My Reason to Hope

This life without my baby girl can be messy and complicated. As much as I want to appear to have things together emotionally and spiritually, I struggle often. I battle with jealousy and feeling forsaken.

Lately there have been a handful of friends who lost babies who have had healthy rainbows, or are anticipating an upcoming birth soon.

I see the faces of these perfectly precious babies, these children who fill the empty arms left when their older sibling/s left so soon... and I marvel at how so many conflicting emotions can reside within me at once, taking up space side-by-side in my heart and mind.

The part of me that is happy for them and rejoicing with them is angry with the part of me that resents them and wonders why it can't be me as well. The part of me that cries with joy for them scowls at the part of me sitting alongside that weeps over how I feel left behind.

Always left behind...

I see all these people talk about how long they've waited for their rainbow and I resent them for saying so when they don't know what waiting is. I say in my head when I see pictures of their babies "it must be nice." I wonder why I've been waiting for the better part of a decade and God seems in no rush to change my circumstances, even as the big 3-0 is now breathing down my neck. The passing of the days and the turn of the calendar month after month is a reminder that this internal clock of mine is tick-tick-ticking away.

As much as I want to have a positive and uplifting thing to say to tie up this post with a pretty little bow, and as much as I want to see the sunshine in the midst of the storm, I can't.

All I know is God is still good even when it's hard for me to see His goodness.

God is still trustworthy and kind, even when it seems He is unkind.

God is still sovereign and knows what's best, even if what He chooses for my life is the opposite of what I would choose.

It was a lot easier for 20-year-old Hannah Rose to proclaim the goodness of God, even in the days following the death of my baby. It was easier to hold onto hope for the future when I was still young and assuming all my dreams were certain and would be coming true in just a few year's time.

Almost 30-year-old me has a few more scrapes and bruises, more years to learn the reality of life and how our dreams and plans aren't always realized, at least not in the time or way we'd anticipate or desire.

In ways, I like the younger and more naive version of me. But I also know that in the last decade, God has made my faith real. He has made it deeper and truer and has walked alongside me in all the complicated mess. He has proven Himself faithful in my agony. His love doesn't take away my questions and pain, but it rises above it all and that is my reason to hope.