When grief knocks…

The helmet of salvation — the knowledge He is near, all the time.

Philippians 4:7

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, 

will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Just the week before I’d begun to miscarry on Valentine’s Day, 2007.

I was teaching chemistry co-op to high school students, a necessary class for high school transcripts, plus we were in the middle of preparation for the chem-e-car competition hosted by the University of Tulsa’s engineering department.

To say the show must go on would be an understatement. 

I sobbed on Sunday in the solitude of a hot bath, it was the year my personal tears became more public and though uncomfortable, it marked the beginning of learning to embrace Beatitude weakness — His “blessed are” statements are true.

For reasons unknown even to me, I chose not to tell everyone at co-op. My homeschool group knew and my church knew. Meals were brought accordingly as awkward silences punctuated the grief-stained atmosphere around us. This was loss but it was also the communion of the saints. And while their caring presence was a precious balm, it was all the sympathy I felt I could handle.

There was one friend I’d walked this road with in the past during her miscarriages. We’d sung hymns in her sorrow, praising the God who said we were to give thanks in all things. 

In all things.

This time it was her turn. She brought a meal, a prayer, and a framed quote:

A Friend is Someone Who Knows

 the Song in Your Heart & Can Sing it Back to You 

When You have Forgotten the Words

In the overcast, ash-coated valley of death, her words penetrated doubt-filled clouds as a shaft of light. I clung feebly to its message, like a thin tether it pulled me slowly forward. I dully placed the small frame in my kitchen windowsill to remind me every time I rinsed a cup or prepared a meal.

There was another friend who’d suffered a full-term loss, she drew near and wrapped her arms around my trembling shoulders and never let go.

And I found that in all things I could give thanks when such tender and dear friends were present, His arms and love incarnate.

My faith, which I had always feared might falter during personal calamity, flickered but stayed alight as I walked through my own Job-like crises. 

I worshipped with our congregation, singing Matt Redman’s Blessed Be Your Name, with my heart flayed wide open I surrendered the longed for baby. 

He gives and takes away, blessed be His name.

I begged like Jacob for the blessing of His presence and clung tightly with a death grip. And somehow He uncovered a precious truth He’d known all along but which had been hidden from me. My faith would remain through refining fire.

To say it blazed would be untruthful. But the steady ember assured me, no matter what, I was His. And He was near.