In the midst of some of my deepest sorrows, darkest grief, and most despondent years, the Lord provided many encouragements for my heart through books, blogs, and online forums. Reading gave me comfort, and was always at my fingertips. When I asked how you comfort others with the comfort you too have received, I was immediately noticing how reading your words was a blessing. And then of course I responded with my own words, opening myself up again to share my experiences, before sharing some of the tangible blessings that I personally found paramount & pertinent in my miscarriage sufferings. Perhaps it is because blogs tend to be word-centric or perhaps it is simply because I have the written word knit so much into my life & self & history… but words are not only part of how I minister but also a huge part of how I am ministered to. The Lord uses words to heal me, bless me, challenge me, grow me, and put me back together when I am broken.

In light of this, let me share some of the particular conglomerations of words that have given me comfort as I tried to keep from drowning in the waves of grief, as I rode the storms that came and went with my many miscarriages. Again, not an exhaustive list, but the cream of the crop from my personal tastings.

Books

Samuel Rutherford’s The Loveliness of Christ has been something that I have not only read through, but referred back to often, and given repeatedly to other bereaved women as well. While the encouragements in this dear little book are not isolated to the grief of miscarriage, so many of them are excessively pertinent, as you may begin to grasp here.

Nancy Guthrie’s The One Year Book of Hope was a lifeline to me when I was sinking. I shared some thoughts and snippets from it here on my blog occasionally: like here, for example, and here again between readings of it (because I did read it two years in a row).

C.S. Lewis’ A Grief Observed spoke both to my husband and to me in specifics that are quintessentially foundational when traveling the road of grief. He put into words so many things that we suffered and felt but had not articulated. I put together a bunch of quotes from this book here, so of course they are drastically out of context; but I hazard a guess that if you too are living out a storm of grief, they will resonate with you in your own context there.

Jerry Sittser’s A Grace Disguised was another book with which we personally identified, and found many of his poignant paragraphs echoed in our own hearts and experiences. Again, I shared quotes out of context here, but trust that you would find them good teasers at the very least, and possibly inspire you to pick up a copy of the book to read them within their context. It’s that pertinent.

Mrs. Cowman’s Streams in the Desert was revisited numerous times during my years of recurring miscarriages and unending grief. My leather-bound copy is well loved, notated, shared, and oft returned to like an old friend. It truly has been a place of comfort, a place where my tears have dimpled pages in sorrow and in thankfulness.

Hannah Hurnard’s Hind’s Feet on High Places (and to a lesser extent the sequel Mountains of Spices) was an allegory that blessed my heart and challenged my faith in its own ways. A very pertinent telling of a girl named Much-Afraid’s journey through hardships, with the companions of Sorrow and Suffering at her side, following the Shepherd in her steep climb to the High Places. To say that it hit home numerous times, to the point where I had to set the book down and revisit it at a later moment, is a bit of an understatement.

Blogs

While it seems that the days of bloggers have much slowed in recent years, I found empathy, companionship, friendship, and compassion through the world of blogs. My mother and I found stories of other bereaved women, where their babies died at various ages & from various things, but the grief and the suffering was so similar, woven throughout them all. The open hearts and honest glimpses that these women shared allowed me to work through my grief in a likewise open and honest way, which was not only healing for myself but I have since learned that it has greatly blessed other people ~ Mrs. MK, Jess Mac, two different Butterfly mamas, and many more either plowed paths that I followed or walked alongside me… and that has continued to bless me even years later, and even after some of their blogs have fizzled almost completely. While my platform here on my own blog did not originate as a place to simply process grief or walk with others through grief, it has definitely played a large part in that journey. The theme of Joyful Domesticity retains its original intent: that of pursuing and proclaiming a joyful heart in my domestic life and calling. And much of that has been greatly impacted by my grief, my sorrow, my bereavement.

