Anchored: Marked By Loss

Over the next nine weeks on the blog, we will be following along with our fall Hope Groups as they go through Hope Mommies’ newly published Bible Study — Anchored.  For those of you who did not register for a group this year, this will be an opportunity to walk through the topics studied in our Hope Groups. For those of you who are currently participating in a Hope Group, our desire is for these posts to reinforce the lessons you are learning with your group.   Wherever you are in your journey through loss and grief, I pray that this series will encourage your heavy hearts, remind you of truth, and point you to the unrelenting, far-reaching Hope of Christ as we anchor ourselves in Him and His Word.  

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Week 1- Marked By Loss

We all bear the same mark, the same hurt, the same gaping wound in the deepest part of our souls. We are all survivors of the deepest pain a mother can experience: the loss of a child. The grief can be overwhelming and to add to the burden, we are often left questioning God’s presence and His plan. We were told countless times that the diagnosis our unborn son had received was a random abnormality, a total fluke. Those explanations rang hollow with me, however. I knew that there was nothing random about my son or any of the other children we had lost. I began to pour my heart out to God and search Scripture for answers. As we prepared for his arrival and his funeral, I had the same Scripture brought to my attention three times through friends and Bible study: the 139^th Psalm. I wept as I read the sacred hymn of God’s omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence, and immeasurable love for all His children. Through this beautiful song, I hope we can take comfort in God’s perfect nature, and feel peace knowing that each of our children are precious in His sight.

God’s Presence

Grief is often described as waves in an ocean. The waves start miles away and build energy. As the weight of the water becomes too heavy to bear, the waves crest and the water comes crashing down. As the shoreline recovers from one wave, another has already begun building. There are days that bring great sadness as we are reminded of our empty arms. There are also days that bring such great anger. This wasn’t supposed to happen to you; this was always someone else’s story. You might shake your fist at heaven or think about walking away from God altogether. But, isn’t it so comforting to know that the Great Shepherd pursues you? There is no depth that you can go to that He won’t find you. He knows EXACTLY where you are at. He knows the state of your soul and the questions deep in your heart and He will meet you there.

“Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!”
– Psalm 139: 7-8

There are days when it seems oceans separate you from God. You feel you are drowning in your grief or life’s daily challenges and He is nowhere to be found. You feel like you are crying out to Him, but He isn’t listening. Not only is He listening, but He knows your every word before it is even a thought in your mind! You can rest assured that He is there and that He will sustain you.

“Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.”
– Psalm 139:4

“If I take wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.”
–Psalm 139:9-10

God is so near, especially in the hard moments. He promises to “never leave you or forsake you,” (Hebrews 13:5). Even in the moments of doubt and anger, you can trust that God will strengthen you, help you, and uphold you with His righteous right hand, (Isaiah 41:10).

God’s Plan

As bereaved mothers, we are left on this side of heaven to reconcile God’s plan for us and the babies we lost. It is part of our human nature to question why things happen, but God’s plans are not always our plans and His ways are not our ways (Isaiah 55:8). His character, thoughts and ways are so much higher than we, as humans, can ever hope to understand. Once we accept this truth, we free ourselves from the burden of control. We can rest in God’s promise to prosper us, not to harm us, but to give us a future and a hope (Jeremiah 29:11). He knew all our days, all our heartaches, all our joys before time began. We can take comfort in an omnipotent Father that goes behind us and before us, meeting us at our point of deepest need.

“You hem me in, behind, and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain it.”
– Psalm 139: 5-6

How wonderful it is to worship and serve a God that is not passive, but is involved in every detail of our lives right down to the tiniest of cells. From the moment of creation, God knew the intricacies of each of us and each of our babies. No matter how short the number of days, the number of chromosomes, the congenital condition, they were all made specific to the Creator’s design and for His purpose and glory. God doesn’t make mistakes.

“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: 15-16

As we begin this study, let us pray that God reveals Himself to us in a mighty way so that there is no room for doubt in His goodness and His love for us. Though we are marked by loss let us have hope for our future, even though it is written without our children here on earth, because even through this painful experience, God promises “all things will work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose,” (Romans 8:28).

Megan Kelley is married to Jake and the mother to six babies. Her first child she lost to miscarriage in September of 2009. She then had two children, Hunter who is five years old and Preston who will be three very soon. After Preston, she lost her next two to miscarriage in March and August of 2014. A month later, she found out she was pregnant with her son, Thatcher, who was diagnosed with Edwards Syndrome. He went to his heavenly home shortly after he was born on April 17, 2015. She loves painting, gardening, cooking, reading, and playing with her kids at the park.