Category Archives: Bereavement

Helping helps!

By Taylor Arthur | 23 October, 2013 - 7:06 pm | , , , , ,
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Team CJA - Tears Event

In honor of Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month . . .

It had been a month since Caleb died. The dust was settling, and people were getting on with their lives. I was sitting on the couch in the living room staring at the television, googling crazy things like “Why did this happen to me, God?” and watching youtube videos made by other grieving moms that made me cry so hard I would eventually pass out from exhaustion. FUN TIMES. (Note: one of the unfair things about a late-term still birth or infant loss is that I (like many moms) was already on maternity leave. Our bodies are still recovering from delivery, even if there is no child to care for. There is a hole ripped in time, and we are stuck in a maternity-leave limbo with no baby.)

And then, I prayed, “Lord, please give me something to do or I am going to go crazy.”

Almost instantly, Jack received an email from a God-conduit–my friend Kasi–about the TEARS foundation . I went to therapy that week, and my therapist, Phyllis–another God-conduit–handed me a TEARS advertisement. Their annual walk was coming up; there was still time to enter a “Caleb Joshua Arthur” team. A path cleared before me: I would assemble a team to walk in memory of our son, and raise money for other families who needed help with burial expenses. God had answered my prayers!

I spent the next few weeks in a frenzied effort to honor my son and assemble the biggest, most lucrative team ever assembled for the TEARS foundation’s remembrance walk. We showed up in full-force with Caleb’s full name filling up our t-shirts. Family and friends from all around participated, and we felt a roar of support for this angel son of ours. This moment in history could never make up for every sports event we would not attend for him, every graduation we would not listen to his name being called, every first day of school and field trip and every single thing I was so happy and ready to share with Caleb as his proud mama . . . but this moment in history was a moment in THIS WORLD when my son’s NAME was called, there was a crowd to cheer for him, and we felt proud, proud, proud. I still have tears rolling down my face just remembering how proud we were that day.

The TEARS foundation became an important piece of our grieving Caleb. I plunged into support groups and volunteer opportunities that allowed me to spend time honoring my first born son with people who understood how important that was for me to do.

I gave to fill a hole I couldn’t fill by myself. I am still doing that, in every blog I write and newly grieving friend I reach out to. I don’t know what else to do. And, I promise: it helps. This grief is unbearable on the couch alone googling crazy things and watching youtube videos. It’s too much pressure on my marriage to expect my husband to be the only person I spill my bucket of tears on every night. But, it can be carried with a modicum of grace when we let God use our suffering, our experience, to help others who suffer as well. McKayla Butler is doing that with her blog, “ rainbows for noah: what loss looks like from here .” Sarah Slack and her staff are carrying their griefs to balm others’ sorrows through every funeral they make possible and every support group they gather through the TEARS foundation . The Stillborn, Still loved Guild is working to create awareness and community for those surviving a stillborn child.

There are places for us, friends, to use our holed out hearts for good. There are places we can speak the names of our dead children and rise with pride as their parents. There are places where this deepest agony can be filled with grace. Find your place. And help. It helps, I promise.

God bless you, in your pain and your crazy google moments.

I pray He is with you.

I know He is . . .

Taylor

Miracles and Murmurings

By Taylor Arthur | 18 October, 2013 - 7:28 am | , , , , ,
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And my God will fully satisfy every need of yours according to His riches in glory.
Philippians 4:19

I must confess: I have spent my whole life judging the Hebrews during their wilderness sojourn. It is difficult for me to watch them murmur against the God who continually, faithfully provides for them. They witness the ten plagues against Egypt, including the smiting of every firstborn male in Egypt. They leave Egypt weighted down by their captors’ treasures after 430 years of bondage, led by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. And yet, when Pharoah gives chase, they cry to Moses, Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert! Number 14:11-12.

When Yahweh again saved them by extraordinary means–parting the Red Sea, providing dry ground for them to walk across the sea floor, and drowning the Egyptians who chased them–and led them into the desert, they continued to grumble when they couldn’t find drinkable water at Mara. He provided water, but then they got hungry. He provided abundant honey-like food, but they wanted meat. He gave them quail to eat, and when Moses was gone just a bit too long talking to Yahweh on their behalf? Bam! They created a golden calf and worshiped it.

