Finding Comfort In Times of Loss

hope I get a sister this time,” my 9-year son Joseph said while rubbing on my growing belly.  He had become so attached to me since the discovery of our fourth pregnancy, and was excited about the possibility of finally getting the baby sister he’d hoped for during my previous two pregnancies.

Every day he’d kiss my baby bump and say, “Hey, little sister!”  It was the sweetest thing to me.  My husband Jeremy and I joined him in his excitement and were thinking pink too.  No one could convince me that we weren’t getting our daughter this time.

“God promised us a daughter,” I’d say with confidence, “and this one is definitely a girl.”

 I wasn’t waiting for a sonogram to tell me what I already believed in my heart.  We were having a girl this time around, and her name and the color scheme for her room were already decided.  Finally I’d have some estrogen added to my testosterone-filled home, and after years of football, wresting, and Tonka trucks, I couldn’t have been more excited about all of the girl-time and tea parties my mini-me and I would have.

I was so in love with our daughter-to-be, and eagerly anticipated the day when I’d share all of the Dear Future Daughter affirmations and prayers I’d daily write in a special journal for her. 

My dream of having a sweet princess was finally coming true.  Or so I thought.  It turned out that we weren’t having the little girl we hoped for.  In fact, we weren’t having a baby at all.

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God’s got a Message Just for You

stared at an old picture I had taken of us in a happy moment and brushed away tears. I had just broken up with the man I thought would marry me. We were engaged for two months after being together for three years. We were happy (at least I thought so) and headed toward the altar. Everyone in my family was giddy and excited about me becoming a missus... finally.

In my late 30s I had waved the single life goodbye and was grinning from ear-to-ear thinking about how I was only 3 months away from a totally new existence.

This was it, I thought. I had discovered my Boaz and we were well on our way to living happily ever after. But I received a devastating phone call one Saturday afternoon.

“I can’t do this,” my fiancé’s voice said.

I followed up with a question: “Do what? What can’t you do honey?” I thought he was having a bad day, you know, or possibly wanting to find a new job since he had been talking about feeling unfulfilled at work. But I was way off.

“I can’t get married Evie,” he mumbled.

I don’t know why it felt like he yelled it, but the sound of those words just kept reverberating:  “I’m sorry. I love you but I’m not ready.”

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His Help Is Waiting: God Will Take Care of You

Guest Contributor Denice Barr, EEW Magazine

You’re a winner. You’re amazing. You’re smart, capable and talented. You are special and you can be anything you want to be. You can do it!

I hadn’t heard those words in a while. I was the new kid at my school after going to live with my aunt once my parents were killed in a car crash. My father was a drunk and had been all my life. He was verbally, mentally, emotionally, and physically abusive to both me and my mom, but especially my mother.

She was my She-ro. She always told me how beautiful and capable I was before her life was cut off.

One night, twenty –eight years ago, my dad got behind the wheel of the car after having too much to drink and lost control of the vehicle. My mother died instantly. My dad died of internal bleeding the next day in the hospital.

Before that tragic crash changed my life forever, about every other night at home, I would bury my head under the covers. I tried to hide from the yelling and dull thuds of mom’s body being slammed into the wall repeatedly.

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