Invisible Loss, with Cheryl Davis

On this episode, Cheryl Davis, host of the Time for Mom podcast, shares her story of loss as a young mom whose heart was neither equipped nor prepared to deal with the grief of child loss. Cheryl’s is a story that represents over a million others just like hers every year in the U.S. suffering the death of a child by miscarriage. All too often, we have a tendency to rank or compare grief based on our own subjective views or experiences. This is especially true in loss due to miscarriage or stillbirth, and can result in too many of these women trying to process and navigate their grief in silence because so few us understand just how real their grief really is. You’ll be encouraged as Cheryl talks about the personal impact of grief and how GOD’s faithfulness and grace began healing and restoring all that was broken. Cheryl has a heart for helping busy moms drowning in daily responsibilities with marriage, family and work, rediscover meaning, purpose and peace in the middle of it all. Most importantly, Cheryl wants to help you see yourself as GOD sees you by offering personal experiences and Biblical encouragement relating to your identity, routines and priorities on her weekly podcast, Time for Mom, which can be accessed using the link.

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Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00)
Well, hi everyone and welcome to our latest episode. Thanks for listening. I'm Greg Buffkin and my guest today is Cheryl Davis. Cheryl and her family live in the beautiful state of Montana. In Cheryl suffered the loss of a child to miscarriage. And we'll be talking about how that impacted her life with unexpected pain and grief. We'll also talk about how the impact of that loss

affected Cheryl and her husband Eric as they started planning a family again and how God faithfully carried them through this journey to give them hope and joy again. And now, here's my conversation with Cheryl. Well Cheryl, welcome to our podcast today. It is so good to have you with us.

Speaker 2 (00:47)
Thanks for having me, Greg. It's a pleasure to be here.

Speaker 1 (00:50)
Hope the pleasure is all mine. Cheryl, I don't know if you've ever listened to any of our episodes, but usually at the beginning, I give my guests a minute or two just to share anything that they would like about themselves or about their family. So I'm going to give you the platform for the next minute or two. It is all yours. And then we'll just kind of dive into your story.

Speaker 2 (01:13)
Alrighty, my name is Cheryl Davis. My husband and I have been married for nine whole years.

Speaker 1 (01:19)
Nine whole years, wow, congratulations. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:23)
He's an Okie and I'm an Oregonian, but we met and live in Montana where he was my hunting guide and I was his client.

Speaker 1 (01:28)
How did that happen?

Wait a minute, you were the hunting ⁓ client and he was the guide. What were you guys hunting?

Speaker 2 (01:41)
deer and elk, white-tailed deer and elk.

Speaker 1 (01:44)
in Montana? That is one of the most interesting stories I've heard about a couple meeting. That's really cool. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt, but I had to explore that a little.

Speaker 2 (01:57)
It's all good. That gave us a great foundation because we had to build a relationship with 10 hours of distance between us. Yeah. So it gave us a really good foundation.

Speaker 1 (02:08)
Yeah, I guess it did. So how long did dating, 10 hour away from each other dating situation work out?

Speaker 2 (02:16)
a year and a half before we got married.

Speaker 1 (02:18)
How were you guys able to see see each other face to face very often during that period?

Speaker 2 (02:24)
No,

just a handful of times.

Speaker 1 (02:27)
Wow, that is cool. That's a great story. And you've got a couple of little children, right?

Speaker 2 (02:33)
Yeah,

we have two beautiful and brilliant little girls that God is constantly using to challenge, change, and stretch me.

Speaker 1 (02:41)
God does have a sense of humor, doesn't he? Are either of them? I know the brilliant and beautiful part belongs to you. there any contributions that your husband made?

Speaker 2 (02:44)
He does.

Our youngest is the spitting image of my husband, so.

Speaker 1 (02:58)
Really? Is she wired like in-

Speaker 2 (03:01)
We're not sure yet.

Speaker 1 (03:03)
Yeah, she's the two year old.

Speaker 2 (03:05)
Yeah, my five-year-old and my two-year-old are very different children.

Speaker 1 (03:10)
the genius of God. Yeah, we have a granddaughter who is wired, who looks like and is wired just like our son Ryan. It is uncanny.

