Welcome to episode 15!
As we sit down to share our journey through the heartache of miscarriage, my co-host Chris and I understand the profound spiritual crisis such a loss can ignite. Struggling with doubts and grief, we explore the turbulence in our faith, the questions that haunt us, and the stories that bind us together in our collective search for understanding. We've walked through the fire of losing what we held most dear and come out on the other side with a need to speak on the often-silenced sorrow that shrouds the topic within church halls.
Throughout the discussion, we peel back the layers of theological concepts that can seem like a lifeline but may also feel like salt in an open wound during times of crisis. Confronting the paradox of a compassionate deity overseeing a world filled with such personal tragedies, we engage in raw, unfiltered conversations about the nature of God's plan and our place within it. These dialogues serve not only as a catharsis but also as a bridge to connect with others who've faced similar trials, creating a sanctuary of empathy and shared understanding.
The series concludes with a reflection on the arduous path of grief and the tentative steps toward recovery after miscarriage. We extend a heartfelt thank you to our listeners for joining us on this deeply personal expedition. In solidarity, we offer comfort to others walking this road and reaffirm the significance of community support, the relief in knowing you are not journeying alone, and the courage it takes to share your own story.
Thank you for tuning in to find solace, gain understanding, and embark on your healing journey with us!
Sincerely,
Kelly & Chris
Follow on IG @themiscarriagedad
Email themiscarriagedad@gmail.com
Make sure you subscribe!
Write us a review!
Welcome to episode 15!
As we sit down to share our journey through the heartache of miscarriage, my co-host Chris and I understand the profound spiritual crisis such a loss can ignite. Struggling with doubts and grief, we explore the turbulence in our faith, the questions that haunt us, and the stories that bind us together in our collective search for understanding. We've walked through the fire of losing what we held most dear and come out on the other side with a need to speak on the often-silenced sorrow that shrouds the topic within church halls.
Throughout the discussion, we peel back the layers of theological concepts that can seem like a lifeline but may also feel like salt in an open wound during times of crisis. Confronting the paradox of a compassionate deity overseeing a world filled with such personal tragedies, we engage in raw, unfiltered conversations about the nature of God's plan and our place within it. These dialogues serve not only as a catharsis but also as a bridge to connect with others who've faced similar trials, creating a sanctuary of empathy and shared understanding.
The series concludes with a reflection on the arduous path of grief and the tentative steps toward recovery after miscarriage. We extend a heartfelt thank you to our listeners for joining us on this deeply personal expedition. In solidarity, we offer comfort to others walking this road and reaffirm the significance of community support, the relief in knowing you are not journeying alone, and the courage it takes to share your own story.
Thank you for tuning in to find solace, gain understanding, and embark on your healing journey with us!
Sincerely,
Kelly & Chris
Follow on IG @themiscarriagedad
Email themiscarriagedad@gmail.com
Make sure you subscribe!
Write us a review!
There was no victory. In fact, it wasn't just a loss. It was a loss plus wasted time, plus something that for me felt like it was a secret being held back for me. So I lost trust because I've been told for my entire life that as long as I pray and ask these things, that God will keep everything fine.
Speaker 2:Thank you for tuning into this episode of the Miss Carriage Dads podcast. My name is Kelly and I'm your host. My name is Chris and I am your co-host. Once again, we are so thankful and we are so delighted that you have decided to tune in to listen to this podcast and to engage with the conversations that Chris and I and our guests have been happening. So, chris, brother, how have you been processing, especially the last conversation that we had last week with our guests from the UK?
Speaker 1:Again, it's one of those things where, when you hear other people's stories and you hear the things that they themselves have gone through, it is sobering, sobering, but also you never want to say it's nice in these kinds of situations, right, because you never want anyone to go through this, but it is also nice to know that there are people that have gone through it and they themselves are trying to process it. It makes you feel like you're not alone. It makes you feel like there is some kind of support that's out there. I also think it kind of makes you feel a bit more empowered in terms of sharing your story, because you never know who has had that same kind of situation. And, of course, my situation, of course, is not the same. It's not. It wasn't on her level, it wasn't on your level but at the same time, knowing that I could tell you and you will be able to understand.
