Grief

Jesus wept. (John 11:35)

This is one of those posts that could get away from me very easily, but I intend to try my hardest to make it as short and to the point as possible. I've been thinking a lot about grief lately - partially because of some recent personal experiences, but mostly from watching new friends walk through a gut-wrenching loss. I have led a very blessed life. I've had sorrows and disappointments, but until a few years ago I'd never truly experienced grief. And then in July of last year Peter and I lost our first baby in a miscarriage at the beginning of the 15th week of my pregnancy. How we wanted that baby! We had tried for over a year to get pregnant and had excitedly and impatiently waited through the first trimester for the time when it would be "safe" to share the news with the world. We moved to a 2-bedroom apartment so that we could have a nursery. We started thinking about names. We spent time dreaming about what it would be like to be parents, wondering whose personality our little one would take after, which side of the family he or she would most resemble in appearance.

I don't intend to get into the details of the very long and horrible night of our miscarriage. Simply put, there was a moment when I sat alone in the very early hours of a summer morning and faced the horrendous realization that the baby we had loved and anticipated and planned for had died, and there was nothing, nothing, nothing I could do to take that back or change it. I remember that exact moment very clearly. It was probably one of the most difficult of my life so far. In what could only have been a second or two I tried to wrap my mind around this horrible information, and then was immediately hit with the thought that I now had to go, wake up my sweet husband who was sleeping peacefully in the next room, and break his heart.

The point of this post isn't about my grief in that moment, but actually what happened next. I remember thinking clearly (who knows, I may have even said it out loud), I CANNOT do this. I CANNOT bear this. But as soon as I said it I absolutely knew two things. First of all, I was not alone. The God in whom I trusted my life was there with me, loving me. Secondly, and in some ways more importantly, He grieved. My heartbreak was just a miniature reflection of His own. He wasn't just there bearing MY burden. He too grieved. For me. For my baby - His beautiful creation. For a death, a severing of relationship, that He never intended and never wanted. I firmly believe that the God of the universe, the Maker of everything, loved my baby enough to sit with me in a tiny apartment bathroom on an early Monday morning and weep.

It is in no way my intention to get into the problem of pain here. If you were to ask me that morning if I thought God could have prevented my miscarriage I would have said yes. I would say yes today. I don't know why He didn't. But I have no doubt that He loves my child, and I have no doubt that He weeps with those who weep and mourns with those who mourn - not just as a Friend, not even just as a Comforter, but as one who suffers, and as one who feels more than any of us the sorrow of death. As King David once said about his own lost child, "I will go to him, but he will not return to me." Someday I too will get to meet this first child of mine and all my wonderings and longings will be satisfied. Until then I know my baby is safe - more than safe - in the arms of Someone who grieves our every pain and who loves beyond all our imaginings.