Beth Morey's Blog, page 22

When I am Not Afraid of the Dark

In the babyloss community, there's a lot of talk of riding the waves of grief.  The pain, it churns and rises and grabs you, hauls you under and then . . . ebbs calm again.  You kick, pull water with your arms, propel the surface to gasp water.  And soon you're breathing normally and the stitch in your side is gone and you can swim steadily toward shore again.  Then there is sand beneath your feet and you can walk and the sun is shining and --

that wave of pain floods high...

When We are Boundless in Him

I shouldn't be able to feel this happening, the roots tendriling down from my soles, my toes, through black loam and soil and an eon of earthy strata, drawing up moisture that rehydrates my dry and desiccated heart-places. 

I shouldn't be able to feel this growing, this growing down and deep to stretch tall, but I do. I do, and it terrifies me and thrills me. I'd grown so intimate with living knocked down to the floor, my limbs sprawled disjointed and the skin of my cheeks permanently imp...

When My Daughter is Dead, and It’s Her Birthday

[Today] is my daughter’s second (still)birthday.

I don’t know what to say.

If you're reading this, you probably know what I mean.

How to describe the rippling ache whose circles widen but never disappear?

How to communicate how she is still an important part of my family, my life, even though she is dead?

How to answer those who tell me to move on, that it’s unhealthy and uncomfortable, and couldn’t I just shut up about this whole dead baby thing already?

How to celebrate her birthday when she is n...

God, Depression, and Me

The depression has returned. Silent and stalking, it crept up on me even though I was keeping an eye out, in spite of already seeing a therapist each week. Its weight pressed down and down upon me, until, eleven months after my son’s birth, I desperately booked myself an appointment with my OB/GYN to beg for anti-depressants.
 
She prescribed them. I drove straight from her office to the pharmacy to pick them up. My therapist later endorsed my being medicated for depression and anxiety. A...

Pathways to God

I thought it was supposed to be straight and narrow, this way.  That's what everyone said, after all.  He said it, too. 

So I tried to live straight, tried to walk that narrow line.  I clenched my jaw and my buttocks and pushed away all questions and the not-knowing that threatened to cross my tightrope path.

They told me to walk this way, and keep walking.  But when I looked down and saw that the way that I had been following had cut off like the end of a movie reel,...

Coming Home to a Better Way

Today I went the pharmacy to pick up a prescription.  The pharmacist rang up my order, and I pulled my wallet out only to hear that my total was zero dollars.  I stared.  How could I be purchasing something for nothing?  Your insurance covered it, she explained.  Your deductible.

I still could not wrap my mind around it.  Didn't the year just start --

And then I remember.  It's November.  Halfway through, in fact.  If I had a calendar, it'd still be...

When Death Comes Near

Today one of our dogs came close to death.  Or maybe it was death that came close to him.  Either way, it was not comfortable.  It seemed like one minute our Cody was okay, and the next he was whining in pain and trying and trying (and failing) to vomit.  Within a half hour we had him at the vet; in another hour he was undergoing major abdominal surgery for bloat. 

He could have died.  He still might die.  Nothing is certain, although we are hopeful.  H...

Reading the Bible with my Glasses Off

I am starting to read the Bible again.

I'm not sure if I told you that I'd stopped.  But I did.  Every time I'd open those gold-trimmed pages, I'd come across a string of words that would make my stomach swoop with nausea.  The kinds of words that abusers use to excuse their abusive actions.  I couldn't read God's word without it pouring salt into my deepest wounds.  Which made me think a lot of scary thoughts about God.

So I closed my Bible.  Walked away.  Lo...

I Am Thrashing -- I Have Not Given Up

image property of Mandy StewardI don't know what to say.

I've been having some profound misgivings about this faith I've sewn my heart to. The questions aren't new, really. They've been around since the beginning, since I said yes to Jesus more than ten years ago. It's just now that I'm being honest about them.

Maybe you have nagging doubts of your own. I think most people who declare themselves Christian must. I don't know how a person couldn't. But I guess it comes back to that honesty thing...

Running in the Desert

I feel them, hairline etchings pressing into me, splitting what was from what is from what might be. The tips of my hair split, too, from how I wrench a comb through every day and every day, and I wonder what all this is for, this combing and smoothing down and the shadow scraped over twin lids.

Why is it called "putting on your face"?  Why can't the face I have be enough?

The others tell me to be quiet, to quit asking so many questions.

So I lace my fingers and settle them into my lap an...