On all Soul’s Day of this year, I spoke at a Women’s Conference about facing pregnancy and infant loss in faith and community.  It was a beautiful, grace filled day.  At one point in my talk, I reminded listeners of the bitter truth that by the time the weekend was over some one sitting in that room would probably face pregnancy or infant loss.   

It’s a fact.   This is more common that anyone wants to realize.  It affects all of us.

What I didn’t expect is that I would be the one receiving the devastating news.  It took almost a week rather than the weekend, but the following Friday I learned that my early pregnancy was not going as planned.  

Hope was not lost, however, baby was alive and we would check again in a couple weeks.   In the meantime there was nothing to do but wait.   I took it to prayer.  I turned to Jesus and to my community, just like I told that room full of women they needed to do.  

And I was surrounded with encouraging texts, emails, phone calls, and offers of help.  The waiting is always the hardest part.  Mountains of tears shed in moments of anxious prayer.  

Jesus…. I don’t want to do this again.

And a whisper. 

I know. 

But I’m right here and I’m not going anywhere.

When it came time for my follow up appointment I had to go by myself, but I knew I wasn’t alone.  When I heard the news, I expeienced not heartache, but peace.

Quiet surrender.

God gave me that time of waiting, of early warning to prepare my heart to do this again.  To remind me that He would not leave me alone in this.  Not before.  Not now.

Grace sufficient for the moment.

But that of course, doesn’t mean it has been easy.  I started bleeding the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and delivered baby on the Saturday after.  I spent Thanksgiving day itself curled up in bed- alternatively sleeping and weeping.  

I still wish I didn’t have to do this again.

I went to church the First Sunday in Advent in a complete fog.  In hindsight, I probably should have stayed home, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.  I just needed to be with Jesus.

A few days after the miscarriage, I was curled up in our room in a cocoon of recovery and we found ourselves joined by our older children.  They wanted to know what we had named baby.

Someone started throwing out five letter names.  It was decreed by dad that the baby was a girl because that was what I had suspected from the beginning and I’ve never been wrong.  Kylee liked Grace.

I’d felt it for the last two weeks- all is grace.

Someone, I don’t remember who, said Naomi has five letters.   Tim went frantically to his Bible.  To a passage he had read just a few days earlier.

 

“Do not call me Naomi [sweet].  Call be Mara [bitter] for the Almighty has made my life very bitter.  I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty.”  (Ruth 1: 20)

Pregnancy and infant loss lives to make us bitter.  To make us feel emptiness where a life once grew.  We are tempted to lose hope.  To lose trust in Jesus.  To turn away from Him because he seemed to forget us.

Yet in it there is also grace.

Grace in the reassurances of God’s promises to be with us always.  Grace in the love of family and friends.   Grace in the witness of those who will gather with us to celebrate Naomi’s brief life in the middle of the holiday craziness.

Grace that comes in as many unique ways as there are babies who die each year.

Bitter Grace.

Sweet Grace.

Naomi Grace.

Facing miscarriage?  You are not alone.

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