Miscarriage How to Respond to a Crisis

In order for you to fully comprehend how devastated I was when I had my miscarriage, you need to know a little of the history behind it.

First, if you are new here, I’m sharing in this Series on How to Respond to a Crisis, about 5 different crises: Losing Your Job, Miscarriage, Lost Loved Ones, Ovarian Cancer (Serious Illness), and this crisis we find ourselves in presently, a pandemic called coronavirus. This is Part 2 of this series of five crises, all of which I have experienced.

Series on How To Respond To A Crisis:

God Is In Control In a Crisis

My bottom line in this series I’ll come out and state right upfront. I have an agenda, a mission. I want to convince you of an essential truth that is critical to your faith: that God is in control, no matter what we go through. I made a printable you can get free when you subscribe to Your Home For God, called “These 10 Truths I Know,” which is a statement of what I know about my God, my Heavenly Father, from Scripture. Ten truths that help me now, and whatever crisis I go through–to have faith and peace.

This crisis and every crisis I have ever gone through, and ever will go through, is under the control of God. Everything that happens to me comes to me either from the hand of God directly or is allowed by Him, which is basically saying the same thing.

He is Sovereign King over all the earth. He is God Almighty, creator of heaven and earth, in complete control, and was in complete control even when His Son, Jesus Christ, was being beaten, scourged, and crucified. God sent His Son. Jesus said He wasn’t being taken, He was giving His life. He asked them if they didn’t realize He could call a legion of angels at any moment and get out of this situation? It was God’s will that Jesus suffer.

Miscarriage How to Respond to a Crisis | Your Home For God
Miscarriage How to Respond to a Crisis

God Is Always Faithful and Loves Me In Every Crisis

God is in control. Not only is He in control of every crisis, but He loves you and me, and is faithful to us, through it. God goes even further, though, in His Word, when He says in Romans 8:28, “we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” He even works a crisis, a tragedy, a horrific event together for good to me. Allow me to tell you some of my story, if I may.

When my husband and I got married, we thought as many do, that we had some control over when we would have our first child and how often we would have children, how many we would have.

I Am Not In Control Whether In Crisis Or Not

This is a common myth among young couples. My husband and I got married and even before I was a bride my doctor put me on the birth control pill, though I was not in need of it at that time, being a Christian committed to chastity. Being on the pill threw my system totally out of whack. I don’t recommend it to anyone.

We thought that we should wait for two years before starting a family to establish ourselves financially and have some time just the two of us. I regret this decision greatly.

Two years passed and I went off the birth control pill and by this time I had gained quite a lot of weight and wasn’t in as great health and because I didn’t have a baby to take care of, and not enough to do, I went back to work and was under a lot of stress with my full-time job and for all these reasons, and maybe more, I did not get pregnant.

Many Other Crises Came But God Taught Me Much

Fast forward four years, and after many problems with my cycle, I was beginning to think I would never have any children. We had experienced the excitement of thinking I was pregnant over and over, because my cycle was so irregular, and then experienced the extreme disappointment of not being pregnant.

I prayed a lot and brought the suggestion to my husband that I would quit my full-time job and go back to school. I would get my degree and pursue a career because I was not going to have children, anyway, it seemed.

This was definitely not how I thought it would be, and frankly, one of my reasons for going back to school was just to be able to quit my job, which I hated by this time, but which my husband didn’t want me to just quit without a reason or a plan because though I didn’t make nearly what he made as an engineer, my job supplemented our income. 

Waiting For God To Answer Your Prayers Can Be A Crisis

I always wanted to be a mom. I prayed fervently over the years to get pregnant. We had planned that I would quit work and be a stay-at-home-mom when we had a family. But, not before we had a family.

But, the thing was, I couldn’t get pregnant because of the stress of working. So, it was a catch 22. I just didn’t know it at the time. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t quit my job. Perhaps I never would have become a mom.