I have also had the joy and privilege of working with other women on various blogs & websites through the years, such as Grieve Out Loud, Faces of Loss, and Mommies With Hope. I have also guest-posted throughout the years in various places (including a reproductive immunology support group and my reproductive immunologist’s patient testimonial series) to share my story and my testimony, and while that has been a double-edged-sword type of challenge, God has definitely used those opportunities for my good and my healing, while also using my feeble words and experiences to lift up others who are downtrodden. While many of these aforementioned sites do not have the present activity they once had (I think a lot of places have turned to Facebook groups through the years, which is not a place where I participate… so it is my own choice that has left me out of those group aspects most recently…), it has been a blessing to come alongside other women, even when I was not yet “on the other side” ~ trudging through the tearful trenches together was a blessing. Pushing and pulling one another through the muck was a bittersweet joy.

Online Forums

There was a time when I spent roughly two solid years in a loss forum section of an “i am pregnant” website. It was the first place I learned how online communities could not only function but also bless my socks off. Interestingly, it was my mother who introduced me to the site, encouraged me to sign up, and she even got to know the women from that loss group alongside me as I shared stories with her of these bereaved mothers who, like me, desperately longed to grow their families. Some of these women were Christians, some of them weren’t. It was a wonderful place to encourage sisters in their faith as well as to share faith with those outside of Christ’s family. The Lord not only used that place to lift me up, but I learned through the years that He also managed to use me in the lives of other brokenhearted women. We prayed for one another. We shared life stories with one another. We followed one another’s cycles and losses, spoke of each others’ babies by name, sent care packages to one another. We rejoiced when someone finally got their rainbow baby after loss(es). I remember when one woman on there suffered her fifth miscarriage, and I was horrified that anyone would ever have to suffer so many losses. She and I even talked on the phone numerous times, and we almost met in person one time (although it never quite worked out). I did end up meeting in person with one woman I met on that forum, and not only have we stayed friends, but we have had playdates and she did photography for me when God finally filled my arms with my own rainbow babies. I didn’t have people in my real life circles who knew what I was going through in an experiential way, but God provided the community I needed to fill that specific hole in my heart & life. I am so thankful He did that.

After a while there, my mother found and shared with me a Christian-specific infertility & pregnancy loss forum, started by the author of the book Hannah’s Hope. The forums of Hannah’s Prayer have been a place where I have shared in ministry (the giving & the receiving) for six years. I love being on the leadership team there, where we moderate forums, encourage other women in their own hard journeys of infertility & loss, and where we take seriously the ministry of prayer for one another. I have formed true friendships there, including with numerous women whom I have had the privilege of meeting in person. I even helped write & co-edit a Christian devotional e-book for women going through the pregnancy-after-loss journey, Rainbows & Redemption, along with a handful of specifically-chosen women we met in the forums of Hannah’s Prayer. Where I have had a hole in my life that in-person friends and acquaintances could not fill, the Lord has provided a community of Christian women to step into that gap. His hand has been obvious, and His work of healing has been plain. He has used this place to work in me, and continues to use this place to work through me. I can not describe the privilege of being on both the giving & receiving ends of His grace here. I continue to feel Him at work, and I praise Him for that!

Luke 12:6-7
Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies?
And not one of them is forgotten before God.
Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered.
Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.

… … … … …

The Lord has used many things, many people, many places as He has ministered to me, fed me, upheld me, and remembered me. I pray that He might even use this place, this servant of His, and some of the things that I have shared here to likewise minister to you.

Next time, I will share with you some of the things I have done myself in my own journey of grief. Please don’t hesitate to chime in with a comment to share your own pertinent thoughts. Today, can you share any books or blogs that God has used to comfort you in your grief?

2 Thessalonians 2:16-17
May our Lord Jesus Christ Himself,
and God our Father,
who loved us
and gave us eternal comfort
and good hope through grace,
comfort your hearts
and establish them in every good work and word.

A lot of us try to laugh it off when our period starts, saying that it is a good time to have a glass of wine and indulge in some chocolate. We grab a heating pad and swallow a couple tablets of Ibuprofen, and curl up anywhere remotely comfortable to wait out the cramps, the bloating, the pain, the annoyance.

But what about when getting your period is no longer about simply getting through feeling sick and pained and hormonal and annoyed for four (or fourteen, depending on how the Lord made your specific body) days out of every month… what about when getting your period is a monthly reminder of the emptiness that you carry around in your body?

