The Miscarriage Years
there was life before the miscarriage years and there is life after.
Sitting on our back porch, I copied passages of scripture into my journal. I felt the summer breeze brush across my face, shifting my eyes upward. I knew God was with me. I spent many months there, prayed many prayers there, cried a lot of tears there. It was a sunny refuge from the season of storms and steady rain in my heart. A gift from above. It wasn’t an escape; it was a comfort—a place that drew thankfulness from my lips in a time of deep grief.
A few years ago, I was listening to the best-selling book, “The Nightingale” when the narrator referred to the main character’s fertility struggles as, “the miscarriage years.” No longer sautéing dinner, I listened intently. I wondered if perhaps the author had lost babies in the womb. That’s just speculation, but the words she used felt more than just a simple statement about loss. It seemed like she understood that to go through this grief can change you. There was life before the miscarriage years and there is life after.
I think about this often. The years before were so full of innocent dreaming. In the years after, I find I’m much different. Some people may be tired of me talking about it; some were tired while I was still in it. But those years—I was changed through them, molded and shaped, chiseled and refined. I had asked the Lord months before, “how do I treasure you above everything?” And through the grief of losing baby after baby, I learned how.
The miscarriage years don’t define me, but God used them to refine me. I learned what it meant to grieve with hope and how joy and sorrow can be braided together. Through the loss of my babies, I learned how to give grace to others and how to accept and ask for help (though I did so imperfectly at best). God worked in me a better understanding of how he relates to his children in our suffering. How he weeps with us. I experienced the Holy Spirit interceding on my behalf when I couldn’t speak a single word. Most of all, I’ve learned—no—the Holy Spirit did a miracle within, making Christ most valuable, the Treasure above all treasures in my heart.
Of course, I often fail to treasure Jesus above all. I let other things get in the way, repent, and praise the Lord for the gospel and that Jesus is my righteousness. But in my grief, he drew me in, showing me more of his goodness and pouring out his love and grace on me. Because of that, I praise God for what he did in the miscarriage years. I don’t rejoice in the death of my three sweet babies, who I long to know even today. Oh, if I could only see their faces, know how it feels to hold their tiny hands in mine. I miss them. But I do rejoice in what God has done in me through their short lives.
Now that I’m a mother to living children as well, I’m already aware of how each of my babies have impacted my life for the better. And, I just have to say how sweet it is. But the sweetest gift they’ve all given me, is an opportunity to experience the love of God more, and in turn treasure Jesus more too.
My life looks a lot different now, and yet, I still sit in that same spot on our back porch when it’s warm out. Sometimes I write out God’s word, other times I read. Sometimes I watch my sons play and my heart explodes with gratitude. I’ve prayed the prayers of a weary mother, worried I’m failing. Many times, I just sit and reflect on all God has done. I’m thankful for his work in my heart through the miscarriage years and I’m certain he’s not finished with me yet. I treasure Christ, and yet I could treasure him even more. May he continue doing this good work in me (and in you). He who called us is faithful. He will do it (1 Thessalonians 5:24).
Have you walked the thistle-covered road of miscarriage? I wrote my book for you. Lost Gifts: Miscarriage, Grief, and the God of All Comfort explores the God’s provision and faithfulness as we face the tragedy of miscarriage. But even if miscarriage is not part of your story, Lost Gifts will be a balm to anyone who is walking through grief. It releases this summer, but you can preorder now.
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Amen! Thank you for your beautiful testimony, Brittany.
Amen. My wife and I suffered through a full term stillbirth and an early miscarriage. We both identified so much with this post.