I have never cried in the shower as much as I have in the last few weeks. I have also never been so overwhelmed by love from those around me. This evening, as I stood beneath the warm stream of water, my face crumpled, releasing a sob from my lips. As quickly as it came however, the tears stopped and I felt strangely fine, confident in the love that I knew was surrounding me.It struck me that it is actually possible to be shockingly ok despite your circumstances. For those of you who have been following my story and blogs, you’ll know that at the beginning of this year my husband, Phillip, and I miscarried our first baby, Promise Joy, at 9 weeks gestation. It was a devastating way to begin 2017 but on Easter Sunday we were thrilled to find out that I was once again pregnant. The news felt like nothing but a miraculous sign, a testimony of God’s goodness, to find out on the day that many Christians call ‘Resurrection Sunday’. It’s a day where we celebrate new life and Phillip and I quickly embraced this little one growing in my womb.As all couples do who find parenthood approaching, we began making plans to ready ourselves for our baby’s arrival. Doctors appointments were scheduled, travel plans were rearranged and the search for a new apartment began. In a matter of a couple of weeks, an opportunity to sublet a great place in our favourite neighbourhood opened up. Excitedly, we made plans and within a month had moved into our new home. That week alone will forever be a testimony of the power and beauty of true community as over fifteen of our friends helped us pack up, move, clean and redecorate. I was pregnant with a fractured foot (I dramatically rolled my ankle whilst watching Miss Saigon on Broadway) and needed all the help that I could get!We’d unpacked our first few boxes, made the living room look somewhat presentable and were awaiting the arrival of my Aunt and Uncle from England, when I saw the dreaded colour of scarlet red in the toilet bowl after having used it. In a flash, the trauma of our first miscarriage flooded my mind as I walked into the living room to tell my darling husband. Over the next 24 hours, I began cramping and the bleeding increased. I spent the next morning curled up in bed watching back to back episodes of American Crime and silently willing my body to peace. I knew what was happening but that deep part of me that’s geared to faith, that believes in the impossible and in a God of miracles, held out that everything might just be ok. On the afternoon of Tuesday, June 6th, Phillip and I made our way uptown to the Children and Babies Hospital for our first trimester scan. As a child or young adult, I had never imagined myself in a position where I would miscarry a baby, let alone be on the brink of miscarrying a second, but that is exactly where we found ourselves that afternoon. As the transducer moved over my stomach, images started to appear on the screen next to us and we saw the clear picture of our baby, Victor Peace. The room was silent a part from the sound of clicks as the sonographer took screen shots of my womb. Then the monitor showed the rhythm of our baby’s heartbeat - it was a solid flat line. I felt my heart crash into my shoes. The sonographer didn’t say anything but told us she was going to bring the doctor in to talk about my results. I could already feel myself giving way to devastation as I went to the bathroom and wiped the cold gel from my stomach. Within minutes we were rejoined by both the doctor and the nurse who gently informed us that our baby no longer had a heartbeat and I was experiencing a miscarriage. I burst into uncontrollable sobs as the truth, which I had been hoping against hope was a lie, was confirmed to me.As I sit recounting the sorrow of that moment, it would be easy for me to focus on our loss, our grief and the injustice of experiencing losing another baby, but that would deny the beauty and grace that we also encountered that day and in the weeks to follow. My Aunt and Uncle returned home after a full day of being tourists, armed with our favourite pizza from Dumbo, Brooklyn and hugs that only parents seem able to give. Dear friends of our’s, who we were meant to be having dinner with that night, Brian and Donna, brought a meal to us instead, along with a huge bouquet of beautiful roses and a welcome mat for our new home. One of Phillip’s best friends and a colleague from 'Hello, Dolly!', Nathan, came over carrying Phillip’s favourite cocktail and proceeded to make drinks for us all evening. Our church community had been praying throughout and sent food, flowers and loving messages in the days that followed. It was one of the most beautifully vulnerable evenings that I have yet experienced, summed up perfectly in the words of my Aunt Shirley, “Joy, it is both a birth and a death, so let us know what you need because it is no small thing.”Some people would call it ‘a silver lining’, others would use the word ‘blessing’ or ‘a great coincidence’, but the word that keeps coming back to me is, ‘grace’. That evening I felt the grace of God as we were surrounded and radically loved on by family. Neither Phillip nor I felt alone or unloved but we actually experienced joy in the midst of our mourning. I curled into the couch as cramps took over my body, flanked on one side by my husband and the other by my Aunt and Uncle, laughing along with the banter and stories and blinking away the tears that filled my eyes at the juxtaposition of life and death in that moment.Over the next couple of weeks, we were completely overwhelmed by an outpouring of love and support from our family, friends and community. For the first week, our apartment took on the appearance of a high-end florist as bouquets arrived from colleagues on Broadway, friends in our church community and family back in England. The cast and producers of ‘Hello, Dolly!’ loved on us extravagantly, sending gift cards and a food basket full of goodies. When you live in a city that neither of you is from, you create family from the community that you build there and you only realise the strength of that, and how valued you are, when you find yourself in need. During the week following the miscarriage, the sublet agreement that we had moved into began to fall apart. Within a few days it transpired that the couple who were renting to us did not actually have permission from the landlord to do so and so suddenly, we were being forced out of the home that we’d begun to build. In the space of three weeks, we lost our baby and our house.Here’s where it gets really beautiful though. In the midst of losing so much in such a small space of time; in the midst of emotional breakdowns, exhaustion and Netflix binging; in the midst of confusion and anger there was a ‘but suddenly, God’. That’s what we like to call those moments of breakthrough, of momentary relief or total wins. It was all going in one direction but then God suddenly altered the course and brought our heads back above water. Without even having to ask, we were invited to come and lodge with close friends, Bob and Mavis, in their home in Brooklyn where they have created such an atmosphere of peace and love that you immediately feel the sting of your troubles melting away. It took us about 30 seconds to make a decision to cut our losses, pack our belongings up into storage and move to Carroll Gardens. Now Phillip and I find ourselves in an unexpected season of adventure where, as Natasha Bedingfield sings, “the rest is still unwritten”.We have lost much but we have also gained greatly.There’s a song that I have been playing a lot this week called ‘So Much Grace’ by Jonathan David Helser and Melissa Helser. The chorus simply sings that line over and over again, ‘there’s so much grace, so much grace’. Maybe you find yourself in a season similar to us, where it feels like you are losing a lot and much is being taken from you. I want to encourage you with these words, there is so much grace for you, your situation, your family and your heart. This isn’t the end of your dreams but merely a part of the journey to them. You are not alone in your grief but I believe God wants to overwhelm you with His love through those around you, to provide for your needs and lavish you with gifts beyond your understanding.[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1ivt7cw_qI[/embed]None of these things make sense to me. I don't understand why we have lost two babies. I don’t know why we ended up homeless or why it’s taking so long for my foot to heal, but I do know that life has suddenly been dramatically simplified for Phillip and I and we are finding such truth in the words of Paul from the Bible:“For I have learned to be content regardless of my circumstances.”Philippians 4:11
Grief, Homelessness and Overwhelming Love
