My Hope

By: Sara Bright

6 months ago, we lost Hope.

My husband and and I were married for 5 years. We shared a 3-year-old together. We were going our separate ways and decided a separation was best for us. This was such a dark season for me, and I felt lost. I felt like I didn’t know what my future held for me and my toddler.

One day I was separated from my husband learning how to be a single mom for the first time in my life. The next I found out I was pregnant. Her name was going to be Hope. Hope was not going to glue our broken marriage back together. She wasn’t going to save us.

However, she did give me the strength I needed to make it out of a dark season.

I was going to keep going…and I was going to make it for her.

Hope shed a light on a future I once saw as impossible to obtain.

God doesn’t promise the absence of heartache, but God does promise to always be with you.

When I found out I lost Hope I was alone. God gave me the strength to get through the most heartbreaking experience I’ve ever been through. I knew I had to be strong for myself and my toddler or I was not going to make it out of the darkness.

Haggai 2 verse 4 “Yet now be strong” “Work for I am with you”.

6 months ago, my face was buried in a pillow screaming the loudest scream that’s ever left my lungs. But I got back up.

Yet now be strong

5 months ago, I sat in the funeral home parking lot crying as I watched a mother deer and baby deer come out of the woods together. I knew then God had my girl with him.

Yet now be strong

4 months ago, I cried as I put your ashes into my necklace so I could carry you with me everyday.

Yet now be strong

3 months ago, you would cross my mind daily. Sometimes it would bring tears to me eyes thinking about the future you could have had. Other times I smile thinking about the strength I gained from this experience.

Yet now be strong

2 months ago, the thought of your upcoming due date started to creep into my mind, and I felt a sense of dread and sadness.

Yet now be strong  

1 month ago, I cried as I put your remains in a memory box with dried flower petals from our wedding to symbolize an end of a chapter but also celebrate your due date.

Yet now be strong

Grief is so fluid and comes and goes day by day. Some days I don’t know how I will make it. Those are the days I can feel Hope with me pushing me right along.

Even though Hope can’t be earth-side with me, she got me through the hardest season of my life.

She will forever be my Hope.

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My name is Sara and I have a 3 year old named William. We live in St. Louis Missouri. William is my pride and joy, and he keeps me going even when the grief tries to overtake me. Being a single mother and going through a miscarriage is a unique situation. I feel like this experience has helped me grow as a person and as a mother. I continue to grow every day, and the work put towards healing is truly never ending. I would have never made it through this season of life without God, my church, my best friend, my son, and of course , my Hope.