FACING MISCARRIAGE: PART FOUR: The death of hope

I wrote this series of posts a couple of months ago. Now things are settled we want to share them, as an encouragement to others who may face similar experiences.


In August 2007 Shrewsbury Town Football Club opened a brand new stadium, on the outskirts of the town. 10,000 seats, everything shiny and up to date, it was great. I went to the game with my brother and my Dad. Two generations of Matthias’s walking up Oteley Road from our parental home to watch our team in our town.


I thought then, “One day I will be Dad, and he’ll be granddad”. I had this picture in my mind’s eye, not clearly a boy or a girl, but just a little hand, in mine, a little blue shirt, walking up through the gates of the complex and towards the family stand. That would be my delight, to take my child to the game.

The scan had shown a failed pregnancy and we sat at home, numb.

I thought I might feel more angry but I didn’t, just numb.

Disbelief.

It is not meant to be this way.

We had been trying for a little while and there was great excitement when we found out that we were pregnant. I love the idea of Esther being a mother, and am delighted that together we have the desire to raise children.

But here I am, and what really hurts right now, in some crazy way that I cannot pin down properly, is that I will never take this child to the game. I will never buy them their first shirt. I will never take them to the refreshment stand and buy them a sausage roll (as long as they promise not to tell Mummy).

All those things, the quirky bits that Dad was to me and I want to be to my kid, won’t happen.

So what do I do with that? Where do I go with that hope?

Proverbs 12:13 tells me that:

“ 12 Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.”

Yep, that is exactly right, heart sick. That feeling in the pit of your stomach. That emptiness. Heart sick. But what is the longing? What is the longing that can be fulfilled?

As yet, it cannot be another baby. If the hope deferred is making my heart sick, then I can’t rely on that same future hope to fix it. That puts me at the mercy of moods and tests and issues. My longing needs to be after something solid. Something robust. Something unchanging. Something pure. Yes, I want a family, yes I want another baby, but my longing to be fulfilled, a tree of life within me, that has to be after God right?

As I reach out to Him and experience his presence. As I open my heart to His words of instruction. As I worship, bare, humble, before my maker. As I long for Him. That is it isn’t it? That is the longing that He will satisfy, the water of life, the bread of life, my hunger, my thirst, my longing fulfilled.