Losing Life, Not Faith...

"Through teary eyes and a lump in my throat, I say thank you, Lord"

Spring Is Supposed to Be For Beginnings... 

Every year around Easter, I'm reminded that I would have a three-year-old.

I say that plainly, because I've learned that saying it out loud is part of the healing. The pain still lives in my heart. It hasn't disappeared, and I'm not sure it ever will. But what I've come to understand is that grief and gratitude are not opposites — they can exist in the same breath, in the same moment, in the same tear running down your face.

-really, I could have ended this letter right here-

But here's where it gets interesting — really interesting, if you sit with it long enough.

Easter is the holiday where we celebrate death being defeated. The whole point of the day is resurrection, victory over loss. And yet — on that very day — I lost my baby. The death of my child was not defeated. There was no resurrection for that grief.

But neither was my faith.

I want to be careful here, because I know how this could sound. This isn't an if God were real, you wouldn't have lost your baby kind of reflection. It's not that at all. It's more of an isn't God interesting? kind of observation. The way He creates space for us to reflect. The peculiar comparisons we draw through Him. The timing of things that cannot be coincidental, even when you can't fully explain why.

Of all the days in a year — I lost my child on the same day His resurrected. I find some sort of absurd surrealism in that. I find the ways He speaks to me through contrast and comparison. And I want to be clear: I am not saying God caused my loss to deliver a message. I am not saying my baby is to be compared to Jesus in any way. I don't believe He orchestrated my pain to teach me something or that He needed to work that way to get my attention. Is it possible He allowed the timing for a reason? Maybe. I genuinely don't know. But I don't think that's the point.

The point is what the reflection opened in me.

Before it happened, I had already felt it — something in my life was holding me back. My lifestyle, my habits, the version of myself I was living as. I had even doubted whether I could get pregnant at all. If I deserved it. And then the loss came, and with it, a strange and painful confirmation: it is possible. My body can do this. And now I had proof.

So with a lump in my throat and tears I'm not ashamed of, I say: thank you, Lord. Because as painful as it is to hold, that experience is also proof. Proof that I can create life. Proof that it is possible. Proof that what I've been shown — about my own body, my own strength, my own story — is real.

And sure, maybe none of this theorizing has anything to deal with that loss... but grief makes us chaise understanding, doesn't it? To help us cope. I have been grieving and coping in silence for years. Every time someone asked "how are you?!" smiling cheerfully, I would turn on my customer service response, "good! and you?!". It wasn't honest. It was safe. But that's the nature of business, right? smiling and gritting through it because the real answer is much to awkward and uncomfortable for us both. What I am learning lately is the community we have built together values raw honesty, and I am less ashamed to give that now. I'm also more thankful than ever to receive your support through it. 

I woke up that morning with a pain in my ribs. I just knew somehow - women's intuition, another one of His gifts - that it was reproductive related. We had been trying for years,  but out of all the times I wasn't testing, it happened. I didn't know I was pregnant. I had just started medications that should have been the start to help me get there. To become healthier. As the day went on I grew more nauseous, more pain and pressure was building within me. Every step I took felt like the weight of the world pressing on my insides. 

In the emergency room they did ultrasounds, a blood test, then another blood test... I knew it. They found something. Something is wrong. They called us back... "Your HCG came back positive. You need to return in a few days to see if it is dropping... its not your fault... these things happen... you're still young... you're maybe around 7-9 weeks... it could of been chromosomal... it could be ectopic... I'm so sorry..." 

Their words were like daggers echoing through my soul. What was it? A girl? A boy? Why did it happen like this? What did I do wrong? I had so many questions, but I knew one thing was certain... I CAN get pregnant. 

I genuinely don't know what my life would look like had things unfolded differently. I don't know what my career would look like, what my days would feel like, who I would be in this season. And honestly? I've made peace with not knowing. What I've come to trust is that the path I'm on — even the parts carved by loss — is leading somewhere meaningful.

It would be easy to let this time of year pull me under. To let the weight of what could have been crowd out the light of what still can be. But I've decided, deliberately and with everything in me, to choose something different. I choose gratitude. Not the kind that pretends hurt doesn't exist, but the kind that holds hurt gently and still finds something to be thankful for, and that is also difficult.

To anyone reading this who carries a quiet grief — whether it's a loss like mine, or one of the countless other shapes loss takes — I want you to know that your pain is valid, your love is real, and your story is not over. You are allowed to grieve and still be grateful. You are allowed to cry and still say thank you. You are allowed to keep going.