It is so easy for me to judge them. Ingrates! But, really, as I think of them throwing their fits every time their basic needs for survival beg to be met, I wonder how many times I have thrown the same tantrum about something much less significant than food, water, and safety . . . Yuck.

Having gone down the pathetic “poor me” path more than my fair share, I am beginning to realize that it never helps me be a better person. Now, I’m not saying that feelings are not completely valid, or that we shouldn’t grieve a loss (of many kinds). We should take time to rest after struggles, and Yahweh even built Sabbath in for us so that we’d have a rest in this wilderness. But, what I am saying is that we need to be darn careful not to cross the line from frustration and grief and exhaustion into grumbling.

Harper Collins (I refer to this Biblical Commentary like I would a friend because I sincerely love this big, buxom book!) points out that there are positive and negative motifs working in the wilderness account. God’s continuous, miraculous provision for his people as a positive motif juxtaposes the Hebrews’ repeated murmurings against Him. They resent the hunger, danger, thirst. But I think it goes deeper than that with them and with me: I think we resent the awareness of our absolute dependence on God . We’d rather think we have some control over our lives.

In Egypt, they were slaves: beaten, raped, starved, thrown out like garbage. And yet, there was a comfort in the familiar that they would rather return to, and a danger in the unknown they kept trying to flee. In the wilderness, the only comfort, the only stability lies in trusting God. And that is hard: ego crushing, dream shattering, dangerous hard. I don’t want to be hungry all the time, and I don’t want to have to live a life where every morning I wake up and ask God just get me through this day, please . But that level of dependence, that level of necessity, is where God does miracles.

I can write a volume about the miracles God has performed throughout my life, starting with all the mornings, time after time, when I opened my Bible or devotional to find exactly the words I needed to brave another day, feeling God so close on the couch, snuggled up with me and my cup of coffee. Isn’t that a miracle? I can write about the miracle of my marriage, thriving and real and growing, a shelter for both Jack and I in the midst of desert. I can write about Christmas mornings with presents under the tree, dinner parties with friends, camping trips, date nights, birthday parties, snuggling warm babies on the couch every morning . . . but this doesn’t sound like a barren wilderness, does it? It sounds like a life: a beautiful one. This beautiful life continuously crops up in the midst of defining hardships.

So I think we need to decide: are we a people who define ourselves on bondage, Pharoah’s armies chasing us, need, and loss? Or are we a people—a Miracle people—who define our lives by Liberation, the parting of the Red Sea, Providence, and Redemption? For every need God’s people experienced, for every cry they uttered in the wilderness, God heard and provided. And while we would all rather never have to know an empty belly or checking account, the need for a pediatric heart surgeon, a priest, or the strength just to get out of bed, our need hollows out in each of our hearts a place for God to move.

Oh geez. I don’t like this. I find myself feeling more and more empathy for those Hebrews all the time.

Let’s pray for Miracle eyes, embedded deep in our hearts, to seek out a God who fills every belly and quenches every thirst.

God bless you,

Taylor

In honor of National Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Day

By Taylor Arthur | 15 October, 2013 - 3:40 pm | , , , ,
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Everyone, I have someone amazing for you to meet. Her name is McKayla Butler, and she is the proud, brave, faithful, and honest mother of Baby Noah. I will allow her to introduce herself and her sweet boy:

i’m noah’s mama.
my name is mccayla and i’m part of the club no one wants to belong to – i lost my baby.

noah hudson butler was born a healthy 7 pounds, 5 ounces on june 5, 2013. the first 24 hours with him were another dimension of bliss. our dreams had come true – we were parents. and we were the happiest we’ve ever been.

then the nightmare began. he started having trouble breathing and things went from bad to worse. 12 days later he was diagnosed with an extremely rare, and fatal, condition called alveolar capillary dysplasia. there was nothing else the doctors could do.

we said goodbye to our sweet boy that night, june 18, 2013, after spending the holiest of days with the one who changed our world forever.

this is my journey of living in the tension between despair and hope as i navigate through this “new normal” without noah. and it’s what loss looks like from here.