Speaker 2:So, again, we like to say this at the forefront of our conversations and also on the back end of it we want to hear your stories, we want to engage with your experience. If you feel comfortable sharing your experience with us, we would love to have you on the show and talk to you and give you this platform, make it available to you for you to process and not just process but also share aspects of your story that can be helpful to somebody else. So feel free to send us an email at themiscarriagedadcom or you can find us on Instagram at themiscarriagedads, on Instagram. The conversation that we're going to have today, chris, is a conversation that is going to be a part of a larger series. Once we finish with this one, I think we're coming to the end of this one, but we've had several iterations of this conversation throughout the earlier episodes where we spoke into other guests and even when sharing our story. And it's this aspect of whether you consider yourself a religious person or non-religious person, or you consider yourself a spiritual person and not necessarily tied to any particular religious affiliation, if you're open at all to any sense of the other, any sense of all in wonder and just something outside of yourself or someone outside of yourself. I think, broadly speaking, that's sort of how we would describe someone who is spiritual in that sense. Right, the process of trying to bring a life into this world in and of itself is a deeply spiritual process. I don't know what your thoughts are about that, but I believe that it is a deeply spiritual process, and so for the moments, like your experience and my experience and the experience of so many others, where that pregnancy doesn't go to its full fruition, there is a lot of spiritual distress that both parties carry. And so, because we focus here on our experiences as dads, this is the type of conversation that we're going to have today, exploring what loss does to us from a spiritual perspective and the impact that your miscarriage, my miscarriages, had on us in terms of our spirituality. I think we've shared this openly on the podcast.
Speaker 2:Both you and I, we come from a similar background in terms of religious affiliation. In fact, we met in seminary, so you know how I mean Can't get much closer than that. You said it bluntly in last episode you're a pastor, I work as a chaplain or spiritual care provider in a hospital pediatric hospital setting, so we're constantly in this space of thinking about the divine, the other, the transcendent, and our relationship to that, and how to make meaning of our lives and our experiences when it comes to that. And I can tell you, when I was experiencing the losses that I was experiencing, those were some of the loudest questions I was asking myself internally, and there were also some of the questions that came from some of the deepest parts of my inner being, and the level of the stress that I started to feel as a result of these multiple losses led me to question whether or not I you know, not so much had been lied to my whole life, but what was the meaning of me believing in the things that I believe in, even being open to the transcendent and the other and all of the belief systems that come out of that, and what is the meaning, what is the sense, what is the value of those things in this moment of distress that I'm experiencing, now that here I am, man, all I want to be is a dad, bro.
Speaker 2:I'm not even asking for anything else. All I want to be is a dad, you know. And why is it so hard for me to become a dad? And this was obviously some of the questions that I was asking myself before Juki came along what was the experience for you? What were you?
Speaker 1:at. For me and of course, this is after I've had Chris it did, like you said, change the way I view a lot of things. We, of course, are coming from a Christian perspective. So when we talk about what we have been taught about God and how good God is and all these kinds of things, all the plans that God has, we have heard stories of other Christians going through it. But for those of you who haven't been to church or aren't familiar with church culture, it's important to understand that in church culture, it is very important for us to be shown as victors all the time, and it's almost frowned upon when you're going through something and have questions. So, whenever you have, we have this thing in church called testimony time. Testimony time is the time where people will get up, share different scenarios, different things that they have been through I shouldn't say scenarios, scenarios makes a sound made up the different situations that they've been through, and they'll say I went through this situation, I came out of the situation. Therefore, god is good because he did these things for me.
Speaker 1:So one thing that you rarely, rarely hear talked about in the church is miscarriage, because miscarriage is and I know this now because I'm going through, because it's not like I'm sitting around a church waiting for someone to talk about a miscarriage. It's now that I've experienced it, looking back and seeing what the discussions have been around it it's nonexistent. And it's because it's this situation where there is no victory because the child is gone. When we're talking about miscarriages, we're not even necessarily talking about a chance for resurrection like we talk about. My child was in the hospital. The heart stopped beating, then God came down and his heart started again. No, there's none of that, it's just over. Child is gone. So, because there's no victory, there's no sharing of those stories. So, first of all, for me it's very lonely because you don't know anyone else that has been through something like that, because no one has said anything about it and because of that you have questions, like you said, kelly, of everything that you've learned.
