Bigger Picture Moments: In the Rain

It seems I've been praying for spring for weeks now.

Spring with all of its glorious, healing sun and warmer weather and green buds.

But when I look out the window, all I see are piles of snow and gray skies and long bare branches and rainy sleet dripping from clouds, beading and sliding down the window panes in the middle of March.

I feel like those rain drops.

Slowly sliding down down down into a never-ending pile of winter.

I wake up to more gray skies, and my prayers feel like they've been pleaded in vain.

Same as the ones I've cried and then finally laid at His feet while anxiety swelled in my heart the very first day we found out we were pregnant

Only to lose our baby just before the second trimester began.

Just like the night I begged God to allow our midwife to find baby's heartbeat.

Only to find ourselves weeping over the loss in a hospital waiting room in the length of after hours.

Same as the ones where I cried out for Him to send my body into labor and save me from surgery.

Only to find myself in an operating room late last Tuesday night.

I see a lot of prayers, seemingly unanswered.

I look outside, and I see snow.

I look outside, and winter still seems spread out thick over the land.

But I know better.

I know better than to stop looking after first or second glance. And I know we often see only what we look for.

I know better than to get so stuck on those barren branches that I miss the spring birds that briefly land on them.

So I look closer for spring, and I find it in lengthening days.

I look for spring and see the promise of green just barely poking through dark, wet soil.

I look for spring, and I see beneath the snow, in the rain

where love is showered over our hearts in the midst of grief

and mercy is born in delivering my sweet baby at home

and grace is granted in the OR

and hope is replanted in my heart after a conversation in the recovery room

and Words black on the white page of what Stands Forever.

And I see it all in the rain.

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Miscarriage: Labor and Delivery and Saying Goodbye

I don't often caution people against reading my posts because that seems counter productive, but I urge pregnant women or people who don't want to read about labor and delivery and baby loss during pregnancy to stop reading here. 

However, if you're dealing with the loss of a baby during pregnancy, I'm sharing this for you as well as for my own healing. I pray you find peace and comfort during this hard time. 

Last Friday, the morning after we found out our sweet baby stopped growing at our monthly check up at my midwife's office and the shock sort of wore off a bit, I began the process of saying goodbye to our baby and letting go.

Almost immediately, I began cramping intermittently and lightly spotting, but it wasn't until five days later and many repetitions to just let go that I delivered our tiny, precious little one into my hands after an hour of moderate-intensity labor-like cramps and contractions.

The birth of our 10 week and 5 day old baby at 12 weeks of pregnancy was quite a bit like labor and delivery had been with my two boys but with less intensity pain-wise. It was nothing like the two early first trimester losses at 5 and 7 weeks; those were like heavy periods.

I really wanted to labor and birth our baby at home for a few reasons even though I knew the baby would not be born alive.

First, I wanted to give my body an opportunity to let go instead of just having the baby and placenta removed by the d and c procedure that's pretty common during miscarriage. It was really important for me to not send my body into shock. I wanted my body to realize we needed to let go both emotionally and physically.

Second, I really wanted to deliver my baby. I spent nearly 11 weeks growing this baby and loving this baby and I carried this baby for 12 weeks and a few days. I needed to honor this baby's time with us and with me in particular by birthing him or her. And I needed to say goodbye.

We were granted all of that in that in unlikely grace.

My labor began around 3:45 and peaked at 4:50 p.m. when the baby was born into my hands. For baby only spanning the length of my pinky finger, I was surprised at how large the sac was -- about the size of a large grapefruit.

The baby itself was perfect and tiny. Little toes and tiny fingers were formed and baby looked small and delicate, just how I'd imagined.

About ten minutes after I birthed the baby, I began delivering pieces of placenta every ten minutes. After about an hour of delivering placenta pieces and passing blood clots, we noticed that the bleeding increased from a dripping faucet to a leaking faucet. At that point, when my midwife could not assess the blood loss via phone, we left our two boys with my mom and headed for the emergency room.

After being assessed at the ER and continuing to bleed, I was hooked up to a fluid IV and transported to a full-service ER where the on-call OB-GYN met us, listened to our story, checked me out and found that the bleeding hadn't stopped because my uterus was still retaining pieces of the placenta. My sweet in-laws met us there and began asking friends and family for prayer as my husband put out a plea on Facebook and via text message.

