a haven of hope.
When going through loss there is not much you remember. Your thoughts looking back on such a time are mostly moments of a clouded darkness. As if driving through a dark, thick heavy fog desperately waiting for it to lift. To see a touch of light. To be able to breathe again. Loss is that drive. You can’t quite see where you’re going, you don’t know how long it will last, you’re wondering if anything is close by that can help. But you don’t reach out for fear that it will only get worse, so you continue to stay on the path that’s right in front of you. You’re tense and holding your breath. Your mind races and you try to come up with reasons why you left when you did or how it could be different. In those moments you’re wondering how you’ll get out and yet also deep down there is a glimmer of hope. And that’s why we keep driving.
It’s been two years since we lost our daughter from a late miscarriage. I’m not a fan of the term- as the world seems to depict it as something we or our bodies did wrong, but I look at it as — I miss carrying h e r.
I wrote from that heavy dark place on the night I lost her. It’s quite honestly the darkest place I’ve ever known and I have been through a lot in my 31 years. Looking back I can say now that I’m glad I have those words. It’s this raw open piece of me that existed for quite some time. The loneliness, the emptiness, that gutted feeling, the intense waves of grief that I experienced all at once over and over again. It brings my stomach to a pit just writing these words now. I’ve learned that some days these feelings still come rushing back, yet I can have peace about it because they aren’t meant to truly ever go away.
Love for your child is never meant to just go away. There is a place where love and grief meet and that’s a whole other feeling that stays forever.
To travel back in time for a moment to about 5 months since my loss happened. Through my faith, therapy, my husband and daughters I had made great strides. I was pressing on and doing all I could to bring remembrance to our lost girl. But I’d be lying if I said I was good. I just remember wanting to cry all the time. My mind constantly taking me back to the sonogram room and seeing the nurse's face. The long showers where I would just cry uncontrollably. The on my knees prayers where sometimes I couldn’t even speak, but God knew. I began to think that was my new normal.
At this point in life I was back to working and doing your normal mundane tasks. I had a wedding to photograph and as my new normal I would put on my brave face and headstrong into the day. But something different happened on this day- on this day I got my glimmer of hope. The day I began to see the light through my dark journey thus far.
It was an intimate wedding on the couple’s family land. It was truly beautiful and their love for God was prominent. There was this small moment after the ceremony that was a calm stillness. A photographer's dream on a wedding day. A moment to breathe and reflect even for a second. I found myself standing by this old tree that I didn’t even seem to notice and the bride’s grandmother carefully came up to me.
She stood right next to me. A stranger to me. And subtly pointed to the broken tree branch that was right in front of my day dreaming eyes and said, “Isn’t it amazing?” I looked up confused at her question. And as if she knew, she spoke softly again,
“that something so broken could bring something so beautiful.”
Gracefully referring to the broken tree branch and the new life of flowers growing right in the middle. She placed her hand on my shoulder and walked away. And I quietly wept. Right there. And it was as if time stood still for a moment. As if God brought me my very own angel to speak directly to my weary soul. That moment, those few words, are with me forever.
You see I realized in that very moment that as I was pushing myself so hard to get back into life and to try and be okay to the outside world that it was actually okay to not be okay. That yes, I was broken, deeply hurting, maybe even a little lost — and yet God was working and I could trust that again. I felt free. And I know that was God’s grace. I know the Holy Spirit prompted her heart to speak that to me.
In life, things don’t just turn beautiful instantly. There is a process. They are refined. Pruned. I see now that as much as I thought I had my life all together God was refining me in ways I could never begin to imagine. He was pruning me of oh so many things. He then began to restore me in a new way. He took my brokenness and made something beautiful.
I am a different person on the other side of loss. I now know, that is the point.
It certainly wasn’t the route I would pick and there is so much I still don’t understand and never will. And somehow that’s okay, too. Because I’ll tell you what I do have — faith. Faith that God always knows what he’s doing. Faith that this world isn’t our home. Faith that I will see her again. Faith. It’s a trusting that can only happen when we release our will for God’s will. It’s a peace that surpasses all understanding. It’s an opening of our eyes that takes a deeper level of understanding to open. It’s an undeserving grace. A profound wisdom and yet a childlike wonder.
So friend, even in your suffering know this: It’s okay to not be okay. It’s okay to have seasons. It’s okay to feel broken. It’s okay to be hurting. It's okay to cry. It’s okay to have questions. But it’s also everything to trust that God sees more than we could ever see. He intimately knows the deepest parts of your heart and the innate components of your soul. And more than anything in our grief and mourning He is there to comfort in a way no earthly person or thing could compare. He sees you and your pain. I pray you take this as your word to let Him in. Trust Him. Have faith. Have hope. Let Him be your safe place — your haven.
