Erica’s Retreat Experience

I didn’t find out about the retreat until close to the end of registration. But I felt the want, no, the need to go. Before the retreat I was feeling very alone. It was like I was the only one in the world grieving a baby I never got to hold, a life I never got to meet face to face. I felt like I was going crazy and everyone was just watching, waiting for my breakdown. I felt like I shouldn’t be crying this much, sad this often, dwelling on my losses so deeply. Everyone else was over it, so why wasn’t I?

I got to the retreat Friday evening feeling literally sick with anxiety. What if they think I’m silly for crying about my Oliver who only grew inside me for 12 weeks? And even worse, what if they think I’m crazy for naming Emery Gene even though she was just a blighted ovum and she never had a heartbeat?

We sat down for supper and all my fears fell away. I was in a safe place. We listened to each others stories. Cried over photographs of our babies. And rejoiced in knowing that our babies were all up in heaven together. We had some praise and worship time during the weekend and I remember picturing all of our babies in heaven worshiping God in the same way we were worshiping together in that room—doing the very thing they (and we) were created for: to worship our Creator. What more could a mother want for her child than for them to be in the presence of Jesus?

I was also struggling before the retreat with how to be me again. How to get life back to normal. How to not make people feel awkward around me. But at the same time, I felt different and couldn’t go back to the same old me. Then another mom reminded me that it was okay, that this was the new normal and I can’t control how and what other people were feeling.

I will never be able to go back to the “me” before loss. My losses have changed me. My babies have changed me, and that’s okay. As much as it hurts, and as much as I long to just hold my children in my arms, I have found a deeper relationship with God through the suffering. I’ve had to seek Him on purpose. Isn’t all of life just a journey towards His heart? The storms come and the valleys come but isn’t it all worth it knowing that this is not the end? That Jesus died for use so that we could be forgiven, reborn, and forever with Him?

“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.”

Psalm 139:13-16 

I think the best things I took away from the weekend were that I’m allowed to still be grieving, and that I need to give myself a break when I have bad days and to extend grace when I don’t respond the way I want to respond. God knew my children from before the beginning of time. His purposes for them were not thwarted in their death. And God still has a purpose for me, during my grieving and after my grieving. As much as He knows and loves my children, He knows and loves me. He has seen all the days that are still before me and I am never, ever alone.

I went to the retreat with fifty-some strangers and left with fifty-some sisters.

Registration for our Spring Retreat is now open! Will you join us April 8-10, 2022, as we explore this theme of A Song in the Night? It is our great prayer that you would find rest, connect with the Lord, make friends, and be anchored to the compassion and healing that Christ offers to those who suffer. You are loved, Hope Mama, and we can’t wait to meet you!

Register Today!