Broken Hearts

I came across a CD set of lessons from Duane Sheriff (http://www.dsheriff.org/ cds are available for free) on "Healing Broken Hearts". These are notes off of 6 cds that I listened to and jotted down in the car so I hope they make sense. I am sharing this for 2 reasons, 1 is for me so I can remember and 2 I know that I am not the only one in DeadBabyMama Land to question God and how in the world He fits into this mess. I still have a lot of questions, but slowly He is leading me to the places where I can find some answers.

Definition of broken: crush completely, shatter to pieces, bruised deeply
Definition of heart: thoughts, minds, feelings

Prov 4:23 "Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life."
Prov 17:22 "A merry heart does good like medicine, but a broken spirit dries the bones"
Prov 14:30 " A sound heart is life to the body . . ."
Prov 15:13 "A merry heart makes a cheerful countenance, but by sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken"

You can't carry brokenness of heart and have a functional life. Unresolved brokenness can make you dysfunctional and affect you physically (aches and pains, anxiety, depression).
My heart was broken after Tyler died, really it was shattered. I couldn't move, couldn't eat, couldn't sleep. I was non-functioning for quite awhile. I was lost. It wasn't until I started looking for the good and searching for God that things began to get better.


How to get healed

Ps 34:18 " The Lord is near those who have a broken heart, and saves such as are crushed in spirit"
Ps 147:3 "He heals the broken hearted and binds up their sorrows"
Luke 4:18 "He has sent me to heal the broken hearted . . . "
Isaiah 61:1-8 "The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me, Because the LORD has anointed Me To preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted . . . To comfort all who mourn, To console those who mourn in Zion, To give them beauty for ashes, The oil of joy for mourning, The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness . . ."

1. I must realize there is healthy (Godly) and unhealthy (worldly) sorrow
1 Thess 4:13-18 "But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. . . Comfort one another with these words."
Worldy sorrow is destructive. Grief becomes a security blanket and stifles you
Godly sorrow works repentance or change, reminds us of the beauty of life, causes us to shuffle our priorities, and makes us sensitive to others.
2 cor 7:9 " . . . but that your sorrow led to repentance. For you were made sorry in a Godly manner . . . For Godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted, but the sorrow of the world produces death."
I am not to sorrow as those who "have no hope", I will see Tyler again. There is a time to mourn, but it shouldn’t consume me
Eccl 3:1,2,4 "To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven: A time to be born and a time to die; a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance"
Eccl 7:1-8 the day of death is better than the day of your birth . . . Sorrow is better than laughter for by a sad countenance the heart is made better.
I know Tyler is so much better off in heaven than he would have been on earth. He is up there where it is perfect, peaceful and he will never have to know pain and sorrow.


2. I have to recognize that I am not alone.
Satan uses that trick to lock us into bondage "nobody understands". Others have been through anything I am going through. God brought them through and he will bring me through too. This is something that struck me b/c right after my loss, I had all these weird thoughts and I just knew something was wrong with me b/c I was thinking that way. I was so comforted to know that so many other women were thinking the exact same things. The devil wanted me to feel alone, isolated and broken.
1 Peter 5: 8-9 "Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world."


3. I need to adopt the eternal view vs the worldly view
We can focus on our hurt and lose perspective. We let that hurt consume our life and then we interpret the rest of our life in light of our hurt. It's like looking in the different ends of binoculars - the object your looking at doesn't change, but the perspective does.I need to look at things that are eternal. The hurt and pain of this life will pass, but we will live in the glory of God for eternity.
Romans 8:18 "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us" Praise God! How great is His glory that it's greatness doesn't even compare to my suffering?!
2 Cor 4:17-18 "For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things that are seen are temporary, but the things that are not seen are eternal."

4. God is not guilty - He did not do this to me
I really struggled with this one. I thought God caused this for some reason and that it was His will that I had dead baby. I thought He was trying to teach me a lesson, that He knew the future better than me and did it for a greater good, etc. God has nothing to do with the bad things that happen to us. He especially doesn't NEED any babies in heaven. That stuff is comforting for a little while until the resentment builds up. He IS in control, but isn’t controlling everything that happens to us. He allows things to happen that he doesn’t will. If you think He does it, how can you trust Him to heal you? He doesn’t do bad things as a “blessing in disguise” Curses on Israel weren’t blessings in disguise, they were punishment. Under Mosaic Law, God’s wrath was revealed, but Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law. Jesus bore our sins and God’s wrath and punishment for our sins so God can be merciful to us. We are not under law any longer, we are under God’s grace. Faith works by love and when you are able to see God’s love for you and that he had nothing to do with the bad that you can embrace Him and He will embrace you and heal you.
John 10:10 “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come so that they might have life, and that they have it more abundantly.”
For example: a man has an affair on his wife. He repents and comes to God and as a result his marriage is better than it has ever been. God didn’t will him to sin, but when he repented and turned to God, He brought good out of it. Romans 8:28 “And we know that all things work together for good to those that love the Lord and are called according to His purpose.” God didn’t kill Tyler to bring me closer to Him, I turned my heart to God and He worked good out of that horrible situation.

