There's just no getting around it. Christmas is hard when you are grieving, and even more so when the loved one you are grieving is a child. So much of the holiday seems focused on children and childhood - and then, of course, there is the fact that a baby is the central character of the whole season - even if it is Jesus. If someone close to you is a bereaved parent, what can you do to support them through the Christmas season? While everyone grieves differently, here are three things that are on the wish list of many bereaved parents this holiday season: 1. They want to be understood. They need to have the freedom to do Christmas the way that is best for them. To skip the parts that hurt a raw heart. To participate and not have people think that coming to the party means they have finally gotten over the loss of their baby. To have their friends and relatives realize how hard this time of year is when your baby is no longer with you. A simple acknowledgement of this, whether spoken or in a note, goes a long way. 2. They want to know their baby is not forgotten. And if they have named their baby, they want to hear their baby's name, or to see it in writing. You never realize how much you take names for granted until you have a child whose name has no reason to be said. "I'm thinking of you and remembering _____ this year" is a wonderful gift to a bereaved parent, as is a Christmas ornament or another kind of memorial to remember a baby born to Heaven. 3. They want to know their baby's life had a purpose. If your friend's experience helped you in any way to appreciate life in a new way, or to give to others, tell them. Give to a charity in the name of your friend's baby, or just tell them what their experience has meant to you. Let them know that God has used their baby to inspire something good in you. Don't be afraid to reach out to your friend this Christmas season. It will make a world of difference. If you are a bereaved parent, what is on your wish list?
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Christmas is just one week away. For some of you, it is one in a never-ending string of "firsts" this year. First hour without your baby. First day. First week. First summer. First fall. First Thanksgiving. First Christmas. Everything is raw this year, including this holiday. For others of you, it's more familiar territory. You've done Christmas without your baby at least once. It "should" be easier this year. But while the raw pain has scabbed over, the dull ache is still there, and sometimes the scab is bumped or even ripped off and it's like no time has passed at all. And suddenly Christmas is, again, a day and a season to get through so we can move on to regular life with fewer triggers for the grief. There are many websites out there with excellent advice on getting through the holidays. Allow me to share a few thoughts as well, as I approach my fifth Christmas since beginning the journey of pregnancy loss, of ways to make this Christmas special. Adjust your expectations. Maybe all you can do this year is get through it. Survive. That's okay. But maybe you can do a few things. If not the tree, a string of lights. If not the Christmas Eve service, playing Christmas instrumental music in your home. If not the outside decorations, a single candle. You don't have to figure out your new normal yet. Just do what you can, when you can. Do something in honor of your baby. Make an ornament. Buy a stocking. Donate to the Angel Tree or Toys for Tots, something for a child the age your baby would have been this year. Or donate to a ministry that is reaching out to other hurting parents. Let your baby's life inspire you, whether in creating something beautiful, or blessing the life of another child or another parent who has lost a child. Talk about your baby. If you can't do it with family or friends, find a place where you can. A support group. An online forum. In the comments below. In a journal or on a blog. With your spouse. With God. You're allowed to talk about your baby. Feel. Don't be afraid of your emotions. The best way through grief sometimes is to realize what you are feelings and to ride that wave all the way. Tears have a purpose in our healing. What's more, they are valuable to God. Reflect on the cross. It may seem strange at Christmas, but the baby in the manger would mean nothing without the cross of Calvary and the empty grave. Victory over death. If the image of a baby threatens your emotions and your heart, focus on the cross instead, and the gifts of peace and life that Jesus came to bring. I pray that this Christmas would be a special time for you, to reflect on your baby's life and the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. Have a blessed Christmas. What has helped you get through Christmas?"But the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.' " Luke 2:10-11 When we said good-bye to our babies, we experienced a grief and sorrow unlike any we had known. At times we felt like we were drowning in it. It felt like we would never be happy again. Indeed, it sometimes felt like being happy, or smiling, or laughing would be a betrayal of our children in Heaven, as if we had forgotten them. But the Scriptures seem to make a distinction between happiness and joy. Happiness seems to be dependent on our circumstances and the things that happen to us. Joy, however, is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. It is a natural quality of our lives when we trust Christ and abide in Him. In lighting the third Advent candle, we declare by faith that joy is possible on this journey. We choose by