Loneliness

Loneliness comes to us in three forms.  There is our personal grief, and basically we grieve alone.  Grief is painful and exhausting.  Even when we have a spouse or family member who is there for us, they are not grieving the same feelings at the same time we are.  Grief is work, and it’s work that we do, for the most part, by ourselves.

Then there is the isolation we feel when others do not want to listen to us talk about our loss.  This isolation grows with time as people have moved on and tire of hearing about it.  They just want us to be “like before.”

And, finally, there is the emptiness of “no baby.”  After we found out we were pregnant, we expected a baby to hold. We planned on watching our child’s development.  We had hopes and dreams for their future.  We expected a life together filled with joy and happiness.  What we got instead was no baby, aching & empty arms, an out-of-shape body, raging hormones, a stack of bills, and an incomplete nursery.

Worst of all, we felt pain, suffering, profound sadness and a deep loneliness beyond anything we could have imagined.   “It was as if a vacuum had sucked every fragment of vitality from my body,” said the writer of Good Mourning.

The good news is that God understands our journey through suffering and loneliness.  He lost His Son too!  He knew there was no hope to redeem this fallen world, but for Jesus.  God is willing to take our suffering and loneliness and walk with us through the pain.

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Activities:

– Write a letter to God telling him how you feel and asking Him for help, comfort and understanding.

– Write a letter to your friends/family explaining how it feels when they shut you down and how helpful it is when they listen and mention your baby.

– Write a letter to your baby telling him/her how much you miss them and how your heart is broken and your arms aching.