Ramblings of My Heart and Soul: Called

Called

I don't have any idea what I want to say, so this might be a jumbled post... but that's okay. Here, I have the freedom to speak my feelings without the fear of being psychoanalyzed. Here, I can be angry without getting a salvation speech. Here, I can cry onto my keyboard and no one will fault me for it.

These last two weeks have been brutal. Two babies have gone home to Jesus and in both instances, my heart was broken to no lesser degree than when we were told Raelyn would not live. I feel like I have been transported back in time 159 days to the day we left the hospital alone. Grief is a strange beast that hides and waits for the time to strike. This is a whole new level I have never experienced before and its a little scary. I have never had this much empathy for another person before--to feel like I am right there with them even though I don't know them very well or at all.

I have realized how inadequate it is to say "I'm sorry" and how the urge to try to console could cause someone to say hurtful things. I was told I don't know how many times that "this is just God's will for you" or "Just remember Jeremiah 29:11" (For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.) or "maybe its just better this way". Really?!? Because I'm pretty sure this is not better than bringing a living child home and if this is God's plan to prosper me and not to harm me, then He messed up because this has harmed me somethin' fierce! (Just to let you know, these responses no longer mirror my true feelings, but I thought each one of them and more during the initial shockwave of grief.) I have learned that the canned scriptural responses that are always accompanied by a pat on the shoulder are not an acceptable offering to a grieving family.

When I learned of my friends' losses, I had this urge to comfort them, to let them know that there is someone here they can talk to, to let them know that they will breathe again. That reassurance alone is what I longed for in the weeks following Raelyn's death. I needed to know that the crushing weight in my chest that held me down would lift slightly so that I could breathe. I looked into the eyes of women who had lost children and saw no compassion, no spark of empathy, no prickling sensation of sorrow for their own losses much less for mine. To me, this was inconceivable! How could these women who have been where I am do nothing? I knew in those moments that this was a small part of God's (much bigger) plan--that there would never be a woman in my path who would have to walk this path alone. If she chooses to keep it inside, she may, but I will always be there for her to cry on.

I had one friend who took me in and cried with me. She looked at Raelyn's pictures and showed all the pride of a mother. She let me know that it was okay to be angry, to be broken, to be a mother even though I have no living children. She just listened and cried with me--and that's okay. Now, I am to be that shoulder for someone else, no matter how broken I become in the process.