Breaking the Silence.

This post is dedicated to Amadeus. Amadeus, I watched you fight for life while your heart continued even when it was only beating 74 beats per minute. Even in that teeny tiny state, you possessed the stubbornness of your older 4 yr old brother and you fought so very hard to hang on to life even while the massive hematoma stole all of your nourishment. I am so proud of you and I cannot wait to meet you in person in heaven. Christ keep you sweet child of mine.

Yesterday I was privileged to read an article that snapped me to attention. It gave voice to why I have felt so crippled by my grief. And it gave me a new purpose in my grief: to speak out about the grave injustice and denial of who God is when we sweep babies that die in utero under the rug like an embarrassing taboo situation that NEVER. SHOULD. HAVE. BEEN. Shame on us. Here is the article I read.

For an entire year I have had no more than three months go by at a time before I find out I am pregnant. From July to September I had 3 different children take up residence in my womb and in one year I had 5 children total in my womb. All 5 of them died. All 5 of these children were known, all 5 had a soul, all 5 were intricately knit together by their Heavenly Father. And all  5 of them were flesh of my flesh and so dearly loved.

But they are gone and with them a vacuum of grief that refuses to let me go. But the injustice of it all is that my grief is treated as something taboo. To be very frank and honest, I feel as shunned as a woman that is living with a man out of wedlock and then demands by her Christian parents a beautiful wedding with a white dress. My babies are viewed as if they were not worthy of life, they are not meant to be, there was something wrong with them.

One of my sisters said, "You should be glad your body knew what to do with a baby that wasn't right. At least the baby died instead of being born with something very wrong."

Everyone listen to me and listen very attentively: DEATH IS NEVER. NEVER. NEVER GOD'S PLAN.  Please, read that a few more times. As many times as it takes.

Death is separation. It is the absence of God, the absence of life, the absence of creation, the absence of light.

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord that Jesus shattered death for those that are in Him. It cannot hold us. It is conquered.

But Christians, that does not mean my baby was SUPPOSED to die. Please, please stop glossing over death in this strange way that death is somehow God's plan. Death is the opposite of God. Death is satanic.

World, last year 5 of my living children died. In one year. And I am going to be grieving for a very long time. I may not be able to talk to you without talking about them. I might cry. I might not be able to smile if you crack a joke. Sometimes days go by where I can't eat. But life will be a lot easier to bear if I'm able to stop feeling like their existence and subsequent death was something I did wrong, something embarrassing, something taboo, something gross.

Do you know someone that has lost a baby? Tell her you wish you could have gotten a chance to know her baby on this side of heaven. Ask her how she is. Say her child's name if the child has been named. Give her a chocolate bar and tell her you are praying for her baby in heaven, that Christ will bless and keep the baby until he/she can be reunited with his/her mother.

But please, break the silence. Stop talking so bravely about stopping abortion and in the next breath acting like babies that die in utero were meant to die. We deny who God is if we deny His creative work.

Repost

I came across a post tonight that I'm so glad I wrote last July because it really gave me the kick in the pants I needed tonight. Sometimes it's so easy to fall into the pit of self pity when you just wish someone, anyone, could take away the hell of repeated death or destruction or pain in your face. So here it is again:

There's a certain melancholiness that takes over when you've had a miscarriage. Especially when you have had two miscarriages. Especially when those two miscarriages have happened in a span of less than one pregnancy.

The world is not going to stop for me. Friends and family will not come to mourn with me. I'm not whining. It's just a fact. And they shouldn't anyways because there will not be a funeral. There won't be an obituary. There's nothing to talk about anyways.

People will offer coddling words but it doesn't change the fact that tomorrow you will wake up alone in your barrenness and physical pain to get over it and accept the fact that you have no control over your life and you have to be OK with that because even if you're not there's nothing you can do about it.

You won't do yourself or anyone else any favors to fall into a dark hole of grief because it's not going to change anything and it will just make you lonelier.

God is good. God never changes. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. God is not a buddy Christ and He isn't there to make you live your best life now.

Life is just awful sometimes. And you'll hate yourself for feeling that way because no amount of pity will make it better but will just make you angry that no one can do anything the hell about it.

