Heidi’s Story:
Three months after the birth of my first child, a healthy baby girl, I realized with surprise that another baby was forming inside of me. Fear, shock and confusion rushed for top billing in my mind. Though shock won at first, in a few weeks, my husband and I began feeling excited for another baby. Just that fast, we told God we were on board for where he wanted to take us.
Approaching my 20-week appointment and feeling something strange, I called the doctor. A nurse told me over the phone not to worry, all seemed fine, and they would see me in the office for my scheduled visit the following Friday. Sadly, at that visit, all did not turn out fine. After the ultrasound technician kept searching for the tiny life, she finally stated, “I’m sorry. There is no longer a heartbeat.”
Those words weighted the room with a thick, heavy darkness. My tears fell down my face, dripping into my ear, as I stared at the screen and the lifeless little oval that once had a blinking gray dot. My husband, holding our Little Lady, kept gently repeating to me, through his own tears, “Look away.”
But I couldn’t. The tiny little body, once alive inside me, was still there. Where else could I possibly look?
After what felt like hours (maybe it really was hours), we were told to go home and decide which given method to use in order to “expel the pregnancy.” In other words, deliver my baby. The doctor gave us a prescription to use at home, should we decide over the weekend to do so.
On Sunday morning, with no decision made, we slogged to church. I would like to say we went because of our great spiritual commitment, but really we just didn’t know what else to do. Inside, every woman I saw was pregnant. One after the other: glowing, smiling.
I had the same slight bump they boasted, earlier than most due to my back-to-back pregnancies. As I saw each pregnant woman, I had only one thought: “She carries life in her. I carry death.” My hand would instinctively reach to my stomach. Then I would remember, You have nothing to feel for now. No hiccups. No kicks. No movement.
At the start of service, the worship leader decided to quickly share something happening in his life: He and his wife were recovering from a late-term miscarriage. With his words, my tears fell uncontrollably as I was forced to mix their grief with my own.
My husband and I agreed that delivering my baby at home was the right choice for us, and we called on close friends to begin praying.
Any woman who has experienced a drawn-out pregnancy loss knows the torture. The mother must induce her own labor by prescribed medication. The process feels painful, heartbreaking and long.
In my anguish I put God to the test. As I sat alone, experiencing the labor that would birth death, I challenged God out loud: “You said that as your daughter, through your Spirit, I can experience joy and suffering simultaneously. You said I can worship while grieving. I dare you to prove it.”
I prayerfully gave the next four hours to him as I went through the most traumatic and excruciating experience of my life. In those hours, I looked up encouraging verses and prayed their words. I found worship songs on my phone and sang aloud what words I could choke out through tears and physical pain. The other words I sang in my heart. For four hours, I worshiped the God who gives and the God who sits and cries with us in our pain and loss.
He graciously did what I asked him to do. He proved it. I can affirm that when God says he is near to the brokenhearted, he means it. In my most brokenhearted state, he filled the room with his tender presence.
When the physical part finally ended, I still hurt. I still grieved. In fact, to this day—12 years later—I grieve. As well I should. I lost something precious. And I gained something miraculous.
One experience does not negate the other. An accepted tension exists in the space between grief and worship. Looking back at my experience of loss, I have the supernatural power to see it through a filter of God’s kindness. The circumstances did not change, but my experience did. I hold onto the truth that joy and suffering can coexist; grief and worship can intermingle. This experience has made one thing clear to me: we have a God familiar with our suffering who is present in our distress and still delivers joy through his grace.
Photo by Kristina Tripkovic on Unsplash