I am so excited to share “rainbows for noah” with you because McKayla’s sharing is as gut-wrenchingly honest as it gets, while still anchored in a God bigger than all of our questions and losses. Everyone, meet McKayla. I hope she inspires you as much as she has me.

God bless all of my friends who are aching today,

Taylor

Dear friend whose name I do not know

By Taylor Arthur | 15 October, 2013 - 3:02 pm | , ,
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Dear friend,

It has been over a year since I watched you from across the Cheney Stadium baseball field at the TEARS foundation annual remembrance walk. You were waddling, balancing a belly about to burst. You were surrounded by loved ones, your husband holding your hand. And you wore the same shirt I did. The names were different on the back of each of ours; my shirt had my baby’s name on it, and your shirt bore the name of your own baby. As you walked, head held high in grief and plain ol’ stubborn Mama Love that won’t ever quit, I watched grief slowly overtake you. You slowed your pace, lowered your head to your hand, grabbing that enormous belly. Before you were completely hunched over, they led you to the side of the track. You grabbed the wall, your husband, kept your hand on your belly, as you wretched. Tears rolled down my face for you, my friend, and I wondered if you were thinking what I had: Lord, don’t let my flood of grief mark this next child. Lord, please give me the strength to survive this. Lord, how will we ever survive this?

I knew then that I would probably never know your name. I knew it wasn’t appropriate for me–a complete stranger–to run across that field that day and throw my arms around you, assure you you would survive, tell you that that baby you carried would provide a joy to temper this unrelenting pain. I wanted to tell you that in time, though you never forget the one you lost, a new normal can be found.

The life of a mother who has buried a child is, at best, twisted bliss. For every joy there is a sadness, for every happiness a haunt. Our bodies yearn for our dead children on holidays and would-have-been milestones, whether we acknowledge those yearnings or not. We are mothers, always.

So, dear friend whose name I do not know, I hope these words find you well with a healthy child in your arms and a life worth braving the pain for. I hope you have begun to see snatches of happy, if just for a moment, filtering through the curtains of your grief. Above all, I pray for a peace that can only come in the knowledge that your child is safe in the arms of God, and will be there to greet you when your eyes close for the last time, many years from now.

God bless you, my friend,

Taylor

How to use the Bible as a tool

By Taylor Arthur | 21 June, 2013 - 2:39 pm | , , , ,
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For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Hebrews 4:12

Your word is a lamp to my feet
And a light to my path.
Psalm 119:105

In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people. Ephesians 6:16-18

Through my healthy pregnancy with Abraham, I had white-knuckled the entire 9 months, never convinced that he would be born alive until they put him in my arms. I frequently experienced panic attacks, especially when sitting in dark ultra sound rooms, and during my twice weekly stress tests. I didn’t sleep well, constantly waking to make sure he was still moving. I spent the entire pregnancy terrified.

When we were pregnant with Sam, facing his terminal diagnosis, I knew there had to be another way of carrying a baby: a vital, trusting way, a way in which I could live every day to its fullest. I didn’t know how long we would have Sam, but I wanted every minute to count.

I knew I couldn’t do this vital living by myself, so I turned to God. Where was the lamp for this path? Could He show me the way? What I received was, really, one big DUH! Though I grew up memorizing Scripture, have a degree in Religious Studies, have gone to graduate school and studied the Bible, and taught Hebrew Scriptures, I had completely forgotten that THE BIBLE could help me. It is the Word of God, the lamp to my feet, the light to my path, the Sword of the Spirit!

So, this is what Jack and I did. I searched on Bible Gateway.com for specific words: “peace”, “trust in the Lord,” etc. I wrote down pages of references, and took my Bible and list of references with me along to doctor’s appointments. Then, when I would have totally freaked out before (i.e. waiting in the waiting room or waiting for ultra sound results) I would pull that Bible out and start looking up Bible passages.