I had always assumed and expected that I would be a mom. I grieved over and over when I had thought I was pregnant and then found out I wasn’t. I think that there is a possibility, a strong possibility, that I miscarried numerous times during that period of years.

I did not go into the doctor to check during those years but used the pregnancy tests from the drugstore if I used anything. Mostly I just knew that my period was super late and I wanted it to be because I was pregnant. 

God Writes A Story Through The Personal Crises We Go Through

After going back to school, even though there was a level of stress and challenge in studying and taking tests, I loved learning and being a student and I was good at it. It was so different than high school. Now I could focus on learning, without all the extra garbage that I hated, and I found out I was a really good student. It made me so happy. I was also healthier. 

I was getting exercise now from walking all over on campus, and I had lost about 25 pounds previously, so, even though I was still overweight, I was in better shape overall.

I say this because I don’t know which of the circumstances, or maybe all of them, changed my body’s ability to conceive. I believe most of all that it was because the stress levels had been keeping me from conceiving, and now my stress was lowered. But, maybe God just said, “It’s time.”

Whatever the reason, after going back to school, about a year later, I became pregnant. We were ecstatic! But, due to morning sickness, I ended up quitting school with only half a degree completed. But, isn’t this what we’d planned? That I would stay home with the children?

When our little boy was about a year-and-a-half old, I thought that I was pregnant again. Again I thought I knew what was going to happen. We would just get pregnant, and have a baby. But, this time, for the first time ever, I went into the doctor’s office and found out from the doctor that I was indeed pregnant.

I am forever grateful that I felt led to do that. I didn’t have any symptoms of pregnancy and I had become severely overweight again, so I couldn’t tell if my stomach was getting bigger and I was under a lot of stress again in my life. But, knowing that I was definitely pregnant when I had the tiniest bit of spotting–hardly noticeable really–I was concerned.

At 10 weeks I went in to the doctor and found out that there was no sign of life. The baby was no longer alive, probably having died at around eight weeks.

It Is Comforting To Be Held, Hugged and Feel the Hands of God With Skin On

I remember going to my mom and dad’s house after the appointment to pick up my son, who they were babysitting, going in the back door and up the stairs, and meeting my mom at the top of the stairs. She took one look at my face and, without a word, wrapped her arms around me and I wept.

I am so glad that I knew there was a baby. Because I didn’t have any symptoms with either the pregnancy or the miscarriage. Because of that, my doctor advised I have a D & C (dilation and curettage). The D & C was much more difficult and traumatic than the miscarriage.

So many things have changed over the years in how miscarriage is viewed and treated. Back in that day it was not something that was treated with kindness, tenderness, or compassion, necessarily, by the medical community.

I don’t know what might have been different or possible now, if it were to happen now, but I really needed some kind of evidence and wanted to see the baby, and even a speck of life would have been wonderful to see. 

I also don’t do well with anesthesia, I know now, but didn’t know then and coming out of anesthesia was REALLY hard. I felt extremely sick and it took a long time to come out of it. I just remember feeling like a number, not a person, when I needed to be treated with extra tenderness.

Be Kind in a Crisis

It was extremely difficult in the days and weeks to follow, because of the different responses that I received. I love the saying, “when you can be anything in the world that you choose, be kind.”

People are not intentionally unkind, but they don’t know what to say, and so their comments hurt women who’ve experienced a miscarriage, who are already grieving, sometimes. People would treat it like it was not a baby, not a life, and, say, “Well, at least this or that…” so I shouldn’t grieve, right? They would say other unkind things, trying to console, or thinking they were comforting me. 

I was part of Bible Study Fellowship at that time, and went back to the group, only to feel that everyone was pregnant and excitedly talking about their pregnancies. I found this emotionally too much to deal with. I thought about quitting and went to the leader (the speaker) of the whole group, who I respected. 

Do Not Quit In A Crisis

I really appreciate how she handled things. As I sat weeping before her, she was kind, but she encouraged me to keep attending. She knew and didn’t minimize that it was hard. She did not minimize the fact that it would be very difficult. But, she encouraged me that it would get better, and to do something that I have had to learn to do as an adult, having never learned it as a child. I learned not to quit when something was hard.

