I will warn you. Today’s blog will be a bit heavier than most of my posts. Yesterday I was out pruning the plants in my yard. It has been a winter of heavy frosts and there was much to do. As I was pruning my geraniums I was overwhelmed. It was like someone had dropped a heavy blanket on me. I knew this was something I had to share.
In 1979, I had my first miscarriage and in 1983 I had my second. After that we decided not to try again. Our family would be complete with our son and our daughter. Our hearts were broken and we didn’t want to experience that kind of sorrow again.
We had two wonderful children. Healthy kids! A girl and a boy but we also experienced the lost of loosing two babies.
As I was pruning back the geraniums all this came flooding back. Cutting away the dead to make room for the new. At that moment I realize there are millions of families who are experiencing or have experienced the same loss.
We had some dear friends who came to visit shortly after my second miscarriage and shared God’s promise with us.
““So you shall serve the Lord your God, and He will bless your bread and your water. And I will take sickness away from the midst of you. 26 No one shall suffer miscarriage or be barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days.” Exodus 23:25-26 NKJV
They prayed with us that our next child, should we choose to try, would be covered with the Lord’s protection from the moment of conception. Since then we have shared that truth, the truth of God’s word, with a large number of women who thought they were barren and with those who had lost children to miscarriage, still birth and abortion.
They prayed with us that any child we would conceive in the future would be covered with the Lord’s protection from the moment of conception. Both babies we lost were lost in the first few months after conception and we didn’t even know to pray over them. Two years after this prayer we conceived our youngest daughter, Kaci. I held my breath and prayed. We waited several months before we announced her arrival to the world. These dear friends who prayed with us were there to officiate our youngest daughter’s marriage 30 years later! And now she is the mother of three beautiful children.
A number of years later my last miscarriage, about seven years, I was blessed to share with a class on childhood development at the local high school about the heartbreak of miscarriage. I was able to tell them that this was not a fetus, a blob of tissue, but a living being who became a part of our family and was gone.
I had never allowed myself to grieve. I didn’t know I should. I was the church administrator and one day I was covering the bookstore during lunch. It was slow and I grab a book from the shelves and began to read. As I read, I began to weep uncontrollably. My broken heart was allowed to speak. And healing began.
The book was “I’ll Hold You in Heaven” by Jack Hayford. He’s a wonderful Bible teacher. The entire book deals with miscarriage, still birth and abortion. It was my cry for healing and I didn’t even know I needed to be healed.
What I realized yesterday afternoon in my backyard is there are many women and their husbands who need to hear this message of healing. The pain and heartbreak have been pushed aside. There are those who are barren that feel there is no hope and those who have lost their babies before they could hold them who ache with grief. We all need to experience the Lord’s healing, comfort and hope.
If you know someone who is dealing with the anguish of barrenness, share with them the truth of God’s word. They may be a Sarah who has waited many years but they have God’s promise. He doesn’t lie!
Others may have lost a child, or two, as I did and didn’t know God’s word to cover that child with protection. The same holds true for those who have experienced a still birth. God is not a killer – He comes to bring life and not death. For those who have gone through abortion there is hope. Hope of a future.
Be kind, be compassionate, be truthful and share God’s word and His promise with those who are in sorrow.
“The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows).” John 10:10 AMPC