Speaker 2 (03:12)
Yes. ⁓

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:25)
Why don't we just go ahead and ⁓ let you tell us a little bit about your grief journey. As I was welcoming our guests earlier before you hopped on, I shared with them that you experienced the loss of a child through miscarriage in 2019. Is that right? And that was your first child? Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:45)
That is correct.

Speaker 1 (03:51)
Tell us a little bit about that journey, because you were very young when this happened. mean, nobody's ever prepared for that,

Speaker 2 (04:01)
Nothing can prepare you for it. Yeah

Speaker 1 (04:04)
Yeah, we went through that a couple of times and I don't think, I think we kind of underestimate the impact, the grief and the pain and the impact that it has in our culture, on moms particularly, when there's a miscarriage. Tell us your experience with that and what your thoughts are about that, Cheryl.

Speaker 2 (04:21)
The thing is, before my husband and I even got married is we had a rather hard conversation where I told him that I really didn't want children. I loved being an aunt, but being a mom was just not something that I could imagine being. And he was okay with that because he wasn't looking at me for my ability to bear children. So that was a plus. And it took God two years before I recognized he was softening my heart and giving me a piece with having children and becoming a mother.

And then

Speaker 1 (04:52)
Don't you love it when when those words come back to haunt you later on? No, definitely don't want children. Now, yes, I do.

Speaker 2 (04:58)
Right?

Yeah, he told me that I had started to glow whenever I saw babies and he was really excited to see me glow when I was holding ours. So that was about four months after I actually recognized what the change that God had made in me. We had that positive pregnancy test, which was very exciting. I also don't tend historically deal well with change.

Speaker 1 (05:31)
one of those.

Speaker 2 (05:33)
One of those. So while I was excited, I was also really grappling with the thought of losing us, my husband and I.

Speaker 1 (05:43)
You

mean, just kind of losing that identity as a couple, you mean?

Speaker 2 (05:46)
Yeah, and everything that we built in that two, two and a half years of being us and knowing that that relationship was going to change dramatically with the child.

Speaker 1 (05:57)
and understatement. Yes.

Speaker 2 (05:58)
So we shared that with a very few people and we just started dreaming and wondering what it was gonna be like to be parents, what this child was gonna be like, what God was going to do with that child. But there was, yeah, like there was also lot of fear and anxiety in me during that time because of my awesome relationship with change that has gotten better. God has been working on me with.

Speaker 1 (06:21)
Congratulations.

Well, some of us are bigger projects than others,

Speaker 2 (06:29)
Yeah,

I'm definitely a project. we went, yeah, so that was really early on. That was like three, four weeks tops into the pregnancy when we got that test. And then a month later, a month later, four days before my husband's birthday, I went to the clinic to our eight week appointment and they did an ultrasound, which they didn't do with our second child. So I'm still wondering why she did that with the first one. And there was nothing in my womb. It was empty.

And I was alone. My husband was working. yeah, that was nothing really prepares you for that. She looked, moved the wand, tried to find a heartbeat and that little gray peanut on the screen and there was nothing there.

Speaker 1 (07:13)
That had to have just been absolutely crushing.

Speaker 2 (07:17)
very much so in spite of all of the angst and anxiety that I had with all the change. I'd become very attached to that child.

Speaker 1 (07:27)
course you did. think, you know, we, we forget sometimes that, that a mom and her baby share DNA and some of that DNA studies have indicated stay in her body for 20 years plus. I mean, that's something that that's a connection that dads don't get to have with their children. And so when, you know, when something like

that happens. When we say that it's crushing and devastating, know, that's really… Those are inadequate words, aren't they?

Speaker 2 (08:01)
Yeah, because I'd never lost anybody close. And so my first real experience with grief was losing a part of my heart.

Speaker 1 (08:09)
And how old were you at the time, you don't mind me asking?

Speaker 2 (08:12)
Let me do the math. 26. wasn't 26 yet. was going to be so I was 25.

Speaker 1 (08:19)
Yeah, that's really young to experience when you experience a grief for the first time and it's that personal. It's not uncommon for somebody your age at that time to experience a loss of a grandparent potentially, sometimes even a parent, sometimes a friend, but you don't expect when you get pregnant to lose that child. So Cheryl, how in the world does a 26 year old even begin to start

Speaker 2 (08:41)
No you don't.

Speaker 1 (08:49)
processing the death of a child that she never even got to meet.

