Rainbow through my tears
It took me ten years to build up the courage to have my 1st born son, Timothy.
Due to a troubled childhood, I had a lot of emotional baggage and insecurities to work through.I did not want my child to suffer the same fate because of my insecurities, so I spent a lot of time working on myself and never felt ready and qualified to be a mom.
Then God spoke to me through an array of different people, verses and situations.
My final push from God came when I read the definition of courage one day that said:
COURAGE is not the absence of fear, but merely the decision to move ahead in spite of fear
I bargained with God that I wil try only once and if it does not work, that is it!!
I went off my contraception and fell pregnant immediately!!
Throughout my preganancy I was so overwhelmed with fear!
I did not know what to expect, I was worried, scared and was so sick with 24/7 vomiting that I had to be admitted to hospital for dehydration. I went into terrible antenatal depression.
If the pregnancy book had a list of 9 adverse preganancy symptoms, I had at least 8!
My preganancy was anything but blossoming!
And then I had my son, Timothy ,and it was the most amazing, joyfull thing in the world!!
I was so overwhelmed by this experience that I grieved the fact that I wasted ten years before having the courage to experience such joy!
Two years later we were planning a sibling. We tried for 18 months without success!
I could not understand as I fell pregnant so easily the first time.The first time I tried half heartedly and fearfully trembling, but now I wanted it more than anything in the world, and it was not happening!!
When I was about to give up, we received the good news!! I was pregnant!
This time there was no fear, no uncertainty.
I already made plans on how we would rearrange our small townhouse to give Tim’s sibling his/her own space.
I had names ready…….
I day dreamed about breastfeeding………
I already started a journal for her( I just felt it was going to be a girl and I was going to name her Rebekkah)
Only once, I felt the old famliliar antinatal depression creep up on me, but I immediately cast it off saying to satan: the minute this child is born, takes her first breath, and cries her first cry,the sound will be glorifying to the God who gives life!!
I prayed for the depression to lift, and the verse in Ps 23 : even if you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, fear no evil, My rod and staff will comfort you popped into my mind, loud and clear!
I thought this verse was referring to the depression I was feeling as the valley of shadow of death
Only in hindsight, I now know that God was already preparing me for walking literally through the valley of death!
At 12 weeks I started to bleed.
The bleeding was just a few spots and I was told to rest. By the evening I started to experience cramping. I went to the emergency room and was told to wait and see my gynae in the morning. By the next morning I was fully in labour!
When my gynae scanned me I just knew, cause I could not see a heart beat and my bean’ was lying at the bottom of my womb. …
My gynae just said ;’ sorry my girl., the scan showed she stopped growing at 9 weeks already…..
I was admitted to the ward for a D/C and while I was there I was just bleeding uncontrollably.
I kept going to the bathroom to change my sanitary pad when suddenly I felt something heavy pass through my birthcanal.
I went to change my sanitary pad and there she was………..about 5 centimeters big, lying on the sanitary pad!. Oval in form with four stumps where the limbs would have been, two grey dots where the eyes were forming and two holes where the nose would have been!!
It all happened so fast. So unexpected!
I went home, opened the journal I started for her, and wrote;
Today Mommy miscarried you…..
My womb feels empty…….just like the rest of these pages……..
The following few days I was not as shattered as I thought I would be. God was truly comforting me in a way I never knew possible. It was weird, .like my emotions and heart was wrapped in soft cottonwool….
But I was to be shown in a more real way exactly how God’s rod and staff would comfort me through people being used by Him.
For this valley of death had many nooks and crooks and bends that I still had to face…….
Three days later my breasts started to leak milk but there was no little mouth to suckle!
It was more than I could bear!
I cried to my husband and remember saying to him: I know she is in Heaven, and that one day I will see her.But I never got to meet her and know her, so how will I even know its her when I meet her?
My husband answered : She will know you. She was nestled under your heart for three months…..
The next few weeks I battled emotionally, going through the normal grieving process of depression, blaming, anger, bargaining etc.I spoke to a close friend and said that I feel so confused, cause I rebuked satan so proudfully and told him he must try as much as he wants to make my pregnancy horrible, cause once she is born, her first breath and cry will be a worship unto God and his attempts would prove to be in vain.
But now I feel like satan won, cause she never got to take her first breath.
My friend wisely answered me; But she IS worshipping God! She is before His throne daily, looking down on you!
Her answer really settled and comforted me.
But it was not long before the evil one tried to steal the words of comfort from me, for I started to doubt,question and wonder about things.
How do I know that she is in heaven?
Why did this happen to me? God’s word says that children are a blessing from God?