So you'll act like it never happened and challenge anyone who looks at you sympathetically with an obnoxious look and tell them to leave you alone.  And then you'll marvel in secret that having life stripped from your body when it was too tiny to even look like a human can hurt so much that it feels like your heart has been ripped out of your chest....and that doesn't even cover the embarrassment and grotesqueness of the physical side of a miscarriage.

But the thing is God has to be enough because He is the only one, THE ONLY ONE, who can be what you need. And the only way for Him to be what you need is not to expect that it will feel good. Or that it will make you happy. Or that He will ever give you another living child ever again or at all. Or that you will ever feel happy again. Or that you will ever feel comfort and healing from anything or anyone in this life.

Because God does not promise that in this life.

The only way for your needs to be met is to go where God promises to be, to receive Him in the way He says He gives Himself, and to know (not necessarily feel) that God sent His Son Jesus to save us from our sins so that one day all this Hell on earth WILL BE DESTROYED with all the vengeful wrath of a righteous and Holy God on the evil wretched liars of the devil. And though your sins make you just as deserving and guilty, your sins will be forever erased. Your tears will all be accounted for and wiped away. Your Lord will hold you to His bosom, His Holy arms of love, the place you were missing all of these lonely awful wretched years on earth, and your Heavenly Holy Perfect Love will return your children to your side.

The reason you are so angry with all of your friends and family on earth in this time is because they are not who you are truly yearning for and they can never be what you need right now. You are yearning with the fire of a thousand suns for your Creator. And you feel it now more than ever because He is holding your offspring in His arms and your mother's heart knows it and aches beyond words to join Him. A part of you, of your own flesh, is already in heaven and your soul burns and aches beyond words to join it.

So you will get up. You have to. Wipe your eyes, attend to your duties, and go to the most meager meal in the world. One sip and one bite, despised by so many in it's simplicity and apparent lack of glory and power, because we know it is the miracle where God promises to somehow, some way, sustain you one awful breath at a time in the thorns and hell of this life, to get you to the eschaton.

He is coming as He said.

Solomon

Tonight, while enjoying some new bath salts, I read the book of Ecclesiastes. It's been a while since I've had a good read through this book and, as usual, it did not disappoint. One of the verses that struck me the most tonight and actually made me laugh out loud was this one:

Enjoy Life with the One You Love

7.Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do.

8.Let your garments be always white. Let not oil be lacking on your head.

9.Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. 10.Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going. (Ecclesiastes 9:7-10)

Look at verse 9 in particular. I had to laugh because the first two verses just drip with Gospel, and it seems to be continuing until that word "vain" slips in and you are brought back to reality. Oh yea, this is all just stupid sinful life and we're all, righteous by Christ and unrighteous alike, on our march to death. 

I laughed to my husband that in one word it's like Solomon went from this sweet Gospel speaking man to him: 

Look into my eyes!!!

And yet, all joking aside, in a way this photo is very appropriate. None of us can escape death or the lairs and traps of this evil life. It is awful, it is wretched, and evil happens to those made righteous by Christ and evil alike...as do blessings.

I thought more about Solomon when I had finished the book. Here you have the richest and wisest of all men of all time. And yet over and over he laments his wisdom...earthly human wisdom, even the greatest of all wisdom, is nothing, NOTHING in comparison with the wisdom of God that only He possesses. For none of us can comprehend the ways of God.

So what is left? To eat, drink, be merry, and to set about our work that we have been given to do.

And I am sure in time this will be added to me but there is also a time to weep. A time to mourn. A time to fast.

It is better to go to the house of mourning

than to go to the house of feasting,

for this is the end of all mankind,

and the living will lay it to heart.

Sorrow is better than laughter,

for by sadness of face the heart is made glad.

The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning,

but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. (Ecclesiastes 7: 2-4)

Brokenness, trials, suffering...they strip us naked of all false hopes, of all conceit, of all idols, it leaves us face to face with our ultimate fear: ultimate failure and utter ruin...damnation. But when we open our eyes to come face to face with the enemy, instead, those who have been baptized into Christ see this instead:

photo credit

He is already there, He has already conquered. You are saved.

