1) Tell us about the wonderful you!
I am a wife to one, and momma to 4. My husband is in the Air Force, we currently we are stationed in San Antonio. Texas is seriously awesome, we love living here and our church is great! We've really grown in the Lord and have people around us that help us, help our marriage, help our family and have truly been great encouragers in the Lord.
2) This topic is one that causes deep feelings of grief and questioning. How have you found a way to cling to The Lord in this rather than retreat from Him.
Right before we lost our baby, I felt a revival in my heart after a season where I had been stagnant. So leading up to the miscarriage, I had been re-baptized 2 months prior. I had been baptized once before when I was 10, but as a grown adult, I wanted to redeclare that decision and rededicate my life to living for him. At the time didn't know that I was pregnant, nor were we trying.
God knew. He knew I would need Him. My clinging was simply an acknowledgement that God was holding onto me first. It was nothing on my own doing, but the Lord calling out to me and me just reacting to his irresistible grace and love.
3) I’ve had several friends walk through this, but as someone who hasn’t experienced it for myself, I never know what to say. I don’t want to say too much or too little. What did you need from your friends in this season?
This is a hard question, because I think everyone can respond differently. For me, I secluded myself and I didnt want to do anything. So when I had friends who reached out to check on me first, that was encouraging. I didn't want to be the person who would text someone or turn the subject of conversation to something sad, so when friends acknowledged and asked me about it, it gave me an opportunity to share and outwardly express my grief.
But most of all, I needed people praying for me and pointing me back to God. The enemy could have used this season to turn my back against the Lord, but I truly believe that God was close to me during this season of suffering.
4) When people experience miscarriage it seems doubting God’s goodness would be easy to do and definitely something the enemy would use to distract. Were there any scriptures you held tight to during this time to keep focused on the GOODNESS of God rather than letting your mind go the other way.
I found verses in stages of grief:
Psalm 55- explained the beginning of my grief
The passage starts out with (1)“Listen to my prayer, O God, do not ignore my plea; hear me and answer me. My thoughts trouble me and I am distraught.”, (4) my heart is anguish within me”, (5) Fear and trembling have beset me; horror has overwhelmed me.”
The passage ends with the words, (23) “As for me, I trust in you.”
Daniel 3:17-18 “If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if He does not,”
I began to pray that even if he does not, that He was still good. God cares about the posture of your heart, and getting my heart to accept this was the hardest part.
John 11:35 “Jesus wept”- the shortest verse in english* (3 shortest in its original greek)
This passage was about the sisters of Lazarus who were grieving and mourning the loss of their brother. And in verse 33 it says, “When Jesus saw her weeping, and the jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was moved in spirit and troubled.”
Jesus cares about my loss. He was there with me, weeping and holding me close the entire time.
The final verse that continues to bring healing 1 Peter 5:10- “And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.”
This verse just kept showing up everywhere. I felt like I was at my most vulnerable and the enemy was prowling around me. I was short tempered during this time, I was impatient and I felt like I had no choice but to truly believe that God works all things for His good(Romans 8:28)
I just didn't know what “the good” was yet, so in a season of waiting, I had to trust that God had a plan. Which was to restore, confirm, strengthen, establish. I put my whole heart in that verse and truly believed it, and still do.
5) Jesus promises to be near to the broken hearted, this would be one of the most painful heartbreaks, can you share a little about the dream you had where you felt the Lord’s presence.
The morning I woke up to come to the realization that I might have been miscarrying, I started praying immediately. My husband met me at the doctor but they couldn't actually confirm our loss yet. I did a blood draw and ultrasound. They told me to come back in 3 days for another blood draw.
Those 3 days were the long days of my life and without a doubt the most sorrowful. I prayed Psalm 55, Daniel 3, JOhn 11:35 and 1 Peter 5:10 like they were stages of grief.
When the Doctor told us that we lost the baby after those 3 days of waiting… I went home confused because I had prayed the most I had ever prayed up to that point in my life.
I feel asleep on my husband's chest with his shirt soaked in my tears and I had the dream.
I had recently lost my great grandpa(I was pregnant at his funeral- i just wasn't aware of it yet). I Regularly have had dreams of my great grandma who died a few years prior and she's shown up in my dream in major point of my life. (engagement, marriage, pregnancy) kinda cool because she’s always been in my dreams like that after her passing. Well my great grandpa had never been present in those dreams until after his passing and on the night we lost our baby.
I dreamed that both my Grandpa and Grandma were walking towards me carrying a baby in a swaddle. We were in the clouds and my rocking chair(that was in Kennedi’s room) was in the clouds with us. I sat down in the rocker and they handed me the baby. I rocked the baby for what seemed like hours. Holding and rocking. The baby told me that his name was Jackson(Which wasn't a name we had picked for him- but is his name now) and he was going to be ok. And that I was going to be ok. Right before I woke up, I handed Jackson back to my Grandparents, watched them walk off into clouds until I couldn't see them anymore and then I woke up.
6) What was the best Godly guidance you received during this season that you’d love to share with the other women walking through this currently or have walked through it.
Allow God to use you during loss and suffering. Accept Him into the suffering and don’t let the suffering go to waste. God is close to the broken hearted. I truly believe that.
Genesis 50:20 “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”
Because I allowed this suffering to not make me bitter, the story God gave me through Jackson has become a light. I asked God to give me courage to share Jackson and his life and prayed for God to use this for HIS GLORY. He then started sending me women who had or were experiencing loss. He equipped me to be a helper. (which is funny because my enneagram is 2)
7) I had a friend who went through this loss and someone said to her, “I thought you had enough time” in regards to grieving. Speaking from your own story have you felt like part of you holds that loss in your heart each day?
He's changed my perspective slowly. Grieving is a process and no one can put a number on the days.
Psalm 30:11 says, “You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy.”
That “joy” I will receive might not be in this lifetime on earth… but this promise is still true because one day I WILL be reunited with Jackson. And we will be dancing together on golden streets.
Grief doesn't mean that I don't accept God’s plan, grief becomes my acknowledgment that I need His presence within His plan. And everytime I talk to someone about this, I pray that he will continue to restore, confirm, strengthen and establish.
8) I typically ask each guest on the show to share what they would tell someone if they asked what they needed to live with less of in regards to becoming more like Christ. BUT I felt the Lord wanted me to ask you, “How did you want others praying for you while you walked through this season.”
That the Lord would reveal that His plans are greater than my own.
Isaiah 55:8-9 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
Praying that the pain will be taken away, to me, sounded like an empty prayer. Not saying that the Lord couldn’t use that prayer, but I selfishly wanted to hold onto the pain because the pain was associated with something I lost. And that meant if I held onto the pain, then I wasn't giving up on my baby. Grief becomes a matter that overtakes your heart, so praying that the Lord will give me a new heart within the suffering.
The Lord has given me a new heart on this. The reality is, God holds Him now. He is greater than I. His plans are greater than mine. When I realize that God is still good despite the pain, that's where I was able to heal.
Job 1:21 “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
That the Lord would instill THAT perspective. That He gives, He takes away. That even if He doesn’t save, his ways are still higher than mine.
God hand picked me to carry an angel for Him. Jackson's first steps were on holy ground. And his first words were singing in a choir of angels. I am confident that his life was not in vain and I refuse to allow the enemy to tell me otherwise.
