I wrote this post on my old blog, almost ten years ago. I felt called to update it, add a bit, and share it again here today in hopes that these words will bless someone who needs to hear them.
This reflection came during a season of loss that ultimately taught me to trust the Lord more deeply with my life.
For anyone who has walked through this or is currently walking a similar road, please know that you are in my prayers.
Unexpected News
A couple of months ago we unexpectedly found out that we were pregnant with another baby.
Overtime the news was met with excitement, but to be honest, it wasn’t our first reaction.
Before finding out, we’d prayerfully discerned to wait a bit longer in between babies. Though we were both open to life and also wanting more children, the second line on the pregnancy test nonetheless caused me to burst into a puddle of tears. I was filled with self-pity and worry, wondering why God would ask this of us so soon after the season we had just begun to shift out of.
From the time of her fourth week of life, my second born and first beautiful daughter developed colic. After months of trying different things to help her (nursing lactation visits, doctor visits, various medicines for acid reflux, and more), nothing worked. She cried and cried…and cried. As much as we loved her and as good as her happy times during the day were, much of that year was spent in frustration and tears.
After eleven months, I was just starting to sleep through the night again and regain my sense of self. Sleep deprivation is no joke, and the toll that post-partum takes on a woman (especially after months with a colicky baby) is incredibly difficult to endure. Until that year, I didn’t really know how deep love could break you, but those moments poured out in love for our daughter broke me open in a whole new way:
In that time of trial and suffering during my daughter’s first year of life, I truly learned what it means to love and sacrifice for the sake of another.
Needless to say, finding out that I was pregnant just eleven months after our sweet little girl was born, I was a wreck. Upon finding out, I was confronted immediately with so many emotions that conflicted with our very pro-life and God-knows-best way of living.
Of course, even while practicing NFP (natural family planning), we were open and ready to accept God’s will for our lives. This was the vow we made to him and between ourselves when we were married. Yet, putting that “yes” in action doesn’t always prove as easy and smooth as you hope. Sometimes (most times) that full and open yes to God requires a great breaking down of the self.
At the time, I found myself frustrated with God and scared. The idea that we would be thrown so soon into another season with a newborn (who may or may not have colic like their sister) was terrifying. We thought we’d done everything we could to give us a bit more time before another baby, but God’s will for us was different.
I found myself in the weeks to come asking him over and over again “why!?”
I told him in anger how afraid I was and how I didn’t feel ready.
And our Lord answered me in a way I hadn’t expected…
In my heart, he sent me an image of his Mother.
What Mary Taught Me
This image came so clearly to my heart and mind, I knew it was from him.
My initial response?
I was defiant.
To me, I felt that he was asking too much.
Are you asking me to be like her?
Lord…I am not Mary.”
Mary’s yes was so immediate—she was so ready to accomplish the Lord’s will. Even if it meant possible personal persecution, the loss of her marriage, and that her image might be compromised in the eyes of everyone around her, she said yes without reservation:
“Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be done to me according to your Word.”
She was full of grace and so immediately trusting in the Father.
She knew that it would all work out.
Me?
I felt so very far from being like her.
I was clinging to all the things I mentioned before. I didn’t want to give up my new “sense of self,” the rested nights I just started to gain, and my ability to have time for myself and to think more clearly.
Yet, as I began to think of this image of Mary, I slowly realized what God was really trying to tell me:
God doesn’t ask us to rid ourselves of the feelings and frustrations we have when something hard occurs in our lives.
He doesn’t want us to just get over it.
He wants us to bring those fears and frustrations to his feet.
He desires that we seek out what he is trying to teach and give to us in through these events.
In giving me the image of his Mother, Jesus wasn’t telling me to just get over my feelings.
He was calling me to dialogue and to trust in him.
The Call to Ponder
In Scripture, whenever Mary encountered an obstacle, difficulty or even joy in her life we are told that she “pondered” over it in her heart.
In other words, Our Lady entered into dialogue in her heart over these things. She talked with God, she listened to him, and she trusted in him.
In Mary’s time, the word “heart” in Hebrew referred to the whole person. It was not merely an emotional state of being, but the surrendering over of the entirety of one’s being—body, mind and spirit.