For a time we fast. We fast to acknowledge the brokenness, to tell our flesh that it is not our Lord, and to pray, Lord come. But after awhile we lift our heads up and are fed by our Lord and then we must keep on in the work He has given us to do. For it is all there is until He comes for us. May we be merry in our doing.

Happy Birthday sweet baby

This morning I opened up my Treasury of Daily Prayer to do devotions with the kids and saw under today's date that today is set aside to remember Martin Luther. "Wow!" I said to the kids, "I didn't know today was Martin Luther day!"

We read through the Psalm, Old Testament, and New Testament readings and then came to the church father writing (a beautiful writing from Luther) and then the explanation of today's saint. (As Lutherans we define saint as a believer Baptized into Christ either living or that has died in the faith.) It gave a brief but detailed account of Luther's life and fight to bring truth to God's people and then ended with why today is his day, because on Feb 18th he died and went home to the Lord.

I don't know why but that made me smile so big. My baby was born on the day Luther went home to the Lord. :)

I was dreading today. It's been bad enough around here. I've hardly been able to eat as I fast and pray to seek the Lord on how to continue through this endless parade of due dates, miscarriages, tests, and the month to month wondering. But today spring came for its first visit. It was the first day in 3 months that my kids stepped outside for more than 30 minutes. In fact, we were ALL outside from about 8:30 am until 1pm and then from about 2 until 4!! Oh it was so wonderful. And even though the snow is up to our knees, we had a blast in the warm air.

Happy Birthday Anastasia. We talked about you all day and went out to dinner. We even had an empty high chair at our table because your 2 yr old brother decided he was too big to sit in a high chair now...it dawned on me as it sat there empty that you would have been in it if you were here. We love you and miss you so much and your big brother even prayed for you this morning, that Jesus would guard and keep you in heaven while we wait to be reunited with you.

Come Soon Jesus, we miss our babies so much.

Her

Sometimes I wish I could go back to being her. That young mom with 4 kids ages 5 and under who was exhausted and yet bursting with joy that I had 4 small adorable little men. And counting. I see her smiling face that looked like she had a joke behind her eyes because they seemed to be laughing.

Oh sure she was tired, and sometimes she worried about having more kids (though really because she was worried she wouldn't be enough for the kids she had), but always she could not believe God had given HER kids. She certainly didn't deserve them, nor was she even good at being a mom, but still He gave.

But I will never go back to being her. I can't.

"And Elkanah, her husband, said to her, “Hannah, why do you weep? And why do you not eat? And why is your heart sad? Am I not more to you than ten sons?” (1 Samuel 1:8, ESV)

Today I found myself thinking on Elkanah's response to Hannah as I questioned myself and my grief.

But it's not about what we already have. Do we not all, barren women, husbandless women, do we not ALL have reasons to rejoice? Christ has risen! But that doesn't make death and sin and earthly life any less a cause for grief sometimes...or sometimes all the time.

I will never go back to being her. I have been taken off the course of married and being fruitful and multiplying and instead my body has turned into a death machine.

It reminds me of the parts in the Divergent trilogy where Tris and Tobias have to go through their "fear landscapes" in which they are forced to either watch the death of loved ones or even kill loved ones over and over again. It's not real, but in the simulation, it feels very real. 

I'm trapped in this sick reality where I am handed a precious life and then cannot sustain it. I can do nothing to protect it, to nurture it, to save it. Something that is supposed to just happen, won't. And time after time I have to watch my body grotesquely expel what it was supposed to house, to protect, to bring safely to the waters of Holy Baptism.

It's not real because this life is not our ultimate reality, heaven is. This nightmare will end and that is why it is worth fighting through until our Savior comes for us. Those 6 children of mine are indeed safe. But while I'm here it's very real. And I can't choose to leave this reality when I want to, nor would I, because I have children to care for and a husband to love: a vocation to perform. 

We all have vocations, whether or not they are the vocations we want, whether or not they include children or husbands. 

But the hard reality is that regardless of whether the Lord does allow another child to be sustained and brought into this life, I have had to watch my body become the enemy of life and I will never be the same again. Until Jesus comes for us I will always have to look back at that girl with the laugh behind her eyes and instead see the woman that has replaced her. A part of me has died with my 6 stillborn children, and when I look at our family pictures I will always see the empty spaces. 

