Do Not Cling to Loss

 

I am mother of two, once cursed with miscarriages in between each success. I have lost a child three times but gained two beautiful daughters. When women talk about this subject expect tears or bitterness. The loss of a child to a woman is like losing a part of who she is, it is beyond a moment of devastation because that child exists even in heaven. There is comfort in knowing that all Christian mothers will be reunited with their babies in heaven one day.

 

When my husband and I first started dating after a few years I miscarried, but I was never even aware of the pregnancy until a month had passed and so had the tissue of the fetus. We were not yet married, and I did not bond with the baby growing in me, however I experienced post-partum depression for two years. It was not until the darkest time of my life that I became pregnant in wedlock. I was facing chronic depression, infidelity, anxiety, and my husband was a drug addict while I carried such a beautiful blessing.

 

 I had prayed to God on my knees, asking for an answer and a week later I discovered I had been pregnant for seven weeks while on birth control. My answer is revealed in Psalm 127:3-5 — “Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, So are the children of one’s youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them; They shall not be ashamed, But shall speak with their enemies in the gate.”

 

The Lord comforted me in this darkness by revealing that I would have a healthy daughter and that she would further teach us unconditional love. I could go into further detail about how the miraculous transformation happened with my husband and he broke free from his strongholds but that is a story for another day. As promised, I delivered a healthy baby daughter, and our family began to heal. Luna Starr Warr (we are nerds so naturally we could not pass up a Star Wars reference) came into our lives in 2018 and God guided us as parents, we learned to love again, and He used our daughter to change our hearts. I was told before she was ever conceived that I would not be able to have kids without medical assistance.

 

The very next year, I dreamt of a child three separate times, first at the start of the year, right before a positive test, and I dreamt I was delivering a child and woke up covered in blood, miscarrying. It was in this moment doubt entered my mind, and this loss hit me so hard that I lost my job at the time and hid in the shadows of my mind. I did not want to eat, I had insomnia, and wanted to give up. My husband did not understand at first, but he began to uplift me, and reminded me to trust in God so I started getting into the Word. After a period of grief, during the height of the pandemic that hit I was so dizzy while driving at my next job and I had to pull over at a Dollar General, and my symptoms were so intense that EMTs had to be called in to help me.

 

The job I was working was hyping up the Covid 19 panic so I naturally was nervous and thought for sure I would be taken away in a Hazmat suit in that moment when they checked my vitals and said I had a fever. But they did not even make me wear a mask, in fact customers even came over to see if I was ok and the shop clerk gave me free snacks and Gatorade because my blood sugar, and blood pressure was severely low. They sat with me for a while to monitor me, and after a few minutes I realized this feeling in my body was familiar. The moment I mentioned that they asked if I was pregnant. I wanted to cry because I still had some doubt that it could be possible, but they urged me to buy a test while I was at the store. Everyone was so caring during this scare; I was so taken aback by all the kindness when I expected fear from everyone.

 

After a while I was all right to go home, and sure enough I had two positive tests. I fell on my knees, thanked God, and drew even nearer to Him. Throughout the pregnancy Satan tried to torment me, I say try because he failed. I had an insanely high heart rate through most of it, I had placenta previa, then was told one day my placenta was strange and the doctors had never seen anything like what they saw on the scan. A whole board of doctors consulted together but I took this matter to God immediately.

 

I knew that He could heal anything because he had taken auto-immune diseases from me and brought me back to life when I was dying in 2009 from a brain infection. Instead of being afraid, I prayed without ceasing as did my husband and church family over my womb. Within a week of seeing a specialist, whatever the other doctors had seen had vanished from the scan. To this day they are still very confused.

 

As everything was healed, my body was naturally progressing this time around as opposed to having to be induced from my pregnancy with my firstborn with whom I labored 10 days at home. I knew when my water broke but the hospital did not catch it, so I was continuously sent home, when Alliria Heaven was born, she was born with fluid in her lungs, but my husband assured me that she was God’s child, so I had no fear when I was not able to hold her at birth and she was taken to NICU.

 

Jesus comforted me through it all, not just from within but from the nursing staff surrounding me and their advocacy to fight for me to breastfeed to improve my baby’s health quicker. The doctors were not so reassuring and told me all the issues she would face, but it was all a lie. I rebuked everything and my child left the hospital with me within a four-day stay. God is so good, she endured so much and is still in perfect health no matter what has been said.

 

Fast forward to today and I became pregnant again, this time we were trying to conceive and were praying for a baby boy. Everything was going perfect and at twelve weeks both the baby and I were in perfect health. Every day I prayed over my womb, even in my prayer language and I was confident that this child would thrive. The day of my gender reveal at 16 weeks (everyone was confident about a baby boy even the doctors) no heartbeat was found, in fact my baby stopped growing at 12 weeks they discovered.

