Grief counselor/Crisis Care Minister

I mentioned in a previous post that one of the things that helped me the most after my m/c was meeting weekly with a grief counselor from my church. I think she (I call her M in case she doesn't want me to give her name) is actually called a crisis care minister. At my church crisis care ministers are part of the congregational care ministry. They are very similar to Stephen Ministers which I think a lot of churches have. Stephen Ministers, according to their website, are "lay caregivers who provide one-to-one Christian care to hurting people." I wanted to write a bit about this in the hopes that this information may help someone else. Of course, I wish that none of you would need a ministry like this. I wish that none of you would ever experience hurt or pain, but that is not the world we live in. Jesus said we would have trouble in the world (John 16:33). The thing is, prior to my m/c, I really didn't know this ministry was something my church had and I certainly wouldn't have thought about utilizing this ministry after a m/c. Of course, that is partly because that would involve actually asking for help, something I don't do very well (the Lord is still working on me with this one). The meetings came about because M and I are in the same small group. They know about our IF and IVF and were among the first people we told about the m/c. If M hadn't called and offered to meet with me, it is unlikely that we would have begun meeting together because, like I said before, my pride would have kept me from asking for help.

M and I have met every week since about the third week in January. It is a designated time for me to be able to talk about everything without ever feeling like a broken record or feeling that I am burdening someone else too much with my problems. I think the thing that helps me the most is that each week I set goals to be accomplished by the next time we meet together. Knowing that M is going to ask me about the goals I set provides a level of accountability for me that is very motivating. I am not usually one to say I will do something and then not do it. Early on the goals focused on planning and having a service for Johannah. Other times they were very simple goals like exercising. I had mentioned previously that when you face a loss any unresolved grief comes back up, so lately my goals have related to dealing with these issues. By setting these goals, I am intentional about spending time each week focusing on healing. One of the other things that has been most helpful is that each week she asks me for specific prayer requests. I strongly believe in the power of prayer. Having someone who knows exactly where I am at and what I am struggling with praying for me on a regular basis is a huge blessing. Someone asked me if it was just like counseling. There are similarities - we meet together for about an hour, our time together is focused and intentional, and she is objective in her relationship with me. It differs from counseling in that the goal is to provide care. They come along side of you in the midst of your crisis in a way that counselors do not. I am so thankful for this ministry and the healing that has come about through it. I think that a ministry like this could be a great help to anyone facing a crisis.

FreeRice

I came across a fun web game on Jackie's blog that supports a very good cause. She is trying a new thing each day for a year. I think that would be a very cool thing to do in the midst of IF. I can see how it would help you to keep living life and seeing what's out there. It is so easy to shut down and forget all that there is to be thankful for and all that there is to experience in life. Anyway, her new thing for one of the days was to help fight world hunger by playing FreeRice. For every question you get right 10 grains of rice are donated through the UN World Food Program. The default is vocabulary words, but you can choose another subject if you like. The site is sponsored by the UN World Food Program and the rice is paid for by sponsors who advertise on the site. All of the money raised by the site goes to the UN World Food Program to help feed the hungry. Since October 2007, a total of 61,308,080,150 grains of rice have been donated. So instead of solitaire play FreeRice and help feed the hungry. Click below to play.

I think it could be very addictive! My highest level so far on vocabulary is 40, but I can't seem to stay at that level. I very quickly get one wrong and they drop me back down. I got up to 1000 grains before getting tired out. I think I can beat that, how about you?

New Blog Name

I decided to change my blog name. Partly because I wanted something simpler and partly because I wanted to highlight one of the things the Lord has been teaching me lately. Why "Day by Day?" It started back in October/November when we were undergoing IVF. At the start of the process, it seemed completely overwhelming. How could I possibly take all those drugs, give myself shots every day, undergo surgery, etc. I remember looking at the at-home pharmacy I had on what use to be my kitchen counter thinking how am I ever going to remember what to take when I supposed to take it. How am I going to do this? And that's just some of the physical aspects. For me the emotional part of putting myself through all that and getting my hopes up, only to have it potentially not work was even more difficult. But the Lord spoke to me during this time, saying fix your eyes on me and take one day at I time. That's how you will get through this. And so I did and He faithfully saw me through the process.

Losing Johannah also meant the return of infertility. This is the other reason I like the name "Day by Day." When I think about infertility and the possibility that it will never end, it is overwhelming. But when I think about enduring infertility just for today, it is so much more manageable. The thing is I have no idea how long infertility is going to last, things could change tomorrow. All I need to do is look to the Lord trusting and obeying Him each day. When I do so, He provides me with "strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow" (from the hymn "Great is thy Faithfulness).