faith to believe that there are many things to be joyful for, especially the coming of our Savior to rescue us from sin and sorrow, and that deep joy and deep sadness are not mutually exclusive, nor does sorrow indicate a lack of faith, but rather, a depth of love. God, fill our hearts with your joy this Advent season. Help us to trust you in our sorrow and not to be hard on ourselves when the joy, and even happiness, bubbles out. Thank you for the gift of the Holy Spirit, who grows joy in our hearts as we abide in you. Amen. Follow these links for other titles in this series: Week 1 - hope Week 2 - love Week 3 - joy Week 4 - peace Our Mommy to Mommy Outreach continues to have an impact in local hospitals. Tuesday, December 3, Rachel Raper and Sarah Hackett made more deliveries of Brie Bags and Embracing Evan bears at Palmetto Baptist and Palmetto Richland Hospitals. This time, they were joined by fellow Naomi's Circle member Alexa Bigwarfe who was donating copies of the book Sunshine After the Storm: A Survival Guide for the Grieving Mother. This fall, Alexa spearheaded a collaborative effort of more than thirty mothers and several fathers who compiled their experiences into this collection of stories and "survival tips" for parents unexpectedly thrust onto the road of pregnancy, infant, and child loss. Five members of Naomi's Circle are featured - Alexa, Sarah, and Rachel, along with Naomi's Circle founder Kristi Bothur and her husband Eric. With the Foreword written by infant loss expert Sherokee Ilse of Babies Remembered, the book released during Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness month in October and immediately shot up to the #1 place on Amazon in the "Motherhood" category. Help is needed with both of these outreaches - Mommy to Mommy needs funds to pay for books and bears for the Brie Bags, and Alexa is now raising the funds to donate Sunshine After the Storm to hospitals and support groups across the country. To help with Mommy to Mommy outreach, see our "I Want to Help" page, and to assist with donations of Sunshine After the Storm, visit the Sunshine After the Storm website at http://sunshineafterstorm.us/. Romans 5:8 "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." 1 John 3:16 "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters." When we said goodbye to our babies, most of us at some point asked why. Why did my baby die? We ask it on two levels - physical and spiritual. We want to know what went wrong physically. And we want to know why God didn't stop it. Fully fleshed out, many of us want to know, "If God loves me, why would He let me hurt like this?" The question itself reveals a fundamental belief about love - that the truest expression of love is the protection of the object of that love. When we find ourselves hurting, we begin to distrust the one who supposedly loves us. What if that belief is wrong? What if the truest expression of love is not in what one is protected from, but in what one sacrifices for the beloved? Over and over again in Scripture, we are told that while God's love is shown in many ways through His care and provision for us, the truest expression of His love is found in one place - the cross of Calvary, where the Son of God laid down His life for us. An act of love that began with the Incarnation, God taking on human flesh - the story of Christmas. In lighting the second candle of Advent, we recognize by faith that the greatest expression of God's love is not in how well he protects us from earthly harm, but in how far He went to bring us back to Himself - sending Jesus from the splendor of Heaven to the squalor of Earth, to be born into poverty, raised in obscurity, to die in humility, and to be resurrected in glory. We choose by faith to believe that God does love us, regardless of how our circumstances make us feel. God, fill our hearts with your love this Advent. We are hurting, and you could have kept us from it, and so it is easy to doubt your love. But help us lift our eyes from our painful circumstances long enough to set them on the cross. Assure us of your love so that, in that knowledge, we can face our circumstances with renewed strength and faith in You, especially in this Christmas season. Amen. Follow these links for other titles in this series: Week 1 - hope Week 2 - love Week 3 - joy Week 4 - peace 2 Corinthians 1:8-10 "We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. On him we have set our hope..." 1 Peter 1:3 "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through thine resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead..." When we said goodbye to our babies, we also entered a season of suffering far beyond our ability to endure. We also despaired of life and felt the sentence of death in our hearts. For a time, at least, we felt hopeless. We may still feel that way, unable to see the good our future holds. In lighting the first candle of Advent, however, we declare by faith (because it is so hard to see) that our hope is not in our children or other loved ones or any other circumstances. Our hope is in God - not in what He can or might do for us, but in God himself. Because he is good. Because he is love. And because the baby Jesus grew up to die for our sins and to be resurrected from the dead - something our circumstances can never change. God, fill our hearts with hope this Advent season - hope in our painful memories, hope in our present longings, and hope in the uncertainties of tomorrow. Help us put our hope in you, no matter what. Amen. Follow these links for other titles in this series: Week 1 - hope Week 2 - love Week 