Just over a month ago, my husband and I experienced our second miscarriage, our first one being about a year and a half ago. For the first couple of weeks, I wasn’t allowing myself to accept what had happened. Being that I’d felt this devastation before, I wasn’t ready to feel it again. I believe my brain went into survival mode so to speak. As time has gone on, however, I’ve allowed myself brief moments of acceptance. During those moments, I’ve had some recurring thoughts. I won’t go into any graphic detail here but the actual physical process of losing this second baby was much different than the first. The main difference being that I was able to see and hold this baby.

Within two minutes of waking up on February 12, I was holding my tiny, seven week old baby in the palm of my hand. God’s intricate design of the tiniest among us was, quite literally, staring at me. After our first loss, I felt like I would have had more of a sense of closure had I been able to see, touch, hold the baby. In a sense, that may be true. However, every time I allow myself to lean into what has happened with this recent miscarriage, I find myself just longing to hold our baby again, even for just a minute longer. I find myself regretting the fact that I didn’t hold them longer. I mentioned these thoughts to my close friend and her response truly struck me: “even if you had held them for a million years, would it have been long enough?”

It’s a question that I cannot stop thinking about and through thinking about it, I have learned three things:

There’s never enough time. Would any amount of time ever have been enough for me? The honest answer I found down in the deepest part of my selfish, mothering heart is: no, it could never be long enough. With this in mind, I started to think about our other children: our almost two year old, our first angel baby, and our almost 7 month old. I realized that someday, I will have to say goodbye to my living children and other loved ones, too. God willing, it will be a long time from now and it will be me passing on before them. Regardless, there will be a last time here. I can guarantee that even if it’s 75 years from now, that same answer will lie in my heart. I know I will yearn for just one more minute, one more day, one more week – it goes on & on. This feeling of “it just wasn’t enough time, please God just one more minute” is a feeling I believe will stay with me as long as I live. The love we have for our children is infinite. Our love goes on & on into eternity but our time here with those we love does not. Whether it’s losing someone before they even have the chance to be born or losing them after decades & decades together, that time will end. When that time ends, when a life ends that we care so deeply for, it’s hard to figure out where to direct this love that never runs out. Eternal love teaches us about eternal life. It’s hard to fathom what eternity in Heaven will feel like. I won’t claim to know. But I am starting to think that this eternal, infinite love is the closest thing we will get to a preview. To think that God’s love for us is even more than that is utterly amazing. Maybe God put this endless love in our hearts to be the one thing we keep with us when we pass on into eternity in Heaven. It will be with us on the day we die, rise again in Heaven, and ultimately learn what eternity truly feels like.

In the meantime, I am learning to accept that heartbreak and yearning for things is just a part of our earthly lives. The inevitable losses in life are so hard, but if you let them, losses can teach you to look at your blessings in an even brighter light. The miracle and the value of a life is something that could only ever be truly described by God Himself. I am so grateful for all of the life around me. I’m grateful for the lives of our two miscarried babies. I’ve been making an effort to hold my loved ones, especially my children, a little longer and a little tighter. Love will never run out and I truly believe that God intends for us to give out as much as we can while we are here.

All of the cliches we hear about love, life, and death seem to hold some truth: “hold your loved ones while you can”, “you never know when it will be your time”, etc. While many cliches absolutely hold truth that we shouldn’t ignore, it’s important to not let anything overshadow the ultimate truth. This life is temporary and there are many confusing things that we will not understand until we reach The Holy Gates. For now we can relish in God’s infinite, unconditional love for us and find peace in the fact that we will all meet again one day. God’s gift to us is experiencing His infinite love for an eternity.

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. -2 Corinthians 4:18

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