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!!
Stones of Remembrance Because I Love Him: Mommy Jewellery
Once we came home from the hospital, after the birth of our little Shiloh I immediately felt a lack or as if something had been taken from me. One of my good college friends mentioned that when she had two miscarriages she did little practical things to help her feel like she was remembering her baby. That really made sense to me, she mentioned an orchid (which I love) and also that she had some jewellery made. I knew that I had to do that too.
I have never been a fan of wearing this type of thing, it just never seemed to fit. Now I knew things had changed. I looked at different items on Etsy and narrowed it down to two. So I got them both, that is how I roll. I didn't want to leave the house until they came....it was a good thing they shipped really fast and now I can breathe more comfortably.
This one arrived first,a necklace I ended up getting it from SilverLime, I love it. This is just for Shiloh, just because. The number 12.1.12 is the 12th of January 2012-- it is the European order for the date, smallest to biggest, it makes more sense to me.
I had to wait a little longer to get what I was most excited about, a set of three rings from tinahdee an Etsy seller. She did not disappoint, these rings are even more beautiful and perfect than I had expected. I was a little worried about the fit, as I have a super small size and ring people always look at me like I am nuts when I tell them I wear a 4.5 but she didn't and when they arrived I slipped the rings right on and haven't taken them off since (well, maybe except for taking these pictures).
I wanted something that reminded me of Shiloh, as well as reminding me that I still have two little boys to love on. The boys thought that was a good idea too.
Honestly at this point I wouldn't want to leave the house without either. I am feeling much better than in the first days, still that aching is there- and these remind me that it isn't because I am just odd, but that someone is really missing from me here on earth. This mommy jewellery is my security blanket, and I am okay with that.
If you haven't read the story our our little Shiloh, read here.
I have been playing this one over and over....so I will leave you to it.
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
Transformed Through Pain, Learning Who I Am Now.
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.
The deep raw emotion comes and goes, the hole lingers, an emptiness that I have never owned before now belongs to me. This journey's trail rounds new corners, and then loops around to where I thought I already had crossed. There is confusion, and a re-learning of who I am, and who I am now that I have this seal of pain on my heart. I feel the rawness fade and the feelings of intensity become more like a scab than an open wound- but this is just as disconcerting as the previous stage of this pain. It allows me to think I can function in the world, and then am caught off guard by what will pull open this wound again letting it bleed bright red.
Once it is burst open I feel the need of flight, immediately. Where usually my instinct prior to this grief was to fight, right now I can only think of how fast I could just get out of the situation where I can breathe again, where I can rest, where tears can fall without me having to explain, or having to justify what needs no justification.
Pain is remembered in infant carriers with small, downy baby heads peaking out just below the warm blankets. It comes in waves of swollen pregnant bellies and families of 3 boys, waves of sadness lap over me. I try to be strong, thinking if God is walking through this with me why is it not easier than this? God never promised easy though, it was my own assumption. I have learned I am not strong, I am weak, and that is hard for me to admit. He isn't taking my pain away, he is walking through it with me.
Trusting in God through this does not mean that I will just get over the pain, or just move on thrilled that I could experience this as a growing experience. Trusting God through grief is a daily choice I get to make, trusting his purposes is another daily choice- it isn't even one that I would prefer to make at times, but it is what he is asking of me. I haven't felt permission to walk outside of God's grace, of course that means I could choose to do that- but it is not the sweet spot where I feel the most loved, and embraced. Still for seconds anger creeps in, moments of despair surface, but those moments are not the ones that make me feel any better. Those are the worst of times, the ones that I can spend the rest of the day getting passed, allowing full feeling of bitterness, anger, or self sufficiency to consume me does not enable anything to grow from within me that I want to nourish. I do not feel better during or after, that is what makes me know that walking day in and day out embracing that would make me weaker, trusting in God's purpose and rejecting the temptation is that sweet spot where although I feel weaker now for not powering though on my own, I am the strongest I have ever been.