Speaker 1:Because God is always good, god has a plan when you lose a child and you lose something that we've talked about as fathers, because we don't have the womb of inside us physically, we have the womb of our imagination, the womb of our minds that now is gone. So God has a plan to take my plan. God has a plan for my child to never be formed. But the plan includes us going through these emotions. The plan includes me growing in love for someone that I will never meet, that I will never hear my baby's voice, I will never know what they look like, because for me it was really early in, so I didn't even get to see a sonogram just to see the shape of the baby. That's a plan. And then God is good because he let my baby die.
Speaker 1:Those things don't add up when we look at God. God is supposed to be like the bringer of life, the one who's created us all, but he allowed this life that was so young to be taken away from me. And I say allowed because, again, when we look at God, especially from a Christian perspective, we believe that God is in control of everything. And while we might not necessarily believe that God just comes down and kills a bunch of people I mean not saying that doesn't happen there are stories in the Bible where it will be like, hey, god struck this person down or whatever. But when it comes to this everyday life, we don't think like that, we don't think God's coming down to strike people, but we do believe that God is in control in this idea of if people are able to live or not, when you're looking at your child, who is still growing, not even a child yet.
Speaker 1:We say child because there is this being that is growing, that has the potential for life and it's snuffed out before that potential for life can even really truly move forward, it's jarring. It's jarring, it's traumatizing, especially when you're believing in this all powerful being that's supposed to be taking care of all your needs. Well, guess what? They allowed you to fall flat on your face. They allowed you to be hurt in a way that you didn't even know you could be hurt. That's going to cause some questions and I know for me it caused a lot of questions.
Speaker 2:And, you know, when I think about it in the lens that you just described, there is this fundamental belief of God's infinite goodness, and then I'm going through this really difficult thing. A couple of things I want to say. The whole concept of God's plan, or God's timing, like those type of things it really brings, it heightens the crisis that I'm already feeling, that I'm already experiencing as a result of this ideal, or this expectation, rather, that I had, and bundled up in this life that was growing and then, all of a sudden, without any diagnosis, without any pre-warning, without any rhyme or reason, it seems like it just stops. So then, in the deepest part of me, I did wrestle with this idea of God's plan, and I have to say that over time, that is no longer a useful concept for me, because I can't say that God has a plan for everything, which, underneath that, what I'm actually saying, is what I'm purporting is that God has predetermined every single detail of how every single thing is going to go. And if that's the case, if that's what I say, then I can't also, in good conscience, say that God is good, because if His goodness means that I am going to experience this very devastating event, and for other people who have tried over and over and over and over again and have had the same pain intensified time and time and time and time again. It doesn't square up that this being who I'm saying is the ultimate source of goodness, who is also ultimately responsible for absolutely everything that, in His goodness and my expectation of that goodness, would sit there and pre-program that you and I and so many other people would experience so much pain, like right on. To me, those concepts have no longer become useful or valuable.
Speaker 2:As a result of my experience and it was the stressing, it was very distressing, in fact, that was an added distress to the distress of not being able. So think about it this way, bro there is not just the hurt and the loss of this expectation bundled up in this life, right? So I'm grieving this loss. This pregnancy was once viable and for no rhyme or reason, it's no longer viable.
Speaker 2:Event number one that event now begins to cascade in a series of other things that it impacts, a series of other aspects of my life, and the one that we're talking about, you know spirituality and belief and all of that jazz. And so now I'm at this place where I'm like oh, so I thought God was good and I thought he so. Why is it that he's allowing me to experience this thing? Is he even really good? What the heck does it?
Speaker 2:Even so, now I'm at a place of questioning things that I thought I was settled on until this event happened. So now I'm distressed about that. I'm also distressed about perhaps not knowing how to support my wife or my. So there's that level of distress, and then all of the other emotions you know the we've spoken about this before all of the, the dreams that I had for this baby and what life would be like, and now there's that sense of loss too, and that level of distress, and so, all around, everything has just become extremely distressing, and it all comes down to this belief system that has been drilled into me since the day that I was born Fundamentally that God is good, god has a plan for everything. And now I'm supposed to wrestle, or now I'm supposed to accept that part of his plan was to purposefully make it difficult for me and my wife to have kids.
