"I do not know how to heal from this loss. Maybe the first step is not hiding it.”
Lord, bless our wilderness & help us to remember that nothing is wasted
This week on Mothering Spirit
Erin Strybis shares the depths of her grief and hope on her experience with miscarriage in Loved, Not Forgotten.
“A few days later I am driving home after preschool drop-off when an earthquake of grief consumes me. The stop light ahead blurs from red to green. My whole body starts to shake. I hear the horns honking behind me but I’ve frozen up, surprised by the force of my emotions. Finally, I wipe back the tears and put my foot on the gas.
The problem with loss, particularly miscarriage, is that it’s often invisible to others. Women don’t typically announce early pregnancy, and thus when miscarriage occurs, they may feel uncertain about sharing it. The church and society offer few rituals or guidelines for grieving mothers and fathers. The world wants us to hurry up and keep driving, yet a mother who’s miscarried can’t go on the same way she did before without taking time to tend to her healing.
As I turn into my driveway, this is what I know to be true: I do not know how to heal from this insurmountable loss. Maybe the first step is not hiding it.”
Read the rest here: Loved, Not Forgotten. If you know another mother in the midst of grief, share these words to remind her she is not alone.
Words to Pray
This week Claudia Campbell gives us words to share in the depths of loss.
“Our eyes are filled with tears, our bodies are weary, our hearts are angry, and we’re just so sad. We can’t seem to put together the incomplete pieces of a life that is so broken without our children.
Lord, help us to remember that You hear our cries, You see our tears, You draw close, and You comfort us in our suffering.”
Read the whole prayer here: A Prayer for the Mothers who have Lost a Child.
A few more words on loss
Want more prayers and resources for pregnancy after loss? Check out this week’s new prayer from Laura and a collection of our essays and prayers for trying again:
God of hope and healing,
Help me to trust again…Let me believe that Your love
Is bigger than my grief.
Let me trust that Your heart
Can hold my fear.
“Pregnancy after loss is a physical, emotional, AND spiritual experience. It’s intense and isolating and overwhelming. It raises all the hard questions about life and death and God.” The Spiritual Side of Pregnancy after Loss.
“In the early days after miscarriage, you need to tend to your own grief more than worrying about others’ feelings. Remember that the way you feel today is not the way you will feel forever.” Come back to these resources to Support Yourself or a Friend Through Miscarriage.
Got a good book on grief or a prayer that carried you through hard days? We’d love to hear it & share it with our readers:
Want to write for us?
We love sharing your words and hearing how parenting and faith intersect for you. We’re looking for short prayers on the following topics related to upcoming essays. Ideally we’d love to publish several prayers on each theme, to give readers a variety of perspectives:
Parenting young adults - due 4/1
Struggles in sharing faith with kids - due 4/8
Parenting children with disabilities - due 4/15
Original prayers are accepted (previously published on your social media, blog, or other personal site are fine). We’ll give you full credit and copyright, and tag you on our social media when we publish. You can respond here with your prayer(s) or email them to newsletter@motheringspirit.com.
Share your favorite Substack!
We want to grow our community here, so we’d love to know your favorite writers on faith and motherhood. Whose words do you recommend? What Substacks do you devour when they show up in your inbox? Feel free to share your own Substack, too!
If you like what you read at Mothering Spirit, we’d love if you’d share this Substack with a friend who needs encouragement in parenting—or a place to pray in the midst of busy days. Thank you for supporting our writers by sharing their work, following us on Instagram or Facebook, or supporting us on Patreon.
Just started my own Substack on finding the hidden holiness of motherhood!
https://open.substack.com/pub/maggiepeiffer?r=3clsl1&utm_medium=ios