What Love Looks Like

What follows are the days in the life of a late-pregnancy miscarriage, or stillbirth. Not the story anyone wants to share or have, but our story it is none the less. Please pray, we are no where near healed- this is the hardest pain, the deepest sadness I have ever felt. At times I have wondered if maybe my heart would stop from the grief. There is hope in the future, but right now it is sometimes hard to feel hopeful. Minute by minute we get by.  To read from the beginning, go here.

Over the last month and a bit, love has looked like cookies. Love has looked like soup, like a dinner to put in the freezer for later, like a tree to plant for Shiloh, a donation made in his name, an engraved bookmark, a book, a look, it has looked like so many things that I could not even mention them all and each meaningful to me. Love looks different when you  need it more, when you accept it however it comes. It fills you when you take it in a bouquet of purple iris' paired with sunflowers, a sweet note on the door, a phone call that I don't have to return, or one that I do, a prayer, a word, a hug and a kiss. Love is so different than what I thought it was, it is being there no matter what, loving stronger and harder than any circumstance. Love is staying, love is being, love is not going anywhere. Love doesn't run away.

My Heavenly Father longs to meet me in my pain, to sit with me when I am in anguish. I think often we don't allow God to meet us, we run to others, and while they are there for us, God's love is perfect when nothing else is. So when I crave the deepest, hurt the most, or feel the furthest away- it is mostly that I need to just lean into Him, lean harder, trust stronger, even when I don't have the strength, really all it looks like is me opening my arms to Him. A simple motion that can be so hard.

My church had a retreat this last weekend, and as hard as it was to go it was even more of a blessing to be there. He is so faithful to meet me. Each step of trust caused pain, but so much joy. The beautiful ladies there hugged me over and over, sent me smiles, shared their sorrows. I felt loved on, filled up, yet  still finding myself empty. I wondered why. I should have known.

During one of the worship sets I snuck away to cry, sob, and lay on the floor in a cold nursery alone. Tears came fast, my heart allowed to show itself broken. While I waited on the Lord to answer I wrote my prayer in my journal:

When your sunlight falls on me, how does it not shy away? How can life go on when I am feeling how I feel? When people don't understand? When I am so empty? Still you are Worthy. Still you are my Strength. Still you will supply me. Still you walk with me. Still you embrace me, you know my pain. In this too you are showing your faithfulness in my despair, your love in my weeping, your embrace of my heart that needs way too often to be filled. I need. I need. Please fill me.

Then I sat and wept more, surrender hurts- but not as bad as holding on to what He asks of me. When I gave in He spoke His words to me, I wrote them as well:

Laughter would not fill the sad, a friend would not meet your heart, a baby to hold would not fill the holes. Empty can only be filled by me. Empty can only be transformed when you don't fill it with the temporary. Empty will no longer hold its place, when to be emptied is to be filled with me.

Even after I hear his voice, still I am human I don't crave to trust Him, it is more brute force to believe than anything. But once I scrape and climb up to the altar and heave my pain there, the miracle is the weightlessness that I feel, the wholeness that I can call my own. It is nothing short of a miracle, a holy transformation and it lasts for a good bit, as long as I look to Him. Then when the emotion creeps in again, when my heart wanders, when friends have babies, when I see pictures of mammas with babies on their chest, I cringe and know again I have moved away. My gaze has shifted I am not being completely filled by Him. I crawl and scramble to His presence again. I am troubled and think this time it might not meet me, maybe it won't fill and make me complete. When I get there I realise all over again just how forgetful I am, just how I love to carry my own burden, feel my own weight of the pain, yet I was not made to do this, so I do it all wrong. I give all of me, my holes, my gripes, my fears to Him- He holds me and again I become weightless, filled, and satisfied.

God is what love looks like, yes because He sent His son...but also because He takes me and holds me for as long as forever. I just wish I were better at staying there.

Friends, family and tons of people in-between have poured out their love to us. There are so many intangible ways, but here are some of the tangible gifts and love that has been shared. I appoligize to those who made food, that dissapeared before I could get a picture. Still know we enjoyed every bite. There are more gifts I didn't get a chance to take a picture of, still I felt your love though them and I am so thankful that God has shown me what his love looks like in a way I had not known, through his people.  If you want more info about each picture, click on it, then you can see what I wrote about each.

Thank you, for everything, each comment on my blog, each quote, each hug, email, letter, and card I wish I could say it and have you know just how much I mean it. Maybe if it is in all caps: THANK YOU!!

