I've been thinking a lot about hope...its an obvious topic to tackle when dealing with grief and loss. In my post following our last miscarriage I talked about losing hope for our future. After our first miscarriage, after losing Gabriel and after each of our miscarriages I heard many people say things like "Don't worry, you will have another baby one day" or "In God's time you will have a baby!" and my favorite "Don't give up hope, God will give you a baby!" After our last loss I wanted to scream at anyone that said anything like that...Why? because its bad theology...God makes us no promises that we will have an easy life and get everything we want...exactly the opposite, the Bible talks so much about trials, tribulation, pain and suffering...and He never promises a happy ending for us here on earth.
Many of us in the baby loss community write blogs...its a therapeutic way to get out your thoughts and feelings...mine is raw, its ugly at times, sad most of the time...and rarely ever does it give hope here on earth. As I read several of my loss moms' blogs they are similar, but almost all of the loss moms I started this journey with have gone on to have their "rainbows". Rainbow babies are babies that are born following a loss (a storm). I've noticed that almost every blog ends with the rainbow baby's birth...they got their happy ending and they no longer write...sure they still have pain and sadness, but they now have joy to occupy their lives. That's it? End of their story?
Recently I came across another stillbirth blog, but it wasn't someone I knew...her baby's death was similar in timing to Gabriel's so I started reading from the beginning...I wish I hadn't. If I had started at the end I would have gone no farther. Her blog was similar in that it was raw, ugly, sad, angry etc. I did notice that through the blog she never mentioned God or her faith etc...not uncommon, but I was curious what she believed about her baby and I kept reading. The farther I got into the blog the more I realized she was really depressed...I don't mean deep sadness, I mean clinically depressed. She was so desperate to have another baby and it wasn't happening and she sank deeper and deeper into depression. Then there was a gap of a few months and then one last post from her husband. He said his wife was struggling with finding the right depression meds and some were giving her severe migraines so she quit taking them. He didn't go into detail, but said she wasn't feeling well one night and went to bed and she never woke up. He didn't say if all of the different meds finally took its toll on her or if it was a different physical problem etc. , but that was it...the end of her story. She got no happy ending, here on earth anyway.
I was so sad reading her blog...because most that I read do have a happy ending. I started thinking more and more that we might not get a happy ending here on earth. If I think about it too much I too get depressed...Tom and I still very much want to have a baby to take home with us, but after the road we've traveled so far that hope is dwindling fast. I started thinking more about the hope we have as Christians...the hope of heaven. I believe God is real, I believe Heaven is real, I believe that my son and babies lost in miscarriage are in heaven, and I believe we will be reunited with them one day. That is where my hope lies. Its not a coping mechanism...although there are days that I just have to believe because the alternative is too much to bear, but my hope does lie in truth.
When I accepted Christ into my life it wasn't a simple journey...my heart believed long before my head did...my rational mind had to wrap my head around all of these very irrational concepts. I remember in college taking a life of Christ class where we learned about Jesus from a non-Biblical perspective. I learned that outside of the Bible Jesus is talked about and mentioned in a variety of other historical documents. In pagan writing he is often referred to as a magician etc. so not only did the man of Jesus Christ exist, but there was mystery surrounding him. So whether you believe in the Bible or not you have to deal with the fact that Jesus lived...To quote C.S. Lewis my favorite Christian writer you have to do something with Jesus, you have to decide is he "lunatic, liar, or Lord"? After reading the historical documents, well the leap to believing the Bible wasn't as big of a leap for me. Trust me, I read enough historical literature that I had little doubt about what I was going to believe about Christ...my heart developed faith that took me the rest of the way. I always thought...in the end (of this life) if I'm wrong, well I don't think I would have missed out on anything in life...no regrets and as a bonus I have the hope of Heaven. Now, I feel differently...I can't imagine not having the hope of Heaven...I can't imagine this life being it...all there is. I can't imagine that my son died for nothing and that he is just gone. I can't imagine this being the end of our story.
For the longest time the movie Shawshank Redemption was my favorite (that was until they showed it a million times on TNT). I loved all of the parallels to the Christian life. There are several quotes in the movie that I love, but the theme of hope is common throughout. The movie ends with Andy saying "Remember hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things. And nothing good ever dies." Here is a clip from the end of the movie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWJyI9OybWk&feature=youtube_gdata_player
I am losing hope in some earthly things, but my hope in heaven is a different story...because God gives us a promise.
Jesus came to earth...he lived, he died...those are facts from history. Why he came requires a small leap of faith. He came so that we could in fact have the hope of Heaven...He died so that we could live.
John 3:16 -"For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life."
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