Speaker 1:So I mean, we were in seminary, I was in a theology class and one of the professors was talking about this and it didn't hit me. Then you know, there are things that you hear that don't make any kind of sense until you're in it. But speaking to that idea of God having this, this plan, or he's planned out all these little details in your life, then when you, then when you actually start going through things and realize, wait a minute, there are some crappy things that are happening to me right now, like you said, you mean to tell me God planned that. Well, we were talking, he was talking in class and he was talking about. You know, if you think about it like this, if you knew someone who purposely burned down your home and then, after a burn down your home, came and put out the fire and then said I want you to thank me, is that person good? Nah, fam, that that's a monster. You know, that is that is a psychopath.
Speaker 2:That's a narcissist. That's a psychopath. That is someone that listen. I don't even want to deal with you with a 10-foot pole, bro.
Speaker 1:Right, right. But the thing is we keep telling people and I say we because I'm a pastor, your chaplain, so we're part of the system, essentially right we keep telling people that God has a plan, without realizing that what we're doing is we are setting up this image of a psychopath, of a narcissist, of a monster, without even realizing it.
Speaker 2:Well, which is the reason why, in Having these conversations, you and I have openly spoken against. Saying that to someone at that moment is not helpful at all, and more so than not helpful. It's not true? Hmm, like it's, it's not true. Yeah, let's, let's stop and, and and I'll I'll say this this is me speaking and not putting any words in your mouth. Let's stop putting people in a situation where they will then experience more Emotional distress then they already have to as a result of the loss of a pregnancy. Yes, they don't need any more distress, you know, and and it it fought, the responsibility Falls on on you. The responsibility falls on me to be more careful and thoughtful about the things that we say to to people.
Speaker 2:And you know, last week, when our guest said something that you know we're gonna end up talking to her about, about more, but she said you know, people ascribe grief to something more physical, considering the fact that of a miscarriage, especially an early miscarriage, happens before any type of physical Signs or symptoms, or or showing, or or any of the physical things that you and I, as dads, within our sphere, we can connect with. You know, the seeing the belly grow and feeling the kicks, and and all of that, considering that the miscarriage happens before all of that there is this sense of God must have known that this wasn't gonna work out and so he did what he. He did what he what he had to do. It dismisses what this pregnancy means for the person who, who is now in this place of grief and sadness and distress and loss Because the pregnancy is not viable anymore. You know, and, bro, I think I think about my wife, who shared this with me in a conversation that we're having, where she said that she felt like her womb, instead of being a place that Harbor's life, is a place that fosters death.
Speaker 2:I mean Just just that Alone. When she said that to me, I went in a deep place of distress because, oh, this is what she's feeling, and knowing that it takes the both of us to Try to have a baby, I started then to feel like I was participating in the, the, the death that she was feeling, her body was producing, you know, and so there is yet another Level of distress. Can you imagine if I had said to my wife babe, don't worry about it, god has a plan, god knows exactly what he's doing.
Speaker 1:Don't, don't, don't question God um, the thing is, I don't think that it's not as if those things are completely inaccurate. However, we have to understand that there is a time and a place to talk about everything. I believe that God is able to Take things that were bad and not turn. I don't do the whole. God takes those things ever bad and turns them into good. It's not about turning things into good. He's able to take things that are bad and help you go through it.
Speaker 1:You know, and it's not. It's not about God being bad or God being good. It's just about this is what it is and understanding that at that moment, though, even your wife saying something as hard as man, this is supposed to be a place of life. Now it has become a place of death. Is that really the time To say, well, god's got everything in control? It feels like a cop out, it just it feels like it feels like you know when, when you're talking about being in that situation, it feels like you are telling me that because you don't want to deal with what it is that I'm going through 100, and so that's the question that I was gonna, that I that I'm gonna put on the table for for us to discuss.
