(Soundtrack this on Spotify while reading: Lord Huron "Lonesome Dreams" album)
To feel alive inside is always a gift. Recently, the alive I feel is a deep ache that seems to separate my bones from my skin. An ache that only burrows deeper with the kisses from Holy Spirit and my husband; kisses meant to say, "I am present and my love for you is steady and strong."
A beautiful morning in July marked the beginning of something wonderful & a beautiful morning in August marked the beginning of something awful. Joel was leaving that day in July for a remote island in Nicaragua and I had been abruptly awakened by Jesus. I ran to the bathroom and grabbed a test from the drawer. I had already taken three of the five in the past couple months and the results were always the same, steady digital image: "Not Pregnant."
Jumping back to the night before... We were making the tedious drive from Mexico to Redding, on the way home from leading a week long mission trip to Tijuana for Bethel. As I was sitting in the backseat, a rush of joy hit me and I uncontrollably laughed and celebrated. In that moment, I felt pregnant. I was rolling around in my own mind, making excuses for the negative thoughts that tried to convince me I was just stir-crazy from driving for 8 hours and drinking coffee on an empty stomach. Father God interrupted the nonsense and, grinning, said, "I just wanted to be the first one to tell you." I wept in the backseat as I felt the excitement of God himself, how he had wanted this for me before being a Mommy ever even occurred to me.
As I waited the eternal three minutes for my test result the next morning, I wondered why anxiety had replaced the joy from the night before. Months ago, Jesus told me that our baby was going to be born in March and would be the sweetest, happiest spirit; an "incredibly important person. "This is my month to be pregnant," I told myself firmly every day. Well, and it was. "Pregnant," announced the test. If an inanimate object could smile and wink, then I'm pretty sure that our ClearBlue digital would have been the first to do it that day. Due date: April 8.
I couldn't believe my eyes, as tears streamed down my face, and I ran to our room where my sleeping "beauty" was still dreaming. I jumped on the bed, crying and laughing at the same time. Joel, startled awake, hugged me and we rejoiced together as we allowed our hearts to instantly fall head-over-heels for our new numero uno: Little Tiny. Resembling a tadpole and the size of a poppyseed: who knew there was so much to love in someone so small!
We drove Joel to San Francisco that afternoon to send him to the island and a tender man kissed his newly pregnant wife and his unborn child, only hours earlier first realized. A week later and we would have him back, the tiniest of us having grown 10,000 times bigger in just that short time. What a dream we were living; one of the greatest I had lived in my entire life.
A week later, excited to see my Honey in two days, I went to the bathroom when I woke up. And my heart dropped: I was bleeding. "Nope. I'm not gonna do this. Nope." My heart was beating, what felt like a thousand times a minute. I ran to my room, grabbed my guitar immediately and began to worship. I didn't know what else to do: call the doctor, call friends, go back to sleep, cry? All I knew how to do was worship. I could feel the weight of what was threatening us. I knew many women experienced light spotting at this stage in pregnancy (5 weeks), but I could feel the air around me threatening to steal life. I knew this was bigger and I had to have a greater encounter with Love than I was having with fear in that moment. After playing for a half hour, I called my midwife. "Rest." That is all one can do this early on in a pregnancy, there is no way to stop anything if it starts this early on. I was in a light panic and didn't know what to do...so I ate a banana. I hate bananas. Gagging, I lay in bed, trying to stomach my potassium and hoping that it would cure my dizzy, nauseated body. Silently, I let tears escape down my feverish, banana-stuffed cheeks. I knew all the signs pointed to the most hellish experience a happily pregnant woman could experience: a lost pregnancy or the sound of the worst word imaginable to me in that moment: miscarriage. Miscarriage. No way. Not me, nope. I could only audibly say, "Nope," to whoever was listening. I had nothing else to say, so I scolded the fear and I scolded the air. "Uh-uh, nope, nope. I don't think so."
Bathroom trips were my worst. I knew I had to force myself to look in the toilet every time, looking intently for signs that my sweet baby was still safe and sound in my tiny womb. Any woman with a threatened miscarriage knows the tension of both wanting to look and never wanting to see anything remotely pointing to miscarrying. Blood: shed for me to restore my life, to give me everything good. Blood: shed right now that threatens to take the life of my second-favorite human on earth, my perfect Promise. Looking in the toilet, I wept as I faced that I was more than lightly spotting. Desperation barreled me, hit me like a wall. Kneeling on the bathroom floor, I wept into the toilet. I still cherish that moment, the worst one of the entire experience; the one that showed me how deeply and selflessly a mother can love. I plunged my hands into the bowl, searching for "tissue" that would tell me whether my baby was alive or not. Searching for my embryo, I was actually searching for HOPE. Could I still hold on to the promises for my Little Tiny?