One of the other things I really struggle with is wanting the Lord to give me a detailed road map of where I am heading. I want to know the outcome. In my ladies Bible study, I have been studying "Experiencing God" by Henry Blackaby. One of the points Blackaby made that really hit home with me was this one:

We say, "Lord, if You could just tell me where I am heading, then I will be able to set my course and go." He says, "You don't need to. You need to follow Me one day at a time." This response comes only from those who have learned to walk closely with God and to trust Him to care for the details of their lives.... Who really knows the way for you to go to fulfill God's purpose for your life? Who knows how you can experience abundant life? God. Jesus said, "I am the way."

By nature, I am a worrier and I like to be in control. But that is not how the Lord want me to live. He wants me to trust Him, to put my hand in His and follow Him step by step, one day at a time, wherever He leads me.

After I came up with "Day by Day," I wondered if there were any Scriptures that used that term. I found 2 Cor 4:16-18,

"Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."

I love this Scripture. It says exactly what the Lord has been teaching me, which is to fix my eyes on Him and have an eternal focus. As painful as infertility is, it is a "light and momentary trouble" when viewed from the perspective of eternity.

Then I googled "day by day" and came across a hymn written by Lina Sandell. It was written not long after she watched her father drown after being thrown overboard after the ship they were traveling on suddenly lurched. Here are the lyrics:

1. Day by day, and with each passing moment,
   Strength I find to meet my trials here;
   Trusting in my Father's wise bestowment,
   I've no cause for worry or for fear.
   He, whose heart is kind beyond all measure,
   Gives unto each day what He deems best,
   Lovingly its part of pain and pleasure,
   Mingling toil with peace and rest.
   
   
2. Every day the Lord Himself is near me,
   With a special mercy for each hour;
   All my cares He fain would bear and cheer me,
   He whose name is Counsellor and Pow'r.
   The protection of His child and treasure
   Is a charge that on Himself He laid;
   "As thy days, thy strength shall be in measure,"
   This the pledge to me He made.
   
   
3. Help me then, in every tribulation,
   So to trust Thy promises, O Lord,
   That I lose not faith's sweet consolation,
   Offered me within Thy holy Word.
   Help me, Lord, when toil and trouble meeting,
   E'er to take, as from a father's hand,
   One by one, the days, the moments fleeting,
   Till with Christ the Lord I stand.

Better? Part 2

I said at the end of my last post that I no longer was angry with God over the m/c, but I should probably mention I still did have some anger at IF. The anger wasn't really towards God or anyone else, just anger at the situation. I have never really grieved IF itself until now and anger is part of every grief process. I also found myself getting easily annoyed and irritated with people. This may have been somewhat caused by my hormones going a little crazy, but whatever the cause, the irritability along with just general anger over IF was causing me to have to fight the urge to yell at random people in the commissary (military grocery store for my civilian readers), at the movie theater, and basically any place else I went. At this point I felt like God was telling me to step back from things, that I needed time alone with Him to heal. Initially, I had tried to jump right back in to my ladies Bible study and had tried to venture out with friends. I knew church itself would be too painful so I hadn't even tried to go back to church at this point, but I was also feeling really guilty about that decision. About this time I came across this post on Beth's blog and the Lord really spoke to me through it. She said,

“Right now God has me tightly in the palm of his hand protecting me and loving me, and asking everyone else, except for the people HE has chosen, to please leave the room so that he can bring the young girl who is “asleep” back to life. I am the young girl asleep right now, and in due time, I will rise with a new and vibrant life, and what a story we will have!”

She wrote this based on the following passage from Luke.

Luke51
When he arrived at the house of Jairus, he did not let anyone go in with him except Peter, John and James, and the child's father and mother. 52Meanwhile, all the people were wailing and mourning for her. "Stop wailing," Jesus said. "She is not dead but asleep."53They laughed at him, knowing that she was dead. 54But he took her by the hand and said, "My child, get up!" 55Her spirit returned, and at once she stood up... "

I believe these words were meant for me. It also confirmed something else the Lord had previously revealed to me. I have been reading from "My Utmost for His Highest" since the end of last year each morning. On the morning of January 13th (which was when we found out Johannah had no heartbeat) before I went in for my doctor's appointment I remember thinking this exact thought before I read that morning's devotion, "I wonder if God has a special word for me today." And this is what I read,

"Have You Ever Been Alone with God?

His solitude with us. When God gets us alone through suffering, heartbreak, temptation, disappointment, sickness, or by thwarted desires, a broken friendship, or a new friendship - when He gets us absolutely alone, and we are totally speechless, unable to ask even one question, then He begins to teach us."

