The season of Thanksgiving is upon us, and you may be wondering…what do I have to be thankful for?
Reflecting on gratefulness is very valuable…especially in the throes of grief. Grief is big and consuming. The simplicity of counting our blessings refocuses a grieving heart from the giants of pain, sorrow, and hopelessness to the hope, comfort, peace, and eventually joy that waits for us on the other side of the valley. The comfort that waits for us in the arms of our Savior.
The following is a list of gifts I’ve found because my children lived. There is a great, freeing power in finding the gifts…the reasons to give thanks…and naming them…even in painful circumstances…even in our most broken places. A dear friend of mine recently shared that she often finds mothers who are feeling as if they cannot leave the place of raw and intense grief when the time comes, because they feel as if they must perpetually grieve in pain in order to continue to remember their baby’s life. But, she shared, what if instead of living as if our lives were forever ruined by these precious babies, we began to embrace life and joy…living our best life…pursuing our dreams…laughing our deepest belly giggles…BECAUSE they lived. In order to honor the lives of these sweet little ones. I love the hope in that message.
Your list may not look like mine. Scripture and thanksgiving to God are part of my list. Yours should reflect what matters to you. At our Walking With You Support Groups, we often turn on some peaceful music and take some time to write the gifts we’ve been given, because our babies live.
For the Lord will comfort Zion,
He will comfort all her waste places;
He will make her wilderness like Eden,
And her desert like the garden of the Lord;
Joy and gladness will be found in it,
Thanksgiving and the voice of melody.
~Isaiah 51:3
I am thankful…that I have been comforted by the Lord.
I am thankful…that His grace is sufficient.
I am thankful…that my wilderness has become like Eden, my desert like the garden of the Lord.
I am thankful…that joy has been restored, that morning has come.
I am thankful…for every moment I watched Faith and Grace and Thomas on the ultrasound screen.
I am thankful…for every hiccup, every movement, every kick, every stretching pain, (not-so-much the nausea and vomiting:).
I am thankful…for every dream that we shared together for your lives.
I am thankful…for every conversation that held your names…and for all the times your names have yet to be spoken or written.
I am thankful…that I was chosen to be your mother…for the blessing and privilege of that amazing gift.
I am thankful…that all of my children, in heaven and earth, have their daddy’s dark eyes and cute nose.
I am thankful…for prayers prayed over you, songs sung to you, tears wept for you, and the love that spills from the hearts that loved you…and continue to love you.
I am thankful…that Thomas opened his eyes to look up at me and a picture captured that moment of bliss.
I am thankful…that my babies lived on Earth…and that they live in heaven.
I am thankful…Faith, Grace, and Thomas…that I carried you in my womb, held you in my arms, and forever hold you in my heart.
I am thankful…for the promise that I will hold my sweet babies once more in heaven’s glory and we will never say good-bye again.
I am thankful…that because our babies lived, many families are comforted in the midst of their sorrow.
I am thankful…that our mourning has been turned into dancing…that our love has sustained the storms of grief…that our God is able to carry us through this life and keep us together as we walk with Him.
I am thankful…that God has blessed me with the boys who remain here with us, filling our house with boisterous noise and the husband who continues to make me laugh, and fills my heart with songs of joy.
You have turned for me my mourning into dancing;
You have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness,
To the end that my glory may sing praise to You and not be silent.
O Lord my God, I will give thanks to You forever.
~Psalm 30:11-12
A portion of this post was originally an excerpt from a post originally posted on The Sufficient Grace Blog and Chapter 23 of the Sufficient Grace Book.
For more on counting the gifts, I highly recommend Ann Voskamp’s book One Thousand Gifts
Kelly Gerken is the president and founder of Sufficient Grace Ministries, an organization providing perinatal hospice services, bereavement support and Dreams of You memory-making materials to families facing the loss of a baby through miscarriage, stillbirth, infant death and the death of a young child. Kelly has walked through the loss of three of her five children, and now reaches out to walk with other grieving families as an SGM perinatal loss support doula and SGM Remembrance Photographer. She is a creator and facilitator of training for birth professionals on compassionate care for bereaved parents facing perinatal loss. Her memoir, Sufficient Grace, was published in 2014. You can read more about Kelly’s journey of grace, hope and healing and the outreaches of SGM, order resources or find her book here: www.sufficientgraceministries.org.
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