I eventually learned that I also needed to remove myself from ultra sound rooms while we were waiting for results, just to stop shaking enough to flip through the pages. So, Jack and I would sit down in the hallway, Bibles in hand, and write out Bible verses about God’s promises to do us good, to be with us through all of life’s troubles, to shield and protect us.

We must have looked pretty funny: me with my big belly, and my husband, both noses in our Bible, scribbling furiously, as doctors walked over our legs in the back hallways of the most high risk Perinatology clinic in the area. I worried, too, that I would look like the dreaded “Jesus freak.” But, as my shaking hands calmed and my heart stilled by the TRUTH and LIGHT of God’s word pouring into my consciousness, I didn’t care anymore who or what I looked like. God was here with us , in this moment of supreme fear, and He was ministering to us, right then and there.

Despite the many obstacles we faced during our pregnancy with Sam, a deep peace ran through me. I couldn’t take any credit for it because I knew it was the Spirit of God working in me. The very places I had been the most afraid became places of solace. The stress tests I could never brave alone became a place of peace for me. I would drive up to Seattle in my car, listening either to Christian music (God’s word to music), or a sermon on DVD (a pastor or priest speaking God’s word aloud). It was my time alone with God and Sam, and I treasured it. I laid down on the hospital bed as they wrapped my belly with stress test belts and actually relaxed for twenty minutes. A passage was introduced to my consciousness, one I had memorized as a child:
He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
he refreshes my soul .
Psalm 23:2-3

I am not saying I wasn’t afraid. I was scared to death. To tell you the truth, as Sam’s open heart surgery date nears, I am still scared to death. But I don’t have to be captivated by that fear because I have a tool: the Word of God. And I’m going to keep using it, and share my Scripture lists with you. We can wield this Sword, this tool, God gives us so that we do not have to be captivated by our present circumstances. Instead, we can be captivated by His love and presence.

There is a lot of Scripture around my house: some as decoration, some as little post it notes with Crayola marker verses on them. You can usually decipher what I’m struggling with based on what verses are posted! But I don’t care. You see, I can’t do this life by myself. I need Jesus. Plain and simple.

I will leave you with the verse I had pinned to my wall when I was a kid:
You will keep in perfect peace
all who trust in you,
all whose thoughts are fixed on you!
Isaiah 26:3

Scared to death with my nose in the Word,

Taylor

What can you handle?

By Taylor Arthur | 14 June, 2013 - 10:01 am | , , , ,
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No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted,he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. (NIV)

No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face. All you need to remember is that God will never let you down; he’ll never let you be pushed past your limit; he’ll always be there to help you come through it . (MSG)

No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it . (NRSV)
1 Corinthians 10:13

I love this verse. It has been such a source of strength and encouragement since I was dating my sweetheart in high school, all the way through our current journey with Samuel. However, I do believe that it is one of the most misquoted and misunderstood bits of scripture in the entire Bible.

Anyone who has endured a difficult trial can probably recount at least one instance when a fellow Christian has tried to encourage them by saying, “Well, God never gives us more than we can handle.” If you are like me, a few times I’ve wanted to say something really nasty back to that well-meaning person, trying so desperately to come up with something profound to encourage me. In fact, I have slung a few nasty words after statements like that. I always regret it.

We are often confused about where temptation and testing come from. I really, truly, in all of the reading I’ve done on why there is evil in the world do not think God is sitting up in heaven with a bowl full of nasty, meting it out to the do-gooders like Job who will bring him glory, and to the evil-doers who really deserve a taste of their own medicine.

Instead, we live in a fallen world. This beautiful gift of free will our Lord has given us comes at a price: we live in a natural world with tsunamis, mental illness, cancer, heart conditions, stillborn babies. He allows the natural world to be naturally unpredictable and cruel because it is also incredibly beautiful and generous. He gives us the opportunity to choose to cling to the things and people of this roller coaster life, or to choose to hold onto Him. I’ve found holding onto Him always keeps me better than the things of this world.

