Joy and Sorrow

Back in January 2013 we told some friends that we were expecting, then they told us they were expecting.  Three days later I had a miscarriage.  Our baby was due at the beginning of September, their sweet baby came at the end of September.  He is beautiful.

I held him for the first time last week.  I cried.  They were tears of joy and sorrow.  I am so joyful that he made it into this world.  I am so thankful that they got their baby.  But I would be lying if I said it's not hard.  That I don't understand why I can't be holding my baby right now.  He (yeah, I just think it was a boy) would be 10 weeks old right now.

On Sunday, our friends had their son baptized.  I'm one of those people that always tears up during a baptism.  I think it's beautiful.  Standing in community and declaring your child is His, it's just beautiful.  Watching them on Sunday, standing up there with their three boys I cried again.  And again they were tears of joy and sorrow.

"Others who have lost children have shared the inability to separate the sorrow from 

the joy in life.  I find that they are inextricably woven, never to be pulled fully from 

each other in this life.  I am reminded of this delicate dance as I think upon the Savior 

whose blood mingled with our freedom.  I am an injured dancer, and yet one who 

wants her life to bring glory to the one who allowed sorrow and joy to dance at all."

- Angie Smith, I Will Carry You: The Sacred Dance of Grief and Joy

Whether I got to meet my child in this life or I meet him in heaven, I still grieve for him.  He was a part of me for a reason.  He was not a mistake.  He was knit together in my womb, even for a short time, for a purpose.  For that I am thankful.  I hope that the 10 short weeks I carried him, he felt loved.  He was, and still is, a gift.  

Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. (2 Corinthians 6:10)

Peace,

Megan