I had a dream last week…not a bad dream, but waking up to the devastating truth that it was not real brought back all my first feelings of sorrow and grief of having lost my baby.  I dreamed that I was having a baby and woke up just as I was about to deliver.  And even though there were silly, nonsensical happenings in the dream, it felt utterly real – so real that I was completely dazed when I woke up.  But then the weight of reality hit me like a hammer:  It’s not real.  I no longer have a baby.  I lost her.  And I heard again the words that the doctor had spoken to me, “Amanda, there’s no heartbeat.”  I immediately got an aching tightness in my chest and it was hard to breathe, and I thought that I was going to burst with sobbing so I quickly got out of bed and went downstairs.  All I could think was, “Why, God, would you let me dream that?”  And as I sat there with my cries trapped in deep in my chest, and feeling like letting go and giving up, I heard the words of a Jon Thurlow song:

I look into Your eyes of mercy, I look into Your eyes of love

I remember that Your heart is for me

I’m holding on to Your divine love

I’m holding on and I’m not letting go

It’s not my zeal; it’s that Your love is strong

It’s not my strength; it’s that You’re faithful

It’s not so much that I’m holding on, but that I’m being held on to.  And just when my heart would faint, He is here with His rod and His staff and comforts me.  He is with me in the night, in the valley of weeping, turning it all to joy.  He doesn’t just give me mercy; He is Mercy.  He is Joy, and He is Love, and alive in me.  When I can’t find strength, strength finds me.  And “I’m holding on to the love that has laid hold of me.”

As in the words of Laura Hackett’s song, You Satisfy My Soul:

You make my heart sing

You lift me on eagles wings

Just when I thought that my heart would faint

You take the darkest night

And turn it to shining light

Just when I thought that the night had won