I've been spending time browsing infant and pregnancy loss sites and it is truly heart wrenching to read your stories. Sad to say, I keep hoping that someone will have a story similar to my own. Our pain, our losses are so similar YET I just want to read of a woman who has been in my situation AND has gone on to have a successful pregnancy. I guess it's kind of like the World Record ... you can really, really, really believe it's possible to win the title when you've seen someone else do it.
I think many of us long to find that commonality. This is why I think communities such as these are important to healing. I am a strong advocate of live support groups as well. We need to hear each others' stories. We need to pull strength from one another. We need to see success after others' sad cases ... I think it just fuels our hope and our faith. I believe in miracles. I've even experienced a few of my own.
Why then, is faith in God or in His ability to provide, the first to flounder when a string of disappointments strike? As believers, we already know we will suffer in this life, but perhaps we've related those sufferings to temporary "setbacks" like a lost job, a failed project or even a momentary sickness. We never suspected something permanent ~ like death ~ would creep in and destroy our happiness.
Question for the day: Does infertility, miscarriage or other losses mean a permanent end to our ability to hope, heal and hold on to faith?
I think not, but am interested in learning your thoughts.
Hugs
3 comments:
I don't think death cancels faith, or puts a permanent end to it. What it does is challenge it in a way that nothing else possibly can. It is all those losing your job, getting your heart broken for the first time and being turned down by the college of your choice all at once. Your faith will surely stumble but in time it can rebuild again. It might be a little different than it was before. You have to regain that trust just like any other trust that has been broken, but it can happen.
I believe when we are stricken with such greif we blame God because when we think of grief we think of losing a parent, a pier but never our children. I think too often we grow up with a sense that you find a partner, you make a baby and all is great. But for some of us reality hits. It is often times not that simple. We don't grow up thinking "well what do I do if I have a miscarriage and lose my child" It's just not something we think about until we are faced with such heartache. I know it was just not something that ever crossed my mind. I had never known such grief. In fact not one person in my family had ever lost a child. But here I was facing the worst time in my life. And where was my faith in God? It was in the pile of hate and anger I put everything into. You lose your faith in God because you expect him to honor and bless those that live a good life, who are moral people, who do right by him and everyone around. You expect him to watch over you and take care of you. What you don't expect is to be laying in a bed hooked up to IV's having just given birth to 2 beatiful babies only to have to say goodbye just as quickly as you said hello. You feel it is not the fate you were supposed to have been dealt. For me I thought it was so unfair to hear of women harming their children, killing them, giving them up and here you are wanting a baby more than life itself. You feel as if these women are the ones who deserve this fate and not you. But it is part of our grief at that moment. It is the hell we have to face in order to make our way back to a place we can live in semi-peacefully. So I don't think death cancels faith. I think our grief cancels faith until we are able to rebuild it. I think it is a place we all have to enter while we travel on the path of self healing.
Your responses are very interesting ... Does anyone know what the Bible says about faith through trials?
When I feel most confused and I can't hear the answers to my prayers ... I turn to the Word of God. Clarity usually follows.
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