God in the darkness

I'm in another miscarriage scare.  Limbo...I do not know if little one will stay with me.

I had remained fairly stoic in the face of the 3rd loss.  Not uncaring just....contemplative and not able to cry outright.

Monday we had an inconclusive ultrasound.  Measuring 4 days behind.  Told there is some wiggle room but they like to see more progress.  It felt like the air was knocked out of me... trouble concentrating...I lost hope and held back tears as I got dressed with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.  The sinking hopeless feeling surrounded me. 
In the car I cried...at home I cried.  That drowning feeling. The bad nightmare repeating it's self...

It's so hard not to live there... in death.. in sadness and hopelessness,  friends gave me glimmers of hope.  My hope is not in a baby and I struggle so badly with how to pray, but in the words of my counselor we can always ask...

The Josh Garrels song....the children's song... in this world you will have trouble but I have overcome the world.  John 16:31.... in this world you will experience difficulties but take heart, I have overcome the world!
We are not guaranteed a life without trouble.  God is not our Santa Claus.  

Psalm 61.... lead me to the rock that is higher than i... I call as my heart grows faint....

Psalm 23....yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil because you are with me...your rod and your staff they comfort me... you prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies.   My cup runs over...

The valley of the shadow of death.... isn't this life?  Don't we feel like this much of the time?  Physically, emotionally.  Isn't grief often like the valley of the shadow of death?  Don't we fear the evil?  I know I do. 

Some mornings I pray that the Lord will shut the mouth of the lions.... like Daniel in the lions den.... and also...1 Peter 5:8...
Be alert and of sober mind.  Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.

Have you ever felt on the brink of being eaten alive?  I have.... sitting at the edge of the abyss,  not sure how to fight for myself because so much was so new.  Numbness set in.  The suffocating blanket of sadness descended.  Like heavy dark felt-like fuzz...over my eyes and face and heart, so all I felt was sadness.  Sadness and a shredded heart.

And shame.  Shame that suffocated.   Unworthiness that suffocated. 
Now I recognize the hormonal shift which can be so intense.  Then I had no idea,  I simply thought I was loosing my mind.  Tears would pop up unbidden at work or at church and I fought to hold them back.  The thought of loosing emotional control in public paralyzing.

It still is. 

But God is in the grief.  He is there, he lives there, in those in-between spaces.  Like a picture out of focus....there is the option for sacred work to be done in these broken spaces when we're completely desperate....

Shut the mouths of the lions!  They lie and wait to eat me up.... my heart is overwhelmed...

I hope and pray that we are not having a fourth miscarriage.  The death of a hope is one thing. The act of having a miscarriage is even worse, in my opinion. You are stripped bare.

I dared to hope for a positive outcome for this baby.  It was a conscious....decision to pray for my baby and dare to hope.  I could not live forever in the darkness.  There was always the risk of getting hurt. I still do not know if the answer will be yes or no but in faith I pray for mercy...and for a yes...