Speaker 2:What is it about these moments of distress, like high acute distress. What is it about these moments that plays on this impulse for people to All of a sudden want to have some theological conversation at that particular moment, you know, like, why do you feel the need To tell me what God is, what God isn't, what God can, what God can't do, what God's plan is, or any of that stuff? At that moment, mm-hmm, like, what is the threat, what is the, what is the impetus, what is the, what is the goal? What is the value of doing, of doing that?
Speaker 1:As Christians, we have been trained to believe that we have to have an answer for everything and that because that answer is God. When someone has a question, we just bring up God, without actually even trying to understand ourselves or have any kind of empathy ourselves. Someone goes through situation X. Well, ultimately God knows everything. So if I just say, well, god knows about it, god knows what to give you, I then, as the person, don't have to empathize. Yeah, I don't have the answers, but God has the answers, so God can just give you the stuff. I can just kind of sit back and let God do his thing for you and, without realizing it, we have actually taken ourselves out of the equation and we have simply left that person sitting in. Whatever it is they're sitting in Now. I'm not saying that this means that you are supposed to, you know, delve in emotionally to each and every situation that someone brings you, but I do think that you do have to at least be a human for a second. There are things that people go through that you know nothing about. You can very, very easily simply say I am so sorry, I don't know what you're going through, I don't necessarily know what to say in this moment I don't know how to help, but I'll just be here. 100% great, but when someone is spiraling out of control, to then tell them that there is someone that you don't fully understand in terms of this great being that we call God, that this great being that we call God has all this stuff in control, when clearly your life is out of control, it sounds like it sounds made up. It sounds made up when we're talking about life and death. These are things that we do not fully understand.
Speaker 1:I know there's a lot of science out there and science is good. It's a good thing. I'm not really against science. I got an undergrad degree in chemistry. I wasn't the greatest at it, but still I think science is a very good, very positive thing because it helps us understand the world around us.
Speaker 1:However, we still do not fully understand what happens in terms of life starting and life ending. We know scientifically what it looks like, but we don't know the nature of life and death. So, again because we don't understand these things, when we have a crisis that has to do with life and death, we immediately start realizing how we are not in control of any of that stuff. So, at the moment where we feel the least in control, because when we're talking about miscarriages, there's nothing that we could have done as parents, there's nothing that the mother could have done better, and there's certainly nothing that we as husbands can do better, even though we blame ourselves, same as the mothers. We blame ourselves when we have those kinds of losses, but now, in that moment, we realize we have absolutely no control. You want to tell me that there was someone who was in control and that they didn't do anything about it. That's just so messed up bro.
Speaker 1:That's just so messed up.
Speaker 2:Right, so messed up.
Speaker 1:I remember one night I was praying over that child every night. When Amber went to the doctors that day and they said the heart beat wasn't viable, those kinds of things, they kind of postulated that the baby had been dead for a few weeks. So I was sitting there thinking you mean to tell me that I've been praying over my child for a few weeks and that child was dead and God didn't say anything to me and I'm a pastor, bro, Right Right Like I'm, I'm, I'm one of your homies.
Speaker 1:You're supposed to be like this. And here you could have looked out. You could have said show me something, said something. But here I am wasting my time, wasting my breath, wasting what I would consider to be blessings and power over nothing. Like you, you couldn't send me some kind of sign, some kind of signal just to let me know what happened, and it's like you allowed me to sit in hope when you knew you knew there was none, and you didn't say anything. You knew that what I was talking to you about each and every day was meaningless, and you didn't say anything. And what I realized at that moment was this is what people go through and here we talk about.
Speaker 1:God has a plan. Well, if God has a plan, maybe he could let me in on what these plans are, because right now I don't like the plan. And if I'm supposed to put my trust and faith in this person that will allow me to waste my time, to go through pain and then allow the pain that I'm going through to actually reach back, because now, hey, that pain reaches back for weeks now because I've spent time, spiritual time, praying over a child that had been dead the whole time. What does that do to a person? Oh, god has the answers. Really, if he has the answers, why didn't he give me the answers three weeks ago? What did that do to you, chris? Oh man, I was angry For me.
