Day 26: Visit

Day 26 (Ok, so it's not actually, but I'm trying to catch up here!) of 31 days of healing. Joining Kate with a 5-minute free-write on the word VISIT

GO:

There have been 5 new babies born in our church family over the past month. After each one, a joyous email is sent to the whole church body announcing the name, details, and that Mama and Baby are doing fine. Then there is usually some comment about whether or not they are ready for visitors, and/or how to help out the new parents.

The pastoral prayer this week included all the new parents and babies, prayers of thanks for their health and blessings for their futures. It also included all the expecting mothers (of which there are quite a few!).

I can't help but think - what about the rest of us? What about the mothers like me who didn't get the fairy tale ending? What about coming to visit and bring a meal for the mother who doesn't have a cute newborn to show off? What about looking at the heart-wrenching but still beautiful photos of the stillborn baby? What about prayers for healing of the broken hearts of the mothers who got something they never expected?

It is wonderful to celebrate new life. I am genuinely happy that our church family has so many blessed little ones. But I can't help feel a bit forgotten. Yes, we are to rejoice with the rejoicing, but where are those to mourn with those who mourn?

When a father, mother, sister, brother, cousin, aunt, etc. passes away, there is always a throng of people sharing their memories, giving condolences, bringing comfort. 

When a baby passes away before it was born, there is often silence and a sense of loneliness. 

I have been grateful to find sisters online who have been through loss of a baby, but in real life there have been very few who have reached out to me in my pain. My mother and grandmother, and my former college roommate, and another friend from college who experienced a miscarriage around the same time as Mikayla was stillborn. 

We need to do better. We need to acknowledge these precious little lives that continue in heaven. We need to mourn with those who mourn even as we rejoice with those who rejoice. Stillbirth is still a birth, and a life lost before birth is still a life.