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Marked by Blessing

What follows are the days in the life of a late-pregnancy miscarriage, or stillbirth. Not the story anyone wants to share or have, but our story it is none the less. Please pray, we are no where near healed- this is the hardest pain, the deepest sadness I have ever felt. At times I have wondered if maybe my heart would stop from the grief. There is hope in the future, but right now it is sometimes hard to feel hopeful. Minute by minute we get by.  To read from the beginning, go here.

Today I looked at pictures that were left on my camera from right before we found out about Shiloh's death, my swollen baby filled belly, when I when I was clueless of  the future--it makes me feel as if I do not recognise that girl. It is me, and I seem the same to most people, maybe a little sadder- but I feel so different that I don't even look like the same person to myself. It is weird. I know that most of it is that I know how full of hope I was, and now. I can see the image of this scenario painted as a picture in my head, a huge fist barreling into me,from the front and along with the air from my lungs when the contact is made, from inside me are evaporating these painted words:a dream,a hope,a future.  When they are released from my body they meet the air and mist to nothing. In myself, in my flesh that is how I feel. Empty. As if I have a loss nothing can fill.  I know it is a lie, one that I see now how easy it would be to believe.

I see how easy it would be to be angry at God, but if all is His already than the blessings I have, that He has allowed me to keep are just as much of a lesson as those He has not allowed me to hold close. Some were a glimpse of what is to come, of a world of promise beyond this world.  It also makes me think that we have coined the word blessings as something that feels good- and that it isn't the case at all. Blessings sometimes hurt, they are painful, they can be happy or pleasant as well- but hey are always for our good. Always. So if everything is God's I should be thankful for what He lets me keep, and not bitter, but thankful for  what He asks of me. I know that in my head, I am still working on my heart. My heart is truly a fickle creature.

“When we lose one blessing, another is often most unexpectedly given in its place.”
― C.S. Lewis

I don't want to hear that, that there is a substitute for loss, or a blessing that will come in place of Shiloh. I don't want to come to the realisation that growth in character, feeling for others, and understanding could be the blessing that I will keep from this. In the first days it felt like nothing would be worth the loss, yet I have realised that because of this pain I now know what real pain feels like, it was like part of me was missing, the part that had blessings stored in heaven, the part that would sit with a friend knowing that I did not understand but I knew what loss felt like. It is a horrid feeling, misery, a dead end, hopeless, devastation, it actually literally hurts in your chest, like a pressure or that you can't get enough air- it feels like you have more of a gravitational pull (therefore a heavier weight on your whole body) than you should.  I am now scared or marked.

With that scar I can lift my head high, I can use it- or I can live under it, a life that is marked by what has been done to me and be a victim of circumstance. Jesus was marked too, but His marks made Him no victim, they made Him rise to victory. I am not Jesus, but the more I get to know Him, the more I want to be like Him.

“We were promised sufferings. They were part of the program. We were even told, 'Blessed are they that mourn,' and I accept it. I've got nothing that I hadn't bargained for. Of course it is different when the thing happens to oneself, not to others, and in reality, not imagination.”
― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

In the last couple weeks after our loss I immediately jumped to, "lets get another dog", "maybe a canary that sings would make me happy", " honey bees-now!", "what new hobby can I find?"--I would like to say that I am kidding, but it is true. I am trying to find hope in my future again, which is completely okay, but yesterday I realised that was not all I was doing. I was filling my wound with temporary happiness or distraction. A hole was certainly left from all that Shiloh was to me, and I  immediately tried to fill it with something other than God. It is true I prefer almost filler to filling my emptiness with Him, but it is also true that it is only He who will meet me right here and right now- and give me something that is not a filling, but what was meant for me.

“Let me implore the reader to try to believe, if only for a moment, that God, who made these deserving people, may really be right when He thinks that their modest prosperity and the happiness of their children are not enough to make them blessed: that all this must fall from them in the end, and if they have not learned to know Him they will be wretched. And therefore He troubles them, warning them in advance of an insufficiency that one day they will have to discover. The life to themselves and their families stands between them and the recognition of their need; He makes that life less sweet to them.

If God were proud He would hardly have us on such terms: but He is not proud, He stoops to conquer, He will have us even though we have shown that we prefer everything else to Him, and come to Him because there is 'nothing better' now to be had.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

A friend just shared this with me, I had never heard it before, and it is very perfect for me right now:

Previous Post: Despair is Loosing its Grip, a Lasting Peace Filling its Fingerprints
First Post:  Shiloh Maxwell Canfield

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Loving Shiloh Maxwell Canfield

What follows are the days in the life of a late-pregnancy miscarriage, or stillbirth. Not the story anyone wants to share or have, but our story it is none the less. Please pray, we are no where near healed- this is the hardest pain, the deepest sadness I have ever felt. At times I have wondered if maybe my heart would stop from the grief. There is hope in the future, but right now it is sometimes hard to feel hopeful. Minute by minute we get by.  To read from the beginning, go here.

