In The Still Of My Heart

I was doing some cleaning yesterday afternoon to prepare for a visit from my sister & baby nephew. It’s always when I know I’ll be having company that I will dust everywhere (yes, even the places you can’t see) and finally decide where to put that stack of mail that has collected in the corner.

As I was finishing up in the kitchen I looked on top of my refrigerator & stared at the hospital bands that I was required to wear the night we lost our first baby. For months they remained on my counter where I could see & touch them every day. I didn’t want to throw them away or hide them. I don’t know why, but they have remained precious, tangible objects that have reminded me of the physical & emotional pain of that night. I could touch them & hold them in my hand when I needed to. And it brought comfort & connection to me. I didn’t want to get rid of them because I didn’t want to forget anything. Now I know I will never forget. How could I? But for a while it was a very real fear for me to think that the memory of that night or our baby would fade or that people would forget about our baby’s life. Those bands symbolized that for me. So getting rid of them would mean that what happened didn't mattered. It terrified me. After a couple of months, I deliberately moved them from my counter to the top of the refrigerator. It was a step towards further healing for me. I knew they were there. If I needed to look at them or hold them, I could. But they were further away. And for the past 5 months, that’s where they have remained.

So yesterday, as I fixated my eyes on them, I began crying. Not out of sorrow, but out of remembrance. And I knew & felt that it was time. Not to discard them, but to tuck them away somewhere special, just like that night & our baby will always be a very real, precious part of me. So I did just that. And I realized something. That piece of my heart is no longer an excruciating, open wound. My God started bandaging it the moment that loss began. He personally tended to it in the quiet nights where I laid in bed sobbing, crying out to Him, wrapped in my husband’s arms. Even though it was painful, there were multiple times that my God changed those bandages & cleaned out the wound, because that’s what it needed. And yesterday, as I tucked those hospital bands away where they will remain from now on, I knew that the wound I have felt for 7 months has now become a beautiful scar. I realize that the healing that Jesus Christ has given me does not diminish the memory of our baby or minimize the significance & importance of that life-changing night. It just means that my God is faithful to walk with me through the dark valley & will restore me always. He is close to the broken-hearted & faithful to His Children. His peace is beyond what we can fathom. His love is deeper than we’ll ever know.

Thank you, Father for my beautiful scar. Enjoy loving on our sweet baby. We look forward to the time when we will be reunited & can do it ourselves. I declare You as faithful, my God, Savior & Comfort.

And as another testament to God’s faithfulness & for those of you who may not know, I am 6 ½ months pregnant with a little girl. We are naming her Raelyn which comes from the name Rachel in the Bible. It means “God’s lamb of beauty”. And oh my goodness, yes she is.