These quotes have blessed me over the last days:
Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. Hebrews 11:1
Praise isn't denying the pain but pronouncing who God is in the midst of your pain. - Kathe Wunnenberg
Grief can cause us to relate differently to God, ourselves, and others. We may look the same, but we are forever changed and must learn to communicate and connect in new ways. We speak a new tongue: the language of loss. -Kathe Wunnenberg
The seeds of new beginnings and new possibilities begin to take root and emerge from our soul's soil. Tears can nourish us and help us grow through our grief. Over time, we may see a lush, green garden of hope, and our soul might bloom with the strength to press on, a result of God's life-giving power through our tears. -Kathe Wunnenberg
Today I came upon this one, each time I think of Shiloh, I am thankful God gave me a third boy- even if I am getting through the pain of Him not being with me. Right now, someday I will get to see him grow, see his smile, and he will know me as his mama.
I thank my God every time I remember you. Philipians 1:3
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Previous Post: May There Be Beauty From This Pain
First Post: Shiloh Maxwell Canfield
May There Be Beauty from This Pain.
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.
18/Jan/2012
Last night I cried out, in my pain I cried to the Lord. I told Him I missed my boy, that I trusted Him to take care of Shiloh and I just wondered with God about what my boy would have been like. Would he be more like The Husband or more like me? Would he look like either of us? What would he enjoy doing? Would his favourite food be mac and cheese like his brother Oliver?
Test results came in yesterday. We received the news yesterday afternoon that the physical death of Shiloh was due to infection. None of the listed or known ones, not listeria, or toxoplasmosos, or staph infection or strep b, none of those that are known currently to the medical field. It is not an infection that I currently carry in my blood, or that I could have known about. It has no barring on the outcome of future pregnancies- if we choose that. It does not increase our chances of this happening ever again. I asked the doctor if she would give me examples as to what it could have been, just for my mind to wrap around it. She said infection that can kill a baby is everywhere and yet the chances of infection at this stage are completely almost non-existent. She was almost sure the tests were going to come back as no infection, and that Shiloh had a chromosomal issue. She told me that under the right conditions that I could have even just breathed in an infection, that had caused me nothing and yet been the death of my baby. She listed off where the infection could have come from and I was shocked- it could have come from anywhere. It was a fluke, but I know that it wasn't I know that God called my little Shiloh before he could take his first earthly breath, that he called him to not suffer life on this earth, to not endure pain or sadness, to live his days from the start in Heaven.
I find it interesting that all that Shiloh will not have to endure is exactly what my heart aches from right now, sorrow, grief, loss, pain, sadness, Shiloh was spared, I was not.
The news that brought instant hope to me, that I could have not known to do something different, that my body was still strong and that I had not caused any harm to my baby at first filled me with hope for the future, and it still does. But what I was not expecting is that later that night I would cry bitter tears because my baby was perfect, he was beautiful just as my other boys. God took my perfect baby to be with Himself. I am in anguish. Shiloh would have been like my other boys, with some traits from me, some from The Husband- he had been made by God and would have been able to completely function in this world, had God not chosen to take him.
In my brokenheartedness God gave us this song though one of our loving friends, it really is my words exactly, and my heart's cry. It is the pain I have felt, it is the courage that I have embraced, it is the hope that I hold from afar. I like that through the pain there is strength and assurance.
This morning God gave me this word from Him, which Mercy Me made a song of below, very powerful to me right now.
Psalm 139
For the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David.
1 O LORD, You have searched me and known me.
2 You know my sitting down and my rising up;
You understand my thought afar off.
3 You comprehend my path and my lying down,
And are acquainted with all my ways.
4 For there is not a word on my tongue,
But behold, O LORD, You know it altogether.
5 You have hedged me behind and before,
And laid Your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
It is high, I cannot attain it.
7 Where can I go from Your Spirit?
Or where can I flee from Your presence?
8 If I ascend into heaven, You are there;
If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.
