There was no answer.
Then, that morning, I got this email:
Hi friends.
So it's been heavy on my heart to launch a Mother Grief Support Group. Once a month. No heavy pressure. No agenda. Just honest leading, sharing and experiences surrounding miscarriage and child loss. The Lord has put you two on my heart as co-leaders. The Motherhood Collective would do all the behind the scenes leg work (leader manuals, location, publicity, etc) you would just be asked to guide, listen, share and lead.
Would you think/pray about this?
I know there is a need.
I stared at my computer, shocked, stunned. I didn't even know what to think.
I remembered a story, the one about the man born blind. The disciples asked, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” And Jesus said, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him" (John 9:2-3).
In thinking about this story, I bitterly scoffed, wondering if the man was angry--I had to suffer my entire life JUST so God could get the glory?!
Did my baby die so God could get the glory?
This thought just makes me feel ill, and really, I don't think it is true. I don't believe God makes bad things happen just so he can swoop in, save us, and get the glory.
Ultimately though, bad things do happen, like the man born blind. The man didn't cause his blindness; the parents didn't cause his blindness. The blindness simply happened. It was bad, evil; it caused great suffering in their family.
But Jesus gave them a new perspective. He showed this family how suffering could be used to bring glory to God.
As I stared at my email, I realized that this was more than an invitation from The Motherhood Collective: this was an answer to my prayer, my prayer of "why?"
Maybe it wasn't the answer. But it was an answer.
It was also an invitation to deeper trust, deeper faith, deeper love. An invitation to life in the midst of death.
I felt conflicted.
If I was really honest, I would much rather be pregnant than be the leader of a miscarriage support group. Selfish, but true.
But I felt a stir of life and of hope. I felt like I should say yes but not in a I-know-this-is-the-right-thing-to-do kind of way.
I wanted to say yes because my heart and soul were desperate for "right." And saying yes, to walk with other women as they journey though the valley of grief, seemed right.
I told one of my best friends about the invitation to lead this group and said, "I am thinking of the verse 'He makes everything beautiful in his own time.' So, maybe this is the start of something beautiful, even though it really, really sucks right now. How's that for honest?"
Someone once said, your calling is where your passion and burden meet.
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The email was a call. So, I wrote a reply, and this is what I said:
I would be honored to be a part of leading this group. I would prefer to start in March though as my miscarriage was very recent and I still need some time to grieve and find perspective myself. Thank you for asking me. I hope the Lord will use this heartache to help bring healing to others.
So, now it's March. And through much prayer and planning, our first meeting of The Motherhood Collective Grief Support Group will meet tomorrow afternoon. I don't know who will show up or exactly what I will say but I, along with my co-leader, Julie, am happy excited honored humbled to be part of this. God is showing me many things, including how this truth is starting to manifest itself in my life:
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. (2 Cor. 1:3-4)
My pain, my heartache, my suffering is real, but God is at work in my life. He has promised to make "Everything beautiful in its own time" (Ecc. 3:11) and I am walking with him, searching for beauty.
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You can read more about my journey here:
1 comment:
So very beautiful, Brittany. Thank you so much for sharing.
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