Speaker 2 (08:54)
say that I necessarily have the right answer, can just say what I did.

Speaker 1 (08:58)
There is no right or wrong answer.

Speaker 2 (09:01)
There was a lot of crying. I had an hour and a half to drive home because that's where the clinic was. By yourself. By myself. I called my husband and told him as soon as I got out of the appointment. But he said he was at work and I ended up just driving straight to where he worked. So, because I needed his arms. I needed him to come, his comfort. And I remember right, I started spotting that same day because I didn't have any signs of a miscarriage up until

Speaker 1 (09:22)
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:31)
that point. No warning. And then there's, can't say that there was anger. There was just so much confusion and then fear of a different kind. Like, am I ever going to be able to have children? Because there's so many women that do struggle with infertility. Was I going to be one of them? And it was just, it was a lot of reflection, I guess. A lot of journaling, praying. I was alone a lot during that time.

Speaker 1 (09:32)
Really, no warning.

Speaker 2 (10:00)
just because of where we lived. were pretty far out of town. I was still connected with our church, but here I wasn't with people every day other than my husband.

Speaker 1 (10:11)
So you were dealing with some isolation. That's a hard thing to do when you've been hit by something so traumatic. I know you said you had people in your life through your church, but you know, they can't be with you all the time, especially when you live a good number of miles away and your husband's at work. Did you have a full-time job at that point?

Speaker 2 (10:33)
I did not. had started volunteering at our church the year before, so I had become connected through volunteering.

Speaker 1 (10:41)
Okay, well that's you did have some people in your life there. Okay, yeah well and where your was family close by?

Speaker 2 (10:51)
Nope, were ten hours away.

Speaker 1 (10:54)
Yep. Wow. Did anybody come to see you?

Speaker 2 (10:58)
They didn't, but ⁓ I lived in the 21st century, so there was phone calls. My mom, I didn't realize. She'd told me, but I'd forgotten that she had also miscarried. And it was a later term miscarriage. wasn't so late that there was a burial, but it was much more difficult physically than the one that I had dealt with. So she was really able to just be there for me if I needed to, if I needed her.

Speaker 1 (11:28)
Yeah. Having had conversations with other moms who have experienced miscarriage, I'm going to ask you this. I'm not going to preface it by saying what they said, but did you experience any form of guilt after that?

Speaker 2 (11:44)
None that I can think of. was more just the confusion and the loss. It wasn't guilt, trying to figure out what the purpose was.

Speaker 1 (11:52)
Good.

Yeah, yeah. I'm trying to figure out what the purpose was with something that just seems so absolutely meaningless. And I asked that question about guilt because sometimes moms will share that they felt guilty because they felt like there was something that maybe they could have done that would have prevented it or maybe they didn't do something right. But I'm glad that with all the other things that you had to deal with, that that was one less thing for you.

Speaker 2 (12:26)
Yeah, there was, we were told that it was a blighted ovum, so that there was technically never a baby in my womb. And the logical side of my brain really wanted to grab onto that, of okay, it wasn't actually a baby, I didn't actually lose a baby. And some of the people who knew of our loss were really quick to reinforce that, to try to comfort. But that didn't stop.

Speaker 1 (12:49)
Right.

Speaker 2 (12:52)
me from wondering if that was actually true because there was no medical testing on my miscarriage. Like was it just a defective egg? Was it a baby? Some people even went so far as to say that if it had been a child that had been born full term there would have been major defects or something like that which didn't help. And just there was this major war between my head and the logic of okay it wasn't it it couldn't have been and just my heart will of going what if it was?

What if that really was a baby that you lost?

Speaker 1 (13:23)
⁓

I think you deal with so many mixed emotions because it's such a difficult season for moms who find themselves there. Let's talk about something that you shared with me when we had a phone conversation a few weeks back. You talked about how after you guys were able to, for some time to go by, for you to do some healing, you guys still wanted a family. And so when you started planning for another child,

You talked about some of the mixed emotions that you had going into that. And I can only imagine. So let's talk a little bit about that because I know that there are moms listening today who maybe are in that season where they've had a miscarriage. They still want children, but maybe now there's a lot of fear and anxiety about, about even trying it again. So how, how did that loss that you experienced?

impact the way that you thought about getting pregnant again?

