As most of you can imagine, this past year…well year and a half, has been quite the roller coaster of events for Brandon and me. Most of this roller coaster ride has been as a result of our choices to be obedient to what God was leading us to do so although it has been crazy, it has also been somewhat expected twists and turns. As we all know, life doesn’t just consist of expected loops and turns and upside downs. Often times, we are thrown for a loop that we didn’t see coming and could have never prepared for. It knocks us down, disorients us, and can leave us stumbling around trying to find our footing for a while.
Last April, Brandon and I were surprised and quite excited by the news that we were expecting our first child. As most new parents would do, we immediately began dreaming about our baby, picking out names, researching the best hospitals in Bangkok, and planning what unique and fun way we could tell our parents. We planned a trip home the weekend before Mother’s Day to share the news with our families. At this time we were at Missions Training School in Atlanta. While we were home that weekend, the horrible flooding hit Tennessee, completely flooding Brandon’s parent’s house. We ended up staying in TN all week in order to help his parent’s out with all the damage. The following Sunday was Mother’s Day and at 7 weeks pregnant we ended up celebrating our first Mother’s Day in the ER while I was miscarrying our baby. BAM! It hit…an unexpected knock you off your feet blow. Nothing or know one can prepare you for something like this. We have had friends experience deep loss like this and you try to imagine yourself in their place and the pain you would feel, but nothing prepares you for what the pain feels like when you are the one feeling it first hand.
Right off the bat it was hard for Brandon and for me too, but I feel like I went into a survival mode state of numbness. We had MTS to finish up and then a month of non-stop visiting with family, friends, and supporters, not to mention finishing packing and preparing to move to a new country. It was like there was a bandage of non-stop craziness covering this wound that I had no idea how deep and painful it was yet. I went through all the questions of “Why did this happen?” “How could a loving God allow this to happen?” but hadn’t really felt the pain yet. From the beginning Brandon and I said, we want to glorify God through this and we still want to be able to say that although you are the giver of life you also allow life to be taken but your name is still blessed! But what does that really mean? How do you live that out? That’s easy to say and live when life is great, but when it’s not so great, what does that even look like…and do I really believe it?
Brandon and I left for Thailand two broken people. After moving to Thailand, trying to adjust to this new culture, missing home, culture shock, and everything that goes with it, I became quite aware of how deep and painful this wound really was! It hurt! and it hurt bad!! Not only did it hurt but I found myself completely paralyzed by fear like nothing I had experienced before! I would see a baby or pictures of a baby or friends being pregnant and have this twinge of hope and excitement and instantly it would be literally choked out by this paralyzing fear (i physically felt a choking lump in my throat that would not let any hint of excitement or hope in) This went on for 5 months for me. The fear caused me to think of every possible thing that could happen or go wrong if I got pregnant again, not just to the baby but to me! I couldn’t bare the thought of experiencing this type of pain again and I lost the baby at only 7 weeks…what if I carried the baby longer, actually got to hear the heartbeat and see him/her, feel them move and I lost it…what if I delivered the baby and it was still born or died of sudden infant death syndrome. What if …what if….what if…. I CAN’T GO THROUGH ANY OF THAT. So I began to think that I don’t want to get pregnant again or even have a baby because i don’t want to possibly ever experience a deeper pain than I am right now! PARALYZING!! I know what scripture says about fear…it’s not of God…why because it paralyzes us enabling us to glorify God where we are even in the midst of our pain. I was very aware that this wasn’t ok and I couldn’t allow the rest of my life to be robbed by the fears of all the what ifs. But it wasn’t a quick fix, throw up a quick prayer say a Bible verse and everything is going to be ok and all better kind of thing. Brandon and I, as well as many other people, began very persistently praying against this paralyzing fear. If God has shown us anything since we have been in Thailand, it has been the power of persistent prayer. For too long my prayer life consisted of throwing up a prayer once or twice about something and saying “I prayed about it” but sometimes (most of the time) the battle is much bigger than that! and it requires persistence! It requires getting on our knees, falling on our faces, weeping when there are no words to be spoken, being still before God and not saying a word. I would say over the course of about a month of pretty persistent prayer, by many people, the fear was broken!!! Praise God!! I was in our apartment by myself one morning listening to worship music singing and praying. Chris Tomlin’s “Our God is Greater” came on and I started singing it, but did I really believe it? Then I just fell to my knees weeping uncontrollably and crying out from the deepest part of me “God you are greater, God you are stronger, God you are higher than any other, God you are healer, awesome and power My God!! And if our God is for us, then who could ever stop us And if our God is with us then what can stand against us!!” In that moment I physically felt the fear broken!! Wow! Total personal encounter with our living God right there! I sat down and opened the Bible and I am not quite sure how I got to Isaiah 44, but God brought me there and this is what I read: (I insert my name because I felt as if it were God speaking these words directly to me)
“But now listen, (Crystal), my servant, whom I have chosen. This is what the Lord says-he who made you, who formed you in the womb, and who will help you: Do not be afraid For I will pour water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants. They will spring up like grass in a meadow, like poplar trees by flowing streams. One will say ‘I belong to the Lord; another will call himself by the name of Jacob and another will write on his hand ‘The Lord’s’” Isaiah 44:1-5
I have felt like we have been in a desert land for months, and in that moment God spoke to me through these verses that He loves us, and cares for us and we have nothing to fear. I felt the water returning to the desert and it was so refreshing! I felt that this was a promise from Him that he would bless us with children and to trust Him!! I have clung to this verse and this promise and anytime I feel that fear creeping up I quote it and God’s word chokes out the fear!!
Throughout this time I have been trying to figure out how tragedy and loss and God’s sovereignty all fits together. Before the miscarriage, I would have said and thought “God is in control of all things and has a purpose and a plan and ordains everything” Now…I don’t claim to have my theology all in order and I don’t think any of us do and I am, as we all should be, in the process of learning who God is, getting to know him deeper and this is where I am right now. I didn’t find any comfort in my God in thinking that he ordained for our little baby to die. I know he works all things for His good and everything we go through we have an opportunity to bring glory to Him where we are, but I am at the place right now that I find comfort in knowing that we serve an awesome and powerful God who has the power to heal and save lives if he so choses, but the reality is that we live in a fallen world and the reality of that fallen world is death. Death and loss will happen in this life, God never in His word promises that it won’t, in fact He promises just the opposite…He says “In this world you will face trials. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” )Jn 16:33
This will not be the last loss or deep pain we experience in our lifetime but what I do know over any theological stance you can take is that there is a Great God who loves us so much and desires an intimate relationship with us and desires for us to come stumbling and fumbling to him when we are knocked off our feet and to fall on our knees before him and admit that we can’t do it, we can’t fix it, we don’t understand, but we are going to be persistent in coming before him and seeking Him and in the process the wounds begin to heal and we fall even more in love with Him. The process isn’t easy, it’s messy, and it leaves a scar with a story to tell and a reminder of what God brought us through….and it is in all of this that He gets the glory!
As we went through December, it was difficult to be reminded about the miscarriage because the 29th was the due date for our precious baby, but on December 10 we found out that we are pregnant again. That’s right…I am 12 weeks pregnant now! In a month that was going to be a difficult reminder of our loss, God gave us life to celebrate! Praise be to God the restorer and redeemer of all things lost and broken!
Introducing our beautiful expectation…
