Easter Tears

Does your womb (or your heart) ever feel dark and dead? Does the miraculous seem overshadowed by the bitter sting of grief? Are you looking God in the face, yet not really seeing Him though the fog of your tears?

...Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.

They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”

“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

“Woman,” he said, “why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”

Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher).

Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.

- John 20:11-18 (NIV)

What will it take to hear Jesus' words of life through your anguish? Does it feel like He's pushing you away instead, saying "Do not hold on to me," but it's too hard to hear His reasons behind what feels instead like rejection? When you try to explain your emotions to others, are you met with misunderstanding or even ridicule?

Just as Jesus is victorious over the grave, He can breath new hope into your heart too. Please join me tomorrow over at Held as God births a new ministry out of the ashes of brokenness.

Saturday Shock

Another FANTASTIC article by Kristi Bothur over at Glory and Strength:

Plenty has been said about Good Friday, the day Jesus was crucified. A day of anguish and accusations, darkness and defeat. Friday was the worst, darkest day in the disciples’ lives. All of their hopes were dashed, nailed to a cross, buried in a tomb.

And Easter Sunday – we know a lot about that. Jesus alive! The grave empty! A day of joy, hope, and miracles!

But no one talks about Saturday....


My “Good Friday” was March 9, 2009, when I realized that the baby I’d carried for 18 weeks had died. In that moment, my world ended, and I was plunged into the darkest place emotionally that I had ever been. I clung to God, desperate for His comfort and peace....


When resurrection comes, it will not erase the past. Easter Sunday did not change the fact that the crucifixion, in all of its ugliness, had happened. His followers would never forget that day. And there was no getting back to normal either. They didn’t return to their former lives of following an itinerant teacher and healer around Judea. No, they went forward into their new normal characterized by God’s power and presence in a way they had never dreamed possible.

But first, you have to get through Saturday...

Read more, this week only at Glory and Strength: Stuck in Saturday

New Blogging Community

We've all heard it from childhood. The expectation of most marriages is family growth through joyful pregnancy and birth. But what happens when those dreams don't unfold as we imagined? Often we are left feeling as though we’re in a headlong free-fall away from the protective hand of God. And not only that, sometimes it seems no one else cares or understands either.



Hannah's Prayer leadership has been praying for over a year about how to expand our ministry outreach not only to women facing fertility challenges, but also to offer tools for our friends, families, churches and loved ones who long to support us but might not be sure how. We are excited to tell you that on April 25, the day after Easter, we will be launching our newest ministry outreach, Held the blogging arm of Hannah's Prayer Ministries.

While we won't be officially "open" for 10 days yet, we would love to give you a sneak peek at what we are cooking up. You can read more about the vision of Held along with information about how you can be part of the excitement.

If you have a website, blog, Facebook page or any other way of helping us spread the word, please feel free to grab the Held button and share it around. We've got some great posts already lined up and would love to have some lots of friends ready to visit when we launch on the 25th.

Grab the code!

<a href="http://hannahsprayerblog.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="Hannah'sPrayerBlog" src="http://i516.photobucket.com/albums/u321/rusrach/HeldButton2002.png"/></a>

We are beyond excited to see what God's got planned for this blog, and we hope the excitement will be contagious! Please come and join us in this unfolding journey!

P.S. There's a related Facebook page as well: http://www.facebook.com/HeldBlog

Crushed In Spirit

The recipe called for crushed rosemary, and all I had was whole. So I measured the required amount onto a plate, found a small glass with a flat bottom, and began to systematically break up and grind the dried spice into tiny little bits. As I did, I kept thinking, “This is how my heart feels.” For two years, I had been walking a road marked by illness and pregnancy loss. Two years of uncertainty, dismal diagnoses, loss, and surgery. It had broken me down, so much that I felt unrecognizable from the person I was before. The finer I crushed the spice, the more deeply it seemed to represent my crushed spirit...

Please continue this fantastic article by Kristi Bother of Naomi's Circle over at Glory and Strength. (It will only be live through the month of April.)

Easter Reflections of a Grieving Mom

A lady I have had the joy of just starting to get to know through Hannah's Prayer posted a touching message on our message boards this week. Heather and her husband have been striving to grow their family since 2000 and lost their only children (IVF twins) to miscarriage this past December. I've been praying about what I could share with hurting hurts this Easter, and Heather has graciously allowed me to share her Good Friday post with you today:

Hi ladies,

Today is Good Friday and my husband and I have just been wandering around running errands. We are both feeling unsettled... partly because of the weather though...it's a dreary day.

I find for myself a part of it is that here I am buying chocolate easter eggs for my nephew, and my niece's first easter teddy bear. I just felt so empty. It makes the aching of missing our babies so strong. I think of how far along I would have been today...and that I would have been one of the proud pregnant women walking around the mall.

I am finding that I'm hiding my feelings more and more. I'm trying so hard to allow myself to heal, but to still allow myself my moments of tears. I know that will go on for a long time. I don't know what it is this week...but I've seen TWO sets of identical twins...and I found myself just staring at them wondering what our identical twins would have looked like. I've just never seen two sets of I.T's, let alone within the span of one week! And everywhere I look there are adverts "Baby Days On Now", "Big Baby Event"...like everywhere I turn I'm slapped in the face.
I try to just keep my head high and think of where our babies are. I know that they are wrapped in God's loving arms. One day I will know why our babies had to leave us so soon. One day we will hold them ALL in our arms!

Anyhow, I just wanted to share a couple of verses that have become very important to me since losing our twins. It was difficult to get back in to God's word, but I'm feeling refreshed once again by His voice.

Romans 8:24-28
For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. But if we hope for what we do not have, we wait for it patiently. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

2 Corinthians 1:3-7
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.

Psalms 50:15
"I want you to trust me in your times of trouble, so I can rescue you, and you can give me glory."

I just wanted to share these verses with all of you, and hope that these words touch you as much as they are helping to guide me through each day.

I feel so happy to have found this site, to have a place where I can express my sadness, but also have the opportunity to share some encouragement too!

Hugs and Prayers,
Heather

If you would like to contact Heather directly, her email address is heather_johnson AT shaw DOT ca (remove spaces and replace AT and DOT with @ and .)

On past Easter's I've just had to keep going back to the heartache of the Father as He watched His only biological Son die to pay the price for my eternal adoption. I pray for each and every griving mom-at-heart who is also struggling to get through this weekend.