When Your Baby Dies

When you lose a baby . . .

You don't lose a baby.

You lose your car keys, one sock to complete a pair, a tube of lip gloss. You don't lose a baby.

Your baby dies.

When your baby dies you lose a huge chunk of yourself. A gaping hole lives inside of you.

You don't know if you can smile again or if you even will ever want to.

It feels as if your muscles are suffering from amnesia. It's hard to remember how to smile . . . how to laugh. You forget what its like to move without feeling like you are trying to walk on the bottom of the ocean floor.

When your baby dies, you feel that you have too. You wish it had been you instead and you just can't understand why its wasn't. You have lived, they never really got to and where's the sense and nature in that?

When your baby dies because your body went into pre-term labor, how do you ever trust your body again? It betrayed you in a way it never should. How do you ever trust it again?

When your baby dies, there is a distinct line drawn. A line that separates your life into two parts - a before and an after. A line that has separated you into two - the person who you once were and the person you are now . . . whoever that is.

When your baby dies, you wish you could go back to the before, if just for a day so you could hold onto that lightness, joy and innocence a little bit tighter in the hopes you could remember everything about it for your life in the after.

When your baby dies you wonder how you will go on. You wonder if you will ever again possess the desire to go on at all.

When your baby dies, you are scared that the grief will become you. And you are scared that it won't. Because if it does, that means life is forever colored in shades of black. If it doesn't, you are scared that it means you have forgotten your baby.

When your baby dies and you smile again and not in a forced manner to falsely assure others that you are "fine" but truly smile and it registered that you did, it instantly throws you back and you wonder if that means you have forgotten. And that is the worse because if you forget, everyone else will too.

When your baby dies, you wrestle with everything you believed before. You don't want to believe in a God that allowed you to bury your child. You believe in the hope of heaven so you can't deny the God who created it.

When your baby dies, you wrestle. You struggle. You fear. You grieve.

When your baby dies, your heart still contracts and your lungs still take in air. And you eventually learn that the contractions and the breathing in and breathing out don't betray that your baby lived. It's a way to live . . . to speak . . . to remember . . . to honor them.










Stephanie

Slowly, Ever Slowly

You, the one sitting stone still, staring at nothing . . .

You, the one who feels like you have aged a 100 years . . .

You, the one with swollen, red eyes . . .

You, the one who wonders if you will ever be able to truly live again . . .

Slowly, ever slowly, you start waking in the morning and that overwhelming dread of having to live out another day starts to lift.

Slowly, ever slowly, you find that you have smiled at some one or over something and it wasn't forced.

Slowly, ever slowly, you find that you are looking forward to one thing . . . one event.

Slowly, ever slowly, the darkness lifts.

The grief and sadness never go away, they just change form . . . you learn how to live with it . . . how to cope. Just like someone learning to walk again after they lost a limb, you learn how to live with the grief, how to reign in the tears when they dare to consume you in the middle of the grocery store or while picking up your other child from preschool. The walking doesn't negate the loss of the leg nor do the smiles and the living negate the area of your heart that is empty and torn.

It isn't something you ever get over. You are not suppose to because you can't. You can't get over something that defies nature.

It isn't something you ever get over, it is something you go through. Everyday you will walk through this. Every. Day. Right now, though, it is thick and heavy. Ever slowly that fog will lift and it won't consume every part of you.

You get through it by slowly, ever slowly going through it. There is no other way.

Don't let anyone tell you how to grieve.

Don't let anyone tell you how to cope. 

Don't let anyone tell you enough time has passed. You don't know when enough time has passed to smile again. You don't know until you feel that foreign motion of the lips curving up. And even then, there are still soul-crushing, take-your-breath-away, bring-you-to-your-knees moments and days. 

Don't let anyone tell you to be thankful for the child(ren) who are living.

Don't let anyone tell you that having another baby will fix it.

Nothing can fix this. Nothing can make this better. 

Give yourself grace. There is no blueprint for this. Everyone does this differently. Don't let anyone tell you that you are grieving wrong because so-and-so had a similar experience and it didn't affect them like it's affecting you. 

Don't let anyone tell you that things could have been a lot worse. The ones who say that, never buried a child so they don't have a right to define worse for you. They don't know what worse is. When it comes to your child dying before you, that encompasses worse. Worse is worse.

Slowly, ever slowly, you realize you are alive.

Slowly, ever slowly, you enjoy living.

Slowly, ever slowly, you find hope. And you find that you hope in hope again.