14/Jan/2012 (day five)

Today is hard too. My body is crying out for our little baby boy and producing milk for Shiloh. I have shed so many tears over this- more than anything to this point. However, now I have realised it is almost healing in a weird way, that my body cries out just as much as my heart for my little boy. The doctor thought that it would not be likely that I would lactate, but like the rest of this journey, unlikely has gone from meaning "it won't happen to me" to "Woah, I wasn't expecting this!". I have cried out to the Lord and begged for mercy. Being engorged with no option is insane. The doctor perscribed sudaffed, icing and wrapping myself really tight. This was not the way things were meant to be. I miss Shiloh.

This journey has been the hardest thing I have ever done, but through it I have felt the most loved I have ever felt. I weep as I hear from you all, I am just so blessed. God's arms are around me, and I feel he has an army of people to show me love in a tangible way. I have never been so overwhelmed by love, not ever. Each of you who have dropped by my home, brought me meals, sent flowers, emailed me to share your pain, commented on my last post, messaged me on facebook, or called-- It has meant more than you can ever know, you are love to me, it is absolutely beautiful. I am not alone.

God's grace really does rise up in these times to meet my need. My sorrow is great, and so is His love for me.

I just ordered some jewelry with all three of my little boys' names on it Jackson, Oliver and Shiloh. I can't wait to get it in the mail. I would have never had 'mommy jewlery' before, I admit it was way too cheesy and I am around my kids at all times so, why? Now it is different, one of my boys is not with me and I long for him. Pre- stillbirth, I hardly grasped the preciousness that life is made of. Through death I have come to understand the meaning of life. I have grown in patience with my boys, the loss has made me understand love, and what it should be so much better. My tears still come, mostly they are a waterfall for an hour or two and then I am in decent shape for a little while and then I cry myself a river. My tears are not in vein, they are liquid love for my baby boy.

15/Jan/2012 (day six)

By now I am sure there are already sceptics who are rolling their eyes and thinking we should be over this. Before this happened to us I may have been a little more compassionate than that, but not much. When we first found out if you had said that I would have punched you in the face and now, all I have to say is- if you think you could do better, go ahead and try. I challenge you to loose a child and then make any sort of judgement call on grief, I promise you that you will not have any judgement left in you. Brokenness will overtake any previous critical bone in your body and make you a better person, it has to me and it would to you.

When will I write about something else? Not sure. Currently this consumes me, when it does not I will stop.

Yesterday I picked up "Heaven is for Real" by Todd Burpo. I am not sure yet what to think of it, however I know that I wouldn't have even considered it before. I am also looking into "Heaven" by Randy Alcorn. Before Shiloh packed his bags and headed there I had a little, but very little interest in heaven. Now that he is there it only seems natural to find out more. If you have any suggestions of different books that you have loved through grief I would love to read them. Not books about grieving, as I am not quite ready to read about others and their grief, but just if you have one that has helped you learn more about heaven I would love to read it.

I mentioned to The Husband yesterday that I could currently be compared to one of those goldfish, you know, the ones with the HUGE bulging eyes that are bubbles out of their heads?? I have cried so much I wonder if my eyelids will ever be normal again. I may have done permanent damage.

I am up really early this morning. Any of you who know me well know I sleep. I do that well, or did it well. I don't know exactly how much sleep I got last night but it was very little. It is very uncomfortable to lay down when my breasts are in such pain. This physical angst does make Shiloh's life and death more real, and I have shed more tears over my milk coming in and having no baby here on earth to feed than about anything else. It is agony, in the purest form.

I am sharing a song below. This has been my song for a long time, it is my favourite song, when we first found out I wanted to sing it but couldn't bear it, even to think about choosing to say anything positive about it all was just not possible.  Now I can think it in my head but forming the words is really hard due to sobbing. I think there is progress there, a progress in the heart which is more important than forming the words. I find incredible strength in this song and I want to share it with you as well. No matter what happens in my life I will bless and not curse the Name of the Lord. He is my strength and all we can cling to.

For the next post: The Father Calls Shiloh by Name
For previous post : Shiloh Maxwell Canfield

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