Some situations require us to lament. To lament is also known as grieving with passion. God hurts when we hurt and our hearts should grieve when we sin against him.
David was a prime example of this. In fact, most of the Psalms he wrote were laments. Another example of this you can study in 2 Samuel 11 & 12.
David sinned against God through adultery, drunkenness, and murder. His response when confronted with the weight of his sin was to acknowledge it. As David acknowledged what He had done and the consequences that would follow because of it, he lamented. He weeped on the floor and did not move and refused to eat. After David’s son had passed away, he then changed his clothes and went to the house of the Lord to Worship.
God doesn’t expect us to not grieve or mourn. In fact, he desires us to invite Him into the places that hurt the most. He does not stand in a corner while we weep but mourns with us. He bandages up the wounds of the brokenhearted.
Come before Him today with your laments. Grieve with him and welcome in the great comforter in the midst of suffering. There will soon be a day where it will be time to rejoice and dance. But there is also a biblical season of weeping and mourning.
••Then David got up from the ground. He washed, anointed himself, changed his clothes, went to the Lord ’s house, and worshiped. Then he went home and requested something to eat. So they served him food, and he ate. His servants asked him, “Why have you done this? While the baby was alive, you fasted and wept, but when he died, you got up and ate food.” He answered, “While the baby was alive, I fasted and wept because I thought, ‘Who knows? The Lord may be gracious to me and let him live.’ But now that he is dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I’ll go to him, but he will never return to me.” 2 Samuel 12:20-23 CSB
“I feel like no one understands…”, I thought to myself as I reflected on supports groups online and in person. I was surrounded with people who knew the pain of losing a child(ren) all too well. Yet, all of them had living children. There was a group of women who sat silently each session in hopes of someone understanding when it was not possible. Those that surrounded them just weren’t experiencing what they were.
Let me be clear, if you have lost a child and have current living children, I cannot possibly understand what it is like for you. I have not experienced what you have. The same goes for women who have only children in heaven. This DOES NOT make our grief less or more. Our griefs aren’t comparable. We just simply have not walked the same path and had the same experiences and this is okay. Your grief is still valid and my grief is valid too.
As I continued to reach out for love and support, I have continued to hit this hurdle that had left me more isolated rather than supported. I have left support groups that have left me empty rather than comforted. I have had posts declined because grief without living children is different than most people can understand. Yet, I knew that because there is such a huge gap, there needed to be a solution. My friend, if you are in front of this screen right now with only children in heaven, I want to know I understand what you are feeling. I understand what it is like to feel forgotten and the pain of empty arms and wombs. I understand the pain that comes with seeing other women with families, not out of jealousy or resentment, but a void you feel so deeply. I am sorry you have felt this way when you have reached out for help. I know what it is like to question if you are a mother because the only evidence you have are the stick’s you peed on and the memories that seem so close, yet so far away. I understand all to well the thankfulness you feel in your heart for women who reach out to you with families, but the emptiness you feel because there is a margin of us who seem to be hidden. What I want you to tuck in your heart Momma is that you are not alone and support is here. Your feelings are valid. Your unique grief is valid. You deserve love and support with the unique grief you are feeling.
You arms and heart wish to be filled with the babies you have lost. You long for your home to be filled with laughter, tears, and mess. When you go to sleep each night you wonder what could have been of the family you have given birth to multiple times. Is that what it feels like to birth empty promise? The promise you have hope for and dream of. The promise that is given but seems like it has been stolen away. My sister, these feelings are valid. Just because there is a group of women who have living children who cannot possibly understand, does not mean they are not hurting too. It just means we are hurting in different ways and this is okay.
What we do all have in common is the a God who loves us so much that He lost His only Son to show us. We have a heavenly father who is willing to sit with us in the ashes and remind us that we still have our crown. We have a father who wants to bind up our broken heart and comfort us through our deepest despair. We have a God who knows the very number of hairs on our head and sympathizes with us on an individual and intimate level. When it feels like no one understands, this is a perfect invitation to come before the only one who possibly could. I encourage you to pour your heart out upon the feet of the Father today. Be unreserved about what you are truly feeling. He knows your thoughts and wants you to cast your cares because He cares. When you share with Him your heart, He will open the floodgates of his love, peace, and understanding. He will sit with you in the ashes.
**If you are a mother of loss with no living children here on earth, sign up for our emails for a support group coming soon. You are not forgotten and you are so loved!
After the loss of our first baby through miscarriage and the loss of my Grandmother I was in desperate need of biblical based help. That is when Grieving With Hope ended up in my lap. I cannot rave enough about this book and they way that they intricately composed the contents to make you understand that grief is not a race nor are you alone during the midst of the loss you are enduring.
