Showing posts with label beauty from pain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label beauty from pain. Show all posts

Sunday, April 21, 2013

A heavy heart

I feel the need to write today, but I don't know what to say. I wrote out a post and then deleted it. My heart is heavy. Today, more than ever, I feel the sadness of life. I'm grieving not only my own child's death, but the losses my friends have faced too. I want to write something that might give someone hope, and the optimistic part of me wants to write something cheerful, and to pretend that I'm ok.

But I'm not. I hate seeing friends go through the worst kind of loss. I hate knowing I can't make it better. I hate that so many parents have to say goodbye to their precious children before they can say hello, or too soon afterwards. 




I looked through my photos, trying to find one to post, and God brought this one to my attention. It's a photo my husband took at Port Arthur, Tasmania. Port Arthur was a convict prison, but now it's one of the biggest tourist attractions in Tasmaina. What was a place of misery, grief and pain is now a picturesque location that people flock to visit. It is truly a beautiful place, even though it has a history of pain. 

Baby loss mummas, I think God brought this photo to my attention so that you could see it too. Just like Port Arthur, the ex-prison, is now a place of beauty, He wants you to know that He can bring beauty out of your pain. You just have to let Him. It's not easy, and it will never remove, replace or negate your (my) pain; your baby left too soon, and that is tragic. But maybe one day, we'll see beauty.

Saturday, March 16, 2013

Dance among the ruins

Earlier this week I told my husband that I feel like my life is ruined. Not in the sense of "now there's no hope" or anything like that, but because I know that I will always have this sadness with me. I don't know how I'll ever be 100% happy again, because even happy events will be tainted by the knowledge that Ariella is not here with us.

Like college graduation this coming weekend, when I was expecting to introduce Ariella to some people for the first time. 

Or the friend's wedding reception that we organised to take Ariella to, and were going to be seated in such a way as to make having a baby with us easier.

Or the other friends' wedding and reception, when I was expecting to have to juggle the wedding and Ariella by myself, because Marcus is a groomsman. 

Or Mothers' Day.

Or Fathers' Day.

Or. Or. Or. 

So many events and "celebrations" that are, in some small way, ruined.

Steven Curtis Chapman is a Christian singer/songwriter who has also had a daughter die and the album he wrote after that tragedy, Beauty Will Rise, has been playing almost constantly in my car since I bought it about 4 weeks ago. Two days after telling Hubby that I felt my life has been ruined, I was struck by one of the lyrics in the song Beauty Will Rise:


Out of these ashes
Beauty will rise
And we will dance among the ruins
We will see with our own eyes
Out of this darkness
New light will shine
And we'll know the joy that's coming in the morning

It's not that the ruins will disappear. They will still be there. But I can learn to dance and find joy among the ruins. 

Not despite the ruins. 

Not instead of the ruins. 

But among them.



 
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