The word “temptation” in the original Greek is synonymous with “testing.” Paul was not just talking about the temptations of this life; he was also addressing the trials we endure. I think this is an important distinction to make because while we all must be tempted from the venial to the moral, those are battles we fight internally. Testings, or trials, on the other hand, are battles we have no control over. We endure the troubles of this life–death, sickness, infertility, job loss, natural disasters–without a modicum of control. It is not as simple as not eating the cupcake or not smoking the cigarette. We must just hold on and “bear up,” waiting out the storm until it passes.

The fantastic truth of 1 Corinthians 10:13 is that we are not alone. God does not just watch from afar to see how many things can be piled on our little heads until we crumble. Rather, He walks beside us and helps bear our load. He helps bear our load. No matter what the trial or testing, He will provide your “way out.”

I think of David’s Psalms when I am feeling overwhelmed by circumstance. Time and time again, David speaks of the Lord as a rock to stand on or hide in. He doesn’t stop the storms of David’s life, but He provides shelter for David to withstand it.

I know that God continually provides people and circumstances to encourage me when I feel that I am about to crumble under the load I am carrying. The more I talk to Him and ask Him for help, the more provision is provided. I have carried burdens that should have landed me back in the mental hospital time and time again. The only explanation I have is that God was right beside me, carrying that load with me.

Never forget that He is good. Hold onto Him in the storm. He is the “shield about [us], [our]glory, and the lifter of [our] heads” (Psalm 3:3).

For he will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways.
On their hands they will bear you up,
so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.
You will tread on the lion and the adder,
the young lion and the serpent you will trample under foot.

Those who love me, I will deliver;
I will protect those who know my name.
When they call to me, I will answer them;
I will be with them in trouble,
I will rescue them and honor them.
With long life I will satisfy them,
and show them my salvation.
Psalm 91:11-16

God bless you all today,

Taylor

If you need extra encouragement while going through a difficult time, I have started a new page with lists of verses concerning different needs: Verses of Comfort and Encouragement . I purposely didn’t write them out for you, because I think there is power and solace in opening the pages of your Bible and reading and writing down the scriptures for yourself. This has served me in many moments of desolation and fear. I hope it will help you as well.

I also found the blog by Joe Stowell on his website “Strength for the Journey” helpful: “Load Limits”

“Do not worry . . .”

By Taylor Arthur | 17 May, 2013 - 10:27 am | , , ,
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Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well . . . Matthew 6:25-33

I had a very embarrassing moment with God a few weeks ago. Have you ever had one of those moments where you have so justified your sin that when the gentle nudge of the Holy Spirit completely exposes you, pricking you with conviction, that all you can do is nod your head in complete submission? That was me in an embarrassing, private moment with my Lord when I opened up an old Baby wipes box filled with shoes . . . size 3 shoes, in fact. Let me give you the back-story.

There are few things I enjoy more than dressing my boys up. Especially at Christmas and Easter, I thrill to take their pictures in little matching outfits. It’s one of the cheaper joys of motherhood for me: whether they are hitting and biting each other a minute before or after I snap the shot, I will forever have my two little matching boys to trophy.

For Easter this year, I was thrilled to find darling seersucker suits in both their sizes for bargain basement prices. I endeavored to finish off their outfits with new shoes and shirts to match, and was heading out the door to the mall when my husband informed me that new shoes and shirts weren’t in the budget. Now, in my defense, I am a great bargain shopper, and I don’t even shop that much. But to my husband’s credit, we had agreed on a budget, and I had forgotten to leave room for Easter accoutrement. And now, he was proposing the crazy idea of the boys wearing old clothes for Easter—!

I don’t remember anything else that he said because I will confess that I threw a grand mal fit at the very idea of my boys not wearing those adorable seersucker outfits for Easter. I couldn’t believe that he would even ask me to consider something so out of the realm of my reality . . . I pulled out every manipulation and tear jerking memory I could think of . . . I insisted that if I did not complete the boys’ outfits, I would have a break down. It was ugly: spoiled and rank.

