You know how songs trigger memories?
Yeah.
Certain songs bring me back to my carefree secondary school days while others remind me of certain friends. Usually I don’t mind these triggers. But there are certain triggers I do not like. They remind me of grief and loss. Specifically our miscarriages.
Trusting God
In January 2012 when we discovered that I was pregnant with our 9th child, I was worried. Worried because I had a child who would be taking the PSLE* exams and I wasn’t sure I could cope with handling a newborn baby and overseeing Sarah’s PSLE preparations.
But during one of the worship sessions in church, the song “Today is the Day” by Lincoln Brewster was sung. The lyrics spoke to me :
I’m putting my fears aside
I’m leaving my doubts behind
I’m giving my hopes and dreams to You
Jesus
I’m reaching my hands to Yours
Believing there’s so much more
Knowing that all You have in store for me is good
Is good
Today is the day You have made
I will rejoice and be glad in it
Today is the day You have made
I will rejoice and be glad in it
And I won’t worry about tomorrow
I’m trusting in what You say
Today is the day
Coupled with the prayer of “not my will but Yours be done” the song lyrics helped turn my worry into joy. Instead of fear and worry about adding one more child to our already large and busy family, I understood the privilege given me to carry yet another child, to welcome yet another life.
Miscarriage grief and loss
But this joy was short lived. At the 9th week mark, I began to bleed and we lost that baby. I was totally devastated. I cried buckets and buckets of tears – alone.
Why, Lord, why?
It was so, so hard. No one really knew how I felt. Not even Henson. I hide things too well. The children were told but they were too young to fully understand its implications. I certainly did not understand the Hand of God. I struggled. There was no one I could talk to in real life.
Miscarriages are just not spoken about in polite society. No one wants to talk about it. No one wants to know about it. No one knows how to react to it. I wrote about the typical responses people give in my post on Miscarriage.
Will I still trust God?
God began using worship songs to challenge me to continue to trust Him and to console me. He gave me The Desert Song by Hillsong, and Blessed be Your Name by Matt Redman. Truly, by His grace, I could declare with the lyrics in both songs,
The Desert Song Bridge:
All of my life
In every season
You are still God
I have a reason to sing
I have a reason to worship
Chorus:
And I will bring praise
I will bring praise
No weapon formed against me shall remain
I will rejoice
I will declare
God is my victory and He is here
And…
Blessed Be Your Name
Verse :
Blessed be Your name
When the sun’s shining down on me
When the world’s ‘all as it should be’
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be Your name
On the road marked with suffering
Though there’s pain in the offering
Blessed be Your name
Every blessing You pour out I’ll
Turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
I grieved. More than I ever did the first time I miscarried. Even as I acknowledged that God is good and sovereign. The pain did not lessen.
D & C
I grieved even more when I had to undergo a D & C because of a piece of retained placenta that was not expelled when the baby was delivered naturally at home. It hurt me that the nurses and anaesthetist probably assumed that I was undergoing an abortion, and not a D & C due to retained placenta.
More grief
In December 2012, we found out that I was pregnant again. But God again chose to take that baby Home. Two lives conceived. Two lives taken Home. In one year, January and December.
January 2014, it happened again. I was crushed. I told the Lord to please not give me any more pregnancies if I weren’t going to keep them. I was being petulant. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be His name. (Job 1:21) Yes, I will still bless His name. He is good. Even when I do not understand.
Time apparently lessened the pain. Life and its cares soon took over my daily life. Keeping busy made sure there were no chances to just sit and dwell.
Old wounds re-opened
But a series of events happened in the past weeks that caused the pain of these losses to re-surface. It started with “Today is the Day” playing in the car. Last week, “The Desert Song” was chosen by the worship leader.
This week, I found out that a fellow mother of many lost her baby. Her daughter wrote such a beautiful blog post here, asking, “How can you love someone you’ve never seen, never even spoken to? How can they break your heart so?”
It doesn’t make sense, does it? I was certainly not seeking to add another baby to the family so the grief that hit me was just incomprehensible.
And then just this Sunday morning before service, I read an email from a reader of the blog who reached out to me and told me about her own miscarriages.
Raw emotions
Everything came rushing back.
The raw emotions.
The grief.
The sadness.
The ache.
The emptiness.
Even as I wrote the first draft of this post at a Subway cafe while waiting for my daughter to finish her ballet class, tears fell. The pain obviously has not lessened, nor the grief forgotten. I am now snapping at the children. Pain hits out, I guess.
How long, Lord?
I have asked mothers who have walked this road – how long will I continue to hurt? They say l-o-n-g. One has been hurting for 6 years!
I asked the Lord – how long will I continue to hurt? He was silent.
I can only take consolation that I will get to see these babies when I go Home. Meanwhile, life carries on.
God is good, regardless
I leave you with this song by Babbie Mason, “Trust His Heart”. The words below have ministered to me, and I hope they will minister to you, regardless of the trials you are enduring.
God is too wise to be mistaken
God is too good to be unkind
So when you don’t understand
When don’t see His plan
When you can’t trace His hand
Trust His Heart
* September is the month when 3 of the 4 babies I miscarried would have been born if they had not gone Home. One was due in August.