What Will Heaven be Like?

What I just posted (to another blog), the most personal information I have ever shared online.

Tiniest Taste of Heaven
(After-infertility/loss child, very briefly mentioned in article, but not the focus of the article.)

Infertility Grace

I am doing a 30-day writing challenge on one of my other blogs. Today I shared about What NOT To Say To An Infertile Couple. (After-infertility children are briefly mentioned.) I would love your thoughts (here or there). What should be added to this list?

On a different note, I would treasure your prayers as I push to finish my next book. Writing during stroke recovery offers many unique challenges!

Finding Answers

The woman at the well sought happiness in the arms of men.
Jesus provides peace that could be found in none other than Himself.

I sought joy in the new life of a baby.
Jesus offers New Life in Himself.

I wanted to know the feeling of carrying another soul inside my body.
He provides the Holy Spirit to indwell me...

Won't you please join me today over at Held to read the rest?

Infertility and Illness

Some of you may know that I have lived with chronic illness my entire adult life. As we battled for 13 years to bring home our three living miracles, with multiple miscarriages and adoption losses along the way, the issues of chronic illness and infertility were often intertwined with each issue complicating the other on multiple levels: physically, medically, emotionally, spiritually, and just about any other "ally" you can imagine.

Because of this intensely personal heartache, I have a very special place in my heart for anyone grieving to grow your family while living with chronic illness. Lisa Copen, my dear friend and founder of Rest Ministries, offers some beautiful thoughts on living with chronic illness and facing infertility:
How Do I Know if God Has Motherhood In My Future?

I also provide resources for living with chronic pain or illness at Given Me or Thorn. You may prefer to start with my infertility and loss story there.

Wonderful Counselor

I never knew what depression felt like before this. Sure, I'd been “down,” had bad days, knew PMS could be brutal. But this deep black hole that left me unable to climb out of bed, uncaring that I hadn't attended to personal hygiene in three days, this slimy pit of numbness and despair, this was all new.

I sobbed my puffy eyes dry and my voice horse. My heart was stone-cold, robotic. If there had been enough ability to engage emotion, it should have been terrifying, but this all-encompassing grief was beyond even fear.

Where was God? It felt like I had been praying to brass heavens for a lifetime now. It had only been a year and a half since He fell silent in my life, but that could easily have been a lifetime; the lifetime of the baby I expected to be carrying by now.

Everyone who knew me knew I was upset over “the baby thing.” While I'd made others miserable around me for months, even those closest to me could see only the surface. I had been able to hide the ugliest so far.

I tried to fill the emptiness with a precious kitten who had been separated from his mother much-too-soon. It didn't even cross my mind to think myself irrational when I privately tried to devise a way to nourish this helpless creature from my own breasts that ached to fill a hungry child.

If those had been my most unsettling compulsions, maybe I wouldn't have been in such bad shape. But over recent months I'd daydreamed about driving my car into oncoming traffic, unmindful of the lives I would unwittingly involve in my destruction, uncaring for the emotional wreckage my suicide would leave in its wake.

When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered, I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you.
- Psalm 73:21-22 (NIV)

They called that day “Mother's Day.” I called it “Humiliate-the-Infertile-Lady-by-Making-Her-Stay-in-Her-Seat-When-Nearly-Every-Other-Female-in-the-Congregation-Stands-for-Honor Day.” It was the day I became no longer able to hide.

My dear husband had tried to soften the blow after church, taking me out to a fancy lunch then to the mall for a shopping spree we really couldn't afford. It was Wednesday now and I hadn't been out of bed, showered, brushed my teeth or hair, had hardly eaten since.

I needed serious medical care, psychological intervention. My husband and I were very young, far from family support, struggling in church and friendships, too vulnerable to understand just how critical and precarious my mental state had become.

My friend, if you find yourself reflected in anything I have described, PLEASE know there is hope! This is not a reflection of spiritual lack or failure on your part. God does not call you to do this alone. (Here are some resources!)

I should have been hospitalized. We didn't even understand that was an option. When I was without answers, God Himself stepped in as my Wonderful Counselor. Please join me today at HELD where I share how God worked in my heart that Mother's Day week of 1994. I don't share my story as a model for the proper way to deal with such crisis, but instead because the way God chose to work was so unique and I want to give Him all the glory for preforming a true miracle in my life.

