Getting Started

This is a journey that I have to go through. No going around, under, over or backwards -- straight through. Just me and God. I don't expect it to be easy or pretty. As I said before I have to commit and see it all the way through. I hope journaling and blogging will help me do that.

I'm calling this journey "Discovering Grief." I'm making an appointment with myself and God to go through this by having dedicated time at the library. I am going to go one night a week and spend at least an hour praying, journaling, reading. I expect many blog entries to come from these times.

I'm discovering grief is different than depression. Depression, I know. I know what it looks like, I know when it's descending on me, I know what I need to do to fight it. Even though I don't always do what it takes, I know how to "get through" depression.

Grief is something that I've always felt like you "get over" or "move past" or it just "goes away." And maybe it does for other types of grief: friends, grandparents, co-workers. But this one is different. I've lost pregnancies - babies. This is a beast.

I've been trying to ignore or get over these losses for almost four years now. There has been gut-wrenching crying, guilt, denial, shame and Incredible Hulk-like rage. It's also sneaky and it will not be ignored. It just manifests itself physically when I try to shove it down. Headaches, nausea, exhaustion, overeating.

God is beckoning me to come and finally walk through it. Look it in the face and call it what it is so that it will not control me anymore. I'm committing to go meet with Him so that He can show me things. Show me Himself.

I know that going through being suicidal as a teenager that there is an "other" side to these things if you will just keep putting one foot in front of the other and hang on to Him. I know also that He will use it for His glory and to help others.

(Romans 8:28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.) 

(2 Corinthians 1:3-6  Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer.)

The commentary in my Bible says suffering is necessary pain that accompanies spiritual growth. Jesus came to suffer and die so that He can say He knows our every pain unto death.

I've been reading Job also. There's a section there in my Bible that says suffering is helpful when:

*we turn to God for understanding, endurance and deliverance
*we ask important questions we might not take time to thing about in our normal routine
*we are prepared by it to identify with and comfort others who suffer
*we are open to being helped by others who are obeying God
*we are ready to learn from a trustworthy God
*we realize we can identify with what Christ suffered on the cross for us
*we are sensitized to the amount of suffering in the world

I don't have any clue why God chose to take my babies. He's the Creator. He created them in the first place so they belong to Him. I do know that He knows why and for whatever reason He has chosen not to reveal it to me. I know that I can ask Him questions. I know that it's ok for me to be angry. I know that He is angry. One question I have is since they were such early losses why He let me find out at all. That's one thing I'm really mad and confused about. 

I'm also going to start a gratefulness journey. I know there are things to be grateful for and that I'm not in the habit of being purposeful in my gratefulness and that sounds horrible so I've begun a grateful list. 

I know this post is rather long and rambling but that was the gist of what I got from my first meeting with God to start walking through this. I will try to make the posts more focused and topical as I go along. I just am still getting the hang of what I'm supposed to be doing at all and trying to figure it all out. I don't have a really snappy way of closing so I'm just going to end it here.