I am pro-life.

Pro-Life

For the sake of simplicity for this post, that means that I am 100% for the lives of the unborn and I do not believe that abortion is an ok alternative.

I believe that life begins at conception.  And no one should have the power to take that life.  Calculatingly stopping the life of another human being = killing them.

Harsh words, I know.  I wish there was some way to sugar coat it.  I don’t like to think about it.  But if the unborn is a human life….there is no way around the fact that abortion kills that life.

I will not focus much on abortion right now because that is not the purpose of this post.  But it is important to state my beliefs on that before I continue.

What is the unborn?  That is the crux of the abortion question.  If it is nothing but a blob of cells, abortion shouldn’t matter.  But if it is a life, it changes the whole question.

What is the unborn?  As a pro-life person I believe it is always, 100% of the time, a human being, just like you and me.  So I write this post to my fellow pro-lifers.

If we get so caught up in the abortion debate….if it hurts our hearts and breaks us up to see pictures and videos of babies being aborted….if we grieve every year on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade….if we volunteer and pray and work to try to save the lives of the unborn…..

….we value that life.

What is the unborn in the case of a miscarriage?

The answer should be obvious and I know that most pro-lifers would agree.  It is a baby.

But why is it that a miscarriage, especially an early miscarriage, is not treated as such?

I want to scream out the window, “My babies died!!!”

My BABIES died.

My babies DIED.

Instead, I am expected to quietly move on.  No one mentions it.  My children are forgotten by all but me and my husband and perhaps a select few others.  We are told to just try again in a few cycles.  We are told that it is time to move on.  We are told to just be thankful we already have one child. It is counter-cultural when I choose to post about it on Facebook six months later.  Christians say that we need to just trust God….to put on a grateful smile and move on.

People don’t know what to do with it.  They don’t know what to say.  And trust me I know that it is hard to know what to say to a grieving person.  I get that.  But in silence, we are denying the lives of the unborn.

I am a part of several miscarriage support groups.  And all. the. time. there are posts of women feeling so alone, so isolated.  Posts where women tell stories of absolutely heart-breaking things that others have said to them.  Cruel things against their babies and their pregnancies.  Posts where women cry and wonder why they aren’t allowed to talk about their children.

We have to suck it up.  We have to be strong.  We have to carry our pain and grief all alone.

What is the unborn?

The unborn are babies. Human beings with souls, made in the image of God.  Worthy of dignity, worthy of respect, worthy of love, worthy to be known.

So no I am not over my grief.  It has changed over the past 6 months.  But it is still there.  It is still deep.  My arms still physically ache sometimes because they never got to hold or caress my beloved children.  The physical pain in my heart is indescribable.

I’m not strong.  I am a mother who is broken.  A mother who has had to say good-bye to two of her children.  That is a pain I wouldn’t wish on anyone.  I am a mother who has to wake up each day, knowing that I “should” have three children with me to take care of, but instead I only have one.

I am thankful, unbelievably thankful, for our son.  But he doesn’t replace my other children.  Future children will not replace the two children that we have lost.  Having one child already doesn’t magically take the pain away from having two other children die.

Grief is the evidence of great love.  My children were and are loved so much.  I will never forget them.  I will never stop grieving.  I will not apologize for thinking of them or for talking about them.  They were real.  They were mine.

I rejoice that they are in the presence of Perfect Love right now.  As much as it pains me to know that I cannot hold them or tell them how much their mommy loves them, I know that God is loving them in my absence and loving them so much better and more fully than I ever could.  I trust God because I know that He is grieved by this effect of the curse and He is walking beside me in the midst of my deepest pain.

And I absolutely cannot wait for the reunion when I get to heaven.  To finally be able to see the faces of my precious babies, to hold them close, to tell them how much I love them and how absolutely wonderful they are.

Because they are my children.  They weren’t just the unborn.  They weren’t just pregnancies.  They are my children.

-Bonnie

2015 was in honesty a terrible year.  Probably the worst year of my life.  Or at least a different kind of terrible than any other terrible.  This year was on a whole different level.

On Christmas Eve, we visited a church where the pastor gave a great sermon.  He talked about how a long time ago people would bring evergreen trees into their homes during the winter as a reminder that spring was coming.  Eventually the Christians adopted that tradition as a reminder of the promise of new life and resurrection in Jesus.  It was a reminder of hope.  Of life.

That was so incredibly beautiful to me.

As I think about the year 2016, I feel a variety of things.  Numbness.  Hesitation.  Wondering if it will be filled with even more heartbreak.  But I also feel hope.  It’s a brand new start in a way.  I am a completely different person than I was before.  The past couple years have defined me, and the past few months have even more so.

There is hope.  There is goodness.  No matter the heartache of this year, there is hope.  There is hope because Jesus came into the world.  Because He died on a cross and rose again.  There is hope because God is good and He is always at work for His good purposes.

There is hope.  There is beauty.

As we close out this incredibly difficult year, I look forward to hope.  With hope.

-Bonnie

In the midst of the hardest year of my life, I am reminded of my blessings.

I am so incredibly thankful for my family.  My wonderful husband, who has been there with me on my bad days and my really bad days.  For our Wingman, who is such a miracle and who brings joy to our lives every day.  And for our two precious babies, who I miss every day and who are giving thanks at the feet of Jesus today.  I can’t wait to praise Him together as a family one day in heaven.

Take a moment today to thank Him for some of your blessings!

-Bonnie