A peace that surpasses
“And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus”
I am blessed with two wonderful children and so far, I have loved every stage of being a mom, including pregnancy. Especially pregnancy. I loved being pregnant. I loved seeing how my belly grew to accommodate the growing baby. I had great pregnancies. I never had any morning sickness, no swollen ankles, no indigestion, no heartburn. I loved every minute of it. Well, maybe not every minute, but pretty close. Now, I know most women might want to slap me right now. But I’m not saying that to brag, but to really get across how much I loved being pregnant. I missed being pregnant. I couldn’t wait to get pregnant again. I have always wanted a big family, and we decided to go for a third. When I found out I was pregnant, after trying for 4 months, I was beyond excited! Not just at the prospect of having another baby, but of being pregnant again too. I’m weird, I know.
Around 16 weeks into my pregnancy, I felt like something was not right. It was just something I sensed. Another reason I told you before that I had had great pregnancies was so you understand that I really had no reason to worry something was amiss this pregnancy. I went in and heard the heartbeat and everything was great! I felt relieved, and a little silly for being worried. But a few days later, that feeling came back.
If you know me, you would know that I am not typically a fearful or anxious person. I usually don’t worry until I have something to worry about. So initially I just dismissed any thoughts that came to mind that something was wrong. I kept telling myself that my twenty week appointment was not to far away. The twenty week appointment is the one with the ultra sound and if there was anything wrong this would be the appointment we would know that. But with each passing day, the feeling grew, and began to border on fear in my heart.
I internalize my feelings and for matters that are really close to my heart, I do not share my fears with anyone. The only person I mentioned this feeling to was my husband, but even then, I was vague. I said, “Something just doesn’t feel right. I’m worried something is wrong.” I didn’t tell anyone else because I didn’t want to hear the standard things people say in those situations like “everything is fine.” And while they mean well, hearing that is not helpful when we all know sometimes everything is not fine. Bad things do happen. Saying everything is fine doesn’t fix the fear.
The days crept by and I was trying to be patient. I noticed that my clothes still fit fine. But I pushed away doubts that crept up. Around 18 weeks, I was anxiously awaiting to feel movement, a kick, a flutter. I felt nothing, but after a quick google search, it says the expecting mother typically feels movement between 18-20 weeks. So I remained calm on the outside while this mounting anxiety took over my inside.
I spent these weeks wrestling with fear—not wanting to live with fear, not wanting to give into it, but these thoughts, and the anxiety that came with them, would not go away. And “wrestling” really is the right word. It was a struggle. No matter what I seemed to do, these doubts, these fears would keep coming back, with a vengeance. When you are wrestling with fear, how do you find victory? For the first time in my life, I was faced with a very real fear that I could not handle on my own.
I prayed and I sought Jesus. And yet I still wrestled. I quoted Scripture. And yet I still wrestled. I remembered an exercise that Beth Moore had once spoken about in one of her Bible Studies. She said that when she had been afraid she felt God ask her “And what if one of those fears were to come true, what then?” And ultimately what God was telling her was that even if the worst thing happened, God is still in control, He still loves us, and He will walk with us. And this is what I told myself. When those fears crept up, I just reminded myself of those truths.
The day before my 20 week appointment was Palm Sunday and we were in church. During worship, these same fears and doubts kept coming so I decided in that moment, in His presence, to address my fears and lay them at His feet. What was the absolute worst thing I thought was wrong? That my baby was not alive. I named my fear. While choking back tears, I said, “Ok God, if this happens, I will still choose to trust in you, to say that you are good, and to believe that you will be with me through it.” It is easy to say those things and to repeat scriptures as mantras. And I’m not knocking that. But there is power in His word when you say it with conviction and declare it. Saying those words was also a sacrifice— to admit that I’m not in control, (which we never are, but try to be), and to say that even if something bad happens, I am going to choose to have a different perspective other than the one I wanted to have, is dying to self.
We can pray that bad things won’t happen, but I think we sometimes miss out on praying that God will move in us even when bad things happen. I felt like God was asking me to take a step of faith by leaving my fears with Him. We can ask God to take away the things we are afraid of. Or we can ask God to equip us to walk through the very things we fear.