I didn't find anything and relief washed over me like a salty ocean breeze. A new strength picked me up off the floor, washed my hands, and quietly stared into my sea-green eyes. "Laci Hill, you are going to hold on, you are going to fight." I lay in bed and prayed for my baby, for myself, for my husband I could not reach until tomorrow, and for people everywhere who are persecuted, hurt, dying, or experiencing a threatened loss like me. I hugged all of us in my heart and lifted us to our tender, attentive, generous Father. People, God is so good. He is steadily, faithfully, unwaveringly good. I am so grateful for the grace God gave me in my most unsteady moments that allowed me to still see him clearly: I never doubted his goodness or intent for my baby. He is eternally, outrageously, offensively good to us.
For two days, I told myself and I told my baby, "Hold on. We are holding on." I played music over my iPhone speakers pressed up against my belly, I laughed out loud on purpose to relieve my angst, and I drank more water than a yawning whale. I did everything right. My roommate brought me flowers, chips & salsa, progesterone cream, and lots of hugs. What a woman, let me tell you, Tiffany Ann Harris: she shared cuddles, tears, laughs, silence, Frasier, and hope with me. She was strength when I needed it most.
Joel was able to call me the day after I started to miscarry and he felt the same things as me: hold on. So we held on, we held onto hope, we held onto our Jesus. We were not going to give up. I would tell God, "I don't have faith, but you do. So I will bring my hope, you give me your faith and a miracle." The doctors tried to be hopeful with me, but you can always hear the truth in the tone of their voice: they knew the facts pointed to miscarriage. But I didn't care what the facts pointed towards because I was holding on. The fact that something feels impossible is proof that nothing is impossible; because miracles are possible. Literally nothing is impossible with Holy Spirit. So I scheduled a doctor's appointment for the next morning to have blood tests and a checkup. I was holding on past the "eleventh hour." People have asked me before, "When do you stop praying for someone to come back to life?" I always say, "I can't answer for you. But I personally stop praying/believing when God stops being able to raise them." I think that even if God told me to stop praying for someone I love to come back to life, I wouldn't. It is just the kind of person he made me to be (a fighter) and it sure as hell will pay off one day; that's not to say you have to be like me. In these moments, the mindless, droning voice of "theology" runs away; and the intimate "I feel you, I hear you, I smell you, I know you," rushes to you in a hugging, drowning, ocean of love and history with God. Your heart guides you through the impossible, not your mind. Your mind can't understand miracles, but your heart recognizes them: like when you catch a whiff of someone wearing the same perfume as your Mom. It's tender, it's familiar, and it leaves you with a sensation of something or someone. "A person with an argument is always one encounter away from changing their argument."
I lay in bed the night before my doctor's appointment, drifting in and out of discouragement: needing strength to hold on longer. I was still bleeding, still cramping, and I felt so alone in it all. I cried out to God, weeping, "I need you to encounter me! Not my "sanctified imagination" taking me somewhere with you. I mean, you in flesh and bone, come and grab me and take me with you. Anywhere. Take me with you." He spoke with kisses on my forehead, "It is still all about my presence." My heart swelled with love and I realized: more than I want my baby, more than I want this to turn out well for me, I want his presence. I want more of him. Not that I have to choose one or the other, but that I want him most and always will. I knew I was going to be ok, that my heart would stay open and vulnerable, and that I would constantly run into him and not away- regardless of the outcome of any situation. I went out to my living room where my roommates friends were worshipping and just soaked in the hunger for his presence. "There's nothing worth more, that could ever come close, nothing can compare: You're our living hope." Hope: this is who he is and this is what he does and he always keeps his promises. Not, "I sure hope you come through for me." It is, "I know you and I know what you say is truth." He is living hope.
I woke up the next morning, nerves running in circles inside of my weak and achy body. I felt beat up, like someone had punched me about twenty times in the stomach. I had zero feelings of "hope" for the first time in the past two days. I just wanted to get medical answers. At the health center, I had to pee in a cup. The first couple seconds, only blood was in the cup. My heart broke as the "facts" spoke louder than my own heart's desire to keep pressing in for a miracle. "Come on! Come on," I whispered to my baby and to my body and to my heart. "Don't give up, please hold on." I had my checkup while waiting for the results of the pee test. "Most women test positive for being pregnant even if they have miscarried already. Hormones take awhile to settle down," my doctor instructed me. She left the room so I could get dressed again, but through the door I heard the nurse say, "It's negative..." I rushed to get dressed as quickly as possible. I was not going to be naked and vulnerable when she told me the results. It's hard to maintain an open heart in these moments; feels like pulling back the skin and bones surrounding your heart and giving someone a free shot. I had everything to give and I gave it; nothing could be taken anymore so it was easy to leave myself vulnerable with Jesus. But vulnerable in the face of my enemies? There is a beautiful strength and power in the reality that Jesus allowed himself to be lead to the cross; he stayed humble, open, and full of the most vulnerable emotions, even in the face of the worst pain of his life and the rejoicing of his enemies. It's because he knew: "You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. My cup overflows." If only Satan knew what killing the Son of God would accomplish: he would have tried to keep the cross from ever happening. Three days later, death could not keep Jesus in the grave. His table, a feast prepared for him in the presence of demons and devils, restoration, his glorified body, on earth as it is in Heaven. His cup overflowed.