Whoa, that didn't sound like anything I wanted to hear right before my first OB appointment. And so at the time I brushed it off thinking surely God must mean this for some other time or better yet for some time in the past. But it was meant for this time and He told me to go back and read it again. I did not go back to church, I stopped attending my ladies Bible study, and I stepped back from social outings. I should mention that I did not completely shut myself off from everyone, I still attended my small group Bible study, I still met with each week with my grief counselor, and I still kept in contact with people through blogs and emails. But I began to spend more time with the Lord studying the Bible, praying, and listening to worship music. As I was obedient to the Lord, He began to reveal things to me. The thing about grief is that it doesn't go away, it will wait for you. When you experience a new loss, any unresolved grief from previous losses will pop right back up, "Hey, remember me? Yup, I'm still here." The Lord showed that there were other issues that still had to be dealt with. He has been taking me through a healing process by working me through the first of these issues. He has shown me that I need to surrender it all to Him, every bit of hurt and pain and allow Him to use it however He chooses. I can't hold on to it anymore. This process has only just begun, but already God has brought about tremendous healing and truly set me free from some things. I don't know if this would have happened if we had not lost Johannah, so as much as I wish we had not lost her, I am thankful for how God has used it for good.

I would not say I am fully healed, but there were a couple of things that God really used to bring about a great deal of healing. One of these is meeting with a grief counselor from my church on a weekly basis. I think I will write a separate post on this because I have much more to say about this. The other thing that helped me a great deal was to hold a service for Johannah. I know this might seem like a weird thing to do to some people, but it was so healing for me. I may write about this in more detail later. The morning of her service I was able to write her a letter to say good-bye for now. Having the service and writing the letter really unlocked the tears that were needing to come out. The day after the service is when we went to the beach and wrote her name in the sand (see picture below). After this I was able to have some good cries and I definitely felt such tremendous sadness over our loss. When John left for Peru on the 13th my plan was to take time alone to grieve some more. I spent the first 3-4 days after he left alone to allow myself time to grieve, but I was surprised that I didn't need to cry more than I did. I wouldn't say I am all cried out, I still miss her all the time and I know there will be hard times ahead, especially around her due date. But I think I have reached the point of acceptance of our loss. I was able to go back to church the past 2 Sundays and I started to go back to my ladies Bible study (not sure about this one yet). So this pretty much sums up things up until this point.

Better? Part 1

Am I better? No, but I am not the same either. During the past few weeks I have sometimes felt that there was an expectation that I would be all-better. Yet in many ways I have only just begun to heal. I want to attempt to summarize what I have experienced over these past 6 weeks since losing Johannah with the hope that it will help someone else. I think there is often a misconception that if you are a Christian, you can't be angry or sad, that you are supposed to put on a happy face and talk about what peace you have. Don't get me wrong, when you have a relationship with Jesus Christ, you can have peace in the midst of even the worst storm. I was not without peace, but I would not say that peace was the predominant feeling either. For me, there was no extra measure of peace experienced as there had been in past trials.

Initially, I was in a state of shock, it was hard to believe that what had happened had actually happened. I was carried along by the prayers of others, and by the meals, cards, and flowers that came in the first week or so. The days went by in a blur, though there were definitely lots of times of deep anguish where I just sobbed as I would suddenly remember that we had lost Johannah. Often it was hearing Dr. S's words in my head again telling me that my baby had no heartbeat that would bring on these times. They are the most crushing words I have ever heard in my life. I was overwhelmed by the thought that we had lost the only baby we may ever have. This pregnancy was not easily achieved and there is no guarantee of another pregnancy. I find little comfort in the thought that "at least you know you can get pregnant." Just because I got pregnant once doesn't mean I will again and there is no comfort in getting pregnant if I can't/don't carry the baby to term.

The next phase I experienced was anger, at God, at the situation, and at the insensitive comments of a couple of people. This was certainly the ugliest stage of grief and not one I wanted to stay in. I was angry at God for leading us to do IVF and then allowing the outcome to be so different from what was expected. Of course, I was always concerned about m/c, but I could not imagine God allowing it, especially after everything else I had experienced in my life. It had seemed to me that my time had finally come. I had struggled for so long to believe God had forgiven me over past sins. I had struggled to trust God, to believe that He loved me, and to believe in His goodness. I had finally come to trust God, to believe in His goodness and to believe that He would still bless me. So when I miscarried I was so confused, everything I had believed God was doing seemed to be wrong. There were two things that really helped me get past this stage. The first was recalling what God had previously taught me. God was no less good and no less loving because the outcome was different that I expected it to be. He had shown me in the year preceding all this through several different circumstances that His plans are truly better than my own. He is all-wise and all-knowing, and His will is best. As I began to reflect on what He had taught me in the past I was able to once again place my trust in Him even though I didn't understand why everything happened the way it did. The second thing that really helped me was reading Beth and Niki 's stories. In both their situations the outcome was also very different from what would have been expected. As I read their stories the Lord reminded me that His thoughts are not my thoughts, neither are His ways my ways. Romans 11:33 says,

"Oh the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable His judgments, and His paths beyond tracing out!"