Immediately after I surrendered to Him, I felt a peace in my spirit. A felt the tension go out of my body. When we surrender to Jesus, He brings us peace. The feeling that my pregnancy might be over did not go away, but in my spirit, that anxious feeling was gone. I felt a hope and a confidence (faith) that even if my appointment went horribly, that I would somehow be ok.
The next day my husband and I went for the twenty week ultrasound. I was calm. I was hoping for the best, but no longer afraid of the worst. We were not finding out the sex so when I got on the ultra sound table, the tech said, “Close your eyes so you don’t accidentally see anything while I get situated.” I closed my eyes. I felt the warm gel and then the ultrasound wand on my belly as she moved it around trying to locate everything. A few moments passed and she still had not said anything. A few more moments passed. My thoughts were racing, “This is it; I was right, something was not ok.” A few more moments passed and I heard her voice break through my thoughts, quietly, “You guys I don’t see a heartbeat.”
I kept my eyes closed and just sobbed. If you’ve ever experienced loss, maybe you know that sinking feeling in your chest that just overwhelms you when you’ve heard those words. The grief was so very real. This was my first real loss that I had experienced in my life. And nothing I had ever gone through prepared me for what I had to do next: I had to deliver my already dead baby. I know that doesn’t seem like a nice way of putting it, but that’s how I felt. It felt that blunt, that heartless, that cruel to me. How does any woman go through that?
I had experienced the pain of childbirth as I labored naturally through most of my first pregnancy, and all of my second pregnancy. They told me I had many choices for pain management for this, but I didn’t use any at first. But as the pain grew, my sadness and frustration grew. When you are trying to get through labor naturally, you remind yourself that in the end, you will have a beautiful baby, and that helps get you through it. I could not motivate myself that way because I was not going to get a baby in the end. I didn’t think I could do it. I didn’t want to do it. It was in that moment that I remembered what God had told me: He would be with me.
I delivered the baby and they wrapped her up in a towel. My natural instinct when I am sad is not to engage. But I did not want to miss out on remembering her. So through my tears, through my pain, I held her and I loved her. I held on to every moment. The next day was a blur of medical stuff and other things to take care, each being hard to get through. And the hardest part was saying, “Ok I’m ready to go home.” I wanted to hold her longer and I thought my heart would just break when they took her away.
I did not have the strength to get through those 24 hours. But through the grace of God and his supernatural presence, He enabled me to do what I could not do on my own. Yes, physically, I could have made it through without Him. But for me, I could not have made myself engage emotionally with what was going on if it were not for His presence in that moment and His promise for the future.
When I think back to the days that came after, although my heart was grieving, I was not overcome. I was still hopeful—hopeful that I would not always be sad; hopeful I’d be able to one day get pregnant again; hopeful that one day I will see my baby in heaven. I was not angry; I had not lost faith in God. I could honestly say He was still good. I don’t think “things happen for a reason.” Things just happen. Bad things happen because we live in a fallen world. But I believe God allows these things to happen because He is capable of getting us through them. And He uses these moments to shape us and re-purposes them for His glory. These words never felt truer.
Despite my grief and my tiredness, my spirit was at rest. I was not wrestling with fear. I was not wrestling with doubt. My spirit was filled with peace. This was the first time I understood the verse “And the peace that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds”. Sweet friend, it does surpass all understanding. It does not make sense, in the natural, to be at peace when you have just experienced the death of someone you love. It did not make sense for me to press into the pain and be present in such an awful moment. It does not make sense that the very fear I wrestled with came true and yet I did not doubt His goodness. This peace from Jesus surpasses all understanding. And this supernatural peace that comes only from the Holy Spirit guarded my heart. It did not let bitterness or anger or depression overtake me. It did not allow my thoughts to be overtaken with questioning God or anxiety about why this happened. It allowed me to find joy in holding my baby. It allowed me to praise God during this storm. Friend, this does not make sense in the natural, but this is what Jesus does for us. He gives us peace. It is not an absence of bad things happening to us; it is when our spirit is at rest even when everything around us is not.
We named the baby Jane which means God has been gracious. I can look back on that time and see how merciful and gracious God was to me. I believe that gut sense I had that something was wrong was from the Holy Spirit. I think it was His compassion that led Him to let me know something was wrong. It allowed Him to prepare my spirit from what was about to happen. When we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, He gives us peace with God. But He also gives us peace: peace of mind and spirit that can rest. His peace is a gracious gift.