1 Thess 5: 16-18 “ Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. There was a whole another post on this one

5. By Faith
2 Cor 1:3 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”
Ps 30:2-5 “O Lord my God, I cried out to you, and you healed me. O Lord, You brought my soul up from the grave; You have kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit. Sing praise to the Lord . . . Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.” I didn't know "the pit" was biblical!


It is ok to have a broken heart, especially over something as unnatural as losing a child, but God doesn't want us to stay broken. We can't be full of His spirit when we are broken. He wants to heal us and work good things through the bad, and bring up beauty from the ashes of our lives. In turn, He wants us to pass on the comfort He has given us to others who need it.

Praise God! I will always love and miss Tyler, but thank you for healing my brokenness and
thank you for being a God of comfort, love and mercy.

limbo

I don't really know what to say, so I am just typing and hoping something will pop up. I lay in bed at night and process everything and think of stuff I want to write, but then when I get up in the morning I can't remember.
Right now I am still in the limbo of "to try again" or "to not try again". I woke up a couple of weeks ago and felt like I was really ok with not having another baby. My boys are more than a handful, they are just starting to be independent, we can go out and do fun things together, babies are exhausting, I don't know if I can handle 3 and I know that Mark really doesn't want another one. Then, the boys start asking when we are going to have a baby and talk about how much they want one. I was filling out a medical history for Danner yesterday and it was asking about birthweight, Apgar scores and developmental milestones so I got out the baby books. The boys and I sat down and looked at all their newborn baby pictures - probably not the smartest choice! Every month a few days before AF, the anxiety sets it and I start to hope that maybe I am pg even though we are not trying and I know that I'm not. It's driving me crazy!
Here are the God questions I am working on right now - I know that God didn't cause this (I need to post on that later, but it's a long one) but why didn't he prevent it? I prayed for a full term healthy baby and I truly had faith that it would happen. It didn't. We can pray for healing, but why is it that sometimes He doesn't heal?
The Bible says he will give you the desires of your heart and what you ask for in prayer which leads to a whole another set of questions. I have met so many women that have prayed and prayed and want nothing more than to have another baby, but haven't.
I know God will help me find answers to these questions just like he has to all the other ones I've had, but I just thought I'd share them with you and see if anyone has any input.

Quilt

Mark's sweet aunt Lavoy made Tyler a baby quilt. She's been making one for all of the new babies in the family for several years. I was hoping she would make him one, but you never know how some people will react to a loss. I got the courage up to ask her just to make him 1 little square or something so I would have something that was made just for him. The next day, she showed me the quilt she had made him. She wasn't sure if I would want it or not. Words cannot describe how much that meant to me. She even put his name and date in it.

I showed it to Danner and he said we needed to have another baby named Tyler to wrap up in it. He also asked if they could use it since he's dead. Hmmm how do you respond to that?

Today is the day

Today is the random day the Dr picked that Tyler was due. A due date really has no significance, especially not for me since my kids were all born early. It's just a day that I think Dr's give just so you can tell all your friends when you are due. This due date is different. It marks an end and a new beginning. It's an end to the grieving of Tyler and a beginning to the life without him. There is so much that I have learned in the last 5 months and I am not the same person I was then, but thankfully I can say that's for the better and not worse. I have a relationship and understanding of God that I knew about before, but couldn't quite grasp how it all worked. He has saved me from my grief and sorrow and showed me that through faith, he truly can work all things together for good for those that love Him. He has shown me how to rejoice even in suffering. He has healed my broken heart. Thank you God. Thank you to every single deadbabymama on the 2nd/3rd tri loss board - I can't tell you how much it helped to know that I wasn't alone and to be able to say the things I was too scared to admit to anyone else. Thank you to Stephanie, Kristi and all the Hope Floatin mamas for catching me before I fell into the pit of bitterness and anger and helping me stay focused on the good things. Thank you to every person in my family that has asked about Tyler, me and my due date. Thank you to Aunt Lavoy for his beautiful quilt. Thank you Mark, Ranger and Danner for putting up with me and the not-so-nice version of me for the last few months. Thank you to Pastor Cecil and Duane Sheriff - your words of God have blessed me and lifted me up. I have been richly blessed.



