How to walk through life when a piece of you is in Heaven

If you're reading this and you’ve had a loss like I’ve had, first off I just want to say I am deeply sorry. There are no words to heal your heart only prayers. I love you, God loves you, and He mourns with us. No one will know what to say to you, but the love He will pour over you will be so immense the more you press in. Psalm 34:18 says “The Lord is near to the broken hearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” I promise He will be near to you.

My Story

So here is a little of my back story. I have 3 children. A 9 year old son, 5 year old daughter, and 9 month old daughter. My 9 month old is a twin. Her twin, my son, made an early entrance into Heaven. Our decision to have another child was not our decision but God’s. He told us to have another baby and we obeyed, never expecting what the call actually was. I really struggled with having another child. For the first time in my Christian walk I had told God nope, sorry, not doing this!.  But the more I disobeyed the more I felt the fear of God. I just knew His will had to be done. I finally came to terms with the fact I was going to have another baby. Without anyone knowing about any of this, people were having dreams of us having a baby boy. One of the times, when I was feeling overwhelmed with our finances, we received a message from someone saying they had a dream we were pregnant with a baby boy and his name was Eliezer. When I Googled the name it translated to “my God is help.”  I knew God was speaking to us.

When my children found out I was pregnant I noticed they would speak to my belly as if there were more than one baby in there, a boy and a girl. I would just laugh it off, until my first ultrasound when the woman screams with joy “oh my God your having twins!” The joy that was in that room I will never forget. We felt like every bad thing we had ever went through was being restored through these babies. God was certainly blessing us! Every ultrasound we would see these babies grow and interact more and more with each other. It was miraculous! I was carrying 2 humans! At their anatomy ultrasound we had found out that there was a problem with our little boy. We left there full of faith God was going to heal him. For the next month we prayed, our church prayed, God gave confirmations, we just knew God was going to do a miracle!

One month later we walk into that same ultrasound room full of faith expecting our miracle, but instead I received the most crushing news of my life. My child, the child God told me to have, had passed away. It felt like I had left my body and this was someone else's life I was watching. I was numb. My eyes filled with tears, my husband embraced me and he said God has a plan here babe and I said “no this was totally meaningless, there was no reason for this.” This was the one area I felt God would never mess with. For the first time I felt abandoned by Him. Inside my soul screamed you can fix this God, why wont you?

Beginning of Healing

Being honest here, there's a question I ask God everyday. Why couldn’t I have him? Why didn’t you heal him? How do you go on when you feel like just a shell of a person? I am by no means a counselor or expert on grief, but here are some things I've learned and some things that have helped me along my journey.

1. Faith

My relationship with God is what carried me through. When I’m angry I let Him know I’m angry. Whatever I am feeling I give it to Him and go through it with Him. Then I ask Him to restore me piece by piece.

2. Writing

I have been writing a lot and it helps to sort my feelings. Now I can go back to my journaling and pull from it to use my story to bring healing to others.

3. Reach out

I reach out to my church family when I don’t have it in me to even pray. Not only do you need God, but I couldn't see myself getting through this without my church family. They came through for me and my family with love, prayers, their finances, whatever we needed they were there.

4. Professional Help

Don't be embarrassed to get professional help if you need it. I recommend seeing someone of Christian faith so they are aligned with the word.

Death is not the end

The beautiful thing about having a relationship with Jesus Christ is knowing death is not the end. Heaven has always felt like some far away place, but losing a child has made Heaven feel so close. Almost like I have a special connection with Heaven because a part of me is already there! I pray sharing my heart with you will be just the beginning of healing for you. Press into God like never before, let yourself feel and go through each emotion with God, and reach out to someone whenever you need prayer. You are not alone!

As a church we do not believe in doing life alone. We want to pray with you.

To submit a prayer request visit

www.legacychurchri.com/prayerandpraise

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