I cried and cried, until I had lost my husband’s attention and was kneeling in our bedroom alone. I knew I wasn’t rational, and at that point I didn’t even know why this was so important to me. I didn’t pray for help, kneeling there. Instead, I filled my mind with justifications and excuses, entitlements . . . blah, blah, blah. The tears kept falling, and I puddled into pitiful.

I finally felt Jack standing in the door behind me. I turned to see the puzzled look on his face. He winced at the tears running down my face, and at Caleb’s memory book open on the floor in front of me. His face recognized that I was just as confused as he was as to what was going on. He sighed. “If it means that much to you, Love, let’s go get your Easter outfits.”

And, even though I could justify disrespecting my husband who is generous and fair beyond reproach, the cute little boat shoes I had fought for and the matching tangerine oxford shirts I practically stole they were such a good deal weren’t nearly as much fun to buy as I had hoped. Something else bothered me: Sam’s miniature feet had grown way more than I had thought they had. In fact, after he had been measured at the shoe store, I wondered if he even needed shoes, or if there may not be a pair at home that may fit? Of course, I bought him new ones anyways.

So, later that week, when I discovered in that old Baby wipes box that there were actually three—3!—pairs of shoes he could wear for Easter, and that he never needed new ones, and that maybe, just maybe God had provided for my family before I even considered that he could, I replayed the ugly scene of my fit-throwing, disrespectful, ungrateful yuck . . . and I knew God wasn’t going to let me justify any of it.

Since then, I’ve been thinking a lot about Matthew 6: 25-24. We are urged, “not to worry” about our “life, what [we] will eat or what [we] will drink, or about our [bodies], what [we] will wear.” And that all seems so great in theory, but every parent out there knows how real the practicalities of parenting are. Our job is to worry about taking care of our children: to protect and nurture their lives, feed, clothe, and educate them.

But as much as it is my duty to provide for my children, I understand now that there was one thing I didn’t do concerning the whole Easter fiasco. I didn’t go to God! I didn’t pray, and pour my heart out to my Father, and tell him, Lord, I know this may sound crazy in an Eternal context, but I really desire to dress my boys up for Easter. I don’t know where it comes from. Is it pride? Is it a wound I have that I’m trying to bandage with seersucker? Does this, too, have to do with a grief issue? Am I just being a brat? I don’t know, but I do know that You search me and know me. Will You provide for me something more than just Easter outfits? Will You provide a filling for this gaping hole I don’t understand?

And then the veil lifted for just a moment. If every need and desire is brought first to our heavenly Father, then the context of that emptiness may be addressed first spiritually and then materially if need be. He can provide all healing, all filling, spiritual and material. And I wonder if I had approached my Father, instead of charging ahead to consume, would I not have taken the time to look for a pair of shoes for Sam? Maybe I also would have found the darling little shirt Abraham already had? Maybe . . .

I am realizing that most of what I want materially is tied to who I am spiritually. My desires and lusts are always about missing pieces of my heart that I cannot purchase back. Only God can fill my broken spaces. For my real material need, I know “ . . . indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” Matthew 6:32-33. It’s never about the seersucker, really. It’s always about what’s going on in my heart.

And so I am trying to want things less, and when I see a pair of shoes or that cool big toy on display at Costco or a Pottery Barn display that triggers an inner, grand mal fit of lust and entitlement, I am trying to say a little prayer: Lord, here is my want. Will you show me my need, and satiate my lust for this world with your kingdom and your righteousness?

Trying . . .

Taylor

From one Mary Magdalene to another..

By Taylor Arthur | 14 May, 2013 - 7:34 pm | , ,
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For all my sisters out there who think that they are unlovable because of the sins they have committed, I beg you to read this article. I know what it is too feel like you’ve gone further than Jesus’ love can reach…but our God is so much bigger than anything we can do to grieve Him!

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/abby-johnson-if-gosnell-deserves-hell-then-what-do-i-deserve

For the Mamas with empty arms today . . .