I must say I never realized back in my newly married naivety and joy that perpetual parturition could be turned into perpetual death. But what's a girl to do? 

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming.

There's something strangely comforting about having it all come crashing down around you, to be left helpless and defeated and to become a hostage of death....because someone else became death's hostage before me...and well, he conquered it. 

So while this feels real, and it will be real for quite some time, it WILL end. sigh. Sometime.  

You're going to miss this

Anyone who has ever been a parent has almost certainly been met with the words "You're going to miss this." Another similar sentiment is, "Enjoy it, because it will be gone so quickly." But I want to give you a whole new sentiment to focus on that has ended that nonsense once and for all.

You are not going to miss this. Well, MAYBE you will, but you do not have to, because THIS is broken. This is sinful. This is fallen. And friends, what is to come is so, SO much better.

No one looks at a laboring woman and tells her, "Quick! Enjoy this! It will be over so soon!" No one wags their finger at her in her suffering and says, "You better wake up and enjoy this because it will be over and then you will never get it back!"

I do NOT miss labor. I will NEVER miss labor. Yes, I am so thankful I was able to give birth to my children, that God fearfully and wonderfully made my body in a way to be able to do that, and that, mercifully, I survived each birth even with varying degrees of serious injury.

All of life is afflicted by birth pains of sin and death. We are in labor for this life that is going to end and like a laboring woman we know not how long it will last, nor how severe the contractions will be. And then, once and for all, all of the pain and brokenness will be over and...

We will never have to miss anything ever again, because forever, for all of eternity, we will be in peace and joy and communion with one another.

Don't miss this, look forward to when you will have it all, again, but perfect and forever.

A dear friend of mine who has been sitting in the pit with me while I mourn, grieve, and grapple with my broken reality was dreaming on the day she will be in her mansion in heaven with all her beloved children, including her sweet baby who already waits for her, and was saying how cool it will be to say, "Hey everyone, I'm going to Grandma's house, and I'll be back in a few hundred years." And everyone will shout their goodbyes or maybe decide to walk along, but there will be no sadness because we are all always in communion and never in sickness or death or loss ever again.

Don't add to your grief or anyone's grief by telling them to cling to something they cannot keep and don't really want to anyways. Instead, add to their joy by telling them that when this imperfect version fades away, they WILL GET IT BACK, but this time, PERFECTED!

You will get it back.

Christ is coming as He said.

And, as another friend shared with me, when we're grieving and lost and alone, "we get up and drag ourselves into the kitchen, put on a cup of tea, and when it's warm enough we go sit outside in a lawn chair and pretend we're watching our kids play, when really we're looking for something over their heads on the horizon - - it is there within us and yet a long way still off." 

Christ keep us. Come Soon Lord Jesus.

Grace

Last night I saw an article linked to that sought to provide parents with Biblical counsel on dealing with a child that is throwing a tantrum. It looked at the common ways most parents deal with them and the perceived outcomes for the child.

1. Laugh (not at the child but to excuse the behavior) or walk away.

2. Remove the child to a separate space.

The author made the claim that both of these ways would not only speak an acceptance of the behavior to the child but indeed would ignore a parent's responsibility to train up the child in the way he/she should go.

The author of the article made the claim that tantrums in children are nothing but selfishness, sin, and evil and that it should be stopped with loving discipline, correction, and rebuke.

At first I felt guilty. How many times in the past weeks have I not responded to tantrums with quick but calm discipline and rebuke?

But then I thought about those tantrums, about their cause. I also thought about my own tantrums. (No, not displayed in a way of a child, but in my heart.) And then I thought about some Biblical tantrums, and how God dealt with them. One in particular comes to mind:

"Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to me and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.” Then he was afraid, and he arose and ran for his life and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there.

But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he asked that he might die, saying, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.” And he lay down and slept under a broom tree. And behold, an angel touched him and said to him, “Arise and eat.” And he looked, and behold, there was at his head a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. And he ate and drank and lay down again. And the angel of theLord came again a second time and touched him and said, “Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you.” And he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God.

