Crown of Beauty: Session 1

February 5-7 found 71 Hope Moms from all over the United States in Giddings, Texas. We spent a weekend sharing our stories, our precious babies, and finding that Christ can indeed comfort the brokenhearted, often through the hands and tears of another sufferer along the way. The following series is a recap of each of the main teaching sessions.  

“My Gwendolyn was my very first pregnancy.  It was beautiful, and it was perfect.  Then I was in labor, and we lost her heartbeat.  I was at a birthing center, and so they rushed me over to get an emergency c-section and the on call head of L&D told me, “You need to be prepared for the fact that when you wake up your baby might not be alive.”   Even in labor I was just thinking, “What are you telling me? How do I prepare for that?  I prepared the past nine months for a baby.  I had baby showers, I have a nursery, I have dreams of what my life is going to be like, I have plans for this holiday, I’m prepared for all of that.  I am not prepared to wake up to a different reality.”

God was kind to me.  I woke up, and we had a little girl who was in the NICU with heart and liver damage.  But I was still thinking, “I can recover and get back to my plan.  Okay– heart damage and liver damage.  We can figure that out!  We can recover.”

We named our daughter Gwendolyn Hope, which means “blessed hope” and reminded us about what it says in 1 Timothy — that Jesus is our blessed hope. 

Gwendolyn lived in the NICU for 36 hours.  We were rushed up to see her whenever her heart would fail.  I saw in my baby what you all have seen in your babies– what death looks like.  and it’s not right. 

When Gwen passed, I felt like black and white became really black and white to me.  Right and wrong were so tangible because I could see it in my baby, who was perfect!  She was 10 pounds, 1 ounce; chubby, and had these little dimples everywhere.  And she was purple, and she was cold, and I had to let her go.  And that was not right. 

And it literally took me back to the Lord saying, “Yes.  You are right, Erin.  There is a lot of wrong in the world.  And this right now, this death that you are seeing and experiencing and holding literally in your arms is wrong.  And it exists because of sin.  The wages of sin is death.” Back at creation, Adam and Eve rejected God and they rejected His rule.  And death entered our world.  They experienced physical death, they experienced death in relationships, and they experienced death in the world.  That is what I was experiencing as I held my baby girl.

What I really wanted in that moment — in seeing black and white — and feeling like I am underneath this weight of death, was truth.  I needed something that was going to anchor me and hold me fast, because I felt like I didn’t know what to believe — like I just had my entire life knocked down.  And it was wrong, and she was gone, and I didn’t know what to do anymore. Everything I thought that I knew about God, I didn’t know that I knew anymore.

Nancy Guthrie says that truth is what we need when our hurt is the deepest.  I was at the deepest that I’ve ever been, and pray that I will ever go.  And so I needed truth.  Where could I turn?  Because I started realizing, I am sure like you, that I did not know that this exists, or that infant loss like this happens.  We live in the best healthcare in the world in this age and time, and there are babies dying.  I didn’t know that this happened.  I felt totally blindsided and had no idea what to look for.  I didn’t know what to Google.  And I would sit in front of an empty computer screen… unable to even type the words “dead baby support group”, so I didn’t.

Somehow, the Lord brought some other women around me.  You may have felt like this too.  I feel like infant loss pops up out of the woodwork. Like once they know you’ve experienced a loss they’re going to tell you because they want to help you.  Some of that “help” is helpful, and some of it is really not helpful.

Some people say:

“Well it was just God’s will.”
“God needed her more than you did.” 
“She’s an angel now.”

It was very well meaning, but it was not truth.  What I wanted was truth.  Where could I turn for truth?  I could turn to God’s Word.  In God’s Word, through time (which is really hard that it takes time) He tenderly uncovered His Word to me to tell me, “Erin, I am still good even though this doesn’t look like goodness and feel like goodness.  I am still good.  And because I love you, I am going to walk with you.  I know the pain of infant loss.  I know the pain of death.  I physically know the pain of death, but that’s not where it stops.”

Before Gwen I had this attitude of, “I don’t want to think about death, and I don’t want to think about Heaven.  Heaven seems really boring, and I’m not super excited about going there.”

So afterwards I needed to know, “where’s my baby?”  She was a physical baby who was in my body.  I held her in my arms.  I know where her body is, but what can I know about her soul? 

Is it somewhere?  Is it real?  Will I ever see her again?  What can I know?

