'Who You Are'

I discovered this song the other day. It is by JJ Heller, whose songs "Your Hands" and "What Love Really Means" spoke to my heart so deeply as I was pregnant with, and then mourning, our son Benedict just over five years ago. (We lost Benny at twenty-one week's gestation.)

"Who You Are" made me cry. But it also brought me great peace.

The song focuses on two people with great losses in their lives--a woman who hasn't been able to have a child, and a man whose daughter died. Heller sings,

"She says, 'I don't know what You're doing . . . But I know Who You are."

Sometimes life doesn't make any sense, full of war and pain and accidents. He's praying 'I don't know . . . what You're doing, but I know Who You are."

"You have a Father's heart, and a love that's wild. And You know what it's like to lose . . . a child."

And I just have to respond by saying, Yes. This.

Heller perfectly describes what is in my heart right now. The ache, and the why. But also the trust.

I don't know what God is doing. And losing my unborn daughter hurts. A lot.

But I know God is good. And I know He loves me. He cherishes me, and He wants me to be whole.

He has always provided for every one of my needs, and He will continue to do so.

It is not easy to walk with this pain in my heart. And with hormones that have been going crazy in my body. It is not easy to care for five children who are sad, hurt, confused, and angry, when I have had a decent amount of those emotions myself at times.

But I know Who God Is. And I trust Him.

I don't need to know the answers. He does.

At first, there may seem to be more pain in walking this way--in placing the hopes and heartbreak and questions into God's hands and waiting for Him to provide, if not an answer to the question of "Why?" at least some guidance to the question of "How do I move forward from this?"

It seems perhaps more painful at first, than trying to find something to bury our pain underneath, or some kind of busyness to help us push it aside, but I think the only way to find true healing and peace is to simply keep turning to God in each moment. It likely will take longer than we would like, but yes, He will redeem our suffering. If we allow Him, hopefully He will redeem us along the way as well.

He will lead us, step by step. He does lead us.

I found myself placing my trust in God's hands in a similar way after my son Luke's terrible accident in 2007. I had run him over with our van, and as I held him crying, "I need you, Luke," it seemed God asked me if that was true. Could I not survive without my son?

God's great mercy enabled me to recall how He had already walked with me through so many trials. I knew without a doubt He would continue to do so in the future, and I entrusted both my precious son and myself into His hands.

How can I not do the same with my dear Gianna Cecilia? Luke is still with us (May I continue to praise God every day for the gift of that miracle and my son's life!), and Gianna is not, but aren't they both His children?

As I read one woman say in the Magnificat on March 12, just two days before learning our daughter had died, "I know she doesn't belong to me; she belongs to Another who loves her even more than I." ("Loved by Another," Kimberly Shankman, p.178)

We went into the recent Triduum (the days just before Easter) with a lot of grief in our hearts. I wanted to feel something meaningful on Good Friday, some kind of closeness with our Lord and all He suffered that day.

But I didn't. Instead, I laid on the couch with a low-grade fever and felt numb.

With the reasoning I could do, though, I was able to remind myself that this was the day He died for us so that we could live with Him. This is the day (and Easter, when He rose) from whence springs the hope I have of seeing my daughter (and son, and the two other children we've lost to miscarriage) again one day, in heaven.

As I tried to explain to one of my sons recently. our time without Gianna here is so short compared to the time we will have with her in eternity. That doesn't take away the pain now, but it does give me hope.

Jesus' tremendous gift on the Cross is the reason I can lay in bed and pray each morning that our Blessed Mother will give Gianna a kiss for me before I start my day. His gift is the reason I truly have a reason to believe with all I am that my prayer is being heard--and that my generous Mother is happy to oblige.