 

I had been carrying a dead child for weeks, but I looked at the doctor and requested an ultrasound the following week. The nurse stared at me in disbelief as she asked why. I explained that I am a miracle and I believe in resurrection power, I believe that speaking life into the womb and the power of prayer would bring him back (The Holy Spirit gave me the name for him, Xander Michael — “Protector of men who is like the Lord”), the doctor honored my request and that same day I went to church and received healing from the laying on of hands, and the next day I attended church again and the lesson was about the resurrection of Lazarus. I felt like this was confirmation, and commanded Xander Michael to live in Jesus’ name. For a time, I even began to feel flutters again, sadly when I went to the next appointment there was still no heartbeat even though my body was convinced, he was still alive in me. I was only feeling the Holy Spirit comforting me.

 

This was such a tragedy I experienced a faith crisis and began to question everything, but only for a moment before Jesus’ love shined through. I agreed to a surgery that was intended to be a quick process and a quick recovery (one of the same procedures done for abortion but my child was already gone) but the enemy wanted me dead. What went from a simple twenty-minute procedure turned into a seven-hour ordeal and I lost so much blood, I was given Pitocin to pass blood clots. That medication induces labor, so I labored for a while but did not give birth because the baby had already been removed.

 

The trauma of this struck me harder than I have ever been hit for a duration of three days, but I was placed on bedrest for two weeks and needed help walking and performing daily tasks. For those three days I used my painkillers back-to-back desperate to numb myself but on the third day I woke up and felt death by my bedside and Jesus urged me to stop or I would die (my heart stopped for a second after my surgery). I listened and stopped the meds and chose to endure the pain. It may not seem like it, but it was worth feeling the pain over not feeling anything at all. My Savior lifted the grief after a week (my husband got through it in three days so he could be strong for me on that final day I was suffering intensely) and the Pastor of my church told me to relay a message that God gives to the broken-hearted because according to Psalm 34:18 — “The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, And saves such as have a contrite spirit.”

 

Indeed, the Holy Spirit quickened Scripture to me, and gave me a message to share with others that have experienced loss. He began with 2 Corinthians 4:17-18 — “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary but the things which are not seen are eternal.” For the broken-hearted, it may not seem like a light affliction, but it is, it is just another fleeting temporary moment. The pain is real, but longsuffering is a part of the journey, and it is necessary for our spiritual growth.

 

God does NOT will death, so this was Satan’s work. The enemy uses these situations to urge us to doubt resurrection power and supernatural healing and to blame God. My ministry is all about what Satan was hellbent on destroying. I am not the first and I certainly will not be the last that will be tested on my faith, but I had a choice. There are two types of sorrow: worldly and godly. According to 2 Corinthians 7:10-11 – “For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death. For observe this very thing, that you sorrowed in a godly manner: What diligence it produced in you, what clearing of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what vehement desire, what zeal, what vindication! In all things you proved yourselves to be clear in this matter.” For the first three days of my recovery, I chose worldly sorrow and I clung to the loss. Clinging to the loss destroys you inside, it affects every aspect of your life and is all consuming. After the third day I chose godly sorrow and found true comfort.

 

The true comfort I speak of is acceptance that my child is with God, and I will see him again in heaven, but I also learned a lesson: 2 Corinthians 6:3-10 — “We give no offense in anything, that our ministry may not be blamed. But in all things we commend ourselves as ministers of God: in much patience, in tribulations, in needs, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in sleeplessness, in fastings; by purity, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Spirit, by sincere love, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report; as deceivers, and yet true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold we live; as chastened, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.” We all have faced these obstacles, but we are given the strength to overcome. Our experiences are a reference for later, we can comfort those with the same things we have been comforted with as told in 2 Corinthians 1:3-7.

 

What are we using our blessings for to cope? Did you get a tattoo of your loved one that passed away, or do you keep the ashes of a beloved pet in an urn over your fireplace? What we believe to be ways to treasure memories of sorrow, produces death because it is worldly sorrow. If anything is coming from a place of negative emotion or grief that should not be held onto. The enemy can and will use these trinkets against you.

 

One of my favorite movies called “Chocolat” tells a tale of a traveling woman and her child, and in their family culture they believe it necessary to travel with the north wind. This custom had trapped their family to the point where his own mother had abandoned her life with her husband without any warning. In the movie, the mother and child honor this tradition and also carry around an urn with the grandmother’s ashes. Even in death, that grandmother still dictated the actions of her daughter, and it made the woman and her child miserable to have to keep leaving everything behind. Until the urn accidentally was dropped and broke one day, she finally felt free. She let her mother’s ashes go with the north wind and stopped clinging to the loss so she could finally be happy and live by her own will.

 

Clinging to loss hinders spiritual growth and holds us back from living our life the way God has planned for us to. But we also might as well be holding an all you can eat sign for a spiritual buffet for evil spirits if we do not let go of what we lost. We all have a purpose but holding fast to the temporal instead of God’s promises can bring death. Learn to let go so you can truly live.