Speaker 2 (14:26)
We knew that there wasn't going to be any issues from the miscarriage not completing. So that helped because that can cause issues. But there, like you said, there was a lot of fear of, and I mentioned it before, like, is this a fertility issue or is it just a fluke, just a one time thing? was every, every time my cycle came around, it was like,

Okay, I'm not pregnant. So does that mean I can't get pregnant? Or every time it was a day or two late, it was like, okay, I need to take a pregnancy test. Maybe this is it and it wasn't. And it was this roller coaster of hope and hope dying and hope and hope dying until there was hope and it didn't die. Hope remained.

Speaker 1 (15:10)
Yeah.

Yeah, and that can be a very wearying process.

Speaker 2 (15:16)
Yeah, it's definitely an emotional roller coaster.

Speaker 1 (15:19)
Yeah, absolutely. I remember when it happened to us for the second time. And I remember my wife, Kathy, saying after it happened, she said, you know, I just don't think I can do this again because of how hard that emotional roller coaster is. And interestingly enough, about three months later, she got pregnant and had a picture perfect pregnancy and, and God gave us Ryan. So, but, that is a very hard season for a mom. Just

because of all the things that you just shared and there's even more than that that you probably can't even put into words.

Speaker 2 (15:54)
really hard on the man, on my husband, because there's so much in miscarrying, in pregnancy, in childbirth that leaves the man completely helpless. Where they are God-made men as protectors and providers and whence their wife is in that position, they're completely helpless and it's really hard on them.

Speaker 1 (16:22)
Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up Cheryl because that's, it doesn't get talked about enough. I think miscarriage itself doesn't really get the attention that it should. Parents who go through it, but especially dads. And you're absolutely right. And that role is protector and defender. It is really difficult and a very helpless feeling to watch your wife go through all that.

all that that encompasses knowing that you just there's literally nothing that you can do.

Speaker 2 (16:53)
It also makes it even more difficult when the husband can't share that emotional loss. It wasn't necessarily my husband's loss as much as it was mine. He knew of the baby, but it wasn't a part of him yet.

Speaker 1 (17:08)
Exactly. Yeah. and unfortunately for a man to try to find a way to connect and share that with another man in our culture is to say it's difficult. It's an understatement. There just aren't many guys that would understand that.

Speaker 2 (17:27)
No.

Speaker 1 (17:28)
and that would have the ⁓ ability to be able to, unless they've been there, they couldn't empathize, but I think the majority of men would have a difficult knowing how to really be sympathetic because it's just not something that we're prepared for either, but that we just, think our emotional capability with something like that runs pretty low compared to

to what women are able to. Does that make sense? Yeah. Well, I know that he did everything that he could do to be supportive. So you got a good one. A keeper.

Speaker 2 (18:00)
Yes.

He is a keeper for sure. Yeah. You asked earlier what was some of the things that I did to get past the grief. And there was one thing that I haven't mentioned yet. And that was there was a women's retreat shortly after the miscarriage completed. And it was one that I'd originally told the lady I was going to room with, Hey, you have to share with another person because I'm pregnant. And then.

Speaker 1 (18:13)
Yeah, yeah

Speaker 2 (18:39)
I miscarried so I really didn't want to go but I don't even remember what that women's retreat was about. I don't remember the theme. But I do remember how much God used that to help me heal and he actually gave me, he gave me a word. One of the ways God speaks to me is when I journal it's like he takes over and starts writing and I wrote that down if you would like I could share it.

Speaker 1 (18:47)
Yeah, I get it.

I would love for you to share that.

Speaker 2 (19:08)
Okay. Is your heart troubled as you come before my glorious presence? Take heart. Shed your trouble like the dead skin it is. Have peace as you come unto me. I am not troubled. I am mighty and you are mighty through my presence. Take heart as you journey with me. Cling to my hand, daughter. I will guide you through this life. When a tap comes, my hand will shield you.

and my spirit will equip you for battle. You are with me and I with you always. Go in peace, for I am with you and my power is in you. Call on me. Call on me. Your troubles will be no more in the glory of my presence. Delight in me as I delight in you. I will be your father and you my beloved daughter. Take courage, my loved one. Take heart.

