Sunlight and Shadows

It's been 2 years.
2 years since that first day of hurt.
2 years since the sadness began.
The sadness that doesn't quite go away.


I was surprised at how much I was dreading this day.
I don't know why I thought it wouldn't be a big deal.
It clearly is.
But in the past week or 2, I'd find myself startled by grief.
Grief that seemed out of place.
After all, it's been 2 years.
And we have Davy now.


That's when this whole tangle of emotions begins to twist inside me.
When I was first pregnant with David, a few well meaning people said to me, "see, now you'll have this one. It will help so much. Imagine, without the miscarriage, you wouldn't have this baby."
They were right.
I wouldn't give up my Davy for the world.
But does that mean I have to be glad, or thankful, for losing the baby before him?
I know that isn't what they meant.
But no matter which way I look at it, it doesn't make sense.
Loss doesn't make sense.
It just hurts.
There is no explaining it, no figuring it out.
It stings and burns and you don't have to find the good in it.
I am allowed to say I am glad for Davy, but also that I am so, so sad that I never knew that other baby.
Yes, still.
I won't ever be able to explain how I can be in the sunlight and the shadows at once, but sometimes I am.


The thing about my miscarriage is that it was also the start down a dark road for Aaron and I.
Or maybe we'd been headed down that road already but we hadn't acknowledged it yet.
I can't help but look back on that time with some deep, deep aching in my heart.
I can't help but think of that loss, too.


Those days seem like a life time ago.
Much of that darkness has been lifted.
With hard work, many tears and infinite amounts of grace, God has redeemed us.
Through it all, I have fallen more in love with my husband than ever before.
But more importantly, I have fallen more in love with Jesus.

God has used these trials, these hurts, and my loss, to shape me.

I understand things now that I never did before.

I have compassion and understanding that I didn't have before.

You can say to me, "I am struggling in my marriage," and I won't judge you, or be surprised.

I will say, "I've been there."

I will be real with you.

You can tell me how much you miss your baby.

Even if that baby was no bigger than an apple seed.

And I will cry with you and I will say, "I know."

Because I have lost, I can walk with others who have, too.

And I want to.

Because no one should walk through loss alone.

I recently re-read one of my favorite books, The Yearling.
One of the characters in the book, a young boy, passes away.
His family is full of rough and tumble men.
All his stoic, taciturn older brothers don't know how to deal with their grief.
When Penny, a man who along with his wife, has lost many babies, arrives, his loss allows him to bring them comfort.
From The Yearling:
"The talk broke over Penny in a torrent.  The relief of words washed and cleansed a hurt that had been in-growing.  He listened gravely, nodding his head from time to time.  He was a small staunch rock against which their grief might beat.  When they finished and fell quiet, he talked of his own losses.  It was a reminder that no man was spared.  What all had borne, each could bear.  He shared their sorrow, and they became a part of his, and the sharing spread their grief a little, by thinning it."


Isn't that a beautiful description of the way we can share one another's hurts?
Sitting here now, after loss and hurt and searing grief, there is sunlight in the shadows.
The sunlight is that I can be the comfort the way others were to me.
On one of my hurting days, my sister-in-law reminded me of the verse, "in this world you will have trouble, but take heart, for I have overcome the world."
God did not promise a life free from pain.
We live in a fallen world and pain abounds.
But He promises that in the end, the hurt will be overcome.
And He promises comfort.
"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ." (2 Corinthians 1:3-5)

The kids and I have been learning the hymn, How Firm a Foundation.

It is beautiful.--one of my favorites.

This verse describes so aptly the last 2 years of my life.

“When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
My grace, all-sufficient, shall be thy supply;
The flame shall not harm thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine."

I cannot say yet, that I would have chosen these trials.
What I can say is that I am grateful for the opportunity to offer that comfort I received to someone else.
I could choose anger and bitterness.
Or I can choose to let Him consume my dross. 
I can choose to let Him refine me.
I'm trying.


Love from,
Greta