When Hope Breaks Overnight
Yesterday I allowed myself to embrace hope. I accepted what felt like a gift being given to me. Yesterday I held a very positive pregnancy test in my hands, along with what I believed was a missed period. For a brief moment, my heart opened wide.
This morning, everything cruelly shifted.
I was left with a negative test and a period that felt more like an insult than a cycle. Who has a period that starts at eight in the morning and is finished by noon? If I am miscarrying, can I at least have a proper miscarriage? If you cannot hear it in my voice, I am angry. Very angry.
There are not many people who can truly relate to this place. Fourteen years of trying to conceive. Four miscarriages. So much hope poured into something so fragile. If I were a person who cursed, I would want to curse like a sailor right now. But even if I did, it would only offer momentary relief. It would leave my soul more bitter than it already feels.
Railing at God will not magically change my circumstances. Nothing I do in this moment will undo what has happened or take away the pain. I am stuck here, whether I like it or not.
Will I move forward? Of course I will. What other choice is there? Will I allow anger to rot my soul and turn into bitterness? No. I will turn to God. Despite my pain, despite my state of mind, I know this truth even when I cannot feel it. He cares. He is loving. He is good.
I cannot close off my heart and stay here forever. I must move on, even if slowly.
“Whatever it is, the way you tell your story “You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same nor would you want to.” ”
Last October, I walked this same road. The pain was familiar. It took months for the grief to soften and for my heart to find steadiness again. I do not know how long this time will take. For now, I am giving myself until Tuesday. Until then, I will allow myself to grieve. I will sit with the sorrow. I will let the tears come.
And when the time comes, I will rise again, carrying both my pain and my faith forward.