My blessings are with you as you dwell in me. Your future is secure. Your life is cradled in my arms, more precious to me than my son. Take heart and be free in my love. Psalm 27, 14. Wait for the Lord. Be strong and let your heart take courage. Wait for the

Speaker 1 (20:25)
Wow, that does not need any commentary on my part. It stands alone by itself. Thank you so much for sharing that, Cheryl. Wow. That is just that is amazing. He is so good.

Speaker 2 (20:41)
He is, and that was what I needed to really help heal.

Speaker 1 (20:45)
Cheryl, what else have you learned about God during this grief journey and healing journey that you thought you knew before, but maybe you really didn't until you had to walk out something so painful and so traumatic.

Speaker 2 (21:05)
There are several things that come to mind. One would be how much he values me as his daughter. How much I am worth to him. Not because of anything that I do, just because I am his daughter. Another thing is how faithful he is through the fears and through the worries and the anxieties. When I got pregnant with our oldest, I had some spotting.

Speaker 1 (21:19)
I love that.

Speaker 2 (21:34)
And that, you know, that anxiety is just like right there. ⁓ no, you're spotting. Is this another miscarriage? And my mom told me to stand in faith because God had shared, had showed her something on their last visit. When they were at church with us, there was a baby crying in the lobby and God told her that that would be our baby next year. So just how much he's faithful in those moments that he gives words to.

us to the moms but also to the people around us to help us through those times.

Speaker 1 (22:08)
Cheryl,

we've touched a little bit on the importance of community when we go through something so devastating. What did that look like for you? mean, as far as what really, what did people do that really helped you the most? Because we both know that sometimes people want to help. mean, anybody who knows us, they want to help. They want to make it better. They want to make it go away because they want the old us back.

And so sometimes they say and do things that aren't particularly helpful. And sometimes it's hard to know how to respond to those things. But let's say we have to learn to forgive and we have to learn to just let some things go. But let's focus more on the things that people did that really did mean a lot to you and that really, really did help. And it maybe really did provide some comfort.

Speaker 2 (23:04)
Being able to be with people or women who had experienced miscarriages before did help. Like I mentioned, my mother, our pastor's wife, had gone through several miscarriages at that point. And there were a few other people that just were there. And my best friend, she had never experienced miscarriage, but she would encourage me to just get out of the house, try to do things with me. also worked with her at the church, so that helped.

tried to keep me out of the darkness, if that makes sense. Part of the community, my husband was a huge part of the community because honestly, he was the one I needed the support from the most. Even though it wasn't something he could really relate to, I needed him in that time.

Speaker 1 (23:53)
Yeah, I think one of the things that I'm hearing through all of that is that you valued the simple presence of other people.

Speaker 2 (24:01)
Yes, because words inevitably aren't enough or are very hurtful, either one of the two.

Speaker 1 (24:09)
Yeah, yeah. Words are just inadequate at a time like that. And I think that, you know, if you're listening and you're listening not because it's a loss that you are enduring, but because you know somebody who has just lost a child to miscarriage, it's important for you to know that your presence is, generally speaking, is going to be not just enough, but incredibly valued.

And it kind of lets you off the hook in that you don't have to find these magic words that you hope are going to make it all better. know, grieving parents aren't projects that need to be fixed. We're just people that need to know that people love us enough to just give us the space to grieve. And sometimes we need you to help carry some of that grief. And all that means is just sitting there with us.

Speaker 2 (25:08)
made me think of my kids because kids get a lot of hurt, both real and imagined. And they can cry at the drop of a hat. And most of the time, there's nothing that I can do to make it go away. But what they need me to do is just to be there to hold them, maybe kiss the boo boo, which I'm not going to kiss somebody else but they're just my husband. But that presence there is they just need that that comforting presence. And as adults, we're still the same way.

Speaker 1 (25:34)
Yeah, that comforting presence is invaluable. Cheryl, something else I wanted to, just to get your thoughts on, grief has a way of changing people. I've heard lots of parents say, I would say that in my own life, this is true, after you lose a child, time becomes divided. Your life before the loss and your life after the loss. We're different people. We have our same personalities, of course.

We look the same, inside, grief changes us. How would you say that grief has changed you?