Did I do something wrong and is being punished.?
What was the purpose of this?
If each child is born with a purpose for his/her life already ingrained before birth,, why did she not get to live out her purpose?
My question on whether she is in Heaven got answered through the following verses:
Luke 18;16 Jesus said, let the little children come to Me and DO NOT FORBID them, for the kingdom of God belong to such as these
Matt 18:2 Assuredly I tell you, unless you convert and become as little children, you will by no means enter the Kingdom of God
As I pondered the purpose for her and me through this, God showed me the following as a older christain friend emailed me the following prayer;
God we know that You are the giver of life and You had a divine purpose in allowing the conception of this little one.Lord we resist attempting to understand in our humaness the reason for what has happened, for Your wisdom and knowledge are unsearchable and Your ways and decisions past finding out( Rom 11:33-34)
Lord Your word says that when a life is formed in the womb, You have already decided its purpose( Isaiah49:5)
At conception You have already determined the number of days the child would live and wrote them in Your book( Ps 139:16)
We are assured in Your word that once You have purposed something nothing can thwart Your plans( Isaiah 14:27)
Therefor Lord, help us therefor to no longer refer to this situation as a ‘mis-carriage’ or preganacy failure but as a ‘ in -womb-life-completion’
Lord, You give and You take away.May Your name be praised!( Job1:21b)
I was truly blessed and comforted by this prayer. I found peace that Rabekkah( as I was going to name her) had indeed forfilled her in -womb-purpose, and that satan did not rob her of her purpose. I realised that it is God who gives life AND takes it away. That is why murder is wrong, for it is not for us to decide when to take life.
Therefor Rabekkah did not die because of any evil influence.
Just as God forwarned me: when you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, FEAR NO EVIL….
Evil, had no hand in this.
As I entered the stage of anger of my grieving process, it did not last long, because I stood in front of Jesus like the disciples did that day everyone deserted Him, and when He turned and asked Peter: are you too leaving Me? , Peters answer became mine too:
To whom shall we turn and to whom shall we go?You, Lord have the words of eternal life…( John 6:68)
I have walked through most of this valley but still had the hardest part to complete.
I still had to go round the bend of this journey ahead of: If God brings the good out of every situation for those who believe in Him as promises in Romans 8, then what good am I to take out of this? What purpose is in this?
True to His promise to guide me through this, I was shown.
It did not take long to meet up with people who have miscarried and messages being sent for prayer for them.
I found myself falling into prayer easily. Where in the past I would pray short prayers of please comfort them, please heal there hurt, I now prayed passionately, specifically, perseveringly.
I have walked down the valley.
I have tasted the pain.
I know the questions their hearts will spew up.
And I could pray, pray with passion.
As a prayerwarrior by nature, this affliction, truly afforded me a powerfull weapon for intercession!
I know that Gods word says that the feverent prayer of a rigteous man, availeth much.
Who better to pray feverently, when you have tasted the pain.
Who better to understand our sufferings, than He who has hung on the cross of suffering.
I have also found that when I meet up with mommies that miscarried, that instead of saying: I am so sorry I could now say: I understand
In the past I could stand with them, now I could walk with them.
If my greatest gain was to have been given understanding into the heart of a mom who has experienced miscarriage, I was surprised to, through this, to have been let into the heart and mind of God!
I am a nurse by profession and work in a trauma and emergency unit.
The one day I was so overburdened by all the sad cases that entered my emergency doors: rapes, suicides, domestic violence, drug and alcohol abuse………….
I remember feeling sad that so many people are trapped by sin and its consequences.
My sadness reached a peak when a teenager died in my emergency unit after overdosing on some recreational drug.
As he lay there with blood pouring out his nostrils and ears and mouth, pale and limp, I started to cry.
And as I cried I heard the familiar verse in Ezekiel that says: it is not God’s will than any person should perish
A picture of Rebekkah, lying prematurely on my sanitary pad flashed into my mind and with a sudden overwhelming realisation I knew!!:
The pain I felt with loosing Rebekkah, was but an inkling of the pain that God feels when one of His children are lost.
For just as I was excited, just as I planned to have Rebekkah, just as I had my own plans and purposes for her, likewise God has that for each of us.
But when we are lost due to bad choices and never step into our purposes, for God it too is loosing a child……………and His pain is real……..
So now, when I pray for those in my immediate sphere that are lost, I have this picture of Rebekkah in mind…………..and guess what?
I pray more feverently and my hope and trust is this:
That it WILL availeth much!!
And to this end I know: Rebekkah’s death was not in vain!!
