Catholic Comfort

In the past few weeks there have been a few things I've pondered and mostly they surround the Almighty God and what part He played in my miscarriage.

When I first began to feel like something was WRONG I called a friend who is a pediatric nurse. "Stop doing whatever you're doing. Get off your feet and put them up. Call your doctor or the ED. And pray to Mother Mary!" was her advice.
I did all of these things. And I prayed and prayed to the Blessed Virgin. Surely she would understand how horrible it would be to fear for the life of your child. Surely she would intercede for me to her Son and things would happen. Surely.
And I called on my old friend St. Elizabeth, my confirmation saint and mother of John the Baptist. She too would understand my fear of losing a child and having an empty womb.
And at adoration that night I implored our Eucharistic Lord to give me my child, to not take him from me, to not do this to me. And I hoped that, like Hannah, God would hear my prayer and would give me a child. I had seen Him do it before; surely He would do it again.
And surely He did not.
I am not mad at my Lord. Nor am I all the saints and angels I called on to pray for me. I do not feel forsaken by the Almighty, nor bitter towards Him. My guess is that while I was praying for a life, everyone else was praying for strength and grace.

A few other things:

I read recently from C.S. Lewis this: "You do not have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body."
This is another reassuring reminder of our Creed. My child is not dead. And just like all the saints, he is living life fully.

Throughout this I have often felt scared and unsure. Unprepared, alone, misunderstood and lost. And I wonder if this is how Joan of Arc felt. Going before the king, leading the French army in battle and being tried and condemned for being a heretic are not the same as suffering a miscarriage, but I do think the feelings may have been the same.

I also wonder if Elizabeth, who did not have John until she was an old woman, had miscarried herself. I wonder if now she is surrounded by a family, much bigger than she ever knew. And I wonder if she would have grieved for the child she thought she could never have. I feel that she, Mary and Joan have given me much strength these weeks.

And finally, the other night while driving I suddenly remembered something a priest told me once. Mother Teresa had said this to him many years ago in a letter: "Jesus must really love you, because you will suffer." For the first time in the 4 years since he said that to me I finally understand and appreciate it. It brings me comfort and I feel closer to Heaven than I ever have before.