He Remembers the Barren

After weeks of hibernation-like tendencies, I'm beginning to emerge from the cloud of first trimester-symptom-dom just as the trees and flowers outside are erupting with color and growth. We--all of us Olson's--have been very thankful, despite my fatigue and never-ending nausea (a first with this pregnancy), that we--Mama and Baby--have been blessed with good health. Our first trimester still has a few weeks to go (see countdown to the right), but we thank God that He has written in His book all the days numbered for this child's life, however many they may be, as many as they are (Psalm 139:16).

On April 27, our family marked the six year anniversary of the miscarriage of our first child. I can hardly believe it's been that long. It took Papa and I years to process our child's brief life (six short weeks) and our grief, not that we understand even now all of what happened. Only God can give us that, once we see clearly with Him, and our child, in heaven. We waited for three years after we lost our child before God blessed us with P, then S, now Baby. Lately I've been thinking a lot about our first child, not least because we found out a week before the anniversary that I was only six weeks along. We had thought we were much more advanced in the pregnancy, and all of sudden I struggled with a terror I could hardly verbalize that we were going to lose this child just like we lost the first, around the same date on the calendar. I felt so ashamed of this feeling, this superstition, that I almost didn't tell Papa. But I did. And he hugged me, reminded me of all the differences between that pregnancy and this one, and that--most importantly--God holds and cares for this child, just as He holds, cares for, and keeps all of our children.

I am so thankful for the lives of our children. I know we will--well, and already have--live to see P and S suffer. We may even live to see P or S or Baby die. Yet we are glad, knowing that Jesus Christ "did once upon the cross/ suffer to redeem our loss" (LSB 457 Jesus Christ Is Risen Today:1). He died so that we, and our children, might live forever. Trusting in His mercy, in the gift of faith in their baptisms, and in the gift of faith that comes by hearing His word and receiving Him in His Holy Supper, we look forward to the endless day of eternal bliss with Christ where there are no more tears. Forever and ever, amen.

With this in mind, I want to give great thanks to Kristi L. for the link to this new blog, He Remembers the Barren. This is a much-needed resource for all women suffering with the crosses of infertility, miscarriage, and barrenness--all words we don't like to hear, all topics we don't like to encounter, all realities that many, many suffer with. Please keep all barren, infertile, and suffering women in your prayers, that they might be comforted by Christ as they traverse this broken earth.