An Adventure in Ministry

  This week is Babyloss awareness week where many mums and dads remember their precious babies and reflect on their babyloss experience. Last week I had the absolute privilege to speak at our local baby loss awareness week remembrance service and it was such a special experience.  Six months ago, after 12 years of infertility, we discovered we were miraculously pregnant! Unfortunately a few weeks later we lost our precious and much loved child in a tragic and pretty traumatic way. It was the darkest time of my life, but through this time I learned a lot about grief, about myself and about God. This week seems a perfect time to share some of the lessons I learnt while walking through loss and I pray that it might be useful to someone else as they navigate grief. Don’t grieve alone When we found out we were pregnant, we shared our news with the world pretty quickly. While some people didn’t understand our choice to share so early on, it was the best thing we could ever do, as w...

  I have been thinking for some time about sharing a little bit about what has been going on in my life over the last couple of months. Some of you will know that it has been a roller coaster ride with the highest of highs and the lowest of lows.  Over the last 12 years my husband and I have been walking through infertility, being diagnosed with unexplained infertility after tests 11 years ago. Through this time I have experienced great pain and grief, but also great blessings and joy. I have learned so much about God, who he is and who I am in him. God also led us to adopt and 7 years ago  We brought our beautiful daughter home.  In the years that have followed we have prayed for and believed that God would do a miracle and I would get pregnant naturally, and recently my prayers were answered! It took 5 tests for it to sink in! We praised the Lord and continued to pray for a happy, healthy and non-descript pregnancy.  However, on my 40th birthday I began to not...

I have to make a confession…this year I have really struggled with mothers day. In the past few years I have been really active in helping others who struggle with the day, creating resources to be used by leaders in The Salvation Army, organising alternative mothers day services for those who find it hard, and praying with and for women in the support group I ran for christians walking through infertility. Most years I lead our church services on mother’s day, however this year I have to admit I would much rather lie in bed under a duvet than celebrate! Mothers day is full of complicated feelings. I am so blessed to have an amazing mum who is always there for me and a great example of what an amazing mum should be! However I always battle the feeling of only being ‘half a mum’ I have three beautiful daughters who I love deeply, however they have a mum who loves them, and I have seen the conflict in them in mother’s days past. I have the most beautiful little girl who came home five ye...

This week is baby loss awareness week. It is a time when we remember all the precious lives that are no longer with us and encourage men and women to talk about their experiences. It is a time to remember, grieve and seek comfort. While this has not been my own personal experience, having journeyed through infertility for over 10 years and through my ministry working with women walking through infertility and baby loss, I have supported lots of people through the grief and pain that is experienced. This year I have had the immense privilege of being asked to speak at the town’s annual baby loss service and to help put together an evening that will help people to remember their loved ones and grieve their loss.  As I sat thinking about and preparing for the service, I was considering the comfort that God brings to us in our grief. One of the pictures painted in the bible about God’s comfort is the idea of us sheltering under his wings. This is something that I often come back to whe...

One of the most interesting lessons I have learnt in my 5+ years of infertility was about lament. Up until I experienced the sorrow of infertility, lament had been something I had not really paid much attention to. I thought that David in the psalms was a bit of a moaner and I had never really opened the book of Lamentations. But when I discovered lament, I found a whole new way to worship God and exercise my faith. So what is lament? In simplicity it is a prayer to God for help and it comes out of a place of intense pain and suffering.  In my opinion it seems to be a forgotten form of worship, with Christians often believing that by acknowledging pain and hurt they are somehow being a bad Christian. However lament has a string biblical presence. Over 1/3 of the psalms are psalm of lament, many of the prophets lamented, (especially Jeremiah) and Job lamented over his situation. There is even a book of lament aptly named Lamentations. Interestingly Jesus too had moments of ...