Speaker 2 (26:11)
It's done a couple things. One would be it's given me the ability to be able to walk with other women who have miscarried since I've miscarried and being able to just be there for them and given me that understanding and compassion that I would not have had if I hadn't miscarried. Another thing that the grief has done of just walking through the process is understanding that

as hard as grief is, as pain is, as miscarrying is, that there is still, God can still bring something out of it, whether it's a depth of understanding that I wouldn't have had before because he did, or compassion that I wouldn't have had before, like I said. And it also brings about a more intimate relationship with God. It brought me deeper in with him. And I couldn't have had that without

the grief of the miscarriage.

Speaker 1 (27:09)
Yeah, I think that anytime we experience suffering and we are a believer, we have a relationship with Jesus Christ, He absolutely does not waste that. He will use that if we'll lean into Him and our faith will come out stronger and our relationship with Him, as you said, will grow deeper and more personal, I think.

You know, I want people who are listening today who maybe their experience wasn't exactly like your Cheryl in that you said that you really didn't get get angry. Sometimes parents do get angry when they lose a child, whether it's due to miscarriage or whether it's a suicide or an accident, whatever it might be. When they lose their child, it's not uncommon to hear parents talk about

They just got angry with God and sometimes I think that can be that can be very hard for that parent dealing with that. can also sometimes it can pose some challenges with people who are looking in from the outside thinking, you know, shouldn't be angry with God. God's not the one who did this. We live in a fallen world. Bad things happen to good people. Bad things happen to everybody, whether you're a Christian or not. But Cheryl and I both would want you to know

It's okay if you do get angry with God. He's a good father. He understands the anger and His love for you does not change. And it's okay for you to tell Him that you're angry. And if you'll do that, He will help you. You may not understand it ever. There are still things about losing our son Ryan that I will never understand on this side of heaven, but God is a

big God and he is a good father and you can trust him with that anger and it's okay.

Speaker 2 (29:07)
And God is able to redeem everything, even our anger.

Speaker 1 (29:12)
Absolutely. Yep. And some of what you just shared a moment ago reminds me too of, I go back to this scripture all the time, Romans 8 28 talks about how God uses all things in our lives, everything for our good and for His glory. And it's really hard sometimes to see that in real time, but in retrospect,

I can look back now and see so much good that God's brought into our lives and through us in trusting our story to Him. Would you say that you've seen the evidence of that in your life as well, other than what you just shared?

Speaker 2 (29:55)
for sure. mean, the older I get, the more I see, the more clarity God gives me of, this is a part of why you went through that because, you know, I'm only 30. What is it? One, two? And he's going to show there's going to be so much more throughout my life that I don't know now, but it's all going to tie together to, okay, this one thing here and this thing here and this thing here and it...

There is a reason for it, but I have to wait five, 10, 20, 50 years before I get even close to a full picture. God's the only one with the full picture. But I've got to trust that every painful moment, every irritating moment, every storm has a purpose. And that purpose isn't necessarily just for me. It's also for other people, for things, for me to be able to help other people.

Speaker 1 (30:54)
Well said, yeah. And that, you know, when you get to the place where there's been enough healing and that when those opportunities come along, it's amazing the healing properties of sharing with somebody else what you've been through. Because when we do that, we're processing it all over again. God is using that pain to bless somebody else, to give them some hope because

Here I am 10 years later, it didn't destroy me. I have joy and peace and hope in my life again. I have meaning and purpose and they can borrow hope and encouragement from seeing that in me and in you.

Speaker 2 (31:38)
Social media filters haven't done society any good. We need to share, not be negative of like, guess what happened to me today? The car broke down. Someone was going slow. yeah, first world problems, but more of, okay, you know, I miscarried. My husband and I are walking through a very difficult season right now and just being able to share with people that, you know what? Life sometimes really, really sucks and there's no

Speaker 1 (31:51)
problems

Speaker 2 (32:08)
ways about it. But let me tell you who God is through all that. Let me tell you what God has done, the character of Himself that He's revealed to us, and all of the good that has come about these situations. But if we don't share it, we're robbing ourselves, not just God, of the opportunity to share about Him.

He gives us all of these things to bring glory to Him. And if we never talk about it, we can't glorify God in it.

Speaker 1 (32:42)
Yeah, I'll add to that that I think it's good for people who don't have a relationship with Jesus to see that we don't have perfect lives, that we experience the same kind of stuff that they do, but we don't have to carry it alone or walk through it alone or do it in our own strength. In a relationship with Him, we get our strength from Him and He comforts us. I love that scripture that I think it's

Psalm 3418, correct me if you know this, ⁓ if I'm wrong. It says, God is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

Speaker 2 (33:22)
You might not be 100 % but you're close enough.