There is, I’m convinced, no picture that conveys in all its dreadfulness, a vision of sorrow, despairing, remediless, supreme. If I could paint such a picture, the canvas would show only a woman looking down at her empty arms.

~Charlotte Bronte~

Stephanie

Another Ordinary Day

Inhale.

Exhale.

The heart pumps with each contraction.

I've been there. I may not have been standing outside a school waiting . . . hoping . . . praying that my child would walk out but I have been there. I have been there waiting . . . hoping . . . praying that the unimaginable outcome would not become real.

For twenty-seven families today, their hearts are left bleeding heavy.

Why . . .

How . . .

What if . . .

If only . . .

Just another ordinary day with half eaten breakfasts, shuffling to find that other sock, making sure teeth are brushed, grabbing backpacks and counting down the days left until Christmas break. Just another ordinary day that turned itself inside out and became extraordinary. Extraordinarily awful. Extraordinarily horrible. Extraordinarily unexplainable. Extraordinarily painful.

So many want answers. So many want something to be done.

Answers will come and things will get accomplished.

But for those left in the wake of all this . . . those that have had their normal lives destroyed in a flash, the answers will sit empty. Never satisfying. Never truly answering the questions that don't make sense. The things that will be achieved will not be good enough because all the works and deeds will not be able to accomplish the one thing . . . the only thing they desperately want . . . that of their child walking out of that school and wrapping still growing arms around their parents neck.

How do you explain something that defies any realities?

How do you accept that you can't turn back the clock?

How do you learn to live a life that was a part of your worst nightmares? 

How do you learn to live again?

Inhale.

Exhale.

May the heart pump with each painful contraction.








Stephanie

He Matters Too

I saw it. I heard it.

All those hushed questions, how is she doing? is she doing any better?

It hurt me. Why wasn't anyone asking him how he was doing?

Why was everyone so concerned about my mental and emotional state but few were concerned about him?

It hurt me. But I was so consumed by grief and sadness that I never spoke up.

They mattered not only to me but to him as well. He matters too.

Very few people asked him about . . . him. Very few people took the time to spend time with him. Very few people took the time to listen to him.

A lot of people asked him about me.

The day after they were born and then died, before I was even discharged, he was on the phone attempting to make funeral arrangements.

He was fielding many phone calls.

He got out of bed every morning (the same bed I would spend days on end in) and would take care of our daughter, prepare meals, go to the grocery store, do the laundry, all the things that I not only lacked the desire to do but forgot how to do.

He went back to work.

He loved me through it all. All the while juggling his own heartache.

Silently. And alone. 

He held us together. He held me together. He became so incredibly stronger than he ever thought he could become. He became stronger than he realizes. He was my glue.

Carrying his own grief, his own sadness, his own loss of dreams and love, he still pushed forward, living each day, carrying me through hoping I would make it through.

Living each day where his wife had become a zombie and he was left wondering if she would ever get out of that bed and resemble a person again.

He pushed forward and still no one asked him about him. I don't know if that hurt him, all those people asking him about his wife but never once concerning themselves with how he was coping.

Did he ever want to scream, they mattered to me too! I love them too!

I sat one night, sobbing, voicing all those dreams and all that love gone, so consumed with my own sadness that I couldn't think outside of self. I looked up and he was crying . . . sobbing really . . . and that's when I realized that his pain ran just as deep.

He put voice to his lost dreams . . . his lost loves. He would never get to take them on a Daddy-Daughter date. He would never get to walk them down the aisle and give them away. He would never get to dance that Father-Daughter dance at their wedding.

He loves them like only a father can love his little girls. He had dreams for them. He wanted them. They were not only my daughters but his as well.

They mattered to him so he matters too.






Stephanie

To Miss A Love . . .

Everyday, I think of you.

Even if I don't say your names aloud, the whisper of them lies in my heart.

There's no way anyone can possibly know how much I think of you. How often your names enter my mind and the love I have penetrates deep.

There's no way anyone can possibly know how much I think of you. How many times I wonder what you would being doing now. How many times I wonder what you would look like and how long your hair would be. Would it be long like your older sister's? How many times I wonder if your laughter would be the same or if I would be able to tell the difference between you two by your giggles. Would you even look the same to me? Or would you look completely different to me as you were different in personalities?

I miss you terribly.

There's no way anyone can possibly know just how much I miss you.

There's no way anyone can possibly know just how much my heart hurts because of the forever hole that now exists.