The OB explained that some women are able to complete a miscarriage without a d and c, but sometimes the body has a hard time expelling everything because mechanisms that are in place after a full-term birth are not necessarily activated during a miscarriage -- nursing for instance is one way the uterus is stimulated and activated to help expel the placenta; I obviously had no nursling. She also explained a few other reasons, but I was spacey and loopy from blood loss so I don't remember enough to explain well.

I'm thankful for medicine and doctors and surgery especially when it's needed, and though I didn't want to have a d and c, I listened to what my body was saying and knew it would help. I was tired and growing weaker.

I explained my concerns to the OB, and she was an amazing listener. I shared with her that we weren't sure if wanted to have another baby in the future, so we were concerned with my uterus' health and I shared that I was nervous about anesthesia.

So she went above and beyond to make sure I really needed the procedure. She actually scheduled an ultrasound so she could confirm pieces were still stuck inside the uterus before we went to the operating room.

And because there were rather large pieces still stuck in combination with the heavy bleeding, we agreed that a specific kind of d and c would be fitting in this situation; I then went straight to the OR for an ultra-sound guided d and c using suction and no scraping. A normal d and c, she'd explained, is often completed by feeling around inside the uterus and gently scraping pieces away from the uterus.

For experiencing something so sad and unpleasant as the loss of a baby during pregnancy, I felt God sent us a huge gift in having her be the on-call doctor. Her extra care and commitment to detail as well as her compassion were extremely helpful and healing.

Another amazing gift of mercy was when John's parents' friend from their neighborhood found out I was going in for an emergency d and c, she offered to come to the hospital and be with me during the procedure; she's a OR nurse at the hospital I'd been taken to, and though she'd never met me she offered to come be the hands and feet of Christ to me during a really stressful time.

Our friends and family have also been extraordinarily helpful and supportive, covering us with prayer from the very first night we found our baby had passed away to meeting our needs tangibly when all we could do was cry and process. The intercessions from the hearts of our friends and family were heard, and God showed us His love and His mercy and grace through the sending of the right people during our time of loss and suffering.

Though last night was a really difficult night for my whole family, I'm not sure I would have done much differently in hindsight. It was really healing for me to have the moments with my baby and to have delivered that baby I loved and grew and carried for nearly an entire first trimester.

I needed that closure.

I also overwhelmingly felt the strong urge to name this baby, and we've picked out names for our little one; we'll share with family and friends after we find out our baby's gender; my midwife picked up the baby this morning so we could run some tests to determine anything possible. At first, I was sort of sad that we wouldn't bury the baby, but I know our baby's soul is already with our Maker. Likely we'll plant a tree or bush in baby's memory once spring arrives -- beauty springing forth out of the soil and ashes.

Miscarriage: Waiting Rooms and Waiting Days

We are the only ones left in a waiting room long after all the well people normally leave the hospital.

This realization is what grounds the hope that's been swelled up like an inflated balloon in my lungs; I am holding my breathe and still somehow breathing.

But when she angled the computer monitor away from my face and stared grimly at the screen while pressing the wand against my belly, I knew something wasn't right.

I knew as I glanced inquisitively at my husband sitting across the room that when she was done snapping pictures, there'd be another waiting room waiting for us.

These past three months have been anchored in waiting.

We waited for the positive pregnancy test of our long-hoped for fifth pregnancy.

We waited for tests to come back confirming HCG levels were rising steadily.

We waited as each week rolled by to hear the heart beat of our baby as my stomach swelled and rounded.

All the while hoping the waiting would lead to our third child being born alive and well and beautiful in our arms.

But at the midwife's office there was no heartbeat found with the doppler. So we waited for an ultrasound later that evening.

And came full circle back to the waiting room.

Somewhere in the past week or so a feeling of peace had washed over my body -- peace I couldn't understand; I'm always thinking, sometimes anxious.

I prayed, though, in trust that God would take care of this baby and take care of me.

Peace, unexpected and abounding, in the surrender.

John and I hold hands, hopeful, but the balloon begins to deflate with every moment that passes, and I'm breathing deep breathes before she walks in and hands us the phone.