What about when you have spent months or years praying for a positive pregnancy test? To pee in a cup, dip in a stick, and wait the two eternally long minutes to see whether two little lines show up… and then only one single, lonely little line shows up… and the loneliness of that line is a faint echo of the emptiness that you feel right there in the depth of your body.

What about when getting your period is a gory, bloody, physically painful and emotional wrenching reminder of miscarrying your baby?

What about when you are enduring a period that isn’t supposed to be happening because you were supposed to still be pregnant?

What about those days when your body is bleeding out from the miscarriage itself, and you think your body will never end the process of delivering that precious little lifeless body of your baby into your hands?

What about the hours that feel like days, and the days that feel like months, and it all jumbles together into an endless mush of numbing time where your heart oozes pain and seeps grief every single moment?

Is curling up on the couch with a heating pad, a chocolate bar, and a glass of wine the way to find comfort? And do we have to have to endure the lonely, empty grief always alone?
Well, it may not be a bad start, but it certainly is not the end of the story.

When I suffered my first miscarriage a little over eight years ago (can you believe Covenant would be so grownup already?), I was suddenly thrown into the receiving end of a whole host of tangible comforts. Enduring eight more miscarriages in the next few years gave me even more opportunities to receive with open hands various comforts from family, friends, even strangers. I still have a host of these tangible comforts in my home or recorded in family memory books & photo albums. I have pocketed many of these ideas to share with others who have suddenly found themselves in the throes of this particular grief.

I have not suffered the particular grief of infertility as defined by an inability to conceive a baby in my womb.
I have repeatedly suffered the particular grief of infertility as defined by an inability to carry a living baby to term in my womb.
And I would hasten to guess that the pains of these things, the griefs they carry, (and particularly when they overlap) are more similar than I can imagine. I pray that God would give me opportunities to extend tangible comforts to my sisters along the continuum of suffering infertility’s grief, in ways that would glorify Him and bless them in their specific stories.

This is by no means an exhaustive list. Call this some highlights, if you will.
And please, if you have experience especially on the receiving end of tangible comforts when caught in the throes of miscarriage’s grief, would you leave a comment with your own highlights, where the blessing and grace felt most pertinent at the time?

When I Needed Comfort,
these Tangible Graces Showed Up

Flowers
When my first baby died, I don’t know how many people sent us flowers, but they were numerous. And every single one meant the world to my broken, bleeding heart.
One friend of mine (from adolescence) sent me a single white rose for a baby (and she did this numerous times). I still have one of them (Mercy’s, so it has been long dried) in its vase with its ribbon here on the vanity in my bedroom.
I have received rose bushes for a couple of my babies, and a peony when Fidelis died.
Some people don’t like receiving flowers when suffering grief, because flowers tend to die; and death reminds us of, well, death. But I happen to be one of the people who love them anyway. Even if they do die, and it reminds me. I mean, honestly: it’s not like I was going to forget in the first place.

Cards, emails, blog comments
We were flooded with sympathy cards and emails and blog comments when Covenant died. It has been much less so as the years have passed, and the babies’ deaths have piled up. Take that as you will.
But as someone who is spoken to deeply by the written word, these notes (even if the author inadvertently puts their foot in their mouth, I know the intent was love and compassion) lift up my soul.

Food
My brother and his wife have given us freezer meals and Pizza Hut gift cards, which have been incredible helps when I have been physically or emotionally absolutely otherwise unable to feed my family (or myself).
My parents have shown up on our doorstep with baskets full of hot food to feed us dinners. Sometimes my mother has brought me hot plates right in my own bed. She has fed my husband and children when I could not; and she has fed me when I did not want to. She cared for our bodies, and by so doing she cared for our souls.
One dear couple would do “hit and run” food drops on our doorstep when we still lived in town. A plate of cookies. A pie. They never stayed to force small talk on us. They simply wanted to minister to us, from our tastebuds to our guts to our broken hearts. I’ve never eaten a chocolate chip cookie the same way since then.