This ache is all too familiar and yet alien at the same time. Will it always be this way?

Will the hurt always surprise me in new ways? It is just so unnatural to lose a child. How do you ever live the same?





Stephanie

Surfacing

It's been a busy time. It's that time of year. I have been busy and distracted but still, those memories and wonderings have surfaced. Exposing that raw pain.

I don't know what it is that has caused these emotions, memories and wonderings to rise to the top.

Maybe it's that this time last year, the reality was truly settling in. I stopped believing there was a way to turn back the clock and undo what had been done.

Maybe it's that I have been feeling them near me so much.

Maybe it's that my husband and I shared our story last Sunday at church. All those precious, terrifying moments relived.

Maybe it's that now, Emmerson and Vivienne would be walking and talking. I watch  Alexandria play by herself and I wonder how the three of them would interact together. They would have arguments but they would also keep each other company.

I wonder what my family of five would look like living the daily life.

Maybe it's that I have had a few dreams about Emmerson and Vivienne and in those dreams I got to spend a few more moments with them but they always end with me telling them it's okay to go. That we love them immensely and we will miss them just as much but that it's okay.

And maybe it's just how this grief thing works. Coming and going, never knowing when it is going to sit with me awhile, exposing that raw pain.

I find that I have several moments throughout the day when I feel like I am suffocating. Finding it hard to breathe because the pain is just too heavy. I want to scream that I miss them when I am in public. I find that I am suppressing an overwhelming urge to cry. I want to grab the nearest stranger and inform them that my family is not complete. There are two precious girls not with me.

I. WANT. THEM. BACK!

And I wonder, why do some babies live and some babies die? Why are there arms left heavy and empty? How does God choose which babies get to go home with their parents and which ones will take their last breath in their mommies arms?

How does He choose? Can some one explain this to me?

I miss them! I want them back! I've already missed their first year of life, now I am missing the stage of wonderment and discovery.

I want them back.





Stephanie

Jealousy

I wouldn't label myself as a jealous person.

Over the last year, I have heard, They are in a better place, Grandma is holding them and rocking them, They get to play with the angels now, They are safe.

And while I believe that, it doesn't take away the pain. It doesn't take away the fact that I miss them so much.

I wouldn't ask them to return from where they are now. I wouldn't ask but I still wish things had turned out differently. I still wish I could hold them. I still wish I could have watched them grow.

I won't ask them to come back, I know they are in a better place. But I can't help but feel a little jealous of the ones who surround them now.

Stephanie

Nameless Emotions

It is late and I am very tired. To say the least, it has been a looooong day.

Why is that hospitals have the ability to make time stand still while simultaneously making it seem as if a year as already passed?

It was an emotionally rough day as well. I had not stepped foot into a hospital since I had lost Emmerson and Vivienne. So that, in and of itself was something major for me today.

I feel like I held everything together pretty well. However, on the ride home, I broke down. So many emotions of loss, gain and gratefulness just overwhelmed me.

I am thankful my dad made it through the surgery. Extremely grateful! And with that, I guess I realize how easily things could have turned out differently.

Because they did.

A little over six months ago, when I stepped into that hospital, I believed that the surgery would fix things and I would get to take my girls home.

Things turned out differently than what I had expected six months ago.

So, today, when I entered the hospital, I didn't enter with any expectation. Just hope.

My tears are falling as I type these words. So many emotions that really don't even have a name. So many emotions I don't know what to do with.

I am a daughter who is glad her father made it through a major surgery. Tears of joy.

I am a mother who grieves the loss of two of her daughters. Tears of deep, indescribable grief.

I am a person who feels like I have been dragged through a wringer. Tears of bone tired exhaustion.

I will be able to joke around with my dad and be able to hug him again. So why can't I get to hold my precious babies once more?

So many tears of emotions with no name.

My dad made it through the surgery. Before I left the hospital at 9:00 pm, his breathing tube had been removed and he was breathing on his own. He was talking, rather hoarsely, but he was able to talk and I was able to hear his voice again.

I was able to hold his hand and he was able to squeeze back. I don't take these small miracles for granted. 

He made me laugh without intending to. If anybody knows my dad, he almost always intends to make someone laugh or at least, smile.

He kept begging for something to drink and pleading with his eyes. He was persistent with his request. It made me laugh because he reminded me so much of my living daughter when she so desperately wants something.

I didn't leave until I saw that my dad had received his ice chips. Those small miracles I don't take for granted.

