After our twins died, mothers from all over wrote to me. They had lost babies before birth, after birth, in childhood, and beyond. They wrote to me with love and compassion, empathy's impulse to reach out in shared suffering, even to a stranger. And to a person, they all said the same thing. God was with me so powerfully in the moments and days surrounding my child's death. Later, my experience of God became the wilderness. If this happens for you, I understand. I am here. They knew well enough not to declare it would happen for me, having been on the bereaved receiving end of supposedly-helpful declarations of How Your Grief Will Be and What Will Happen To You Because I Know Best. They told me it might. They told me it could be hard. They told me not to lose hope. I read their words and was grateful for their compassion. (Secretly I told myself it would not happen to me.) God would not leave me to the wilderness. . . . Maggie and Abby died four … [Read more...] about God in the wilderness
wilderness
there’s a wideness in God’s mercy
Let me try to tell you. There have been exactly two afternoons in the past two months and two weeks (because yes, I still count in months and weeks; this is what mothers of newborns do, remember - or should do in a world where nature does not betray and babies do not die) when my despair has been tempted to fling open the front door and scream at the top of my tired lungs that the world has forgotten us. On each of these afternoons - and I cannot explain this - I have tripped over a package on the doorstep. I have calmed down enough to sit on the stoop next to a white USPS package with a return address I did not recognize. And I tore open its top to unwrap something rare and beautiful from an almost-stranger. Each time this surprise has sprung forth gut-felt gratitude, wet with tears. You guessed this much. But not for the reason you think. Because each time that package was not a thoughtful token of a single someone's affection. No. It was the fullness of … [Read more...] about there’s a wideness in God’s mercy
