COUNTERFEIT COUNTENANCE

Don't be deceived by strained smiles & sunny scenes

Desperate, broken pieces are tucked away just underneath

Weary ones always striving to help or to please

Find it harder to rock boats, make waves or release

Glimpses of the messy, the deeply shattered parts

Taking up all of the spaces in their frantic, hurting heart

Don't be convinced by how quickly they say

How they're doing alright, just plugging away

Because the face of someone doing battle inside

Won't show all the places that have died that they hide

Places once thriving, no longer what they seem

With a chest that is heavy & struggling to breathe

Because sometimes where a smile is worn instead

Their eyes tell a deeper story of dread

Eyes that are searching for an exit or escape

From a life far more painful than they can take

So ask and be present, show up and lean in

Don't run when they tell you the dark places they've been

Swallowed up by hopelessness, shame & abuse

The loneliness, fear, the way they were used

They don't need you to save them

Just a safe place to rest

Because smiling is exhausting

When life feels like death.

CURRENTLY

trembling here with this cluttered-up head

ashamed & still broken, abused & misled

and within a war is raging

this shell of a vessel

thin skinned & disheveled

draped over the dress rack that teeters a bit

held by fear that is heavy & scars now afresh

a pain that spills over & drenches the rest

in a place that's so dark & so deep & so hollow

where loneliness settles & help cannot follow

the giving

the taking

the trusting

the breaking

and the promise

of life to the full

what kind of life is this?

with this sacred shattered peace

a pain that won't cease

and a heart that can't stand the beating

Sacred Sisterhood

A few months back Lucy asked for a picture of Maggie for her room, so this weekend while our boys were away we set out to find her a frame.  Psalm 139:14 says, “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” Maggie was a thriving, growing baby girl for the 8 months I carried her inside.  Never were there any red flags to indicate anything was amiss during my pregnancy.  The night she was born she looked so much like her siblings—a tiny 2 pound version with similar sweet features all perfectly placed and beautifully formed.  Our doctors believed a “cord accident” had been the reason we lost her at 31 weeks.  Without any warning she was just gone in a moment and our lives were changed forever. 

Lucy has been having such a hard time for the past several months. Bedtime is a particularly tender time where her thoughts come tumbling out. My heart has broken all over again watching Lucy process a piece of her family, her heart and her story without ever even meeting our Maggie girl. Sobbing after we have read the stories and said the prayers and soaked in the snuggles each night as we tuck her in.  Sobbing because of how far Heaven is, how long we will have to wait to see Maggie again, how her big brothers have each other and mom and dad have each other, but there’s no one just for her.  Sobbing because she’s worried her friends won’t believe that she has a sister, too, since they’ve never seen her.  Deep, heart-wrenching sobs as she names each little friend that has a sister to play with and dress up like and fall asleep next to, but all she has is pictures and stories, blankets and loveys and tiny hand and footprints belonging to her sissy.  It’s a new layer of grief that is all her own, and my heart hurts SO much for the pieces of our family I cannot put back together for her here.  When my words fall short and the tears keep falling, I hold her longer and pray that God will be ever so near to my Lucy girl and the parts of her story that feel so incomplete. 

So many times in life we don’t get to see the full picture.  There are giant question marks looming over deep, broken hurts that take a lifetime to wade through.  Grief WITH hope is excruciating, but I can’t even imagine grief WITHOUT hope.  Eternally thankful for a Savior that took our place so that we may one day have the wholeness, the peace, the complete picture and the sweet HOPE that Heaven holds.  Magpie, your girls are missing you extra today.  We’ll meet you There.

Where Joy + Sorrow Meet

I jotted down raw words around this time 8 years ago.  We were just months out from losing our Maggie girl and I was in a desperate, dark place.  I struggled to get up in the morning--my little boys proved to be the only two reasons I could set one foot in front of the other, to continue inhaling + exhaling each day.  I struggled to eat enough to keep my body going--a default mode that became even more profound when combined with the circumstances we were wading through.  I struggled to sleep each night--nightmares plagued any rest that would find me.  I struggled to cope with the harsh new reality of an empty room meant for a little girl that would never be coming home to us.  I wrestled HARD with God.  I was so angry and appalled that this was ever part of His plan for our story.  In the same breath, I hung on for dear life by my fingertips to the unfathomable comfort only He could provide in unfathomable loss.  As difficult as it is to revisit some of the rawest days, I am grateful.  Looking back, I can see so many incredible ways in which my God moved and His people rallied--ways I could not even comprehend while sinking beneath the weight of grief.

We still miss her greatly.  We still mourn the life that is missing in our family.  If you had told me then how life would look now--that joy + sorrow could coexist together in this messy, broken, tattered heart of mine—I don't think I would have believed you.  In the months and years after losing our Maggie girl (along with two other babes we never got to meet), God has given me the words in 2 Corinthians 1:3-7

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ." 

Today is Pregnancy + Infant Loss Remembrance Day.  Chances are we all know someone—or ARE that someone—who has said a heartbreaking goodbye too soon.  Holding close those that are walking their own path of grief, especially those missing their precious babes today.  You are loved and seen and heard and known.  And you do not grieve alone.