Speaker 1 (33:25)
You think I'm wrong on that one?

Speaker 2 (33:28)
No, I think you're 100 % right. mean, okay, look at Saul and David. Saul had everything. But David who walked through the crushing was the person that God said was after his heart. It wasn't the person who had everything handed to him. We need the crushing. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (33:46)
⁓ I mean, it's not something when you say that, there's probably somebody thinking, I don't want that. What we've been through, I wouldn't have, I would have never asked for something like that in order for my faith to grow stronger, in order for my relationship with Jesus to be more personal and more intimate. But it happened. Why it happened? I don't know that I'll ever have the answers that I wanted in those early days.

But one of the things that God did help me understand after, you know, as I wrestled with those questions was if He had given me the answers to every one of those questions, there's a very good chance that with my finite brain, I wouldn't have been able to deal with it, number one. Number two, if He gave me the, then I would have to deal with those answers. And that would add very likely a whole, whole

heavier layer of pain and in grief to that I was already going through and we don't have the ability with a finite mind we can't all we can see is right now he can see the past present future all the same time and he'll I think sometimes he in his kindness he only allows us to see what we can handle

Speaker 2 (35:09)
There's a lot of blessing in silence, even if it is from God, because if he's withholding his words, it's because what he knows isn't going to help us at that moment. He knows the moment it will, and he'll give it to us then. But until then, it's hard to be content with just his presence is really what we need to be.

Speaker 1 (35:32)
Yeah, that can be hard, but you're right. It really is important. And we need to embrace that more than we do in our culture, even within the church culture. We do. We're a microwave society. Not only do we want the answers, but we want them yesterday. Today's not even good enough anymore. Yep. One last thing I would like input from you about, there's somebody listening to this episode.

Speaker 2 (35:42)
We like our answers.

Speaker 1 (35:59)
And they have heard what we have talked about, but there are probably some things that maybe you haven't had an opportunity to share. And if you were able to do what we're doing right now and speak to that mom one-on-one, what would you tell them? You are six years into your grief journey, and I'll say your grief slash healing journey. What would you say to a mom who is six days or six weeks into her journey?

Speaker 2 (36:29)
That is a hard question because my first instinct would be to not say anything. Because like I said, words aren't enough, but everything in both the physical and the spiritual sense, what we go through when we're miscarrying does have a purpose. The pain, the physical pain is very necessary to be able to have a child again. We have to go through that process of the thing of how far along someone is.

the labor, whether it's like a miniature labor or an actual labor, we have to go through that to be able to rid, get rid of what's died so that God can bring something new and beautiful and living into us and through us. It's not pleasant because that pain physically and mentally and spiritually, that pain is very intense during the moment when you're going, when you're walking through the loss and walking through the miscarriage, which takes

a month or more for some people. It's very intense, but it has to happen to be able to bring you to a new place where you're ready for that new life, for the new growth and trusting God in those moments of intense pain and asking Him for His strength because ours is not enough during those times.

Speaker 1 (37:51)
Indeed those are good words Cheryl. Those are very good words. Thank you for sharing that and Cheryl, thank you for taking time out of your schedule to entrust your story to us to our listeners and to give us some glimpses into into Your grief and healing journey. I think it's going to be a source of encouragement and hope to some moms that are listening

today.

Speaker 2 (38:21)
I hope so. That's always been my prayer. And it's easy to minimize what a woman goes through, even for like, it's easy to minimize what I've gone through because of the comparison game. But we need to, we need to not, it happened. We've got to face it and not try to minimize it. Cause if we minimize it and we're not actually going to deal with those emotions from a healthy place.

Speaker 1 (38:48)
You are so right about that. Yeah, so lean into it, walk it out, and time doesn't heal it, but God, if you'll lean into God, He will heal those wounds. And He has this unique way of taking a whole pile of shattered pieces that represent our hearts and our lives and putting them back together in even a more beautiful way.

Speaker 2 (39:18)
He's a master artist.

Speaker 1 (39:20)
Indeed he is. Cheryl, thank you once again.

Speaker 2 (39:24)