There he came to a cave and lodged in it. And behold, the word of theLord came to him, and he said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”He said, “I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.” And he said, “Go out and stand on the mount before the Lord.” And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before theLord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whisper. And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And behold,there came a voice to him and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He said, “I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.” And the Lord said to him, “Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus. And when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael to be king over Syria. And Jehu the son of Nimshi you shall anoint to be king over Israel, and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah you shall anoint to be prophet in your place. And the one who escapes from the sword of Hazael shall Jehu put to death, and the one who escapes from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha put to death. Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.” 1 Kings 19:1-18

Elijah had been provided every proof that God indeed was who He said He was, that He was strong to save and indeed provided for His people. And yet, when he came upon hardship, he fell to the ground and asked God to take away his life. 

Life is full of suffering. Suffering cuts you to the very core of your being and threatens to destroy you. And in my children, when they are on the floor thrashing and crying and screaming, I sometimes see Elijah. I see Job. I see Jonah. I see David. I see Peter. Throughout all of time humans have fallen victim to their weak flesh, to their sorrow, to the fallen flesh that threatens to consume us. 

And friends, sisters, IT IS GRIEVOUS! For goodness' sake, let the children grieve! I myself must grieve or I will surely become hardened and rebellious! I must grieve or that grief will go somewhere, and I'm guessing the result would be much less constructive than tears and thrashing. 

For you to not let your children grieve whatever is causing them hardship is not only cruel but it denies the truth, that we are victims of a life turned hellish. That sin constantly devours us and our made-in-Christ's image body. Sin SHOULD make us mad, it SHOULD cause us to grieve, IT IS HARD.  And rather than discipline it out of my children and send the LIE that self control and self image to others is how they gain righteousness, instead I want to grieve sin with them and build them up in Christ. 

Here's how a tantrum goes in our house. 

When I come upon a child that is thrashing, screaming, wailing, etc, I drop to my knees and calmly and quietly say "Stop crying." I wait a few seconds to assess what is happening and if the child cannot control the wailing I pick the child up and take them to my bed and say, "You cry here where you are safe and I will be back in a moment." I let the child scream it all out while I'm finishing whatever it was I was working on. Then when I hear that the room is quiet I go in and sit on the bed. "I'm glad to see you have calmed down a bit, can you tell me what was wrong?" 

Here is the critical part. Either the child is lamenting something or the child has sinned and is angry. If the child has sinned we talk about the sin, why it is wrong according to God's Word and how it has broken not only God's law, but our home's law. We talk about how the child could have responded to what happened, and how in order to remind the child about sin's consequence we have to discipline him. Then the child apologizes to whomever he wronged and the child is absolved. 

However, if the child is simply lamenting life, so and so won't let me play with the toy I want, I'm hungry, I'm tried, etc etc, then I lament with them. "I'm so sorry you can't play with the toy you want. It's hard and sad sometimes when life does not go our way." I rock the child, hug them, and remind them that when life is hard they can come to me before they get upset and I will help them. Then usually they need food. With boys it's always about food. *smile* It is not a sin to be sad. It is not a sin to scream and cry and grieve. It is not even a sin to want something, even if as a parent we think what the child wants is selfish or ridiculous. God Himself tells us to bring ALL of our requests to Him, and that He gladly hears them, even if we come with tears and sobbing. 

Parents, do not let your piety exceed the piety of our Heavenly Father. It pleases Him greatly to have mercy on those who fear Him, on those who call on His name, on those who have been filled with the Holy Spirit from Baptism and His Word. Your children are such. They are not heathen, they are vessels of the Holy Spirit. Your discipline does not produce piety, the Holy Spirit does that. Discipline has its place, which is to turn a rebellious heart away from sin, but there's a reason only one book of the Bible talks about the rod of discipline, yes, it is a tool, but far more is the tool of mercy, of understanding, of providence even when the child does not seem to deserve it, as we ourselves know we do not. You must determine whether your child is truly rebelling, truly stuck in sin, or whether your child is grieving. And whenever a man is grieving or confused or just plain stupid, God always deals tenderly with those who are His.

"I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel? “Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.” But what is God's reply to him? “I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace." (Romans 11:1-6, ESV)

May we all be filled with the Holy Spirit to help us continue on in this noble work. May Christ give us every wisdom for turning our children's hearts to Him.