3 - joy Week 4 - peace Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and for many, it is the first "first" of the holiday season. The first Thanksgiving without your baby. Maybe this was supposed to be your baby's first Thanksgiving. Maybe you should still be pregnant. Maybe your baby was with you last Thanksgiving, but isn't now. Whatever your situation, Thanksgiving may seem impossible this year. Not only the being with family and being acutely aware of the number of seats around the table, but the whole point of Thanks-giving. When your guttural cry is, "What is there to be thankful for?" but you don't want to ask the question because some well-meaning acquaintance is going to start listing things that you know are blessings and that you "should" be thankful for, but face it - they aren't your baby. When writers and preachers remind us that we are not commanded to give thanks "for" all things, but "in" all things (1 Thessalonians 5:19), because that should make it easier since you don't have to be thankful your baby is gone, just find something to be thankful for within it. Only even that doesn't always work. So today, I want to point you to a different command, five verses earlier in 1 Thessalonians 5:14: "And we urge you, brothers and sisters...encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone." This Thanksgiving, that may describe you. Disheartened. Weak. In need of patience from others...and yourself. If giving thanks is hard this year, that's okay. If praying is hard this year, that's okay. If "celebrating" anything is hard this year, that's okay. There will be other Thanksgivings, other holidays, when both time and the healing work of God has eased the pain that threatens to rip you apart right now. (It will get easier, I promise!). But this year, be gentle with yourself. Be patient. Do what you can, and don't have over-the-top expectations of how you "should" feel. Because while it is God's will for us to give thanks, He also has a heart for the disheartened and the weak. He is close to the brokenhearted and those who are "crushed in spirit" (Psalm 34:18), and if all you can do this Thanksgiving is breathe and let Him sustain you and be your strength, that's okay. Because leaning on Him for strength when you have no strength of your own is worship, too. As we approach Thanksgiving, we would like to say a public "Thank you!" to some of those organizations who have been partnering with us in this ministry. Today our thank you is to Spring Valley Baptist Church of Columbia, SC, which hosts our monthly Naomi's Circle Pregnancy Loss support group. This includes providing childcare, which allows many to attend who might not otherwise be able to. In addition to that, SVBC has been helping us financially for several years, allowing us to build our lending library, acquire books to give to parents, print brochures and books, and maintain our presence on the Web so that parents can find us and, through us, the support and resources they need. Most importantly, they pray for us and the parents touched by this ministry. Thank you, Spring Valley Baptist Church, for standing with parents of babies in Heaven and being God's hands on Earth to us! Are you thinking of year-end giving? We would love for you to consider Naomi's Circle. The main financial need we have is funding for our Mommy to Mommy Outreach, providing fifteen Brie Bags per month to three Columbia-area hospitals (Palmetto Baptist, Palmetto Richland, and Lexington Medical Center) and preparing to provide Hope Bags to local obstetrician offices, beginning in 2014. Every three months, we make purchases for the next quarter's Brie Bags. Our biggest expenses are the Embracing Evan bears (approximately $8 each) and the book Empty Cradle, Full Heart (including shipping, also about $7 each, which the publisher Loyola Press gives us at a discount). We also purchase fabric for the bags, diapers, and hats and we purchase Jenga-style blocks (usually at consignment stores) for our Hope Bag memorial key chains. Our ongoing quarterly M2M Outreach expenses come to about $300 every three months. Would you be willing to help? Because we operate as a ministry under the umbrella of Spring Valley Baptist Church, donations to Naomi's Circle through the church are tax-deductible. See our Donations page for more information about how to give online through Spring Valley Baptist Church. If you would like to invite us to share with your church or civic organization about our ministry, or if you would like to give of your time and crafting skills for this ministry, please contact us through our M2M page or via e-mail (naomiscircle@gmail.com). Naomi's Circle has a new outreach that we want to share with you called "Wrap Your Rainbow". Frequently, a baby born after a loss is called a rainbow baby. We have acquired several rainbow-colored woven wraps of various sizes that we want to share with local Columbia-area moms (and dads) of rainbow babies. Details are on our WYR page, but the main idea is that every two to three months, we will open our website to requests. If there is more than one request, then we will have a drawing, and the winner will be loaned a woven wrap for the next year, at which time she (or he) will need to return the wrap to us, to be passed along for the next Rainbow Baby. Please feel free to share this with others locally! We hope it will be a special way to encourage parents of rainbow babies and also a way for people to be introduced to babywearing. Our current "window" for requests will be open until November 14. |
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