I'm still in your presence, but you've taken my hand. You wisely and tenderly lead me, and then you bless me.
- Psalm 73:24 (The Message)

© Jennifer Saake, 2011

Pregnancy After Loss

I became pregnant with our oldest son after nearly seven years of infertility. Having already lost eight children to miscarriage or adoption losses, I knew all too well that pregnancy doesn't always mean a bring-home baby. I found myself in a moment-by-moment battle with fear. To combat these overwhelming emotions...

To read more, please visit my post, God’s Transcendent Peace, over at Glory and Strength. It will only be live for the month of April. (If you are sensitive to the mention of children, please note that our second living son is briefly mentioned in the opening of this article.)

She Has a Name...

Sweet reflections from a family of two about the daughter that has lived in their hearts and thoughts, though she has never been conceived. Grab a tissue and head over to Life as Two.

Adoption Loss: Through the Looking Glass

I've lived Robert and Heather's story, at least their first chapters of loss, repeatedly. (God had different closing chapters for our story, but that's a topic for another day.) What I love about Through Pain and Grace Toward Redemption is a perspective from the other side of the story. Thank you Gordon Atkinson for sharing Shelby's loving and courageous journey. I've lived a lot. I've read a lot. Little shocks me anymore, but the power of these words moved me to tears as God's grace once again crashed over my heart.

Baby Cry, Battle Cry

I just read an incredible devotional by Joni (paralyzed from the neck down in a diving accident as a teen in the 60s - as a result, she has never had children). She was reminiscing about her first Christmas after her accident and how she felt so abused by God that He would take everything from her like that. And she went on to talk about how He began changing her heart over that year and what her second Christmas was like. You can read the whole thing at http://www.joniandfriends.org/blog/monday-dec-20th-update-joni/ but that statement that stood out me was:

Last Sunday our pastor said, "When the angels appeared over Bethlehem, theirs wasn't a lullaby, it was a battle cry." He's right. The birth of Christ may have ended the enmity between God and man with the announcement, "Peace on earth and goodwill toward men," but our adversary, the devil, only sneered at the peace-offering in the manger that night. It only heightened his war against God and His people -- Herod's slaughter of innocent babies in Bethlehem only proved it. And 2000 years later, the war is still raging. So friend, join me on the front lines. Nothing God ever asks of you is 'unreasonable.' It's why I pray that this Christmas week, no matter what your affliction, you'll find peace, once again, in celebrating all that the Father has graciously given us in His Son, our Savior. What a glorious and generous gift!

Once again a reminder that the coming of the Child brought with it such anguish, "Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted..." and that we are in a battle, not against flesh and blood. Praying peace for your hurting heart, that the wonder of His Sacrifice will shine through the sorrow.

Grieving Christmas

One of the hardest parts of Christmas for me for years went beyond the "I want my baby" thing of watching adorable little ones dress for Christmas pageants, thinking of all we were "missing" on Christmas morning under the tree and so forth. For me the hardest part was that the very point of the holiday was focused around the expectation of birth, an infant Jesus, a pregnant and delivering Mary (and here she was a virgin and God gave her a baby when I couldn't even get pregnant with the help of doctors in the midst of a loving marriage)! :dry:

Gradually God helped me change my focus. I asked the Lord to help you be able to look past a pregnant Mary or a Baby in a manger, to remember the reason for this season is because our Father willingly became a grieving Dad to pay the price of my eternal adoption! ♥

My heart hurts for all the pain surrounding this season. How can I specifically be praying for, supporting, uplifting and encouraging you through the next few weeks? Have you found any "coping strategies" that make getting through the holidays more bearable?

Stepping Stones has recently shared a beautiful poem and encouraging letter about Christmas and Infertility at http://www.bethany.org/pdfs/SteppingStonesExtra_December2010.pdf - I pray this link will be a blessing to you today.

Grace

God is bigger than my fears, is not limited by my "negative thinking" and His goodness is not confined to my expectations. While His plans for my life may unfold very differently from the plans I had made for myself, He can still be found in the midst of my sorrow when I am willing to yield my heart to His best.

If you are looking for regular doses of encouragement like this, a chance to interact with me (Jenni) and with others walking through infertility and/or loss, a place to post your prayer needs, or want to look up resources such as local support groups, please join me on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jennifer-Saake/98673046436