He told me his side hurt. I told him that was good. I told him that it should because that was where he was cut open.

The pain is good because you can't feel pain unless you are breathing in air. Unless you are alive.

I left with a smile because my dad made me laugh. I drove home with tear flooded eyes because I am grateful, because I have lost, because I grieve, because I am blessed. Always blessed.






Stephanie

Pretty Tough

People tell me that I am strong. Some people even tell me they are amazed by my strength.

I don't know about that. And if you lived with me every minute of the day and witnessed the ways in which I struggle, you too would doubt my strength.

I do not, for a second, believe that I have endured what I have because God saw me, and thought, "she's pretty tough, so I will allow this to happen."

I believe that He allowed it to happen for reasons and ways that I do not understand. But I do not believe he allows certain things to happen because He thinks one is stronger than another.

I believe things happen because we live in a fallen world. I believe things happen for a reason.

Here's the thing: I believe everybody is strong.

Thank you, Pinterest!

Source: joyshope.com via Brenda on Pinterest

Circumstances do not arise based on our ability of our own strength. Our strength arises when circumstances leave little room for anything else.

I believe, when it comes down to it, you don't know how strong you are or how strong you can be, until a circumstance draws that strength out of you.

I believe most people are amazingly strong.

I think a lot of people do not realize the strength they have that lies within.

There have been many days, many moments, sometimes before my feet ever hit the floor in the morning, and I utter, "I can't! I just can't!"

"You chose the wrong girl, Lord. I can't do this! I don't want to! I am not able to bear the responsibility of this!"

It doesn't matter. No matter what I say. No matter what I think, it doesn't change what happened.

And most times, that is such a strong, bitter reality to realize.

And so most days, in the early morning light, in the darkness of the night, the only thing I can utter to my God, the only prayer I can whisper, is this, "Lord, I need You to sustain me. I need You to meet me right here where I am, for I cannot take a single step towards You."

"So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous hand."

Isaiah 41:10

". . . I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you."

Isaiah 46:4

Stephanie

Hopefully Not Forever...

Oh, how I ache! Oh, how I wish this pain would have passed me by!

How I desperately wish God would not have allowed this.

With the vibrant colored leaves falling, so have my tears. So many that I could soak the earth.

When I still had the beating of two precious hearts within, I was excited for Autumn. It is my favorite season. It was going to be the season I was going to rock into snow covered earth with my babies.

What am I supposed to do now?

I am back to keeping the curtains closed. I don't want to see the beautiful life that Spring brought die a beautiful death. I have seen enough of that. Even though I know the dying will usher in something new, I don't want to witness it.

I just want to rock my babies.

I want to pass by a baby section and not suppress a moan. I want to pass by a baby section and not fight back tears and be able to find a voice around the lump in my throat. I want to smile again from the depths within.

What if that is gone forever?

What if all that is left is this terrible desperation? What if all that is left is just the ability to endure and not enjoy?


What to do when faith and emotions don't always match up? How do you pour that Sweet Salve on what aches when you are too broken to see?

What do you do?


It is hard to trust, hard to see that there is a light in the distance.

It is rough. This road where I unexpectedly found myself, it is so rough, too black to see. I do not want to be here. I want to be in a rocking chair rocking my babies into a new season.

What am I supposed to do now?

Stephanie

Awareness

It seems that every month is an awareness month for something. There is absolutely no way one person could remember all the causes that each month holds.

I feel that it is common knowledge that October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I am so happy for all efforts that are made to wipe out Breast Cancer. That is very close and dear to my heart because my Mother is a Breast Cancer SURVIVOR!!!

October is also a month that slows down to remember those babies lost during pregnancy or in infancy. I remember mine everyday. I also think of all those mothers who have gone before me and will come after me in this unimaginable journey.

Here is a site from a mother who lost and through that loss has done some amazing things. She started an online card store to help those who have also lost and for those who are close to the ones who have suffered the loss of their baby. She gives beautiful words for the ones who do not know what to say.

If you have suffered the unthinkable, the seemingly unnatural, or you are one who is walking with the one who suffers, please take pause to stroll through her store.

There are blessings everywhere!

Stephanie

Silence

It has been about a week since I have last posted anything. It is because the dark has been too black and the hurt has been too acute. I don't know how to express my emotions when life becomes this way. I cry. I stay hidden under the covers. But mainly, I am silent. For those of you who know me, I am not a silent person. I am quite the Chatty Cathy. I have been given the gift of gab.

