The past year has brought many changes to our family: a new house, new responsibilities, a few new friends, a pregnancy….and a miscarriage.
One year ago, we lost a child by miscarriage.
I want to share with you what my husband wrote for a memorial service we had here with a few of our friends. For all of you out there who have experienced this loss, no one else can understand unless they too have experienced it. May these words comfort us all.
I've been thinking and thinking about it for a couple of weeks, and I knew I needed to do something but wasn't sure what. It wasn't that I felt an emotional need for closure or release or anything like that. It was just that something felt not quite right. I tried to express it to my friends like this – “It doesn't seem right that someone should pass through this world and noone acknowledge it.” And even that doesn't fully express what's on my heart. I just don't know quite how to say it.
I had a dream. I was talking to a man about various things, and was impressed with his answers. At one point during the conversation, I look directly at him, and I realize that it's Jesus. I immediately stop talking and grab him and hug him. Tears flow from my eyes and “I love you” comes from my lips. “Do you really?” he asks me. The verse “if you love me, you will keep my commandments” springs to my mind, and I begin to think of all of the things that I do and know I shouldn't, and all of the things that I don't do and know I should. I search that depths of my heart and return with the answer “yes,” fearing what his response will be. He looks into my eyes with love and replies “then feed my sheep.”
I can't escape the realism of my dream. I ponder how I fail to measure up to God's standards and yet he loves and accepts me anyway. And how he loves and calls to others too, even those who hate him. In him we have hope, for we are called his children. We are brought into relationship with God and are given a promise and a future.As I ponder what being in the family of God really means, and bearing his name, it dawns on me one of the things that has been bothering me. My baby doesn't have a name. My baby passed through our lives and changed them forever, and we haven't given it a name. We don't even know if it was a boy or a girl. But it was here, for however brief a time, and it made a difference and an impact, and it mattered to someone.
I tried to think of a name, of all of the things that had been rolling through my mind, and the name that seems most appropriate to me is Hope. We don't know what has happened to our child, but our trust is in the one who always knows the truth and does what's right. He loves us. He cares for us. He has made us His children. Our hope is with God.
Lance Wingfield, September 2009
Last night, on the anniversary of the loss of our child, I attended a Glory Babies meeting. So many people don't know what to say or do. It helps to have this support group, especially for those of us who have suffered from miscarriages. We didn't get to deliver our babies or hold them. There was no funeral, but it was still a child to us. It was our baby, and it helps when people acknowledge that fact. Glory Babies understands that. Whether you were only a few weeks pregnant or delivered full term. For some, their babies died before their first birthday. We come together in this common unity and help each other through the grief process. If someone you know has gone through the death of a child, and you don't know what to say or do, just know that being there and caring and supporting through the grief, that means so much.
In His Love, and He does love us, always remember that.
Be First to Comment