A month ago I stood in the hallway after church with an acquaintance friend. I knew she was expecting her second baby, so I asked her how she was feeling. As soon as the words left my mouth tears welled up in her eyes. A look of shock formed on her face.
“We lost the baby,” she said in a soft, trembling voice.
“But the first trimester was over, right?” I responded, confused that this really does happen after a woman crosses the safety line of three months.
“Yes, I was twelve weeks.”
My friend went on to share with me the details of afterwards, how difficult it had been, and how she didn’t understand because there were no complications in her first pregnancy.
Tears came to my eyes as I tried to express my sorrow for her loss. I kept it a secret that I, too, was pregnant. Five weeks to be exact. And privately fear took root in my own joy.
The next Sunday I sat in the sanctuary and glanced to my right. There, at the end of the row, sat my friend. I just looked at her and silently prayed for God to comfort her. Then I begged Him to spare me the loss of my child. Tears came to my eyes at the thought. I dismissed them. Surely that wouldn’t happen to me, too.
I went home, and that week I announced my pregnancy to the world. I wrote a blog post called “Why I’m Announcing My Pregnancy at 5 Weeks.” As I wrote my soul began to grieve for my tiny unborn baby. Just the thought of not feeling his face or touching her toes made me gasp for air. I sobbed. And I wrote. And I sobbed and I wrote. But surely, surely, that will never happen. Those things are a surprise, aren’t they? As I hit publish, there was a tinge of fear, but I didn’t let that stop me. The Spirit led me, and I followed. Write the post. And so I did.
And then a week passed. Something just wasn’t right. I’m highly intuitive without being a mama, but add mama intuition on top of it and I have a blessing and a curse. I just didn’t feel pregnant.
Then there was the visible evidence. There was no heartbeat. “But there’s still hope!” the doctor told me, “Go home and wait.” And I held onto that hope white knuckled. God is the One who breathes life into souls. God is the One who raises dead people to life. God is the One with full power and authority to make my baby’s heart beat.
I began to beg. “God, please, please save my baby’s life! I’m begging you God!” And He quietly whispered back, “But Brenda, it’s my will to be done, remember?”
And so I changed my tune. “Yes, God, you are good and perfect, and you love me. You know my will. May Your will be done.”
Then I waited. And I prayed.
The last day I stopped praying. I asked myself, “Why can’t I pray any more?” And the answer came to me, “Because I know God has answered.”
That night I was no longer pregnant.
I am heartbroken.
God has been so gracious. He prepared me well and early. If you’ve followed this story from my announcement, and then through my social media posts, you have witnessed a faithful God preparing His daughter for tragedy. My baby was never meant for me to hold right now, on earth. My baby’s purpose is to show me more of God’s glory and teach me more of His sovereignty, and to show all of you Jesus, too.
I heard in a sermon once that some theologians believe that babies remain babies in heaven so that their parents get the joy of watching them grow up to the age of maturation – around 33 years old when Jesus died on the Cross. After all, heaven is filled with all joyous, good things, and what better joy than a baby? I know without a doubt that my baby is in heaven. And I know without a doubt that I will see her one day. But what a glorious thought that she’ll still be a baby when I get there. God knows how much I love babies, how I wish I could have lots of them. Now I have one to raise in heaven.
I do not at all regret announcing my pregnancy at 5 weeks.
Our culture has conditioned us to not celebrate life. We qualify it by age, size, gender, race, accomplishment, intelligence, attractiveness, pedigree, fame, and wealth. But God is the Creator of life. God became life. God sacrificed the life of His own Son so that we can have life – not just fleshly life, but a life free from bondage here on earth and an eternal life in heaven.
Satan, on the other hand, hates life. He hates life because he knows that God is Life, and He is death. Satan steals, kills, and destroys in order to take life from us – physically and spiritually. Satan wants my unborn child’s life to go unnoticed. To be thought of as not real or too little or of no significance. When we minimize life we are pawns in Satan’s hands.
Several years ago God gave me a revelation about this life of mine. He said to me, “This life is not yours. And it’s not about you. It’s about Me. You will have trials. There will be suffering. Use it to show my glory.”
You see, Satan has stolen, killed, and destroyed many things in my life. And he will continue to do so until I’m in heaven. But there’s one thing he can’t take, and yet it’s the one thing he wants the most. The thing he tries to get by taking all the other stuff – family members, relationships, health, emotional stability, material possessions. What he wants more than anything is my relationship with Jesus. No, he can’t take it, but I can give it to him.
When I face tragedy I stand at a fork of two responses. One, I can give Satan what he wants. I can hide in fear, stay angry, curse God, believe that He doesn’t exist, let my pride well up like I know more than He does – the God of the universe – and question Him.
Or . . .
I can look at Satan straight in the eyes and say, “My God will be glorified. My tragedy will be used for eternity, to bring me and others to Him.”
Because all these chapters of my life story are here with that single purpose – to fulfill God’s ultimate plan of redemption. And guess what? All of the chapters of your life story have the same purpose.
I can shirk back and hide my frailty, my weakness, my brokenness and let Satan get what he ultimately wants. Or I can clasp arms with God, as His disciple, and work with Him to bring about His will.
Satan, through the death he brought into the world, took my baby’s life. But he did not take my baby’s purpose.
I shared with you my unborn baby’s life so that you could share in God’s glory as the Creator of something so beautiful. And I share with you my tragedy so that you can share in God’s glory of using an unborn baby to draw me and other people to Him.
God is good. All the time. All the time. All the time.
Without Jesus I would never see my unborn child. With Him, I will spend eternity holding my baby’s hand.
Praise be to God from whom all blessings flow.
For those of you who shared in praying for me and our unborn child, thank you from the bottom of my heart. God heard your prayers and is glorified that you went to Him on our behalf. Thank you so much.
And please read and share this post: How to Help Someone During a Miscarriage
Leave a Reply