I'll start from the heart of it and not mince words. For every woman, Mother's Day is not a day she feels like celebrating. Some are grieving, and some are still hurting from childhood, teen, or adulthood memories that have left them angry, hurt, or numb.
Though I sit here typing today feeling completely beyond blessed. My Mother's Days were not always quite so happy. What I want to share are three stories:
1) My story
2) The rabbit ate my tulips
3) Watching my flowers bloom
Here's my story:
(If you are on a mobile device, or have trouble clicking below - Here's the direct link!
I realize not every story of miscarriage ends the same way, and I want you to know that I've walked in the shoes of thinking my story would end only in grief.
Along the way, I made a decision to make the most out of my memories of the babies that I lost. This decision did not come lightly, nor did it come rapidly. After the loss of my first baby, Micah, I felt the need (I attribute this to God speaking to me) to read the book of Micah. I'm still somewhat puzzled as to why I felt the need to read this book, but I did.
Mostly, the best I derived from the book was Micah 7:7:
"But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord,
I wait for God my Savior;
my God will hear me."
And, that's what I did. Even in my anger, which oddly enough came mostly after the second loss - Not the first, not the third - I pressed into God, even when I felt numb, sad, or emotionless - Because, as in the words of the disciples later, in the New Testament:
"Where else can I go - For only you, oh Lord, have the words of life!"
One Mother's Day, my husband gave me the sweetest gift ever. He brought me tulip bulbs to plant. See, I had decided, unbeknownst to him, that tulips would represent the babies I never got to hold in my arms.
Tulips have to be planted in the ground, in the form of a bulb. They require staying in the ground through a hard frost before they can bloom.
I felt it was representative of how my babies were inside my womb and were cut short before seeing the sun and allowed to bloom. Plus, I love tulips.
I planted those tulip bulbs and waited for them to bloom in the spring.
In the spring, they did bloom. Oh, they were beautiful blooms. I was so happy. Every day I saw them, I knew the names of the babies they represented. It was as if I got to celebrate a small bit of life.
For a short while.
One day, I came out to look at my tulips, and I noticed the blooms had been chewed off of one, two, then several, and finally all of them.
The culprit?
An adorable bunny.
As adorable as this bunny was, it made me mad and sad. I grieved all over again, yet somehow saw in it a strange coincidence.
When a woman is pregnant, the saying goes: "The rabbit died". I found it so ironic that my babies were not allowed to be placed in my arms this side of heaven, and even in my small celebration of their attempt to be represented by a tulip bloom - A rabbit wouldn't allow it.
I felt as if rabbits were out to get me.
Since I couldn't enjoy my attempt at relishing the beauty of life, even in the form of a tulip, I turned my focus toward the blessings God has granted me: My three living children.
As I watch them grow, blossom and get ready to break out in a full-fledged bloom, I'm reminded of how great our God is. While there are just some things I will never understand this side of heaven, He gave me the desires of my heart by filling my empty, dead womb, with a living, growing baby. He had done this twice before my miscarriages, but it wasn't till after my losses that I would understand the fullness of how rich these two blessings were.
Today, my husband left six orange roses for me on the table in a vase. He has no idea how special that is to me. I'm sure he chose the roses according to what he could afford and what he thought was pretty. But, those six roses represent the six babies that I once held in my belly: 3 gone, 3 living and blooming in my house and in my arms.
So, to those reading this who are suffering and mourning - some grieving the loss of a child they did get to hold but never allowed to bloom fully, or the loss of a mother, or the pain a hurting mother caused, with eyes fighting back floods of tears this Mother's Day, I want to wrap my arms around you and I hope you know that I still weep with you. I hope that your joy is one day complete. Until that day of full-bloomed beauty comes into your heart, that even a rabbit cannot kill - I hope you press into the arms of a Savior who seems to have abandoned you, but is really wanting to walk with you through the Valley of the Shadow of death into a garden of life.
No comments:
Post a Comment