1 Corinthians 15 became one of my favorite passages.  It’s arguing for the resurrection of the dead, because people were saying, “Jesus was a good man.  He might have been God, but we can’t really know that He came back from the dead, because people don’t do that.  It’s crazy.”  That’s what these Corinthians were saying.  So Paul wrote to them and said:

“ And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.  Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.”
-1 Corinthians 15:17, 18

It’s saying, if Christ had never raised from the dead — if He had lived a perfect life in your place, and had died a perfect death, but stayed dead — there’s no hope.  That’s it.  You would still be dead in your sins with no way to relate to a Holy God.  And all those people who’ve put their trust in Christ for now would totally have perished.  That would be the scenario if the resurrection wasn’t real.

“If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.   But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.”
-1 Corinthians 15:19, 20

But it’s not crazy.  If you have put your faith in Christ Jesus, you are not crazy to hope in Jesus, because there is a resurrection.  And this whole chapter is written for encouragement to say, that what you’re experiencing right now, the pain and devastation that you have right now…

It is not the end. 

This is not God’s final story for you.

There is a resurrection.  There is going to be a great day when He returns and He’s going to raise all of those who have fallen asleep.  This is not it, and there is hope in that! 

And so through that need for truth, Hope Mommies came to be.  And that in itself is kind of crazy, because if anyone would have told me five years ago that I would be in a place like this with women like you, I would have said, “Ha!  That’s crazy!”  But He has just amazed me at the things that He can do when we are willing to give Him our deepest hurt.  And He will do that in your heart.

Part of the reason why we do retreats is because grief is really hard.  It’s really isolating.  And it’s really hard to grieve, especially infant loss.  People don’t want to talk about babies dying, because it is so wrong.  They don’t want to face that reality, and they don’t know what to do with it.  I felt like there reaches a point, you know, after like 5 or 6 weeks, that people want you to stop talking.  People don’t know what to do.  Or they might want to help, but they don’t want to make you cry any more.  So one of the reasons we do retreats is that we want you ladies to be safe, and we want to create a safe space where you can come and be free to share your story and share your babies.  Because they were real and we will really see them again someday, and they are in perfect and complete happiness right now.  We can know that!  I believe that God’s Word says that we can know that! 

There is such a wide spectrum of differences in our stories.  But there is not a difference in significance.

We are all mommas.
We all wanted those babies.
We all prepared for those babies, and had dreams for those babies.
The significance of what we are experiencing is all the same. 

So as we talk to one another and pray for one another and hear each others’ stories, let’s choose to pour out grace to one another.  Because it’s already so easy for us to feel like, “Oh you can’t relate to me because you have living children.  Or you had a great pregnancy, or you just had a baby, and you can’t relate to me.” 

The theme for this weekend is from Isaiah 61.  It’s a prophetic passage, where it’s Jesus’ intro into ministry.  This was written before Jesus came on the scene. 

I just want you to hear some words and see if they echo in your heart about where you are right now. 

Afflicted.
Poor in spirit.
Empty.
Bound.
Broken.
Unable to overcome.
Crushed.
Grieving.
Broken-hearted.
Captive.
Guilt or Shame.

Can you relate to those words?  Do they echo with you in any way?  If any of that resonates with you then the Word has something to say about those exact feelings.  The Bible is not an antiquated text. 

Isaiah 61 says:

“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me
because the Lord has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn;
to grant to those who mourn in Zion—
to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;
that they may be called oaks of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.”
-Isaiah 61: 1-3

The context of all of those promises is where we are right now.  The context of the Lord giving gladness, praise, and a beautiful headdress is deep despair, brokenness, anxiety, fear and shame.  That’s what Jesus came to do.  He went to the synagogue and they gave Him the scroll of Isaiah.  He read all of that passage and said, “Today that Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”   

That is what He came to do then, and that’s what He wants to do today in you.   

If you are afflicted He has good news for you.  If you are broken-hearted He wants to bind up your wounds.  To you who are captive, whether that’s to depression, or anxiety, or stress, or sin, or fear, He’s ready to free you.  To those who are bound He proclaims liberty.  And to those who are mourning, He will lift up your head and crown you with beauty and gladness and praise.  He wants to give you a crown of beauty in place of — and also in addition to — the ashes that we wear.  He’s not saying He’s going to erase your story.  I think we understand grace deeper because of our story.” 

Stay tuned for more notes from the Crown of Beauty: 2016 Retreat weekend.

Erin Cushman is the founder and Director of Hope Mommies. Erin is married to Blair and has three children: Gwendolyn, who has been with Jesus since October 20, 2010, Malacai, who is three, and Gemma, born in June 2015. She loves photography, gardening, cooking, reading, playing with her son, and loves especially when all those things combine. You can get to know her more by reading her blog, Our Blessed Hope