I miscarried. And in the worst experience of my life, my cup overflowed. A table was set, a feast was prepared, in the presence of the death of my 5-week-old Little Tiny.
What do you do when, against everything you believe, you experience loss? What happens when someone is not healed and someone dies?
In moments like these, it is hard to admit that the devil is bad and God is good. Because it means there is no answer to "why?" sometimes. I have personally taken the stance that miscarriage is not from God because death is not from God: it is fruit of a curse that we have been delivered from. "On earth as it is in Heaven" Life is in Heaven, creativity and births are in heaven; miscarriage is not in Heaven. God heals, the devil wounds. But our Daddy will give and give and give good for evil done to us. And I let my heart ask him, "Why? Why didn't you usurp the situation and why didn't you just do it by yourself?" You have to ask those questions and you have to go to him. And I got my answers and they hurt deep and they hurt good and they taught me just how tender and good He is. Oh just kiss him right now!
Grieving feels like a moving, living, rhythmic beating of a heart. It pulls stuff in and pushes stuff out. It's messy, but is purposeful; it's bloody and violent, but life-giving and healing. Staining pillowcases, breaking social boundaries, puffing up eyes; its raw and real and aches deep like the separation of skin from bones.
Miscarriage. You don't know half the women who have had one unless you have had one yourself. It's personal, intimate, painful, and such a huge fear for so many women: both for those who had them and for those who have not. But I felt that I was supposed to raise a huge banner over you! And I am raising it in this post: God is so good! Not just "Yes, I know in my mind that God is good." Not like the mantra that we recite from our memorizing it: "All the time! and all the time...God is good!" But the "I have experienced the weight and glory and kisses of your goodness; it follows me, overtakes me, weeps for me when I lose faith, and comforts me when I choose a partnership with fear over partnership with love, and even doesn't ask permission sometimes when I need a miracle. It saved my life today without me even knowing it, it whispers lullabies over me while I sleep unaware, and encounters me in worship on Sunday morning even when I forget about it the rest of the week. It comes when I call and even when I don't." That goodness. The goodness that has filled my cup and sat me down to dine lavishly in the face of the greatest loss of my life.
I don't thank God for this miscarriage. I thank God for his presence and his goodness, but not for something that he never gave me. And there is a healing oil in that. Joel and I have a more intimate and deep love for each other than I have ever encountered in our 7.5 years of falling for him, but we didn't need a miscarriage to have that love. "God's natural response to our need is to leak provision, as a mother naturally lactates when her baby cries. He is El-Shaddai: the 'many-breasted One.'"
And so I hand you this banner. While at the same time, I hold it high over us. The same banner I held over my head as high as I could stretch my arms above me; as I stood on the shore of an angry ocean, violent wind and rain threatening the life inside of me. I still see myself as I did then: soaked through to my skin, hair plastered to my forehead, tears running down my face. But solid, planted, arms strong as they ever were and holding this banner facing the storm in your life: God is so good. He is so so good.
And you are never alone. Thank you for your hearts, for reading this.
"Sorry if you inherit some of my crazy and wild; or my toes. I am going to do my very best to get to know you at the center of your self. I want you to know that you are always allowed to be who you are and that there is no right answer. Just be. You are the most fabulous you that could ever have happened to the earth, so just relax and be free. Be my baby, be my lovely, be mine. Be your dad's, be your soulmate's, be your Jesus', be your own. Just be. Be wild, be untethered, be full of wonder, be full of heart. Be present always, be in your dreams. Be you at the center of your self and let me see you too. Help me make little messes and play in the mud with you. Help me draw on the walls and splash in the bath. Help me cross my eyes and stick out my tongue in pictures more. Help me to sleep less cause I think I sleep too much, and help me fill my time because I have way too much of it empty and free. Help me walk slow or run too fast. Help me ruin clothes. Help me skinny dip. Help me be impulsive, help me be considerate. Help me cuddle better and help me give attention to the things that are most important (hint hint "you"). Help me to break things so I always remember what (who) is most valuable. Help me be more like you cause you're so amazing; but help me be me with you cause I am too." (excerpt from a letter written to my baby months ago)
Big Love,
Laci