Artwork
My parents gave us a framed piece of artwork highlighting hope (using the first few verses of Romans 5) when Covenant Hope died. It has been on our bedroom wall ever since.
An online friend I’ve never met sent me two beach sunset pictures with my babies’ names on them. One is in our bedroom, one is in our guestroom. She also sent a card that pictures an empty swing on the front of it in the middle of a lush green background: I framed it, and it has been in our family room ever since, because that empty swing speaks volumes to me.

Gift Bags
One time, I think it might have been after my fourth or fifth miscarriage although I honestly forget exactly when it was, I received a big package in the mail that was a care package contributed to by women mostly from around various corners of North America whom I had never met, and many of whom were not Christians: it was filled with cozy socks, candy, candles, a blank journal, teas, and a whole host of other things. Women who had never met me, nor met each other, banded together across the distance to put together a care package for me. I might have bawled the best kind of tears.
Another time, I think it was after my son Hosanna died, the wife of our church’s pastoral intern put together a gift bag for us, again filled with various items to bless our hearts and let us know we were cared for. A little brass bird candleholder from that package has been in our family room ever since, and is a continual reminder that our Lord cares for us more than any sparrow.
A third time, after my daughter Heritage died, a friend of mine (mostly long-distance friend, largely through blogging and email communication) gathered a couple of ladies from her church, and they put together a gift bag for us: lotion, lip gloss, toenail polish, Starbucks money, a deep red mug (that I use fondly for my morning coffee), chocolate, and more… and we visited their church a couple of weeks later, this care package was quietly placed at my feet. Women who barely knew me, but had deep compassion for my grief, once again came together with what could look like a random conglomeration of little blessings, and put them in one place and put it at my feet… and let me tell you, I was blessed.

Jewelry
One friend of mine, who now lives far away, gave me a piece of mother’s jewelry. It is a heart, with a little tiny birthstone for each of my babies dangling from it. This gift from that particular friend spoke more to me than any words she ever said.
My mother has given me remembrance jewelry in more veiled fashion through the years. She gave me a pair of pink pearl earrings for my first Mother’s Day, when as of yet I had no babies in my arms but my womb had carried two. She gave me a bracelet made of seven silver strands another Mother’s Day when I had seven babies in heaven. She gave me a necklace with a cross that says “let your faith be bigger than your fear” when I was miscarrying repeatedly again, and we thought the doors to grow our family were closing forever. And when she found out I was pregnant for the thirteenth time, she brought over a silver ring with thirteen leaves on it, and the word hope inscribed inside.

Phone Calls
I am not a phone person, I will probably never really be a phone person.
But this one friend just about turned me into one, because she would call, she would sing psalms with me over the phone, she would pray for me over the phone, she would cry with me over the phone.
And if you ever left me a voicemail (not being a phone person, my voicemail is well-used…), those too have ministered greatly to my soul. Using your own voice to tell me that I am remembered, our grief is not forgotten, our child is honored, our tears are acknowledged, our needs are your concern. Thank you.

Silence
This can very clearly be a double-edged sword, and it must be used with wisdom and extremely carefully.
I am not talking about the type of silence where you don’t let me know that you care; that’s simply called being absent in the face of need.
I am talking specifically about the kind of silence where you sit in the dust and the ashes with someone who is grieving, and you don’t try to fix it with platitudes or offer glimpses of hope that may or may not actually exist.
The kind of silence where you showed up, and we sat side-by-side on my family room couch, cupping warm mugs of tea in our hands. We didn’t have to talk. We simply sat. And I wasn’t alone. It was like a silent prayer became a tangible presence. And that kind of silence can be a gift.

Lastly, never underestimate the power of human touch and human tears.
These are graces from God, comforts built right into our very DNA.
A touch of my shoulder, a clasping of my hands, and sometimes a hug…
Your adding to the tears shed for the sake of my baby’s death and for the sake of my mommy-grief…
These too are tangible gifts. I do not take them lightly. But I open my hands for them, I receive them, I thank you for them.

Next time, I will share a short list of books and online resources that have ministered to me in my grief, and been another source of comfort when in even my darkest of days.