Philippians 4:4-7
"Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

I am ok but . . .

I have found myself saying this many times so I thought I'd just make a list. I am ok with Tyler's loss but:

I still think about him every day
I have a hard time going to sleep at night
I still feel like a part of me is missing
I am really irritable
I really really want to have another baby
Baby boys seem so much cuter to me now
Little girl clothes aren't as much fun to shop for as they were before
Seeing pregnant women still stings a little
I don't want to be around people or do anything - I make myself do it, but I don't want to
I want to sit at home in the quiet all day
I want to cry but I can't
I don't really know what I want to cry about

I act ok, I pretty much feel ok, but it's just the little things that I don't think are ever going to go away. I hope when I reach July 12 that it will be the finish line and will reach a new sense of healing. I hope I can keep it together until then. July has been a rough month so far, and it's only the 3rd.

I just "am"

I was laying in bed last night trying to think of words to describe how I feel right now. My roller coaster is flat, I'm not up, I'm not down, I just am. Then I got to thinking about boxing. I feel like a boxer that has had the crap punched out of him and was knocked to the ground. He comes up fighting, but can't quite orient himself and get his feet back under him b/c the blow was so hard and caught him by surprise. It takes him a few minutes of stumbling around trying to get his bearings, but he continues to fight and becomes more steady as time goes on. I have come up fighting, I still just can't quite get my bearings and get my feet solid underneath me but I will.





This morning I was thinking about how, as much as this sucked, I don't think I would wish it never happened. I have learned so much about God's love and his will that I don't think I could have seen any other way. It's like the dumb mistakes you make when you're young, you hate them and would give anything to go back and undo them until you are older and realize that they have made you who you are. Am I happy that my baby died? No, but I am happy that it was able to make a positive impact on my life. Coincidentally, this was the verse from the e-votional this morning:



I Corinthians 12:7-10
"To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassing great revelations, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But He said me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."

I've been TAGGED

I was tagged by Kristi like a month ago (and I bet you thought I wasn't going to do it!)

So here are the rules as to what I had to do and if you are one of my lucky 7 below then you need to also do the following:

1. Link your tagger and list these rules on your blog.

2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.

3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.

4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog .



7 'Fabulous' Facts:

1. I am and always will be a Texas girl

2. I LOVE Kenny Rogers! Yes the old singing one!

3. I am a huge Nascar fan - my #1 is Dale Jr, but I also like Juan Pablo b/c I think he's hot!

4. Our family loves spending time at the lake

5. My 2 boys are wild wild wild

6. Cheeseburgers are my weakness, especially with swiss cheese and mushrooms. Yum!

7. I am very very thankful and blessed to have met so many wonderful friends in the last few months!!

I don't really know who to tag, so if you read this, You're tagged!!

Thoughts

"Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain."

"God doesn't give us what we can handle; God helps us handle what we are given."

"Love life as it is . . . not as you want it."

"Being happy doesn't mean everything's perfect. It means you decide to see beyond the imperfections."

I came across these in a catalog I got in the mail the other day. These really are what I need to help me get through this stage I'm in - I am not happy with myself right now, I am grumpy, irritable and just no fun. I hate the way I am acting toward Mark, my kids, and everyone else around me. I feel ok inside, but I just don't want to be out of the house or around any people. As long as I am in my safe little bubble I don't feel as evil. I have been praying that God will help me see the joy in my life and help me loosen up a little - when we got up this morning, I saw that Danner had given himself another haircut, but this time it's half of his head and not just one spot! I really had to stop myself from being mad and just laugh at the moment. Baby step #1, many many more to go!!

God knows what he's doing!

I know that seems really obvious, but I have started to figure that out. Mark and I really wanted Tyler to be a girl - we even told the Dr that if he couldn't tell the sex, we wanted it to be a girl. I wanted to at least have almost had a girl for some reason. Now I am so glad Tyler was a boy. All the babies born in our family since he died have been girls. Also, everyone around us keeps telling us that we need to have a girl. Now I can nod and smile instead of saying "yeah we already did". I was thinking yesterday that I am so glad that he was a boy and thought to myself how God really knew what he was doing!