When I am silent, usually for a few days in a row, my husband isn't quite sure what to do, how to read me. It frustrates him.

I sense it but I don't know how to reassure him that I am fine or to let him know that in about an hour, I will be okay.


I don't know when I will be fine. I am not even sure that exists anymore for me.

So, on top of everything else I am feeling, I feel like I have failed as a wife and as a mother.

Simply put, I don't know how to be truly present anymore.

I have so many questions. So many questions that no one can give me the answers to. So, instead of asking them, I remain quiet. It will anger me if I ask the questions and no one can answer me. Silence is best. I don't want to deal with anger on top of the raw pain I am feeling.

I don't have desires any more and I lack energy. It is scary but I don't know how else to be.

I am lost.

I want to know why God allowed this to happen. I want to know if I will ever be the person I was before all of this. I want to know if the pain will always be intense. I want to know if my daughter will ever know the mother I was to her before I became who I am now.

What was the sense in two lives being lost before they ever got the chance to live? How do I make sense of this? What was all of this for?

For the rest of my life, I am left to wonder what their giggles would have sounded like, what foods they would have liked, how their smiles would have soothed my soul, when they would have gotten married and what their sweet babies would have looked like.

Instead of imagining all of this, I so desperately wish I would have been given the gift to experience it. Every single drop of it.

I am silent. I don't know how to express all of this. I don't know what to say when some one ask how I am doing.

I am silent because I hope the One who knows it all will answer me. I hope He fills in the gaps of the silences and He whispers the answers to all of my questions and wonderings.

Stephanie

Bitterness

It is a dagger to the heart whenever I see a newborn baby or a woman who looks to be as far along as I would be right now.

It is so hard to explain to those who have never had to walk in my shoes.

A pregnant lady and a newborn baby is nothing but joy. Right?

Try explaining it to someone who has been told they will never be able to have a child or to someone who has just lost her identical twins.

It is so hard.

It sucks the breath right out of you.

It is so hard to explain because you simply cannot explain the ache. The hurt. The desperation.

When you see a baby or a pregnant lady, you see happiness, hope, a future.

When I see a pregnant lady or a baby, I feel an unexplainable ache. I feel a hurt I have never experienced before. I feel the void in my heart.

I feel lost and alone.

Bitterness and Resentment come up along side me. They try to take my hand in theirs. I resist them. Not because I don't feel welcomed by them but because I know the destruction they can bring.

They are like sugar. They are so sweet at first, but the more they linger, the more they rot. The more they poison.

I know because I have walked with them before.

Seven years ago, my husband and I were labeled as infertile.

I was the first one who was diagnosed as infertile. It frightened me and broke me.

I had always wanted to be a mother, now I was told that the most natural way to have a child was closed to me.

What frightened me was that my husband would eventually blame me. I feared he would leave me because, after all, he was not the problem. He could fulfill his dreams of being a father with someone else.

A few weeks later, my husband was also diagnosed as infertile. I sighed a selfish sigh of relief.

We both contributed to the problem. I thought it was a blessing we were both to blame. I know some marriages can't and don't make it through the battlefield of infertility.

Our marriage would stay intact, we were blessed, because we were both to blame.

Over the course of a few more years, through procedures and medications, our marriage frayed.

My husband clung to the hope of God.

I grabbed the hands of Bitterness and Resentment.

At first they were so beautiful and understanding. They seemed to hold so much promise. It was so natural to welcome them as friends.

When I walked with them, the questions came. Why? Why me? Why us? Why can't it be them? What did we do to deserve this?

Every joy I had in life started to darken. Bitterness and Resentment stepped out of the little place I allowed them, and started to infect every area of my life.

They are not good.

They do look welcoming and it seems so natural for me to want to join them now.

But I know the destruction they can create.

So I turn to them both, look them in the eye and say, "No, thanks. Not this time."

I need to feel my hurt.

I need to feel every aspect of it. Even the areas that others do not understand and frown upon.

I need to walk this road.

It is going to hurt me deeply to see a pregnant woman or a baby. They do hold so much joy and hope of a future.

It hurts because the hope I had envisioned for my babies had changed. It is not gone. It has not ended. It has just changed.

That change hurts.

Ignoring the hands of Bitterness and Resentment, I look to God, grab His caring hands and start to walk. I need to walk this road so I can accept that change.

Stephanie

Rain Falls Beautifully

There is a plaque on display in my parents house. I have read it many times and have thought that it is such a beautiful saying. I never put much thought into until now.

Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass...

 It's about learning to dance in the rain.

There is definitely a storm raging on within me right now. I haven't had much energy to get out of bed, let alone, dance. If I am dancing, its because the hurricane winds are blowing me around relentlessly.

But to dance purposefully right now? I don't think I could do that. Why would I choose to dance?

My heart aches.

The wind blows with force.

My arms sit empty.

The rain pounds hard.

Life hurts. Treasures become tarnished. Dreams die. People break.

It is so easy (it actually comes naturally) to sit alone with sorrow. To think of the things broken, everything that has gone wrong, dreams that died. 

The questions are hard and fast. 

The rain keeps pounding down. 

Pounding me down.

But can't storms be beautiful at times? Such ugliness can hold such beauty if you look hard enough. 

The way clouds can form never before seen shapes.

The way the rain will arrive at a slant.

The way the shadows dance together.

The way that glimmer of light ALWAYS finds a crack to crawl through and shine.

That light is reason to dance.

I have to look hard to see those glimmers of light. Glimmers of hope. But they are there.

When my daughter unexpectedly says, "I wuv you, Mommy."

When she smiles at me for no reason at all.

When my husband reaches for my hand.

When I get a good nights sleep.

My glimmers are so small yet so big.

Small gestures, glimmers, that put a smile on my face, that give me enough energy to perform a small step of a complicated dance.

Stephanie

The Darkness Swallows Whole

Its been looming near and around me for some time.

Its been dancing near me, tempting me to join in.

The other day, it just got to be too much.

The darkness entered without invitation but oh, how I welcomed it.

It fell on my shoulders like a heavy winter coat. I wrapped it around and zipped it up. It was warm. It was comfortable. It was the only thing that felt right.

When the darkness swallowed me up, I was not scared like I thought I would be. I wondered why I didn't let it swallow me whole sooner.

The darkness was the only thing that made sense to me.

I have been living in a world where the sun always shines and people move on with their lives. It feels as if I am the only one hurting. People still get up, go to work and worry about what's for dinner and what they will be doing when the weekend knocks on the door.

I don't worry about such things anymore. I worry about if I will be able to get out of bed in the morning, if I will be able to produce a smile for my daughter, if I will always feel empty.

So, when the darkness came, I sat with it wrapped around me. It seemed the only logical thing to do.

It told me to be still and to feel every ounce of agony that was in me. It told me to weep. It told me to cry out in frustration and despair. It told me to play out the dreams I had for Emmerson and Vivienne.

I exposed myself to the darkness.

It was extremely painful.

It was extremely lonely.

It was extremely necessary.

I opened the door that covers the void that was once my heart.

My God spoke to me and said, "Now, let me fill that space for you."

When the door opened, I invited My God to sit in that deep, dark void.

I will continue to be still and I will listen.

And I will leave everything else up to Him.

Be still and know that I am God.

Psalm 46:10

Stephanie

Miracle

It was never a matter of whether I believed He could perform a miracle. I knew He could.

I believed He would.

I remember being and feeling so at peace after the surgery. I looked at my husband and told him that I was at peace with the pregnancy and that, "from here on out, we are golden."

Twelve hours later, labor started.

The nightmare had not ended. Another, much better dream had just interrupted it.

The nightmare continued. It actually got a lot worse.

It was never a matter of whether I believed He could perform a miracle. I knew He could.

I believed He had.

I had my hands raised ready to praise Him for doing what I had asked.

That was when the nightmare resumed.

Now what? Do I still believe He performs miracles?

Do I believe He is God? Lord? Good?

Can I continue with the act of raising my arms and praising Him, giving Him thanks even though He didn't give me what I wanted?

He could have answered my prayers. He could have given me what I had wanted. He could have given me a miracle.

But He didn't. And it hurts. And I don't know why He didn't. He knew I would have given the glory back to Him.

So, can I praise Him now? Can I give glory to a God who performs miracles? Who heals?

It would have been really easy to praise Him had the surgery worked. Had my girls survived. No one would have questioned my sanity. Everyone would have nodded their heads in agreement, saying, "yes, God is good."

But to praise Him when things didn't turn out how I wanted them to?

With an ache in my heart and tears in my eyes, I will keep my hands raised. I will still praise the One who created me.

In the midst of all this pain, I still believe He is a good God.

After all, because He sent His son to die on the cross, my girls still live.

Stephanie