Night Lights: Good things for when it gets dark

Loved ones, I hope none of you ever have a reason to relate to our story, but should you or someone you love someday know what this pain feels like, here are a few things that have helped in the journey:

• This blog, Savannah's Song, from my friend, Caroline, who walked through her own process of loss at 19 weeks pregnant, is so sweet and meaningful.
• Angie Smith's book, I Will Carry You, retells her own experience with losing a child, but helped me walk back through our journey, find ways to press in to our pain, and move toward greater healing. It also offers some thoughts and meaningful suggestions on how to walk with someone who is going through this experience. 
• This blog post from John Piper helped me work through some of my hurt of feeling like God was working arbitrarily in taking our baby and helped me reconcile some of God's sovereignty with his goodness. It's called, "Will God Hurt Me and Call It Good?" and that has been one of my most sincere questions about God during this time. 
• This blog by Kelly Neeham entitled, "How to Handle the Grief of Miscarriage" has a powerful analogy that has remained with me about not feeling like you have to get back up too quickly or put on a brave face. Sometimes, we must fully acknowledge what has been lost before we can do anything else.
• I used to teach John Donne's "Death, Be Not Proud" to my students to show them the richness of poetry. Now I teach it to myself to show the mortality of death and triumph of our King. A reminder.

Holy Sonnets: Death, be not proud

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee 

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; 

For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow 

Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me. 

From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, 

Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow, 

And soonest our best men with thee do go, 

Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery. 

Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, 

And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell, 

And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well 

And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then? 

One short sleep past, we wake eternally 

And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die. 

• My dear friend Hannah sent me this poem by e.e. cummings just after we lost John Ezekiel and later gave me a custom piece of art with the first line of the poem. It was a perfect gift and will always be framed in the baby’s room. Its jumble of thoughts coupled with the rhythm capture my own.

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

                                                      i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)