We just aren't going to understand certain things. For me that was enough. I accepted that I may not ever fully understand why we lost Johannah. Sometimes we just have to trust that God is sovereign and that He has a plan and a purpose for us and that plan is a good one (Jer 29:11). Also, I truly believe, as it says in Rom 8:28, that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him. He had already shown me how He had used IF for my good. I trust He will do the same with the m/c.

I was also angry at God for yet another trial, truly I felt like I had had enough. When would my time come, I wanted to know. I felt like God was blessing other people, but not me for whatever reason. I felt forgotten, passed over, abandoned. This led to even greater anguish. I experienced a period (which thankfully turned out to be fairly brief) where God was silent. This also happened to be the period of time when the cards and meals and such stopped coming. In the past when I have cried out to God when I felt especially discouraged, I would get a phone call or email from someone or God would bring to mind a certain scripture. But this time there was none of that. I would cry out to God and there would be nothing. Thankfully, my church was doing a sermon series called "Where is God When...." I hadn't been able to go back to church yet, but I felt led to listen to the one that asked where is God when "He is silent" online. One of the things that helped me most from this sermon was when he said, "We do not determine whether God loves us or not by current circumstances, but by looking at the Cross." In "Experiencing God," Henry Blackaby says, and I'm paraphrasing, that the Cross is God's final, total, and complete expression of His love for us. It is the only evidence we need that He loves us. I began to spend a lot of time meditating on this truth. I found listening to music to be especially helpful during this time period. One of the songs I listened to over and over again is the hymn "There is a Fountain" (you can listen to Selah's version on my playlist if you scroll down to the bottom of my blog). This song really ministered to me as I thought about what Jesus did for us in dying on the Cross. It is so amazing that "There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins; And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains." The Lord began to pour out His love upon me as I reflected on this truth. I could not look at my circumstances, but rather I had to fix my eyes upon Jesus (Heb 12:2). After this, I was no longer angry at God and I no longer felt abandoned by Him. What I did feel was sadness, over losing Johannah and because of IF in general. Part 2 to come shortly.

Peru trip

I know I said I would update on how I am doing last time I posted and I plan to do so soon, but I wanted to take a break from talking about IF and m/c to talk about John's trip to Peru and ask for your prayers for him and the people he will be serving. The trip is with an organization called Healing Peru founded by one of the doctors John works with. The team is made up of about 6 physicians, one other nurse besides John, and a medical technician, along with a few spouses. They left Friday to travel to Miami where the team caught a flight to Lima on Saturday. Sunday they flew to Cusco and then traveled to Andahuaylillas by bus. There are no cell phones, but John was able to get to a computer and email me to let me know he arrived safely. Andahuaylillas is a small village in the Andean mountains about 1 hour southeast of Cusco. It is best known for being the site of the "Sistine Chapel of America". It is a very poor area with very little, if any, access to health care. The plan is to set up a medical clinic to serve the local people of Andahuaylillas as well as several of the surrounding villages. They will be dealing with diseases that we who live in this country are fortunate enough not to ever face. Today they focused on setting up the clinic and tomorrow they will begin seeing patients. John said in his email that they are expecting 150-200 people everyday. The clinic will run until next Tuesday. Next Wednesday and Thursday they will get some R&R in Cusco and then take the train to see Machu Picchu. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (March 1st) will be travel days. Of course I miss John terribly, but I am so excited for the work he is getting to be a part of. If you would, please keep John, the Healing Peru team, and the people of these mountainous villages in your prayers. Please pray for their health and safety. Pray also for God's provision to meet the needs of the people and for His blessing upon the work they are doing in Peru. Lastly, please pray that they would have the opportunity to share Christ with the people of Peru and for hearts that respond.

In Loving Memory

This post is dedicated in loving memory to our daughter:

Johannah Elise

November 18, 2008 - January 13, 2009

We chose Johannah because it means "God is gracious," because He is, always, His grace is always sufficient. Elise means "consecrated to God." She was never ours, she was always His, and now she is with Him forever. One day John and I will join her.