The pages are filled with real life examples and testimonies of people who have endured loss. Whether you have lost a child, spouse, family member, or close friend Grieving With Hope gives you example of other people that have been through the same type of loss. One of the most beneficial testimonies in this book for me personally was about a woman who had loss friends due to her not being ready to hang out yet. For me, over the past several months it has been hard to get out of the house. Hearing that it was hard for others, made me realize that what I was feeling was normal.
(Thankfully I have friends that understand)
The main reason I love this book so much is because of the biblical application to help you heal throughout. Loss/Grief tests every bit of your faith, hope, and trust in God. They talk about how there are times anger can build up over the “why” questions. They discuss in Grieving With Hope that God can handle you asking questions. What is important is that you seek God to heal because that is where healing ultimately takes place.
Grieving With Hope is a 5/5 stars for me. The contents of the pages were like sitting in a counseling session with God and others, giving me support when I needed it most but did not know how to talk. This book gave me help I needed to press into God and make healthy decisions for myself in the midst of grief. If you or someone you know has endured a recent loss Grieving With Hope is a great tool to help heal. I recommend Grieving With Hope to those have endured any type of loss, whether it happened yesterday or 30 years ago. The way this book is laid out draws you closer to the heart of God and helps answer hard questions you may have in the midst of ongoing grief.
This book is not sponsored for a review. However, an Affiliate Link is provided above to help provide more book reviews like these. It does not cost you anything but does help a fellow author continue to provide content like this!
I did not realize how much God is a God of order. My life has felt like there has been trial after trial with absolutely no breathing room. Life has felt messy, really messy. But when I have been able to take a step back and see things from a different perspective I can see that God’s hand and love has been in the midst of the mess all along. I never thought in a million years I would say this, but, I am thankful that my miscarriage happened when it did. I am thankful for the miscarriage in March because little did I know, a month later I would lose my Grandmother and feel completely forgotten and forsaken by God.
You see, in both events I have pushed myself deeper into the presence of God. Not out of religious duty, but out of necessity for my savior, my counselor, my comforter, my perfect helper. I need grace for the irritability that no one told me would come with losing so much back to back. I am in desperate need of peace, strength, and most certainty mercy for all the times I have missed the mark. Grief over a 4 month span tests everything in you. It tests the foundation you stand upon, what is in your heart, and has a way of humbling you in realization that life is futile. I honestly think that even one event to grieve over is enough. As I said before, he is a God of order. Can you believe that there is purpose in your pain? I know it is hard to see, isn’t it?
If I would have never lost our child in March, when I have been feeling forsaken and forgotten, these verses would never have came so alive to me.
Zion says, “The Lord has abandoned me; the Lord has forgotten me!” “Can a woman forget her nursing child, or lack compassion for the child of her womb? Even if these forget, yet I will not forget you. Look, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me. -Isaiah 49:14-16 CSB
Have you ever felt abandoned by God? As you press yourself further and further into his presence, it seems rather like things were in the beginning (dare I say easier), he seems oddly distant. You are enduring trials, maybe like my husband and I, for months on end. You are tempted to say, “God didn’t you just see what we went through last month and the month before?”. The truth is that God was right there all along when we lost our child and he is right here in the middle of the grief of losing my Grandmother. Whatever you are going through, he is right there with you too.
“Can a woman forget her nursing child, or lack compassion for the child of her womb?
Just like a woman who has lost a child, God could never forget us as his children. His love is so much more abundant than we can think or imagine. Our minds are just too finite to understand. How could God forget you? How could he forget me? He is the one who created us. He is the one still breathing life into our very lungs. He is the one who sent Jesus, his own son just so he did not have to be without us. That is love.
God does not expect you to forget the loss you have endured. He does not expect you to push forward in the newness of life without allowing him to come and help. His desires are that you to put your hope and trust in him through the grief. God desires you to remember that all he does is done out of who he is. While much of what we go through does not make sense and sometimes really hurts, it may even break your heart. You and I can always go back to trusting in who God is.
While I did not understand WHY I had a miscarriage. I do know that I am thankful that it has prepared me to understand the meaning behind Isaiah 49. I could never forget our baby. The short time he was in my womb is something that I will cherish forever. Just like I will never forget our child, God could never forget or abandon us.
If you are in a season where you feel unheard, unloved, and forgotten. Rest assured, you are written on the palm of the Lord’s hand. There is not a moment that you have left his mind or his ears have not heard your prayers. There has never been a moment that he has not actively been working everything out for your good. How could he possibly forget the one he so beautifully created, his masterpiece? Our feelings are valid and he sympathizes with all we have been through in this season. He meets us there as we are transparent with our feelings. He will meet us there with his truth. That is exactly what happened when I admitted I felt abandoned and forsaken, he washed me in his word-his perfect truth.
What are you having a hard time with today? Confess it to our loving father. Just like me, he will meet you there with grace, mercy, and love.
I will never forget this awful time, as I grieve over my loss. Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this:
The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning. I say to myself, “The Lord is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in him!” -Lamentations 3:20-24 NLT
