When Life Does Not Go the Way You Planned
There are seasons in life that do not follow the plan you imagined. For me, one of the most difficult chapters came through years of fertility struggles and multiple miscarriages. I had always pictured motherhood as something that would unfold in a more straightforward way. Instead, I found myself in a cycle of hope, loss, and waiting that I never could have prepared for.
After the first loss, I told myself it was just bad luck. After the second, I started to feel fear. After more losses followed, it became something deeper than disappointment. It became grief that came and went in waves, often without warning.
What made it even harder was how quiet the experience can feel from the outside. Life keeps moving around you, while inside, you are trying to make sense of something that feels both deeply personal and difficult to explain.
Faith That Did Not Always Feel Simple
I grew up in a church where faith felt steady and familiar. It was part of my rhythm and identity. During my hardest seasons, I wanted that same steadiness, but I did not always feel it in a clear way.
There were days when I prayed with hope, and days when I prayed through tears. There were moments when I felt grounded in my faith, and other moments when I felt uncertain and tired.
What I learned over time is that faith does not always look like certainty. Sometimes it looks like showing up anyway. Sometimes it looks like holding on to something small when everything else feels uncertain.
I also learned that faith can hold both gratitude and grief at the same time. I did not have to choose one over the other.
The Weight of Repeated Loss
Miscarriage is not just a medical experience. It is an emotional one, a physical one, and often a deeply isolating one. Each loss carried its own grief, but together they built a weight that was hard to describe to others.
One of the most difficult parts was the sense of hope that would build and then disappear. You allow yourself to imagine a future, and then suddenly you have to let it go.
Over time, I realized that healing did not come in a straight line. It came in pieces. It came in conversations with trusted people. It came in quiet moments of prayer. It came in learning how to live with both sorrow and gratitude in the same heart.
Learning the Power of Presence
One of the most meaningful things I experienced during those years was the presence of people who simply stayed with me. They did not try to fix anything. They did not rush my grief or offer easy answers. They just showed up.
That kind of presence is powerful. It creates space for honesty. It allows someone to feel seen without needing to perform strength.
I began to understand that sometimes the most loving thing you can do for another person is to sit with them in their pain without trying to take it away.
How Suffering Shaped My Ability to Support Others
Later in life, I became a Stephen Minister. That experience gave language and structure to something I had already begun to learn in my own journey.
Stephen Ministry is about offering one to one emotional and spiritual support to people going through difficult seasons. It is not about fixing problems. It is about listening, caring, and being present in a steady way.
My own experiences with loss helped shape how I show up for others. I understood more deeply what it feels like to carry pain that others may not fully see. I understood how important it is not to rush someone through their grief.
When I sit with someone now, I remember what it felt like when others sat with me. That memory keeps me grounded and humble.
The Quiet Strength of Being With Someone
I have learned that people do not always need perfect words. In fact, sometimes words are not enough. What they need most is to know they are not alone.
Being present with someone in a hard season is not always comfortable. It can feel uncertain because you cannot control the outcome or remove the pain. But it is deeply meaningful.
I have sat with people who are grieving, people who are facing illness, and people who are carrying burdens that feel too heavy for one person alone. In those moments, presence becomes a gift.
Moving Forward Without Forgetting
Life eventually moved forward for me in ways I am deeply grateful for, including being a mother. But the experiences of loss are not something I leave behind. They are part of who I am.
They have shaped how I see other people’s pain. They have shaped how I listen. They have shaped how I value small moments of connection and care.
I do not believe hard seasons are something we simply move past. I believe we carry them with us in a way that can deepen our compassion for others.
Closing Thoughts
If I could share one thing from my journey, it would be this. People do not always need answers. They need presence.
They need someone who will sit with them through the uncertainty, the grief, and the waiting without trying to rush them through it.
Faith, for me, has become less about having everything figured out and more about trusting that even in the hardest seasons, we are not alone.