One Day I Will Meet My Children

We don't always talk about it, but Handsome and I have babies we've never met. Three of them. We've grieved and we've processed over the span of two decades, but 19 years ago we had our first miscarriage. Three months later, this little princess announced her presence when my favorite jeans no longer fit.

We reveled in her. We praised God for this gift. It felt like redemption. 

I couldn't help but feel like God was back on our side. I didn't realize how wrong this thought was. All my hope was in the wrong thing. 

She was two when we got pregnant again. It wasn't planned. And it shook me. I was 11 weeks along. We heard a heart beat and our doctors assured us that all was right. All my faith hung in their words. My hope was in the wrong thing. 

We went through it all again. The telling our friends and family. The trying to get the word out to the church, so it wouldn't hurt when they asked how I was feeling. 

Months later, we were floored when we heard the doctor say, for the third time, we were losing our baby. This one would take surgery. This one wasn't as simple. This one wasn't supposed to happen. We made it past the dangerous time. We finally exhaled our fears of losing another one. I was banking on statistics. 

I never asked God why. Until now. I was so broken. My husband struggled with how to support me, and I was no help. I didn't know how to help myself or what I even needed. I was devastated. And not only from losing a third baby. I hurt because God was revealing to me that my hope was in the wrong thing. I knew better. I knew God. 

God isn't only God when he heals me or when he allows us to keep our babies here on Earth. He's God when he takes them to heaven too early, too. 

He isn't just God when he takes them quick and early if he has to take them. He's God when he chooses to take our babies well into the second trimester as well. 

He's God when we hurt and he is God when we heal and when we love and when we live and when we soar and when we break. 

I was broken. Shattered bits. It was as if I could look down at the pile of me. At my loss.

Two boys and a little girl- although we are going off of what we feel God told us about their genders. The doctors were guessing. 

It isn't something you get over. It's something you learn to make part of your story. Even more, our story is something God has used countless times to bring comfort to other couples facing the same loss. I can't begin to say the miracle this is. 

When you lose a baby, you are changed. Even if that baby was only growing in your belly for two months, three months, four months. It's a loss and a grieving process only a loving God can walk you through. 

When we finally get to the point where we grieve our expectation and open our devastated grip, we move from grief to over-come. We are overcome. 

We find all our faith is in one basket. 

Jesus. 

He's the well that won't run dry. He's the one who promises to take our mistakes and hurts and the terrible and break them down to their simplest bits and not reuse them. He makes them new. He makes them filled with life and able to bring healing and glory in his name. 

Our babies, whom we've yet to hold, have already helped other women. God is using their stories to bring hope and light and life. 

I love how my Jesus works. 

Boaz James

Henry Elias

And 

Victory Faith

Happy Mother's Day, babies. I am your mama. One day I will meet you and it will be perfect.

~Nonsense