By Taylor Arthur | 12 May, 2013 - 10:31 am | , , ,
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Psalm 113

Praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord, you his servants;
praise the name of the Lord.
Let the name of the Lord be praised,
both now and forevermore.
From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets,
the name of the Lord is to be praised.

The Lord is exalted over all the nations,
his glory above the heavens.
Who is like the Lord our God,
the One who sits enthroned on high,
who stoops down to look
on the heavens and the earth?

He raises the poor from the dust
and lifts the needy from the ash heap;
he seats them with princes,
with the princes of his people.
He settles the childless woman in her home
as a happy mother of children.

Praise the Lord.

I woke up this morning to my darling men bringing me breakfast in bed: an array of gluten free cupcakes, strawberries, a box of Shari’s Berries, coffee and cards. Their beaming faces and ardent demands that I share my cupcakes with them brings tears to my eyes as I remember my first Mother’s day . . .

No one knows what to do with a childless mother on Mother’s Day. And yet, these mothers are everywhere. On my first Mother’s day, I woke to a quiet house, instead of to the crying of a newborn. I donned the hot pink dress I wore to Caleb’s funeral only weeks before, and we went to brunch to toast our sweet boy. We were grateful to sit in the bar where there were no children; I couldn’t bear to see mothers with their children that day. We then left brunch, unfettered by the baby car seat that now sat empty or a diaper bag or feeding schedules. WE took a book of fairy tales to the cemetery, I sat down at my child’s grave and read him Peter Pan . . .

My biggest challenge in life thus far has been surviving the loss of my son. Nothing can rival the hole his absence represents. The daily challenges of caring for my living children are sometimes overwhelming, but there is always a nap time or bedtime around the corner. There is relief from the terrible two’s and sleepless nights. There is no relief for empty arms and a grieving heart. That time between Caleb dying and Abraham being born was the most awkward grief of my life. I was a mother, just like the mother holding her child next to me in the grocery store or at church. I had suffered and given and loved . . . and yet, in this world, a mother is defined by her living children. Mothers of dead children are overlooked, forgotten. Mothers who beg for children and cannot have them are passed over.

But I truly hold to the belief that God loves reversals. He sees our hearts, my friends. He grieves with us. After all, His own mother grieved Him. One of the last things He did before He died was make sure she would be cared for. This God who made us to be mothers, heart, soul, mind, and body, is also the God who can take what you think is hopeless and lost and turn it into a dream come true.

I love this Psalm I chose for today because it is hard to praise God with empty arms. But I believe that the more in need we are, the more we need worship. I pinned a quote from pinterest:

And I know that I can’t tell you how it’s all going to turn out. I don’t know if you’ll have a dozen children, adopt some, marry somebody with a ready-set family, or mentor and mother those who need a mother’s heart to love them. But I know something: He settles the childless woman. He settles her–not in a tomb or a mediocre marriage–but in a happy home with children. Take care my friend, He is coming for you . . .

God bless you and keep you. And gosh darn it, have a Mimosa and toast your Motherhood, babies or not!

Love,

Taylor

P.S. If you have lost a baby and would love an opportunity to publicly acknowledge your child, the TEARS Foundation is holding their annual “ Rock & Walk” in Tacoma, Washington on June 15th. The deadline is May 14th, so check out the link I provided. We cherish the picture of all of our family and friends wearing a shirt with Caleb’s name on it! This events provides so much healing and an opportunity to meet other grieving families. If you don’t live in Washington, there are walks all over the country that might be close to you that are on the TEARS website.

What is your yield?

By Taylor Arthur | 3 May, 2013 - 10:48 am | , , ,
1 Comment

What is your yield?
There is something so humbling about sitting in a hospital room next to my child’s crib. I had plans, all kinds of plans. I had the weekly dry erase board filled with all of our activities, dinner menus, play dates. I had just spent the day before stocking the fridge with a week’s worth of pre-made breakfasts, lunches, and dinner-starts. And then, Sam started to cough a little on Monday afternoon. Tuesday—the day we took Sam to the ER because his oxygen saturation dropped to 75%–I had thought I could squeeze in a quick checkup for him at the pediatrician’s while Bram was in preschool. The appointment was scheduled at 9:15. At eleven, I was picking Bram up when Jack texted me, “Sats 75, just called Children’s.” At noon, Sam’s oxygen continued to drop in the ER as Jack and I held his little hands up so that they could X-ray his chest. By the afternoon, we were wondering whether or not he would have open heart surgery the next morning, after an emergency cath that night. There was no date night, no play date, and the food I had prepared ahead for my family sat untouched in an empty house.

