SAMANTHA ELLEY reflects on how she has learnt to depend on God for her strength even in the bleakest times…
Northern Rivers, New South Wales, Australia
PICTURE: AtlasStudio/iStockphoto.
“But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. – II Corinthians 12:9
Two years after I was married, my husband and I fell pregnant. It was such an exciting time. We were preparing to welcome new life into the world and start our family. In the ninth week the baby died in utero. I had to have procedure called a D&C (dilation and curettage) to clear the uterus of our baby’s remains.
“All through these conflicting emotions and rollercoaster rides of joy and grief when we feel we just can’t go on, I continue to realise God is never far away.”
We were understandably devastated and I am sure I spiralled into undiagnosed depression. I went to work each day but didn’t want to talk to people and I found myself crying at any time of the day. I had no energy to do anything. My poor long-suffering husband did his best, but what do you do with a wife who starts crying in the middle of Coles, because she realises she doesn’t need to avoid certain foods now she isn’t pregnant anymore?
I remember collapsing in the middle of our hallway while vacuuming one day, as I was overcome with such bone-shaking grief and anger at God for not allowing me to become a mum. Shortly after my D&C, I fell pregnant with a little boy, who is now about to turn 21-years-old and is studying at university. My grief was replaced with joy.
A year after his birth, I suffered another miscarriage. This time the baby had made it to 16 weeks but a nuchal fold test showed that our little one would have some major deformities. It eventually died in utero as its first sibling did. Again I slid into depression until a girlfriend gave me a fitness magazine and I discovered the joy of exercise which I believe kept the hormones balanced.
Then I fell pregnant with another boy who this month is finishing Year 12, ready to sit his Higher School Certificate then go onto an accountancy cadetship in 2023.
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All through these conflicting emotions and rollercoaster rides of joy and grief when we feel we just can’t go on, I continue to realise God is never far away. That has been even more obvious this year with the loss of our house and belongings to the Northern Rivers flood that hit in February. And while there are moments of that same depression, I have learnt to depend on God for my strength, as there are days I just can’t do it myself.
I often need to keep coming back to His words “My grace is sufficient for you”. He never wants us to experience life on our own, or dig deep into our own strength, because more often than not, we just don’t have it. For each baby I lost, I was totally sucked of any ability to move on. I needed to lean on my Creator, who knows how to support us.
It may sound crazy, but I’m a believer that God can even work through a fitness magazine. He knows how we function and what can boost us. And through the darkness, His power is revealed, in our case, through two beautiful sons who have blessed our lives.
