Turning My Grief into Gratitude

To give you the quick recap on my life in the past five years: I moved to North Carolina for college, met and married Michael, and wanted to start a family. After this, things went quickly from really good, to really bad.

I was able to get pregnant right away. I lost the baby. I was able to get pregnant again the very next month. Again I lost the baby. Even though a year has gone by, typing the words, I lost the baby, makes me want to vomit. Admitting that I now have two children that have died seems unreal. At the time, I felt like I had to regain composure quickly. I was teaching sixth grade and my life seemed like it was moving on a rollercoaster. But now that I am a stay at home mom, I feel like I think about them more often. What would they have looked like? Were they a boy or a girl? Would I have had twins? And I am left with no answers.

It seems like after over a year of grieving, God has finally brought light to this area in my life. Yes, I lost two pregnancies and that is hard to deal with, but God saw it fit to keep my two children. God is sovereign over all things and his sovereignty according to Jonathan Edwards is “his absolute, independent right of disposing of all creatures according to his own pleasure”.

I was not able to hold my children. They have never seen my face, nor I theirs. But my children were blessed far beyond my comprehension. Instead of seeing me, the first face my children saw was the face of Jesus. Jesus has loved my children and kept them from harm. Jesus has been gracious to my children and given them peace. They will forever be with him. They will never have to deal with the agonies of this world. They will never hurt or know pain, have a broken heart, fight, experience violence, or struggle to make ends meet. They will forever be with him and experience joy for eternity.

And now I can honestly say thank you Jesus. Thank you for treating my first two children far better than I could have ever done. Thank you Jesus for loving and keeping my children in your presence. Thank you.