Speaker 1:I lost trust in God. I did not stop believing in God, but I lost trust in God, and I think that that is something that people deal with as well. That's hard to talk about Because, again, when we're talking about the church, we're talking about being in church, we're talking about victory in God, all these kinds of things. There was no victory. In fact, it wasn't just a loss. It was a loss plus wasted time, plus something that for me, felt like it was a secret being held back for me. So I lost trust because I've been told for my entire life that as long as I pray and ask these things, that God will keep everything fine. As long as I do the right things and as long as I'm a good person and as long as I act this way, then God will bless everything that I do and everything that I have.
Speaker 1:Now, here I am as a pastor. I have literally left my job and a whole other career to come out here and follow God in the closest way that we humanly know. And yet, here I am, sitting here on a phone with my wife, miles and miles away, unable to reach out, unable to say anything, finding out that my baby had been gone for weeks. Oh, I lost trust because I realized at that moment wait a minute God is not guaranteeing that he's keeping any of my family safe. I'm looking down at my son, who is sleeping in the bed, and realizing God is not necessarily going to keep my son safe. So what does that mean? How am I supposed to deal with this? Because I'm trusting you, god, as the all-powerful, unknowing being, to keep my family safe, to keep us from crazy tragedy. And now, for the first time in my life, I'm realizing you're not going to do that, are you? It was a crisis man.
Speaker 2:It's a different thing to feel betrayed by this higher being. I feel like betrayal from a family member hurts like hell, right. Betrayal from a spouse, I mean that hurts like all hell. Then betrayal from this being that I'm supposed to, like you say, give my allegiance to trust and believe that the ultimate source of goodness and all of that, and then when I need you the most, you don't come through. That just comes from. I mean, that just does a lot of different things.
Speaker 2:Man, I'm not saying any of this to imply that there's a hierarchy, that you know what I mean. I'm just saying it's complicated and it's different in that way because, man, I so empathize with people who are like you know, I've been in church my whole life. You know I pray, you know I'm a good person and I think in moments of tragedy we all come to one of those things, especially the I'm a good person thing. In moments of tragedy we all view ourselves as good people. I have yet to meet someone in my place of work facing a really devastating prognosis or diagnosis or circumstance and, as the parent talking to the parent, they're like you know what? Man, I'm just a horrible dude Like. I know exactly why this is happening, you know it's always a listen, I'm human, we've made mistakes, but I'm a good person.
Speaker 2:So, or my kid is a good person, you know, like, why is this happening to my kid? And it's like well, yeah, of course you're a good person, of course I'm a good person, we're all good people. But when, like I was saying, I empathize with people who come to this place of like you know, highlighting all of these things and then having so much difficulty just piecing together the so, if all of these things are true, then why is? Why does this hurt so much? Or even before that, why am I in this position to begin with? Yes, yes, like, forget the pain. Why am I in this position to begin with? You know, and and again, I think this goes back to what I was saying earlier we need to, as, as people who, whether you're your minister or not, if you are someone of a spiritual background, and especially if you have a system of beliefs that drives your spirituality or you're more connected to, like a church culture, a Christian church culture or anything like that. I can't speak to the other religious affiliations because I don't know what those cultures are, but I can say from where you and I come from. Chris, there's something that you said earlier that I think characterizes to a fault Our specific branch, which is we were and you tell me if this is true or not in our training in grad school, we were trained very specifically to have the answer. I mean, it is definitive, it's not to have an answer, or even to have a response, or even to know how to sit with people and help people process their own stuff. No, no, no, no, no. We were trained very specifically to have what we say is the answer. And it's not until much later and in my development and thinking and life experiences and all of that jazz, have I come to realize how problematic that is. It's problematic, so I can imagine the impact that that has on us who have been trained that way, and the difficulty to unlearn right that line of thinking and also, broadly speaking, in terms of, just like the broader Christian culture, how unhelpful those type of things have been, which are the reasons why people say some of the stupid things that people say. And whether it's right or wrong, bro, whether it's right or wrong that you know God has a plan, that God is the ultimate this, that God is the ultimate that. Whether that is right or wrong? Who cares? Yeah, in this moment, who cares? It's not the time, this is not the moment, this is not the time, this is not the place.
