It’s been almost two months… but I still feel the pain. The loss.
I know we’ve been through this before. (I’ve honestly lost count at this point.) And I’m usually quicker to get over it and just move on.
But this one feels different. Maybe because I had every hope and expectation that it was going to be different. In my mind I had it all mapped out one way, that this would be the “redemption baby.” That we didn’t have to work through multiple miscarriages again until we arrived to our son or daughter. That this would be the one to go smoothly for once, and in the process of those nine months, we would heal all the pain and trauma of the past, especially for Christy.
And we’d be able to praise God for his faithfulness. How he had a plan to see us through to this very point and prove himself true. What an amazing testimony and turnaround it would be. This is what the Lord would want for us, surely, right?
On that Friday morning, when the heartbeat disappeared on that ultrasound—after seeing it register so perfectly clear just two weeks before—I was in shock. There was no way it could have turned out this way. Not again. Not this time. How, Lord?
This is not how the story was supposed to go. This is like the bad guy getting away with it at the end of the movie. Or the hero failing to rescue the team and accomplish his mission. This is not what I had written in my mind…or what I thought you were writing, God?
I don’t know how else to put it other than that I feel like he’s failed me. Even though I know he doesn’t. And I know and believe he is good. But this is how it feels. Lord you’ve let me down.
And yet… what else can I say or do? He is God. He can do whatever He wants to whomever he wants whenever he wants. Maybe that’s the tension that Job felt, lying in his bed with nothing left of his health or family. Who is he to talk back, anyway? We are but dust, and to dust we shall return.
I don’t know where this goes. The irony is that the one who hurts is also the one who binds. Where else can I go but to him?
Settle my heart, O Lord. I don’t need or even ask for the reasons why. I just seek peace. Peace that transcends my understanding.
That’s just my honest prayer I suppose.