Shameless Miscarriage:
DISCLAIMER: Before you read this understand that this is my testimony through my eyes. The way that God forgives is unmerited. I don't confess to deserve his grace but I have overcome the torture that this decision leaves on your mind. I don't share my story to scare anyone but to relieve anyone who's dealing with the same decision.
SHAME: a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior.
Im not going to lie. Re-reading my first shameless letter has blown even me away. Simply because I had the audacity to tell my story and not feel that gut feeling of guilt anymore. Now, today is another battle so let's just plant our feet here in another uneventful part of my life. Again, I do not share these nitty-gritty things to create a crowd of lookers but to encourage the crowd of believers in Christ Jesus. For far too long we have heard about just how horrible it is to sin and be caught in sin. But, never the really hearing enough about the damage it does to us emotionally. I mention sin because yet again I will tell this story from the mouth of an un-married god-fearing mess up. In this moment writing, I can hear Donald Lawrence "Get back up Again" ringing in my ears. For a saint is just a sinner who fell down and got up. So I'll remember these words as I shamelessly confront and tell my story and you should too.
After about two years after the abortion. I was yet again questioning my place in God, the church, and myself. I was questioning if living holy was worth it and I was just downright not ready to leave the world and it's fun. I was a bit addicted to the rush of it all. So, after my first mistake, I ended up pregnant again. This time I would like to say I felt I was ready. Ready to face my fears and I promised myself I would never try and face that demon from abortion again so I was going to suffer through no matter the consequences. So, here goes everything right. I recall at the time when I decided to keep my child a comment that really scared me. "Well, you either keep it and lose your life or abort and go to hell". These words rang through my brain in my dreams. I remember waking up from dreams of torture wondering which would be worse loose life here or embrace hell forever. So I'd say that played a major role in me deciding to go forward. After mustering up all the strength within myself to be settled on my answer I had to break it to my parents. This was not pretty. So many uncharted and unnecessary precautions were made that I think to this day left scares on my relationship with them. The news is out and most faces were very upset. I took all the faces, comments, concerns, and congratulations to sleep that night.
During the first trimester, I can remember reciting scriptures and songs to my belly. I can't really say wheater they were ever for the child or me and mental stability. I prayed daily just thanking God for another opportunity since I felt I had screwed up the first time. However, I knew I was a sinner who had just been caught doing something yet again that I shouldn't. So to deal with that shame and guilt I buried myself in what I could do for my child when he or she arrived. Weeks went by and I couldn't help but stress because more and more bad news was coming in. Job changes, relationship changes, and a baby growing on the inside of me. My stress test would have been horrible. I started to feel very bad and I really wanted to just sleep. I had begun getting very depressed I don't think I was even saying much. Until the day came. I noticed the bleeding and in a panic called a friend who'd been pregnant to ask questions about my condition. At that moment, a joke falls from her mouth that unnerved me but worried me nonetheless. So we head to the hospital to check whether it was the real deal.
Maybe hours go by and they confirm the baby is not there.
I was devastated, shocked, embarrassed, and sad.
I didn't want to look at myself or even give anybody else the news. At that moment, I figured well now no hell and a life huh?
My emotions weren't going to subside just because I was an unmarried woman who had ignorantly messed up again. I had connected with my child. I knew for sure it would be a boy and I dreamt of making my life better and doing better when he arrived. Yet, I was faced with the facts. There was not going to be any baby.
Miscarriage can feel like you have lost something that never existed. It's like you want to mourn because you knew it would but not sure how to explain it. It seems like everyone else wants to cheer you up but they just don't understand the weight of losing a best friend nobody else got to know but you. I carried the shame of my miscarriage because I believed I was less of a woman. I thought that I was never going to conceive and that God was punishing me because I never should have been doing that in the first place. I thought it was somehow payback for all my years of running from ministry. But he left me with this.
Daniel 9:9 "The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him;"
So clearly he's not mad at me. He just knows better than me. He knew what I could handle and at that moment it must not have been a baby.
I no longer live with that shame of miscarriage because as a twenty-three-year-old I have talked to almost over 60 women about overcoming miscarries grip on your emotions. I have ministered in private to women about how not to pull yourself down the deep hole of insecurities brought on by the loss of your child. In my short years of living, I have spoken to these women younger and older and realized. God still used this. He used my miscarriage to talk women off the ledge. Women he loves and the women he cares about. He let me walk through it to encourage you too. If you or a friend you know have suffered the loss of a child here is my prayer for you:
Lord, today I pray for your daughters who have fought on the sidelines about what their child faces would have looked like. The ones who are crying reading this because they can bear talk about their real emotions concerning thin subject aloud. I ask today that you would comfort them as you comforted me. Bring them into that place where you speak to us and remind us of our future and your love for us. Lend us your wisdom and courage to go on. Remind us that children are a heritage from you and when it's our time you will allow us to carry. Keep them, father, for blaming themselves for anything that was done during the course of their pregnancy. MOST importantly lord let them know there still hope! In Jesus' name AMEN!
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