6 Years Ago Today…
It was 6 years ago today that I found out that the baby growing inside of me was no longer alive. It was my first pregnancy. I’d never felt grief like that before. It still hurts today.
I’ve shared my miscarriage experience already, but I haven’t shared how I was stuck for a long time in my grief.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood…
I was stuck, and I couldn’t move on. I had to make a choice, to choose which road I would follow. But I had questions first, questions that I needed answered but that didn’t seem to have answers either. At first, I couldn’t bear to ask them but my heart did anyway. Then I was angry, so angry. So I yelled them out. But I still sat, with those two roads out in front of me. The clearing seemed the only place I could stay, yet I could not stay there because I was not moving on if I did. I was not moving at all. I was in a limbo there.
…long I stood, and looked down one as far as I could …
I didn’t really ever consider the other road. I already knew it wasn’t for me. So that wasn’t the trouble really. I knew which road I was going to take, but I just couldn’t yet – not until I understood. I needed desperately to know there was a purpose in it, a reason for it. I thought it would make it bearable. But, I know now it wouldn’t have. I was much like Martha, crying out to Jesus as it were, “Lord, if you had been here, my baby would not have died.”
Ultimately, I figured it out. Oh, not that…no, that was never for me to understand. You see, it’s okay. It’s okay to not understand. Martha didn’t understand and the miracle was all the more glorious for it. I won’t get my answer here in this lifetime, but I did understand more about my God. I did understand that He loves me. I could take a couple steps forward.
I shall be telling this with a sigh, somewhere ages and ages hence…
I did understand that He is good and He had a plan for me. “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Ah, Hope. Hope means a confident expectation. You see, that’s what I figured out.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.