Where Do I Find My Hope?

I had a feeling very early on that I would never hold this baby. I prayed over and over that I was wrong. Then at ten weeks pregnant, I found myself doubled over in pain and bleeding. My prayers had not been answered, and we lost the baby. I carried around so much guilt for months. I blamed myself as if my instincts had somehow "jinxed" me. I also was very nervous when we first found out I was pregnant because our son was only 9 months old and I worried about things like having a repeat c-section, buying diapers for 2 young children, and my weight. By the time I gave that all to God, our baby was gone. I didn't just blame myself, but I blamed God. See, I had a thing or two to learn about God. Just because I prayed endlessly, didn't mean that He would answer my prayer. His reasons are perfect, but that doesn't mean it won't hurt. It took a while, but I stopped blaming God, and myself, and I moved forward with my life. I began to trust Him like never before. He had placed something within me...Hope. Hope that we will hold our baby girl someday in Heaven. And hope that He would bless us with another baby we could hold here on Earth.

Our baby's birthday would have been around September 28, 2007. We decided to do honor our child, whom we named Sara, by planting a tree in our backyard. My husband and I do not have green thumbs, and relatively no knowledge of how to plant and maintain a tree. But we went out and bought a flowering crab apple tree (because I wanted to see our tree with pink little flowers on it every Spring), and planted it in our backyard. Looking out our kitchen window at the tree brought so much peace. By the end of October, the leaves had fallen to the ground. We tied a single red ribbon around the thin trunk at Christmas time. As Spring approached, I had so much anticipation of seeing our tree sprout little buds, and eventually beautiful pink flowers would open. As the days came and went, the tree did nothing. Spring came and went. Summer passed us by...and still nothing from our little tree. On what would have been our daughter's 1st birthday, I looked out the kitchen window at our tree, which was pretty obviously dead. My heart grieved once again. It was just a tree to some, but it was so much more for us. And once again, I felt like I had failed. A friend of our family that knows a lot about trees came over and took a look at the tree. She confirmed what we had feared. So with disappointment, we considered digging up the tree before the ground froze, and we'd plant a new tree the next Spring. But I think we both were resistant to get rid of the original tree we had planted in honor of the child we lost. But did we really want to stare out our window at a dead tree year in and year out?



The following Spring we talked about planting a new tree, with help from someone that knows more about planting trees. But before we could do that, God send us a surprise. Our little tree was full of little buds! And soon those buds turned into small pink flowers. We were overjoyed! One day after mowing the lawn, my husband came in and said, "Anyone that doesn't believe in miracles needs to look in our backyard!" I told him that's true, and I added that God really wanted to use our tree as a sign of hope. We had lost hope that the tree would survive. But it did! And it thrives...the tree is at least a foot and a half taller and this year it got its first crab apples!



So far, we have not been blessed with another child. The seasons have come and gone, the years have passed us by, but the hope we have remains.


Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.
1 Peter 3:15