I watched the roller coaster climb and couldn’t even bring myself to believe he was on it. Fighting my own nausea despite not even being on the ride, praying ceaselessly, and resisting panic, I mainly planted myself in denial. This could not be happening. How could I let myself believe that my petite-not-even-40-pounds-just-turned-7-year-old was slowing climbing up that coaster and would actually plunge back down? I was confident he wouldn’t reach the ride-with-an-adult height minimum. And he had. And how … continue reading
Mount Moriah And The Climb Of Foster Care
I remember once, my brother asked, does it make it harder or easier?
This baby, this little one, placed in our care.
After the losses, the babies taken, the pain and grief; the now holding and swinging and swaddling…
Does it make it harder or easier?
Yes, I said.
It makes it harder, and it makes it easier. The baby stuff out, not getting dusty in dingy basement; music playing, lights shining, joy bringing. This makes it easier. A … continue reading
When The Mind Breaks
There’s a sign in ASL. It’s the same as the sign for “scar”. But it’s done across the forehead. It’s the sign for “trauma”.
Because isn’t that where trauma lands? The deepest wounds, harshest scars. Right across the mind.
When everything happened last year, there was a distinct point when I realized it, I knew it, it was done. And I told it to my husband: “My mind broke.”
“Your mind isn’t broken,” he was quick to sweetly reassure me, … continue reading
The Sacred Dance: To The Rejoicing And Weeping On Mother’s Day
I remember, not even very long ago, when I didn’t understand why Mother’s Day had to be flavored with sad.
When church services and Facebook feeds paused for grief and remembered loss and honored the hurting, I resisted. I didn’t understand. Why did this sadness have to invade my happy day?
But then suffering would invade my life, and death would invade my womb, and isn’t this one of the strange gifts in trials? An understanding heart?
I come to … continue reading
Good Friday Goodness
I had to go to the doctor last week.
It wasn’t for anything major, and for most people, that wouldn’t cause a wave, but for me it caused floods of PTSD symptoms. A panic attack at work, and hours of battling catastrophic thinking and hyperventilating, I clung to the only help I could.
Jesus.
Isn’t it Him, always only Him, the Rock that is higher than I, the hiding place I have?
A few days later, the doctor ordered blood … continue reading
The Weight Of What Happened
I remember too clearly, last June, sitting in a John Hopkins Urology doctor’s room, a catheter strapped to my leg and fear strapped to my heart. The urologist came in, briefly glanced at the computer, and then asked me, how did this happen?
In that moment so many scenes spun through my mind. The waking up to a wet bed, the too slow recovery from emergency surgery, all the ER trips- 4 in 6 weeks. Scenes of blood all over … continue reading
What Miscarriage Means
The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away.
Sometimes doing both rather suddenly.
Blessed be the name of the Lord.
It’s January. Bitter cold, and quite fitting. Memories of last January are hard to shake. The New Year had been very naively planned out and anticipated. As the month continued, plans were halted, changed, new plans laid, and then all plans shattered all in a roller coaster we never saw coming. On the last day of that previous December, something … continue reading
Sanctity
January. Memes and memories and marches.
January, the month of losing my first baby, of first becoming a Hope Mommy, of labor pains that contracted my soul.
It was a Saturday, the day of the March for Life, my Facebook feed a platform for the full humanity of the tiniest one.
I was 5 and 1/2 weeks pregnant.
I read about the shocking development that happens at only 4 weeks gestation, I saw the pictures and drawings and watched countless … continue reading
A Sacrifice Of Tears
For too long the place I fought the tears the hardest was church. It’s perplexing, isn’t it, but this is often the case with many. The music plays, the verses recited, the Spirit touches. And the tears beg to come.
Then the cheek is bit, the leg pinched, the eyes blink. Instead of allowing the holy work to press the grief, my mind races to anything it can to wage war on my emotions.
Why is this? What is it … continue reading