***Trigger Warning: Miscarriage Mentioned***
Something 2020 taught me was the true meaning of flourishing with God. For me, flourishing with God is to become deeply rooted, established, and immovable in every season. When we lost our daughter in March to incompetent cervix and delivered her stillbirth at 18 weeks, 5 days, I meant it when I said nothing is gonna silence our praise of Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit. The truth is, the Holy Spirit was there, every step of the way speaking and reminding me that while Hell was raging all around us, to locate what we knew to be true beyond how we felt. Through it all, His message was very clear, let nothing silence your praise.
As we grieved, we took the opportunity to sow into the lives of those we love and view as spiritually safe, parent by leading by example, for healing, and perseverance, among other personal reasons. Most of all, these couples would rather please God than man. Their faith has stood the test of time and we chose to sow into their various gifts and in expectation of God to fulfill his spoken promises of living children to come.
Much to our surprise and joy we found out around Thanksgiving that we’re pregnant and due in July 2021. This has been such an exciting time mixed with grief & joy. Unfortunately, at yesterday’s ultrasound we found out that we lost the baby. I had been on a protocol of progesterone injections to prevent incompetent cervix and was set to get a cerclage (stitch in cervix) soon. This was already a high risk pregnancy because of the threat of incompetent cervix happening again in the second trimester, but even our doctors can’t understand what happened. There was such a strong heartbeat two weeks ago and like most first trimester losses, we’re left with no answers for a cause.
Honestly, pregnancy after loss is a whole different ball game and can test the limits of your faith. But I remember what our pastor tells us and what the Holy Spirit told me when we lost our daughter, “Locate what you know to be true.” I am once again locating what I know to be true in 2020. My body has not started the process for miscarriage and this we’re told could take several weeks to start. This isn’t how I wanted to usher in the new year, but here we are. This is what Chronic Hope looks like. Chronic Hope isn’t praising God only when you get your way or doing your own thing and asking God to bless it. To continually have hope means that our faith is not conditional to our circumstances. It’s an easy concept but can be hard to live out sometimes. The scripture I keep coming back to is Psalm 126:5-6.
Those who sow their tears as seeds
Psalm 126:5-6
will reap a harvest with joyful shouts of glee.
They may weep as they go out carrying their seed to sow,
but they will return with joyful laughter and shouting with gladness
as they bring back armloads of blessing and a harvest overflowing.
We are so thankful to everyone who has warred with us and stood by us through it all. To have loved ones that do not shy away from the topic of loss, do not disappear or go silent when it looks like things aren’t going the way we thought they would, is no small thing. If you are interested in supporting us in any way, we appreciate prayers at this time.
A Touch of Flourish 