Oh and my testing all came back normal, so I guess it was just a fluke accident! I think I am relieved by that.

Zoloft and other nonrelated topics

I decided that it was time for me to wean off the Zoloft, things had been going good and I hate relying on medicine. It didn't work out so well. I turned in to a raging lunatic, every little sound, touch, or nothing made steam come out of my ears! I couldn't figure out what on earth was wrong with me - I wanted to hurt someone (not literally so don't freak out). I couldn't stand the sight of my kids or the sounds of their voices and then I was mad b/c I felt that way about them. I finally realized that it was the medication - or lack of - that was causing all that. So now after 4 days of being back on it full time, things are starting to calm down. I was really worried I was having a nervous breakdown or something, I cannot describe how awful it was. I think I'm going to give it awhile and then try lowering the daily dosage.

New baby - my last cousin is having her baby today. I get so tense and anxious when I know they are in labor, I hope that everything turns out fine and she will never know what it's like to be in this "club". At the same time, I am thinking about how I will handle this baby. Tyler wasn't due until July, but since all of my boys were early, he would have been here sometime around now. Every time I see her, I wonder if I will think about how Tyler would look or what he would be doing or will I be so happy just to see her that I won't care. I have finally wrapped my brain around the "should be" and the "would be". I know I am right where I should be, but I can't help but think where I would be if all this hadn't happened. Then I remind myself, that things may not have been so great and we may have had a worse struggle than we are having now. The grass isn't always greener on the other side. I probably would have been on medication, bedrest, and miserable for the last few weeks, labor may not have gone so good, he may not have been healthy, or so many other things. I know that I have to be happy and thankful for where the Lord has brought me, but sometimes I can't help but think of that alternate universe where things were going to be so good. In one universe, we have a newborn healthy baby, and in this one, there is no baby, life has moved on and it's almost like it never happened. There are new plans and vacations that were never supposed to be possible. But, I have to say, even without Tyler, this side of the universe isn't all that bad. I am getting to do things with the boys that I wouldn't have gotten to do otherwise.
Now I have some confessions to make - I am making them here instead of on the confessions post but I don't know why.
1. I thought about grabbing another baby. Gasp! Mark and I were out to eat after our Dr appt confirming Tyler's death. When we walked out, there was a baby in a carrier on a bench while the others were looking at a fountain. I whispered to Mark, "grab it!". Was I really going to? NO!! Did I want to? Well, yes. I understand now how someone who isn't mentally stable and has experienced a loss could snap and do something like that though.
2. I yell at my kids. I know I am probably the mom that frustrates the women w/o living babies b/c my kids drive me crazy in public and sometimes I lose it. That doesn't mean that I don't realize what a blessing they are and how lucky I am to have them, it means I am a sometimes frustrated mom who is not perfect.
3. I feel better when I take some time each day to read other DeadBabyMama blogs and read the boards for a little while. I feel bad that I am not posting as much to the other moms, but I just don't have the time to get in that frame of mind and get it all out there.
4. I have come to accept Tyler's loss and it is a part of my life. It is so hard in a conversation not to bring it up, as in "before we lost Tyler", "when I was pg with Tyler", "after we lost Tyler". These are 3 distinct periods in my life that span the last 8 months of my life. I hate that when I say something like that, people's eyes get big and it's like I've said something I'm not supposed to. Example: we were at a wedding the other night and several of my girlfriends and I were sitting around the table teasing J about needing to find a sugar daddy. One commented that she thought I had already done that (dh bought me a new car a few weeks after Tyler died). I laughed and said "No, that was a pity present, Mark just felt sorry for me". My friend next to me (who was with me at my u/s by the way) said why would he do that? I kind of just looked at her - I hadn't wanted to explain it, the dinner table at a wedding reception really isn't the place but she didn't get it. So I said "because the baby died". Her eyes got big and she just sat back in her chair and didn't say anything else. I hate the awkwardness that it brings with it.
5. And, I realized I don't call Tyler by his name when I'm talking, just "the baby". I wonder why.

Woo, that ended up being long. I think I need to get back to writing more often.
Oh, and for those of you who are questioning God or are mad at Him, He is still there with you and holding you. He doesn't cause this to happen to you. We live in an imperfect world full of horrible things. This verse is courtesy of Pastor Cecil (www.daily-e-votional.com) yesterday:
I Peter 4:12-14
"Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when His glory is revealed."
I know that sounds ridiculous, but it is true. All of us will endure suffering and loss. The only choice we have is if we look up or down.