God wasn’t asking me to be Mary…but I do believe that he was nudging me to be like her. He was opening up my heart to see that not only is it possible to trust him with my whole being, but that, like her, I could trust him completely with my life.
Learning to Trust
In the weeks to follow, it became easier to trust him more.
In prayer and pondering, my fears began to break down and I started to more clearly see all the beauty around me in my life and family, and I began to get excited for the new baby.
Sure, things can be hard in raising children; there are lots of tears, fits, and obstacles to overcome. But through all of that, there is so much more beauty—the kind that comes from pouring yourself out completely in love for another and then being rewarded back tenfold.
All the kisses, growth, smiles, laughs, warm embraces, milestones, celebrations, all of it—even the craziness—is worth so much more than all the things I initially feared losing. My kids fill my heart with joy that is overflowing, and more than that the love I have for them has transformed me into a much better version of myself.
It is all so very good.
When I told my husband the news, his response was an enormous support for me. Part of me expected him to fall into that puddle I found myself in, but he was so quick to remind me how awesome our kids are and how a new baby means more to love. His fears were similar to mine, but we worked through them together and his overall support washed away the leftover fears I had.
Slowly, I realized that true openness to life is knowing that the gift of a child is not ours to create alone, but God’s to give.
We are merely co-creators acting in participation with the God who is the very author of life.
Joe and I signed up for this when we got married: we vowed to allow God into our marriage, and to be open to his will for our lives and the lives of our children.
From that point on whenever those fears began to creep in again, I tried to remind myself of this:
God is with me, he knows my heart, he has a plan for me and for the life of this baby.
This was confirmed for me in what felt like an “angel-on-earth” encounter during a family trip to Colorado. As we walked down a crowded street, a woman suddenly stopped, gently touched my arm, looked me in the eyes, and said, “You are so blessed.”
A sign and reminder from God through a complete stranger.
I still hold tightly to these words.
That was all she said before walking away, but she said these words with such conviction.
I cry in gratitude every time I think of them.
Unexpected Loss
I didn’t know it at the time, but God was calling me to fall on this reminder of his love in a deeper way than I could even imagine, and to take a journey with Mary that I never prepared myself for.
As time went on in the pregnancy and as my husband and I began to settle into the idea and excitement of it all, I tried to go about things as normal as possible.
This time, however, I wasn’t tired, sick, or experiencing the mood swings I had so very much experienced in my first two pregnancies.
This is a good thing, right?
No, I knew something was off because the one side-effect I did have was a whole lot of cramping. As the days went on I found myself in the awful habit of continually checking for blood or any sign of complications. As the weeks went by, I began to think I was being crazy.
7 weeks into the pregnancy my fears were confirmed when the bleeding began.
I was forced yet again into a wave of fear and worry.
Since the bleeding was minimal and I was told that there wasn’t much a doctor could do, I decided to wait a couple of days to see if it would subside. I resolved to pray, hope, and try to cease worrying, but when the bleeding hadn’t stopped, I went to the doctor’s, sure that they would tell me I had lost the baby.
I lay on a cold recliner, halfheartedly making small chat with the nurse, waiting to hear the awful news. Then I saw it for myself: the baby’s heart beating strong!
The nurse told me that the baby was almost 8 weeks old, and explained to me that bleeding can be very normal and not to worry too much because the baby’s vitals looked great.
It was great news, but as the bleeding increased a little day by day, so did the worry. I wanted the bleeding to end.
Yet, when it did, it was not in the way I was hoping for.
God’s Mercy Poured Out
I used to participate every Thursday in a women’s bible study.
The topic of the class: God’s divine Mercy.
That Thursday morning, I had no idea what was coming my way or how much I would have to rely on his merciful love, but God primed by heart through the witness of the women in my group. They spoke so beautifully about how God has worked in their lives, and how they were called at times to say yes to him (even during hardships) and embrace him (even when life presented challenges and pain).
Just like Mary.
As soon as class ended, I knew I had to immediately go to the ER. While they spoke, I silently endured what I would later recognize as the passing of clots. I sobbed the whole way to the hospital, knowing this visit to the doctor would be different.
