Day 29 of 31 days of Healing, I'm joining up today with incourage to share that words matter!
Words are things that can bring people together or tear people apart. Going through my journey post-loss, I have seen numerous posts by various people of things to say or not to say to someone who has recently lost a child or baby. Words can encourage and build up, healing a broken heart, or they can tear down and add to the already overwhelming weight of a loss.
I will not offer a list of phrases to say or avoid, but I will say that words are very important. Speak to me. Speak the names of my babies. Do not skirt around the issue, because words shared with a friend can be a healing balm. Listen to me. Let me share my story. Let me put my love into words and paint a picture in your mind of the precious life I carried, though you never got to meet my baby.
I have been blessed by words shared by others, words that unite, words that let me know I am not alone, and the emotions that are boiling over in my heart are a normal and natural reaction from the intense fire of saying goodbye. Words that let me see the beauty that can blossom from the ashes. Words that give me hope for myself that the fire will not always be such a fierce and painful thing, but will settle down to a pleasant warming of love.
I offer up my own words here, both for myself and for others. I have always needed to process feelings through words, but I also hope and pray that my words might also bless those who read here as I have been blessed by the words of others. Most of all I hope that all of my words will point upward to the WORD become flesh who dwelt among us.
Showing posts with label Reaching Out. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reaching Out. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 29, 2014
Monday, October 27, 2014
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.
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.
Thursday, August 28, 2014
Five Minute Friday: Reaching Out
Prompt of the week: REACH
GO:
So often we are told to reach for the stars, or reach for our dreams. We are told to chase what we want, and work for what we long for. Shoot for the moon, and don't settle for anything less than perfection.
While it is good to have a goal to work towards, and there is nothing wrong with dreaming, Jesus has called us to do so much more than reach for the stars.
When Peter was walking on water and lost focus and started sinking, he didn't reach for any stars or dreams. He reached for his savior. When I was lying in a hospital bed wracked with contractions, I couldn't do anything to chase my dreams. I could only reach heavenward.
But we can't stop there either. We must reach for our savior, and once He has grasped hold of us, we are then to reach outwards to others. We are told to extend the comfort we have received from Christ out to our hurting brothers and sisters. We are told to hold out to our enemies the same kind of forgiveness we were given when we were enemies of God. We are commanded to go fishing for men, and you can't go fishing without doing some reaching out beyond yourself.
I praise God that He enabled me to reach out and cling tightly to Him in my darkest time of need, and I pray that God would equip me to reach out and extend the same lifeline to others who are in darker times of need because they don't even know which direction to reach.
STOP.
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