and I walked away from the hospital with empty arms

I cried so many tears my face hurt and my soul felt dead

Life was changed

Death was real

And I wondered if

anybody knew about my tears.

The day of the funeral came

And I wondered why I had to go through all this,

I cried on the way there and all through the service

I cried and we couldn't even drive ourselves to the gravesite

I began convincing myself

that nobody knew about my tears.

Slowly the world began to shift and my ground became unstable

Unable to keep pace with the rest of the world

I fell behind

And I was convinced

that nobody knows about my tears.

I hide behind closed doors and rush out of crowds

Tears build up

Behind sore eyes and a shattered spirit

Forced into this secret society of broken hearts

And I am convinced

that nobody knows about my tears.

I grieve my loss of motherhood

The need to hold her makes me sore

The feeling that I have been robbed

Every time a mother holds her living baby closely

I am convinced

that nobody knows about my tears.

Driving home my mind starts to wander

What she would have been like?

How she should be in the backseat

Snuggled safely in that 4-door sedan I picked over a year ago because we wanted her...

I am convinced

that nobody knows about my tears.

The scar that my body wears replays that night she was born

How it happened, and why

The scar that means she happened

Too quickly...

I am convinced

that nobody knows about my tears.

I sit alone most days

Avoiding the inevitable and meaningless conversations

That I just cannot care about

I feel I am losing myself in this grief

I am convinced

that nobody knows about my tears.

But someday when I die, Lord,

You tell me that you knew

You didn't let my tears dry up on the ground,

You kept them close to you.

In that bottle where our tears our stored

To show us just how much you cared

You saw me cry every time I convinced myself

that nobody knew...

Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book?  

Psalms 56:8

Secret Garden - September Meeting

This month, for the Secret Garden Meeting, we are focusing on what has helped us through the loss of our babies. To participate you can go to The Secret Garden Meeting website or visit to read what has helped others. This group meets once a month to offer comfort, support and love in a safe environment.

For me, it has been a handful of things. Mostly it has been the sufficient grace of God. There are times, no doubt, when it seems like I am walking alone, but He always has a way of showing me just how much He cares and knows how much I hurt daily. He has filled this rough path with promises of hope and comfort through His Word.

Another thing God has given me is the commitment of my husband's support through this time. Given, men just grieve differently (topic for another day) but he is just there for me. When I am down, he likes to make me smile and picture Jenna just having a time of her life. Other times, like lately, he will be sad with me. I like that.

Blogging and connecting with other women through this blog community has helped me on so many levels. It has shown me that there is a world of women hurting and shattered over the loss of their child(ren). It takes my mind off of me. This journaling has also been therapuetic to allow me to write my heart out.  

Talking about her is the best thing on planet Earth! The people IRL who will actually listen to me talk about her without shriveling up in fear are far and few between, but God has been good to put a few people out there. I love talking about Jenna. She is my world, even now. I wish I could tell the world how we should be allowed to talk about our babies who left this earth too soon. Making us feel uncomfortable or avoiding the subject only adds to the loss we are enduring, like pushing her into nonexistence. It hurts so much. So here is my safe place. The community who will listen and understand. The women who yearn to share their stories, memories and heartbreak. I am so thankful for this blogging community.


Honestly, there are few things I like doing now because social activities are still out of the comfort zone for me. I feel like a hermit, but that's just how life is right now. Home is a safe place - far from newborns, pregnant women, careless words, careless people... so I guess in a way you can say being home has been a help to me. I have never been a homebody until now. I used to be the one who liked to always be on the go and run around even if it meant just window-shopping or running errands. Strange how life changes.

Peace in the Storm

Since I lost Jenna, I find myself re-evaluating everything in my life. Everything. Nothing is as it was. It's a bit overwhelming. When everything in this world keeps rotating and it feels like it should STOP, it just keeps going.


I feel out of place in the sunshine. Under a stormy sky, I feel right at home because that's how I feel inside. It sounds strange, but I just don't know if I will ever get to appreciate a beautiful sunny day for what it once was. I keep asking myself, How can it be so sunny and beautiful outside when my heart is so grief-stricken? When we live in a world where babies die and children get illnesses? How can the sun keep shining when there are countless broken mama's hearts all over the world? How can the skies be so blue as if nothing happened and my Jenna is not here like she should be? I keep asking these questions, as if the world revolves around me... News flash - it doesn't.


I get to thinking about what Jesus did on the cross and it melts my heart. I don't think I have ever appreciated it more than I do now. I write that to my shame, but her death just made my salvation and Heaven more real. He made it possible to see her again. He made a way. And that gives me hope, more than I can ever write about.


