Revisiting Painful Moments

Painful moments aren’t something we want to experience, but if we live more than a minute, we will know them.

Some things in life hit so hard we never quite fully recover. For a mother, the loss of a child is one of the most painful moments ever endured. I used to think losing a child before birth would be easiest. That was until it happened to me seven months into a pregnancy. And not long after that, a close friend miscarried at ten weeks. Her loss devastated her as much as mine did me.

June 10, 2016 marked the 28th anniversary of Lindsay’s birth without breath, although she actually died as much as 36 hours earlier. For the first ten years, I entered a funk around mother’s day, and I stayed there well into June. The tenth year after her death, life changed. I was divorced at that point, struggling in so many ways. One painful moment after another. That year, all of my friends were busy. No one remembered the significance of the date—no one but me. In 1998, I found comfort in the arms of the Lord, a sweet surrender to Him of my painful moments healed me more than anything else did.

During the next 18 years, thoughts of Lindsay came and went. At Christmas time, I hung ornaments with her name and grew a little misty-eyed. As June approached, I sometimes grew a little melancholy. But I quickly moved out of the short painful moments and moved on.

Last week, June 9 came and for some reason this year, thoughts of Lindsay clung to my conscious mind. Maybe it came from the fifth anniversary of my daughter losing a little boy five months into a pregnancy, or the arrival of a new grandson. In May, I walked with someone through memories of a 4-year-old’s death that happened 11 years ago.  I forgot how painful that experience is, but in those moments, the freshness of raw painful moments flooded over me.

Fortunately, this year, I had someone who loves me revisit one of the most painful moments of my life, look at the few pictures I have, read my thoughts and memories and hold me while I cried. I experienced what my husband should have given me the day Lindsay was born, but never did. I’m so grateful for someone who prayed over me last Thursday and helped me gain new perspective.

Revisiting painful moments isn't easy, but it is healing.

Revisiting painful moments isn’t easy, but it is healing.

According to the state of Texas, Lindsay never existed. Because she never took a breath, there is no official birth or death certificate. But I have a birth certificate bearing the inked image of tiny feet. She weighed 3 lbs. 10 oz. Lindsay Anne Bell was real. She was a beautiful baby girl. I have few pictures, old and not great ones. No one told me to take pictures in the hospital, and we didn’t have cell phones with amazing cameras back then. Yet I saw in those pictures a beautiful baby and someday, I will see her again. She’ll greet me at Heaven’s gate and show me around.

In all this, I took away something very important. I don’t like looking back at painful moments in my life. I’m done with them. I’ve dealt with the pain. Why do I need to look back? Sometimes the Lord has another layer He needs to heal. He gave me that gift last week, helping me see Lindsay as my precious baby through new eyes, and I am so very grateful.

If I refuse to revisit painful moments when He wants to take me there, I risk holding on to the victim mentality that is part of a homeless heart. May it never be.

Is there a place in your heart that hurts when you revisit it? Maybe God needs to pull off more layers and heal those painful moments. Let Him. You’ll be glad you did. How can I pray for you today?

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