Words of Life for the Grief of Death

There’s just something about loss anniversaries that’s inexplicably hard. And it’s grief, yes, but it’s something more than that, something about being in the same spot of the cosmos that you were when things happened. There’s a heavy darkness that comes, that you know isn’t just the sadness in your heart but it’s the wound in your spirit being pressed.

A couple Sundays ago, it was the anniversary of when we took the first pregnancy test that would end with miscarriage. It was the last time I’d feel happy holding that stick, smiling at the plus sign, free from the weight of the other side. There were no triggers then, it was all still a beautiful aspect of my life. It was all still… life. But a few days later things drastically changed and a whole new season and in some ways a whole new me came out on the other side.

That Sunday was hard. It was hard remembering that four years ago in that spot of the cosmos had been the before me. And now there I stood, four years later, the after me. How much had changed.

I felt so heavy that day, remembering and feeling, and it wasn’t even the next Sunday yet, the Sunday that we lost that little one, but the anniversary of that positive pregnancy test about undid me.

We call it “Discovered You” days, those anniversaries for hope moms of when we found out the baby was there. Before the baby was gone.

I went to church that Sunday, feeling hallow yet heavy, and weary in my soul. All the questions, all the layers, still there. I cried through the music, and do you ever have those moments where you don’t even have the flicker of hope to look for a light?

Yet in those moments, the ones where I’m not even seeking, He comes to me.

In those moments, the ones where I’m not even seeking, He comes to me.

The sermon is on Romans 8:31-39. I feel a weak smile in my soul, remember how my Bible reading that morning was on Revelation 21, know He’s giving me another divinely timed passage. And then later, that afternoon, from someone I barely knew, who didn’t know my story, didn’t know the meaning of that day, who I had dared, days before, to open up with some about fear- she emails me Isaiah 43, and types my name into the passage.

Romans 8, Revelation 21, Isaiah 43. More than a conqueror, inseparable love, a new heaven and a new earth, a Presence in deep waters Who summons me by name.

My spirit presses back into the Father, leans on Him frailly, and I get to the end of the day and know that when near the end of me, He comes.

A Bible reading plan, picked hundreds of days before, a sermon series worked through for months, a new acquaintance who hadn’t had time to email back sooner. These are the fingerprints of a gentle God. And when the Divine Word comes to you in its Divine timing, three times in a dark day… you lean a little closer and receive the manna with gratitude and find the strength from Him to press on.

The week continued, the memories unfold, I’m on a date with my husband when I reflect on it- four years before, we were together with someone watching our kids as well. Because we were in the ER. And they were talking about low HCG and threatened miscarriage. And it began.

And that next day, that next Sunday, that next hard anniversary, it’s like being back in that other world. Or maybe it’s like both worlds are folding together and pressing into each other. The four years before, bent over my bed with contractions, and I’ll never forget how cold death felt when you feel it with labor pains that never lead to life. And then four years later, sitting on that bed, crying my eyes out, because it is a complete lie that time heals all wounds, and looking over the previous four years, my goodness there are so many more wounds.

The snow starts falling, the kids’ delight sky high. And it really is beautiful, the white of it, the light of it, and they play with smiles bursting with their joy. Normally on these “heaven” anniversaries we blow bubbles as a family and pause to remember, but I know today in this ice cold world that won’t do. So I bend down and trace it in the snow, remembering this little one, honoring the little life. I look at the ones here playing, so thankful, and give myself the space for sadness to miss a three year old’s pair of boot prints that I wish were here too.

Not every hard day comes with a balm. That Sunday before, it had come, it had come with passages of peace and hope that God had brought. This Sunday though, I open my devotions and the title says “When He Sees the Blood.” And I know this too is divinely timed, and my other Bible reading plan discusses the Passover also. And I remember it all too well, the first times seeing red, and I look at the devotional and Bible reading and remember these lessons of how He’s used blood to heal and spare. To use the blood to keep His death angel away, and I know this has a semblance of balm, but it nags in me the questions too. The blood sight for me meant that death had indeed been allowed, been allowed to take my tiniest of ones from the depths of my own self. And more red would come, and more death allowed, and the life-giving parts of me taken too. I look at my devotions and can’t decide if this is a helpful timed read or not.

But as always, I must look ahead, must look forward, isn’t that hope? And what did the Passover point towards but more red running, red for healing and sparing, and yet death for the one shedding it.

And as I think about Jesus, think about the Christ Lord, pouring out His love and blood for us, I know it’s true- that even when red runs its course to death, healing and sparing can still come too. I don’t know what God’s greater purposes are in my miscarriages, but I know that by looking to the cross I can see that even in the worst of bloody deaths, death can still be conquered and life abundant. And this gives the ultimate hope for my babies gone, because I can cling to where they are gone to.

The balm doesn’t feel as gentle that day, doesn’t feel as soothing, and requires the faith to look ahead. Maybe it’s not really meant to be a balm, but an anchor. Heavy and hard, yes, but life sustaining.

“We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul…”

Hebrews 6:19 ESV

All these words, the sweetly-timed, the heavy lessons, the uplifting and question stirring, the theological and comforting- all of these are words of life. Words of life that give hope and holding to the one grieving death. And the days with gentle balm come, and the days with questions and wrestling come; and we can look back on the balm days and find comfort, and look ahead to the future days and find hope.

Whatever your grief journey, whatever your death mourned, go to the Giver of the Words of life, dear one. There you’ll find comfort and hope and an anchor. And when your hope-flame can’t flicker enough to find the light, see in what ways the Light will still shine on you.