Two years ago.

If you had read my blog two years ago, you would be reading the story of a person who was experiencing the most pain she had ever experienced.

Hope, followed by loss.

Pregnancy, followed by miscarriage.  

I had never understood pain in this way before.  I had lost people I loved, but nothing quite as devastating and personal to me as this.  After longing for a baby for about a year I had started to lose hope that it was possible for us.  I thought there was something wrong with me.  Then, hope.  That positive pregnancy test.  And nearly three weeks later, loss.

{I don't even really know what to feel.  I am devastated, heartbroken, and just completely numb. 5.24.10}

This experience really defined me for a period of weeks.  It consumed me.  I locked myself in the house for at least a week before I could bring myself to go back to work.  My suffering was consuming me.

I know women who are there now.  Whose suffering is consuming them.  It's hard.  Very very hard.  When I was in that moment I knew that my suffering wasn't in vain.  That there had to be some reason for it.  Some growing God was doing in me, and something glorifying to him that would blossom as a result.  I knew it, but I sure didn't feel it.  I couldn't pray or talk to God at all for weeks.  I was just numb.

{God's desire is to bless us... but he gives and takes away and it is all for his glory.  I trust in that.  The day before I found out I was pregnant, I wrote in my journal relating to infertility:   

In church today, we talked about responding to suffering - in that we need to draw near to the kingdom of God in our suffering.  I know to myself, my suffering of not getting pregnant is at times all-consuming.  In comparison, people have made it through MUCH more.  And God has always been faithful.  So - in this season of suffering, I will daily draw near to God and seek him first - above all else - above a child.  Because I know he is good and because I choose trust.

I am going to continue to choose trust in this season of loss.  And I am going to continue to seek God first, because that is the ONLY way I know how to continue. 5.24.10}

So, here I am.  Two years later.  Clearly God has blessed us with child(ren) since.  There is an "after" to this story.  This part of my life no longer defines me.  I am not overwhelmed by suffering.  But this experience has absolutely changed me.  And two years later, I have now experienced God's goodness through it.

Because of this experience, I am a more compassionate person.  I'll never underestimate someone else's pain.  I won't make judgment on how someone handles their suffering.  Instead, I will join you.  I will cry with you.  I will talk with you about it.  Because I cannot tell you how meaningful it was to me when I was in that place.  I will not act as if your pain does not exist, just to avoid an awkward conversation or because I don't want to remind you of it.  I know I don't have to remind you.  It is all-consuming.

Thank you to the friends who cried with me in this season.  Those are the friends that have a special place in my heart that I will never ever forget.

Because of this experience, I believe in the power of sharing life with people.  Other women's stories who had gone through it and survived it kept me looking forward.  I am an open book.  I've never hesitated to share my life, but after experiencing the healing that happens in sharing in someones suffering, I am more quick to share my struggles and pain.  Raw, genuine, real.  These are things I greatly value.  I pray that I am always quick admit my weakness and my pain.  Because I know that sharing these things are bringing healing to someone else's spirit.

Also because of this experience, I trust in God's sovereignty more than before.  I trust that he is more powerful than science.  That he has a reason for pain and suffering.  And that he will be glorified.  I trust this not in a head-knowledge, because I read it and memorized it and know it-kind of way.  I trust it because God has written this truth on my heart and I believe it.  He has proven it in my life.

I don't know why I feel compelled to write about this today.  But I do.  A friend asked me recently how it feels to be surprised with a pregnancy after our year of trying and miscarriage... how devastating a time it was for me.  I still don't know how to answer that.  Partially because even at 35 weeks pregnant I still can hardly believe God has blessed us in this way again.  His goodness has been abundant.  But also because, I so so very clearly remember that pain.  I remember how it felt to hear of surprise pregnancies and just not wrapping my mind around how people can not try and get pregnant and people can try for years and not.  I remember the pain that came with that.  Not bitterness toward any one person, but just the questions.  The ache.  The not understanding.  {I still don't understand.}

Remembering...

Like I said, I have friends suffering in this place right now.  I just want to say that I'm lifting you up in prayer today.  Because that is doing the best I can do.  And I have faith that you will be on the other side of your story, looking back, and seeing how God was faithful.