Proverbs 31 for Pregnancy Loss

I have a love-hate relationship with the Proverbs 31 woman.  You know her – the model wife who seems to have it all together, the Superwoman of the Old Testament who takes care of everything and everyone and is praised by her husband and children at the end of the day.  I love the example – but I also hate her perfection.  What would she do if she were thrust into twenty-first century America, I wonder!

As a mother of children in heaven, I have struggled with her example, too.  Losing a child in pregnancy not only sets a woman on a painful road of grief, but it also is an awful blow to her view of herself as a woman.  I’ve lost three children in pregnancy.  In the place where they should have been the safest, my womb, my body failed them, and me.   What could I offer, if as a mother, I could not protect the most helpless of my children?

Reading Proverbs 31 again, though, showed me not a perfect woman, but a list of priorities that I could use to help navigate the waters of loss, and they focused on some key areas that I believe are potentially hazardous to women who have suffered this unique devastation.  This Mother's Day, a day that may hold much pain for you, I want to invite you into her world to see what she can offer us in our journey.

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