I don’t know if this was the first time, but it was one significant time that I did not quit even though it was extremely difficult to continue, and I was very glad that I did not quit later. I sometimes had to sit in the back, because I was crying, but I kept attending.

Everyone Is Going Through A Crisis

I also learned more than one valuable lesson. I learned the lesson that people are always going through painful circumstances and the world does not stop just because they are. Other people cannot be expected to just stop living because you’re going through something hard. Did that sound heartless? Mature people realize “it’s not about me.” Even when I’m broken.

But, the second lesson I learned was even more important. Though people will let me down, and cannot be expected to be everything for me in a time of crisis, God can. He is, He always is, He will be, He promises, and He’s faithful. 

That allows me to breathe. I feel wrapped in His arms. God knows. He knows more deeply than I know what I’m going through. He knows why, how long it will last, what I should do to get out of it, who and what He will use to help me, the lessons I need to learn, and the character I need to develop.

Expect God to Be Your Everything In a Crisis and He Won’t Let You Down

He grieves with me. He has the power to help me. He knows when to give me a good swift kick, when I need to stop bewailing my plight, and when to gently comfort. He also knows each and every person who will be helped by my story of going through this crisis. 

And, He has the power to transform the crisis (or the cross) into blessing. To take the Crisis and produce Closeness with My God. And produce fruit to spiritually feed the multitude. Just like Jesus took the broken fish and loaves of a little boy and fed thousands.

God Never Wastes Your Suffering

When we’re willing to give what we’re going through to God, to give our crisis, our pain and suffering, (our everything, or our nothing, as it were,) not only does He take care of us and feed us, but He distributes it to everyone who needs it. What a miracle and a blessing. 

Responding to a Crisis means hurting. Yes, there’s still going to be pain. But, how to respond to a crisis is by going to God with my desperate situation, crying out to Him for help, and doing it every time I’m suffering or needy.

It means drawing nigh to Him and resisting the devil, believing that the devil is running away with his tail between his legs and believing that God pulls me closer underneath the shelter of His wings.

How to Respond In a Crisis Means Being Vulnerable and Humble, But Wise

How to respond to a crisis means being vulnerable to share with others, but I emphasize that you must do so cautiously, with discernment, choosing who to talk to wisely, not just blabbing and vomiting your heart out to every Tom, Dick, and Harry, but asking for prayer of only a select few, and being humble to receive well-meaning advice, along with the prayer.

It means believing He is working. And for me, it means doing the next thing today, knowing some days will be harder than others, and maybe today I will just get through, maybe only get one thing done, but that tomorrow and the next day and the next I will find Him faithful. 

Responding to a Crisis means being obedient to rejoice always, when my feelings say the opposite, even when it is through tears. To thank Him and realize there’s always something to be grateful for. To know that God is Sovereign, and with me and He loves me more than I can even fathom. 

I hope this has helped you, and in conclusion, here are some tips for you, if you’re going through a crisis. 

Practical steps that help when going through any crisis:

  • Stay in the Word of God 
  • Pray like God is actually waiting to answer and do what you ask 
  • Cry out to God and tell Him all about your troubles 
  • Get to bed at a decent time even if you don’t sleep, or sleep well 
  • Drink enough water and more 
  • Eat healthy food and regular meals as much as you can 
  • Get moving and get fresh air, if possible 
  • Don’t pull away from people for too long 
  • Be responsible, as much as possible 
  • Trust God to heal and help you 

Subscribe to get my free printable, created for this time of Coronavirus, when we aren’t quite sure of anything, “These 10 Truths I Know.” 

Have a Great Week Making Your Home For God!

Your Home For God, Wendy-Gunn-profile-pic

I help overwhelmed moms grow spiritually with joy in who God uniquely created them (and their families) to be, raise Godly kids, and get their lives organized for God’s glory, through Mentoring, Courses and Coaching.

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