It's an amazing truth that I can survive this grief. I don't feel like it most days, but it is just mind-blowing that women have survived this lifeless and empty grief. That also gives me hope. I read about the mothers who have passed their first year or more without their little ones and that gives me a huge glimpse of hope. I can't see myself being in a better place right now, but it must be possible.


Lauren from "Walking by Faith" so perfectly worded it: "He’s showing me how to live life when it hurts to breathe some days."


It does hurt to breathe some days. It hurts to exist. I told someone the other day that I don't know how long I am going to be where I am in this grief, but this is just where I am. Desperately missing her. Devastated. Feeling deserted by God.


I know better than to feel those things, but I do. I know whom I have believed (II Tim. 1:12), and He is faithful but I can't help but feel that I have been let down by the One who could have saved her.


Lately where we live, it has been raining and stormy. It has perfectly captioned my heart's deepest sorrow. I stand here but I am really not alone. Even when my frail mind is doubting His cause, His love and His plan, He is right there, assuring me that it will be alright filling my heart with the the mystery of peace.

Hope???

"And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three..." I Corinthians 13:13

Yes. In the midst of my broken, oh-so broken heart it is possible. Not because of anything I have done or even asked God for. My reason of the hope that I have is all because of my truest friend, Jesus Christ.

Everyday is a horrible reminder of the life that could have been. Having been almost four months into this nightmare of the life almost lived, it has exhausted my entire being. My will to fight and live and breath. But out of nowhere here it is.

Hope. Abiding Hope.

He pours it into my soul in buckets of sweet rain. I don't look for hope as I feel like hope is a way of leaving her behind. But when He just gives it to me, I can't resist. It feels so nice to have a glimpse of the life that survives this aftermath. He gives me hope when I least expect it, when I don't deserve it after all my questioning and anger and when I least understand it. He lifts me up just like He said He would. I don't know what my hope will bring, but I know that it is something that can be waited for.

When everything inside of me has failed, I have an abiding hope. One of my favorite definitions of the word abide is found in webster's dictionary.

abide: \ə-ˈbīd\ 1 to endure without yielding
 
Without Yielding! We have a blessed hope. We really really do. We can bring our shattered hearts and all the parts of our lives that don't make any sense to Him. When everyone around us seems to be forgetting our precious angels or when people shrivel up in conversation when you tell them yes, you had a child but they died, He has not forgotten or left any pieces of our lives behind. He is ok talking with us about our angels.

Tonight, even if it lasts for only a moment, I am going to dare to hope. I will not pretend I am ok. I will have a broken heart the rest of my life. I will always wonder why. But since Jesus made a way for me to hope, tonight I will. For as long as I can. There is no harm in hoping.
 
Lately I have had a bunch of rough days which has probably been reflected in my posts. Since I have shared my rough days I wanted to share my hope. Abiding Hope.
 
Hope for a healed heart.
Hope to go Home one day.
Hope to have a healthy baby one day.
Hope to see our last enemy conquered, death.
Hope to see my Jenna again.

"But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings..." Malachi 4:2

A More Perfect Love

I see your tears

When noone else does

I know how you miss me

And the emptiness you feel

I wish sometimes I could tell you

How I really am ok

How Heaven is far sweeter than words can tell

How precious the Lord is and I'm at home

Where all is well

I know that doesn't soften the blow

I know that doesn't dry your eyes

But if I could tell you just one thing

It would be that in Heaven there's just a more perfect love

A love that dries tears

A love that stands still

A love that doesn't know time

A love that forgets the woes of this life

And while you miss me being in your arms

I miss you too

But time hasn't torn a hole in my heart yet,

It's not been but a few moments

that I have been gone

The place where we one day will meet

Is closer than it feels

And me, your precious Angel

Am closer than you think

The life that I lived reached our Father's will

Far sooner than you would have chosen

But from Heaven the big picture is clear

And there's no doubt behind it there is perfection

The love that fills your heart for me

Does not go unseen

The tears you cry because I'm not there

Will be dried in Heaven

The longing that haunts you with emptiness

Will one day be restored

But Mother, in my new home

There is just a more perfect love

-written August 16, 2009

He Calmed the Storm

Today I was visiting a friend whose four year old girl recently got diagnosed with leukemia. It was a blessing to me just to be by her side. I got to talk about Jenna Belle and it made me happy. Then I realized how weak I really was and how God really upheld me. I also remembered fearing all the same fears my friend is now feeling. Then I remembered the calm. In the midst of such a storm, I vividly remember the LORD calming my storm. That helped me. I tend to forget all those moments of utter weakness that I had at the hospital, but today they came alive. I am so thankful to serve a wonderful Savior.