9 If I take the wings of the morning,
And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
10 Even there Your hand shall lead me,
And Your right hand shall hold me.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall fall[a] on me,”
Even the night shall be light about me;
12 Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You,
But the night shines as the day;
The darkness and the light are both alike to You.
13 For You formed my inward parts;
You covered me in my mother’s womb.
14 I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;[b]
Marvelous are Your works,
And that my soul knows very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from You,
When I was made in secret,
And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.
And in Your book they all were written,
The days fashioned for me,
When as yet there were none of them.
17 How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!
How great is the sum of them!
18 If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand;
When I awake, I am still with You.
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;
Try me, and know my anxieties;
24 And see if there is any wicked way in me,
And lead me in the way everlasting.
For the first post: Shiloh Maxwell Canfield
Previous Post: The Father Calls Shiloh by Name
The Father Calls Shiloh by Name
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.
16/Jan/2012 (day seven )
I am just feeling angry today. Not directed anywhere really and everywhere all at the same time. I don't want to be angry, it makes me feel yucky. I've felt numb as well, not ready to face the world. The thought of grocery shopping scares me, most group settings if I think about them I get anxious. I know it will take time but I am having a hard time with the person to person situations. I feel highly apprehensive about what people will say or do and if it will set me off crying when I don't want to. I just don't want to be crying in front of every person I see. I feel so human today, so broken, so sad. My emotions are a wreck. I have had to apologise several times for being rude. My heart aches, my little one is not with me.
Today a friend sent me a verse that she was praying for me. Psalm 147:3, "He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds", which is really good--but it was verses 4 and 5 that soothed my soul, "He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name", my loving Father is calling my star by his name, Shiloh. And then the last bit, "Great is the Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit". I am writing those down and going to carry it around in my pocket today. I love that God is calling my son by his name. Because I was never able to call him by name so that he would know it was his, to me it is important to know that God cares enough about him to call him by name. And it is even more amazing that He spoke that to me today, to make me feel better.
17/Jan/2012 (day eight)
It is an odd feeling to long to feel better, but to be terrified that then you will forget- both seem to cause grief. Yesterday I stopped taking sudafed, which the doctor gave me to stop the milk production--it just wasn't working and I thought that maybe it was not letting me sleep. After sleeping two hours 2 nights ago I figured I should just try it. I am so thankful, so thankful that my prayers were answered. God had mercy and yesterday my pain eased up a little, and last night I slept all night. Life is easier with sleep.
My mom flew in from Spain today and is helping with the house and the boys, right now I am watching them play monopoly on the floor. I am blessed. God knows right when I need it and He supplies me in His love. Things are coming together, the pain today is much better, I slept, and my boys are being loved on. The sadness is still here, but it has morphed from loud sobs to a quiet longing. Still sometimes a thought or a baby item or a dream I had will trigger the deep pain to rise to the surface again. Yet through it all Christ is my strength, He is my hope, my Healer, my Redeemer. God knows my exact pain, yet He did not withhold His own Son from death, He paid my ransom even before I cared, before I was born. God gets this pain.
How can I say God is faithful when things are good for me and change my mind when things don't go as I had thought? If God is faithful, He is always faithful, not just when I feel like things are going my way. I have been thinking about our little Shiloh, and really how blessed we are to live in a country that caught the death before his body had decayed and infection had killed me. We also have food to eat, a place to sleep, our house is a safe place to be. I can think of 3/4 of the world where the mammas literally watch as their children starve to death, day by day, or die because infection caused by the polluted water that is all they have to drink. If I believe in a God who is faithful to me and to all, circumstance is irrelevant, pain is irrelevant, he owes me nothing to earn my trust. I don't know answers, I don't know why hard things happen. What I know is that God is always good, always faithful, always love, always my healer, always my joy, always - even when I don't understand.
I love this song, a dear friend sent it and it is the one I have been drawn to for the last couple days.
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First Post: Shiloh Maxwell Canfield
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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