A few months ago, I asked the Lord for a tangible memento to remember my babies, lost through miscarriage. I thought perhaps a teddy or ragdoll or ornament. I then set about to try and find that something, that I had asked HIM to put in front of me. And I couldn't find anything that was just right, so I forgot about it, and thought He did too.
We do that, don't we? We don't get immediate answers, and we think He's not listening, doesn't care, isn't working. But He is. What I didn't know was that I wasn't ready for the answer, not back then. There were many more layers to strip back first. In fact, He was more interested in providing those answers than I was in having them, as I discovered this week. I wanted to just leave it alone.
That's what you learn to do when you've had to go through stuff alone, for whatever reason. It's just too hard, too painful to face it, because it's buried in a deep place, because you've already decided you're going to have to do it alone, again, so let's not.
And why this week, is beyond me. He's already leading me through the mire of past trauma, which I've also been avoiding for a while. Again, easier to bury it. No, not easier, just a different kind of hard.
I felt His nudge to talk about the miscarriages with someone, but I just didn't want to add it to the load of the trauma I'm trying (not) to process at the moment. I said it was too much. He said it was time. I said I can't. He said that I can, with help. I said, 'Why now?'. Silence.
So, I thought I'd be clever. 'Okay, Lord, if you want me to do this now, along with all this other stuff that You've peeled back the callouses from, then show me - clearly. I really need to know I'm not going nuts'.
I took my nine year old daughter to the op-shop in town. She was looking for something in particular. I was not. I looked through the fabric piles, looked through the clothes, browsed through the books. And then my daughter showed me the bears. My immediate response was 'No more teddies!'. Between us, we have a lot of teddies. Did I tell you I personally have a lot of teddies?
But then I saw him! He was different, unique, looked like an old-fashioned bear, not like the plush, soft, modern type, but still soft enough. So I decided he could come home. My daughter groaned, all the way to the checkout. 'How many bears do you have, Mum?'. Little did I know just how important that question would be.
I got him back to the car, sat him on the front seat, and immediately, I felt this nudge, this whisper. "You asked me for a tangible memento, and I've given you one. You asked me to show you, and I have. It's time."
Now I was the one groaning. That was sneaky, Lord! I wasn't asking for that. And isn't that the way with Him? He gives us what we don't even know we need, when we've given up asking for an answer, because we thought He didn't care, or it wasn't important enough.
It's important to Him. It all is and He longs for us to be healed of these gaping, but invisible wounds. But His timing is important too.
I knew if He was providing the 'when', then He had also provided the 'who'. The day before, my good friend, Marg, had offered to scrape up the pieces if I needed to process stuff. She's good at that. She's scraped up the pieces a few times now. And she knows, from her own life, what it is to have pieces fly out in chaotic fashion, and for the Lord to slowly and carefully bring that chaos into order.
So, I arranged to sit at her table and have tea and a chat. Kitchen tables are such sacred places, sacred spaces, when we intentionally include Him in the conversation. I'm so incredibly grateful for the tables I've sat at these last twelve months, including in a village park of all places, with fine china and wine glasses! (thanks so much Alice).
I asked the Lord for a name for my new bear. I would have called him Sebastian. I've always loved that name. But no, I very clearly heard the name Benedict. Wow! I wasn't expecting that. I thought perhaps it was about closure, I guess because of my Presbyterian upbringing, when the minister would speak the benediction (blessing) over the congregation at the end of every service. When I got home, I looked it up. Should have known. It means blessed. Literally, it means spoken blessing. What are you saying, Lord?
Abi came into my bedroom later and asked me, 'Now, Mum, how many bears do you have? You are running out of room for them.' I am indeed. I counted them. Benedict is number 14. I think that number is significant, but this side of heaven, I won't know for sure.
In talking to Marg, I realised I don't actually know how many miscarriages there were. I literally lost count. There were three in the early years, then on average, one a year after my oldest three girls were born, until my pregnancy with Raelee, after a 12-year gap. So 14 makes sense. When Abi was born, our youngest, I just knew she was the last. I've had no miscarriages since Raelee. Marg suggested that the number of bears is significant, with Benedict being the last one. And I sense that Benedict is closure for me.
Only God could do that. Only God could provide a bear that was just right, even when I had forgotten that I was looking for one, within an hour of nudging me about a topic I didn't want to talk about. Either that, or I really am going a bit nuts. But God has His way of speaking to me, leading me, nudging me, much like the Shepherd with His rod and staff. The Scripture says 'My sheep know my voice'. It says He leads us, He counsels us, He directs our paths and I have found that to be true, over and over and over again.
So now that I've started talking about the miscarriages, where to from here? It's not something to be sorted in just one kitchen table setting. I couldn't cry about it on the day, and Marg probably knew that. But now my eyes won't stop leaking, at the most inconvenient times, like in the car, in church, talking to people on the phone. We spoke briefly at church about it today, and her eyes were leaking too. There's something also very sacred about a friend who will cry with you. I was afraid of the dam wall bursting and being overwhelmed by the power of the grief. Maybe it will, or maybe it will be a slow leak first that spills onto others, like Carolyn today, who made her shoulder available.
One of the things that has made it easier - not easy - easier, is Marg's beautiful picture of heaven, and how that has been a comfort to her in her own losses, including the loss of a child in utero. I wonder, what do they look like, who are they, how are they? That they have been kept safe from earth's struggles is a huge blessing. Marg suggested naming them, writing to them, writing about them. She also suggested some kind of belated ceremony, like she did when she was not able to bury her girl many, many years ago.
That's one of the many things that miscarriage cheats you of - an official goodbye, a public acknowledgement of your loss, a group of people to grieve with, a ceremony, some way of saying that your baby was alive and real and mattered, and that your grief is alive and real and it matters.
Till now, I've simply remembered them as tiny, tiny foetuses and the gruesome way they went. That's not a good thing to want to remember. Miscarriage is painful and confronting and gory and hidden. Apart from the actual loss, there is a lot of trauma associated with miscarriage, oftentimes including hospital situations that are less than nurturing.
My babies were so much more than that, and that is the hope of eternity. They were not just tiny foetuses. They were, they are, real people, alive and well, even now. I just don't know them - yet.
So, I guess we'll have a ceremony at some point. Not sure how or when or where, but it matters. I've spent years telling myself it didn't matter, it doesn't matter, but it does. I've spent years telling myself to get over it, that a ceremony would be silly or self-indulgent. It matters to Him. And it always has.
In the meantime, I'll keep praying about names, I'll try and write to them and about them, and stop trying so hard to keep my eyes from leaking. And I will be grateful - that it matters to Him, enough to give me what I asked for, when the time was right.
And Benedict has his own shelf to sit on, near the photo of my current grandbabies. How apt!
For the Lord will not cast off forever. Though He causes grief, yet He will show compassion, according to the multitude of His mercies. For He does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men. Lamentations 3:31-33
This song has ministered to me so many times.
How can I say it is well
When my voice can barely speak?
How can I sing You a song
in the midst of suffering?
Jesus, will You meet me here?
Let Your peace wash over me
'Cause I need You now more than ever
Teach my soul to sing.
My God is still in control..................
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