On my way, though—as scared as I was—I felt both God and Mary present with me.
I felt in that moment, through all the pain, my call to trust Jesus and fall at his feet.
We lost our third baby on October 6th. We named the baby Francis.
Finding Meaning in Suffering
There are events in life that make you wonder where God is in all of it. Why does he allow such pain and suffering to unfold in our world? Why does he allow us to personally to go through that?
What I know for sure is that there is a beautiful, profound theology of suffering. One of the greatest gifts of the Catholic faith is how clearly it shows that our suffering is never meaningless—and that God is always bringing good from it, even when we can’t yet see it.
One of the mysteries of the faith is how God wills for us to participate in a meaningful way in the suffering of Christ and thus bring meaning to our personal suffering.
In paragraph 618, the Catechism of the Catholic Church says:
“The cross is the unique sacrifice of Christ, the “one mediator between God and men”. But because in his incarnate divine person he has in some way united himself to every man, “the possibility of being made partners, in a way known to God, in the paschal mystery” is offered to all men. He calls his disciples to “take up [their] cross and follow (him)”, for “Christ also suffered for (us), leaving (us) an example so that (we) should follow in his steps.” In fact Jesus desires to associate with his redeeming sacrifice those who were to be its first beneficiaries.This is achieved supremely in the case of his mother, who was associated more intimately than any other person in the mystery of his redemptive suffering.
Apart from the cross there is no other ladder by which we may get to heaven.
Just as God allows us to co-create with him, he also allows us to enter into the profound mystery of Christ’s Redemption. Of course, we do not bring about Redemption ourselves, but rather, with St. Paul, we can “rejoice” in our sufferings because in our flesh, we “fill up” what is “lacking* in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church.” (Colossians 1:24)
In other words, our suffering gains meaning when we unite it to Christ on the Cross. He is the one who gives it purpose and brings redemption through it when we offer it back to him.
In his hands, even the heaviest burdens become light.
In this story of mine, there is every bit a part of me that wishes so badly to have been able to hold and kiss our sweet baby we lost.
But I know now that, from the very beginning of this pregnancy, God was calling me to a deeper level of trust in him.
He was showing me what it means to whisper in my own heart the prayer Jesus prayed during his agony, “Lord, not my will but yours be done.” (Luke 22:42) and the similar inner prayer of Mary as she clutched her breast watching her son die before her eyes.
He doesn’t cause suffering and pain—they are a part of our fallen human condition—but we have the freedom to extend these sufferings to his hands, so he can transform us through them and help us rise again.
This is the divine paradox of life: The Lord gives, and he takes away.
He does this in life, as well as in death.
The mysterious beauty of it all is that we were not made for this world.
We were made for eternity.
And in eternity, the sufferings we experience in this life will be no more.
In heaven, we will experience the joy of living with him and in communion with all the saints for all eternity.
I can’t wait to meet our child in heaven.
“He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain, [for] the old order has passed away.” (Revelation 21:4)
8 years Later
Eight years after writing this, I look back on the words I wrote and still feel them all as if they happened yesterday.
It’s still hard to admit my reservations with being pregnant at that time, especially after losing the baby. Yet, when we were given the life of this child, then confronted with the baby’s death, we were met with God’s merciful love in a huge way. He filled us with faith and through it all taught us further what it means to love and be loved by him—even in loss.
Reading my words and working through them still leaves me with tears streaming down my face. Our family is such a gift, and part of that gift is knowing that our children have a sibling in the arms of our heavenly Father.
It makes the story of our family feel both mysterious and beautifully eternal.
Hopefully after reading you can see why at this point, I am very thankful for this particular journey he asked me to go on nearly a decade ago. It played a huge part in my life of faith and work as a mother.
Through all of this, God called me to a deeper level of trust in Him and helped me open my heart in newer and bigger ways to the call of my vocation and to the hope of eternity in heaven with him.
I hope this piece gives you comfort and moves you to a place of deeper trust in him, especially if you have experienced great loss.
Come to trust in him, friend.
He loves you, and he will not let you down.
Joe and I at a Young the Giant concert (our favorite), with Francis in my belly. (Don’t worry—just water in the cup.)
The Catholic Commons 
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