Momentary, Light Affliction

We lost our baby to a miscarriage last week. We found out at my first prenatal appointment that the baby had not made it past 5 weeks. Two days later, I started bleeding and that Friday night I had the miscarriage. The only real complication medically was that I got dehydrated from blood loss and had to go to the ER. I'm also anemic, but they said that I'm no worse than after I've given birth. So I'm just taking iron to build my blood supply back up. I was grateful that I did not need a blood transfusion or a DNC.

The last week for me has been a week of grieving and healing. I caught a stomach virus in the ER and as a result have been quarantined to my room this week so that I don't spread it to the rest of the family. So far so good, no one else has gotten sick! It has been good in many ways to be stuck in my room. I was able to spend a day journaling and mourning the loss of my baby. I have also been able to do some planning and scheduling for our coming school year. I would not have taken the time to do that if I was busy having summer fun with the kids right now. So, although it has been hard on the family and I am greatly looking forward to the end of my confinement, I am also grateful that the Lord works all things for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.

I wanted to share the Lord's goodness through this process. He has walked through this with us and I have never felt alone or unprotected. Throughout this pregnancy, things never seemed right to me. I had physical indications of this, but I also knew in my Spirit that this baby would never be born into this world. When I would speak of the baby coming in early March, it never felt like it would really happen. A few weeks before the miscarriage, I realized that I was worrying about this and prayed with my accountability partner confessing the sin of worry and surrendering this baby to the Lord's plan. Even on the day of my prenatal appointment, as I was filling out my preliminary paperwork, I remember wondering if all that paperwork was necessary. So when the doctor became concerned that he was not seeing a 10 week old baby, I was not surprised. It just confirmed what I already knew in my spirit. I am so very grateful that the Lord was preparing my heart ahead of time, especially that He has lead me through surrendering to Him before I lost the baby. How gently He leads us!

The miscarriage was fairly traumatic to me. I lost a lot of blood and that was scary. I was afraid I was going to die. I don't know if I was overreacting or not. I probably was. It was traumatic nonetheless. Something happened in the ER that was another sweet assurance of the Lord's covering over me. My mom had just hung up the phone from checking up on me when our pastor from Germany called. He said the Lord had laid our family on his heart and was calling to see if we were ok. She was able to share my situation with him and they prayed together for me. When she called a few minutes later and told us what happened, I just cried. I know the Lord is protecting me, but this was the confirmation I needed in that moment. He knows exactly what we need and He never fails us!

We have been and are continuing to be blessed this week with meals from family and friends. I did not expect this to happen, but we have meals coming well into next week. It is more than I could have asked for! I am honored to be the recipient of blessing from the Body of Christ. Even in this the Lord has more than supplied.

We are still grieving as the grief comes. But we are also filled with joy and peace that the Lord's plans for us are perfect, even when the plan is hard. I was thinking about something our pastor says. He says that if all our trials were placed in a big pile, we would each go to the pile and pick out the one that belongs to us. We would not reach for other people's problems, because our problems have been tailored to fit us and are exactly what we need. I think he is right.

2 Corinthians 4:17, 18 says, "For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal." I want that "eternal weight of glory" in me. My Father in Heaven knows how best to work that in me, so I will press in to Him and trust that every trial He brings my way is part of His perfect plan for me. May He be glorified!