I yield to this new reality, to Sam covered in wires and on oxygen. I become the mother of a different brand, one who sleeps (not really sleeping at all) next to her son in the Cardiac ICU while he screams and tries desperately to free himself from the tangle of leads and IVs and pulse oximeter. I yield, giving up my privacy, my authority, my dominion to nurses and doctors who know more about what my son needs than I do. I cancel a dozen plans: plans to go on a girls’ weekend, plans to attend bible study . . . plans in normal land. After discussing Sam’s condition with the doctor’s, we pull his brother out of preschool for the remainder of the year.

I ask the ER staff for a Bible. God brings a chaplain; she leads us in prayer, and Jack and I lay hands on our son, along with his nurse, and pray. I read to Samuel all the brave stories of his name’s sake. I read him the 23rd psalm; I play him lullabies. When no one’s around, I cry. I yield, I yield, I yield.

I am humbled by this yielding, this upheaval of my life I call motherhood. This deep calling to mother three distinct human beings has taken me down roads I may never have ventured on my own. I struggle to remind myself continually that although I feel that this is my life and my plans and my will that surrenders to the realities of stillbirth and brotherly love and growing pains and cardiac anomalies, that in the end, this is their story. I am the helper chosen to hold their hands through each of their journeys. I am their helper, for only a time.

Right now they are running around the living room in their pajamas, “powing” each other’s cars, oblivious to my many worries and task lists and the play date we declined for this morning. They may never realize what was required of their father and I to walk beside them, to protect them, to humbly yield all that we had envisioned for our family, and trust in a God who sees the whole picture and how each of our boys will live out their callings once they are beyond our grasp.

I look up the word “yield,” and am surprised by the many definitions. Right now, I am yielding, definition 3:)to give up possession of on claim or demand as a: to give up (as one’s breath) and so die; b: to surrender or relinquish to the physical control of another; hand over possession of; c: to surrender or submit (oneself) to another; d: to give (oneself) up to an inclination, temptation, or habit; e: to relinquish one’s possession of. In other words, I am giving up control, possession of my time and my agenda and my plans for the summer. I am dying again to myself, to my need for control and security. I am trying myself to relinquish my children again and again to their Maker, which literally requires me to be kneeling beside a sleeping Sam’s crib with my hands in the air praying, “I submit, I submit.” And I still can’t sleep.

As Ann Voskcamp would say, this is the “hard eucharisteo.” This is the moment when I want to take my baby and run from the docs and the hospitals and the ultrasound machines, hold him forever, and save him from it all. This is the moment when the fear chokes to gagging. And this is the time to remind myself that God is for us (Romans 8:31), that He will never stop doing good for us (Jeremiah 32:40), that He is with us (Psalm 46:7), and that there is no where we can go where His love and His presence won’t abide (Psalm 139). I submit to giving thanks for the uncertainty and for the fear, knowing I am being molded even through this pain.

Oddly, the first and last definitions of “yield” seem so contrary to my yielding: 1) recompense, reward and 4) to bear or bring forth as a natural product especially as a result of cultivation. So what is this recompense, this reward to be brought forth from my yielding? What is God cultivating as life hoes and tills the soils of my family and my heart? I don’t know. All I know now is that it is difficult to imagine a harvest worth this heartache and Samuel’s suffering. But then I am reminded: “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all” (2 Corinthians 4:26-17).

I am laying our Samuel on the altar, in full submission and brokenness, trusting in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to bring forth a harvest from this yielding. And I am trusting in an eternal glory. Glory.

What is your yield?

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Newborn Sam and I in the Seattle Children’s NICU, August 2011