So it’s been a very long time since I have written on my
blog…..and there are so many reasons for that that it’s hard to even start to
explain. The biggest reason though is
probably the most important to explain and is the hardest. After our daughter’s death, we felt such an
outpouring of love and support. It was
truly incredible. Looking back at my
blog entries, I can still feel the emotions and the heaviness that was in my
heart. I remember the awful emptiness
but also that I never felt alone. In
those weeks after, I always felt the loving presence of my friends. I felt their prayers, and most of all I felt close
to Jesus with his spirit and strength flowing through me.
But a few months later, around when I stopped writing, I
started to feel empty. Those connections were gone. It was
a kind of emptiness that I didn’t want to talk about with anyone. It was an emptiness that couldn’t be filled
by friends, by activity, by love and… much to my fear….even couldn’t be filled
by prayer. It wasn’t that I didn’t try
all those things. I pushed myself to be
with others, to join in, and to talk about her even when I didn’t really want
to. It wasn’t that I even felt bad. I could do everything that I had ever done
before that terrible tragedy befell us, but I was like a robot. I was going through the motions. The only way that I could describe it to my
husband, who is the only person I really discussed it with, was that I felt
someone had turned down the volume on my life.
Everything was still there, but the joy was so muted that to me, I was
unrecognizable. It scared me. The only thing that helped was that my husband
felt it too. He described it as being in
a desert. Just feeling nothing.
And to my horror, that muted, nothing feeling extended to my
relationship with God. I would
pray, I went to church, I read scripture, but it was like the words
bypassed all emotions and when straight into that black empty pit. I tried so hard to focus but it was like sand
through my hands and at times I felt almost desperate. I never felt like God turned his back on me
though. There was just a void that I
couldn’t bridge and I still don’t know why.
I just know that I always tried to remember that God knows what is in my
heart. He knew that I was longing to be
close to him and all I could do is pray that he would open up a new path for
me.
And in June I found out that I was pregnant again.
It was something we had hoped for… had actively tried for,
but the reality of it that morning staring at the test strip brought me to my
knees. I had no idea what I would face,
how I would feel, and how…maybe even if…. I could ever manage. I have the perspective now of hindsight, with
my baby son sleeping peacefully in the next room as I write, but those early
days were tough. I didn’t tell anyone
for sure because I was not ready for their reactions and I wanted to be ready,
to have down exactly what I wanted and needed from them ready to say. So, I just existed. I didn’t do a lot of hoping or dreaming, I
just made it through each day and counted down the day until each bloodwork
result, until each ultrasound. And with
each test, came encouraging news. I knew
that nobody could tell me the end result.
There was no crystal ball that could show me what my life would be nine
months from that point so I just clung onto each piece of evidence of a
successful pregnancy and looked no further.
And each night, I asked for God to give me strength and I
thanked him…literally thanked him each day for the emotional pain that I knew I
would I have to endure because the alternative…of never having another chance
to bring life into the world…. To expand my family…. To show my son that a baby
coming into the world doesn’t always bring the awful pain that he endured… was
much, much worse than any pain that this wonderful and awful period in my life
could ever bring.
