Hope Amidst The Fear

I wrote this entry originally for the blog at work. About 3 times a week there is a new blog post on the website written by a different staff member. It is so neat to see how the Lord is working in over 100 different staff members in 9 different states. Every 6 months or so I get an email in my inbox saying that it is my turn to post something... Everytime I get writing block and can't figure out what I want to write about. This time I took the whole 2 weeks arguing with God because I knew exactly what I was supposed to write. I had known that I wanted to post a blog about our two precious children, but I didn't know how to go about it. I have felt so much healing through writing the blog post that I wanted to post it here too. I still don't have it all together and I still don't understand why we are walking through this, but it's our story and I hope it encourages someone else.

Hope Amidst The Fear
In times of spiritual drought I have always been most encouraged by the personal stories of other believers. I find something so beautiful about the way that the Lord uses other people’s trials in my life to encourage me in my walk with Him. I have always struggled with thinking my story could help someone else. I have believed the lie many times that my story is not significant and even that the Lord can’t use my story to encourage others. If I do feel the Lord leading me to share my story, I often times believe the lie that I have to have everything resolved before I share my story, that all the loose ends have to be tied up and a ‘Happy Ever After’ written at the end of the storybook. I am coming to realize that these lies are not truth. For the past two or three weeks I have been feeling the Lord calling me to share my most recent trials in some way. How convenient that around the time the Lord started calling me to this task, I was informed that it was my turn to post on the Lifeline blog. So, here I am stepping out in faith. I pray that my story will encourage someone who reads this. I don’t have it all together. My story does not have a ‘Happy Ever After’ written in yet. I am still battling the hurt, pain, and grief. I am still working through the fear and anxiety. But, here is my story.

In April of 2012, my husband and I were shocked to find out that we were expecting our first child. I about fell over when I read the positive result on the pregnancy test, and he was just as shocked when I told him the good news. After the initial shock wore off, we were as tickled as we could be and immediately started planning for how our lives would change in 9 months. Unfortunately, at our 11 week appointment we found out that God had taken our little “Peanut” to be with Him in glory. I remember leaving the doctor’s office broken, numb, and confused. Our doctor was still hopeful and was not worried about our future pregnancies since miscarriages happen to a lot of women. A few months later, we found ourselves in the same state of shock and excitement when we found out we were pregnant with our little “Jelly Bean”. Our hearts were hopeful that this pregnancy would end in a healthy and happy baby. We went to our first appointment at six weeks and everything looked perfect just like it had before. As we approached the 11 week mark I became very fearful and anxious. My fears and anxieties were intensified when at the same appointment as before; our doctor could not find our sweet baby’s heartbeat. We went to the ultrasound room where our fears were confirmed. We had lost our second child. In the months following the loss of our precious children I have found myself in a state of fear, uneasiness, and anxiety.

I’m sure these feelings are common, as well, in the adoption, foster care, and orphan care community. Whether there is grief over a lost referral, fear in the unknown of the adoption process, or anxiety over troubled children from the foster care system in your home. Or, maybe just like us, you have struggled with pregnancy and now there is fear in looking to the next steps. So many times our fear stems out of a lack of trust in the One who created us. We have a lack of trust that He truly cares for us and wants good for us. A lack of trust that He is going to walk with us through our hurt and grief and fear; a fear that He is going to leave us in that dark place forever.

This topic of fear has been a common theme in our home the past few months, and my husband has been such an encouragement through this time. I read an excerpt from a book he has been reading and one quote particularly stood out to me.

“You have to begin to trust that your experience of emptiness is not the final experience, that beyond it is a place where you are being held in love.” Henri Nouwan

The truth is that God is not going to leave us in our hurt and pain. Even if on this side of eternity our life is thorns and thistles; He has a magnificent place in Heaven saved for us. A place where there are no more tears or pain. No more hurt or grief. No more miscarriages, hurting children, or orphans. This brings us so much hope.

I am so grateful that Heaven, in all its glory, is the only place that our two babies will ever know and call home.

“Now we see things imperfectly, like reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now us partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.” 1 Corinthians 13:12

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