Once again, it is Halloween.
For most, this means grinning Jack-o-Lanterns, candy wrappers, and late-night costume crafting.
For me, by some nearly incomprehensible turn in life,
my body is spending this Halloween week
in the same process it engaged in last Halloween week:
Miscarrying a baby.
This week has lent itself to great reflection. What might these twin experiences mean to me as I move on purposefully, with direction and insight to guide my life? In this trial, can I find a difference - can I seek the better part - between being hollowed and feeling hallowed?
You see, for a year I have felt that the miscarriage hollowed me.
The symbolism of emptiness abounds following a loss like this. The empty nursery, empty time, empty rocking chair, and empty bath tub echoed my physical emptiness: Where a heart had been beating, remained a hollow womb; when my due date arrived, my arms had nothing to gather and hold. The thought often crossed my mind that someone had invaded and robbed me of my greatest treasure.
As I turned for relief to church attendance, I felt spiritually and emotionally empty: In a church that focuses often on 1) The blessings in a woman's life of motherhood and 2) Faith yielding blessings of healing and wholeness, I felt broken in every sense of the word. Like a shattered teapot with a piece subtracted, how could I be both reassembled and whole? Where was I remiss in my faithfulness? Were not my sobbing pleadings in prayer, priesthood blessings, and diligent searchings of scriptures, all on behalf of the high purpose of giving life, of being a co-creater with the divine, consistent with the path I was exhorted to take?
As an ultrasound yesterday confirmed that this difficult journey needs to be traversed yet again, I have recognized that rather than the hollowing, I should choose to see the hallowing, the opportunity "to make pure and holy" that the Lord has offered me for two autumn seasons.
I see the hallowing of myself begin as I accept that my body is not my own, that of it's outcome I have little control. As
Elder Oaks reminded us in General Conference, whosoever shall lose themselves for Christ's sake will find themselves. Pregnancy involves losing oneself - losing your energy, losing your sleep, losing your time, losing your body. In miscarriage, too, I lose possibilities and hopes for the future. But, when I choose to see it as losing myself for Christ's sake, for the sake of all I am to gain in this mortal experience, I find myself in newfound strength and courage, new appreciation for the majesty and mystery of life, and renewed compassion and capacity to aid those suffering around me.
Oaks also quoted C.S. Lewis, who teaches, "The moment you have a self at all, there is a possibility of putting yourself first—wanting to be the center—wanting to be God, in fact."
While on the surface, I focused this past year on the hollowing, in retrospect, all I was truly focusing on was myself, my plans, and my future that was not meant to be. As I embark on this process again, I am reminded that God must be at the helm of my life. Not only will He direct me, but in His grace, He gives me the peace that
"all things shall give [me] experience, and shall work for [my] good," that these miscarriages were not losses of life experience, but additions purposefully placed in my path. As I submit my own will, God will light the better way. In volunteering my plans, He will ennoble a greater purpose.
It is a delicate balance. The very act of my surrender feels like an emptying, the hollowing I fear. And in the absence of my control, I must remain vigilant to prevent fear from filling what I viewed in the past as a void. As I leave that space for the Lord, for Him to fill me with His grace and purpose, I grow to be what He wants me to be. So rather than a hollow space I crave filling with another pregnancy, I know the Lord can make me whole and hallowed with whatever experiences He sees fit to bless me. Though I know that the physical pain will be great, I think of the beautiful insight I gained two weeks ago from this powerful prose I've sung hundreds of times, from "Nearer my God to Thee":
Nearer my God to Thee, Nearer to Thee.
E'en though it be a cross that raiseth me.
It is our personal crosses that raise us heavenward, that minimize the chasm between our ways and God's ways. Though the pain is often great to bear, it acquaints us with the divine -
both that which is directing us and that which is within each of us.
And with that acquaintance, born of the Spirit, I am never truly hollow.
A beautiful knowledge to gain this All Hallow's Eve.