Speaker 2:Like, I don't care, my guy, that doesn't change my circumstance, that doesn't lessen my pain, that doesn't give me hope, that doesn't give me anything. In fact, you're pissing me off. Yeah, like that's what's going on here. I have lost something, I have lost someone. I have lost the opportunity to get to know someone and to be known by someone, to get to love someone and to be loved by someone. I've lost a piece of me. So I don't care about God's goodness at that moment. I don't care about his omnipotence, I don't care about his omnipresence, I don't care about his omniscience, I don't care about any of the other omnis and I don't care about any of the other qualities. I don't care if he's a God who hears, if he's a God who sees, if he's a God who, I don't care. Yeah, it doesn't matter to me. The only thing that matters is that I can't be a dad. Yeah, and if you're telling me that God X, y and Z and implying that he had something to do with that, then I don't give a flying flip bro.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. It's just that simple, that's real, that's real. And I think and again we're coming from a Christian perspective, we don't know in terms of all the other religious backgrounds and things, but again, in terms of church culture, this is not a conversation that is a safe one to have. It is not safe to question God, it is not safe to doubt God, you know, but I will say this something that I learned.
Speaker 2:We're putting my list on the line here, bro.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, no, bro, because I got to go now too, but this is the next episode, because this is what I learned and we'll delve into it. Next is Even you know, it is some of the tight chirp it just said the church is not God. In dealing with God, I realized that, while the church might tell you that you can't do that, god not only can take you doing that, but for me, he asked me to do it and I'll Next episode, we'll talk about it a little more but for me, he asked me to do it, he wanted me to question him, he wanted me to do it and for me it strengthened my relationship with him like crazy, you know, and I'm still working with him on this thing, but he was fine with it. He was fine with it, and I think this is because and this is something that we so easily forget in church, even going through seminary, bro that God is a living being and that God, as a living being, not only has emotions. He understands emotions because we forget he's the one who gave us emotions. So he knows and sees you being upset and being who he is. He also understands why you would lack trust.
Speaker 1:We don't get that in terms of churches. You're not supposed to do that. God is like oh no, I get it. It's a huge moment. I let you down. I let you down, let's talk about it. For me that was wild, because God knows what I think of him, like he knew how I felt about him and what I thought he was supposed to do, and so dealing with that and, like I said, we can talk about the next episode, man, because I do feel like this is kind of like a good setup for it. But, you know, getting to a place of understanding that God's goodness and existence and all those kinds of things have I don't want to say nothing to do with what happens in the world, but are kind of I don't want to get too deep into it, man, I will start a whole nother conversation on this right now.
Speaker 2:Let's save it for the next conversation. Yeah, but my hope is that what the rawness of what we've expressed so far may resonate with someone who, themselves, have been quietly and silently and privately wrestling with this thing after experiencing, or as a result of experiencing, the loss that they've experienced. And again, this is there is no right, there is no wrong. Some things might resonate with people. Some people might have cringed at many of the things that you and I said. It is what it is.
Speaker 2:The whole point is, losing a child, in all of its iterations, leads us to a place of crisis, and from this place of crisis, these were the thoughts that were going on in my mind, these were the thoughts that are going on in your mind.
Speaker 2:These were the responses and the reactions that we had at that moment as a result of this crisis that we were experiencing. And so we just opened up a window for people to hear what that was like for me and you and again I'll be interested and I know you will too to hear what somebody else's experience was like. So again I say this reach out to us at the miscarriage dad, at gmailcom. You can also find us on IG at the miscarriage dads, and we want to hear what your responses, what your reaction is, what was your experience like if you find yourself being a spiritual person or religious person, a non religious person? And I want to hear what, what level of distress you were in and some of these existential questions and and wrestling that perhaps you ended up doing so again, we are so thankful that you continue to support this podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you for listening to this episode and we look forward to our next conversation, picking up right from where we left off. So, in the meantime, make sure you take care of yourself, take care of your partner, your significant other, your spouse, and remember that you are certainly not alone along this journey of grief and recovery after miscarriage. Until next time. Had a good day.