“How do I trust a God that let my baby die?”

It’s a question thats rattled around in my head for the past few weeks and to be honest, I don’t know the answer.

I’m struggling to tell up from down in my grief lately and wondering where God plays in to it all. I think I’ve moved into a different phase of grief and it’s really caught me off guard. The first few months I feel as though I was grieving losing my son. Now I feel like I’m also grieving the things he’s missing…like being spoiled by his grandparents, playing with his cousins, being rocked to sleep in his momma’s arms.

I’ve found my emotions getting bigger and heavier to carry. I already struggled with anxiety and depression before I lost Ollie. Now those things are amplified by grief. In February, I went in to “maintenance mode” with my therapist (just going as needed, instead of regularly scheduled) but this morning I had to reach out to her and get back on the schedule. It’s all becoming so hard to sort through and thats probably a sign I need a little help working through it.

I guess I’m just saying all this to say: I don’t know how to trust God right now and I think thats okay. Through the years, I’ve learned He is trustworthy and I know He is. I’ve spent all of my life in church. I was raised to trust God and know that He is holy and sovereign. I knew it so much that I honestly didn’t think about it most days. “Let Go and Let God!” as the trendy little saying goes. Well, I let go…and the ending wasn’t what I pictured. I find myself now holding tightly to the illusion of control in my life and scared to release it to anyone, even God, for fear of more pain, fear of an ending that I didn’t sign up for or a sacrifice I did not volunteer to make.

I do have my moments where I feel God near and know He’s hearing my heart and loving me through it but if I’m being honest, those moments aren’t as often as I’d like lately. Most of the time I’m a Martha….Running out of my house towards Jesus as he approaches and screaming “If only you had been here….you could have saved my son!” Just as Martha said about her brother Lazarus. I’m just a mother begging God to not let her son’s death be for nothing. Begging that her son won’t be forgotten. Begging that this is not the end of her story. Hoping that this is not her only experience of Motherhood. Praying that her heart will one day be healed.

Begging. Hoping. Praying.

There are days I can wrap my grief up into a pretty little package with a bow and eloquent words. Then there are days (nights? Mornings? Who knows…I can hear the birds chirping with the sunrise and I’ve yet to lay my head down to rest tonight.) like today.

Sunday is International Bereaved Mother’s Day, a day I didn’t even know existed until recently and wish I didn’t have a reason to know about it. It’s also the anniversary of when Andrew & I found out we were expecting our first baby. I feel like I’ve lived a thousand years since that time last year when I saw those two pink lines and the word “pregnant” on the tests.

My grief isn’t wrapped up with a bow lately. It’s painful and heart wrenching and just when I think I’ve gathered all the pieces again to place them neatly in a box, a bomb explodes and they go flying in all different directions again. I’ve been struggling to put words to it all, leaving this page empty and quiet because I’ve not been able to put that bow on it and make it perfect for the world to see.

Mostly, my heart just aches for my baby. A deep, chest tightening, heavy shouldered ache. An ache thats easier to hide than share because it feels too heavy, too personal, too much for others to hear about. I don’t want to be “that girl” that always talks about her dead baby. I’ll be the first to admit that I probably would’ve written a bereaved mother’s grief off before all of this. I would have thought “You’re young! You can have another!” and probably would have thought it was time they stopped talking about it so much. I didn’t understand. How could I?

My brain knows all the right things to say right now. In fact, the phrases about God making all things new and beauty from ashes are rattling around in my head as I type. And yes, I know it to be true. But there are times I wish my ashes didn’t have to exist. Couldn’t He just make beauty from nothing? Why did my baby have to be part of my ashes? I suppose that’s one of those things I won’t know the answer to on this side of heaven. And by the time I get to heaven, the why won’t matter because Ollie will be in my arms again.

I guess all I’m really saying is I miss my son so much lately that I can hardly find words to express it. I’ll share a glimpse here or there on social media but try to keep the sadness talk to a minimum to avoid driving people crazy with my grief….and mostly because it’s my fight as a mother to fight. Like Jacob wrestled with God, I too feel like I’m wrestling Him in my grief and right now it’s ugly. I probably have a theoretical black eye with a broken bone or two….or maybe just a really bruised ego. Losing a child will humble you pretty quickly like that. It pins you to the ground as soon as the words “fight!” are spoken by the ref.

To be honest, I didn’t start writing this post with a direction or story in mind. It’s early morning and my brain can’t seem to get my thoughts organized or settled enough to get some rest so I thought that getting them out of my head may help. My eyes feel a little heavy so maybe it did. Time to attempt a visit into dream world. Maybe I’ll see my Ollie there.