My midwife, she says she's sorry. The baby stopped growing. 10 weeks 5 days and I'm actually only 11 weeks 5 days and not the 13 we thought.

I don't hear anything else she says.

I birth heavy wet tears

in the midst of peace

I cannot explain.

I voice the injustice and I sob and I fall into my husband's arms with more questions than he could ever answer.

But underlying is this strange peace.

I don't sleep much that night

but I breath, and I tell my body

"it's ok. just let go. the baby is already in heaven. so let go."

I cry more through out the Day Two and notice cramping sneak into the lower parts of my abdomen,

heart still thick-coated in grief dancing closely with gratitude, each battling to take the lead

and un-understandable peace.

So we do what we know how to do:

We wait.

We pray.

Balloon of baby-hope deflated

deep breathing

as weeks of hopeful waiting

morph to

one night of waiting rooms and

bleed into waiting days.

"Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:4-6

Thinking, that's All: Letting Go

A generous thank you to Bounty for encouraging the pouring out of my heart by sponsoring this piece. 

I've let go of trying to figure out why.

Why I'm not waddling around in the final days of being large and swollen with child.

Why my earliest signs of pregnancy were my last ones. 

Why we've not been counting down the time left in my pregnancy week by week and day by day, especially now that we're in the thick of my due week.

Why we lost not just one baby in September, but then, you, too, in December.

I guess why doesn't matter so much anymore because a reason wouldn't make it feel right anyway.

A reason wouldn't make arms that wanted to hold you feel fuller, more satisfied.

It wouldn't make me more OK with the fact that sometimes pregnancies end unexpectedly and sometimes mothers don't get to hold their babies outside of the womb this side of Eternity.

And it wouldn't make my heart grieve any less the loss, the promise, the hope of you here in life as we know it.

The resignation to resting in the unknown doesn't mean, though, that I don't

give thought to whether your hair would shimmer coppery-red against dark locks when sunlight presses into it like mine, like your brothers'

that I don't long to see father, your brothers marvel over you

that I don't wonder what you could have given to a needy world.

Just because I'm no longer lingering in the why, small one, doesn't mean I don't remember.

It just means that I'm refusing to let you become synonymous with loss

because you haven't been lost.

You haven't been misplaced

or forgotten. 

I know you dwell in Light I can't yet imagine. 

And I know that instead of me welcoming you into my world today, this week

one day, you'll be there welcoming me into yours, His.

A generous thank you to Bounty for encouraging the pouring out of my heart by sponsoring this piece. 

Bigger Picture Moment: On Being Ready

I fully expected the test to display one line.

Negative.

No Baby.

Just a late period.

Fully expected.

But I had to confirm, what with not having taken a vow of abstinence while simultaneously taking herbal supplements that could be dangerous during pregnancy, when the days easily slipped past 30, 31, 32.

I'm not ready, I've shared with my husband at least a dozen times per month since we last sent a baby from the the womb and into heaven.

I'm not ready, I've declared and ensured we'd taken precautions so as to not find ourselves as surprised and with-child.

I'm not ready, I cried out to God as I looked at the end results of a positive pregnancy test.

I stared at the double lines before calling John into the bathroom to examine the test for himself.

He confirmed the reading, and we stared at each other incredulously.

No hugging.

No tears of joy.

No wide grins.

We just sat there staring at each other like two high school kids, air thick with shock and disbelief.

Quick to read my face, John gathered his mind and quickly shuffled the boys outside, left me and my positive pregnancy test in the bathroom alone to wrestle with each other ...

alone to wrestle with God.

I fully expected for my chest to tighten and my heart to thump wildly beneath my breastbone in a state of panic, my breathing to morph from deep breathes to short whisps of air sucked in through a straw, my mind to race in panic.

But I stood there

test in hand

Word in heart:

"Those who know your name will trust in you, for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you."
Psalm 9:10

Nothing takes the Designer by surprise, and with plans to retest with first morning urine, I fell soundly into hard, deep, fast sleep later that evening knowing that if He wanted this baby to be here, even if I weren't ready, I would be ready when he or she arrived.

****

Again, in the morning two blue lines displayed across the test, this time smudged and faded and running from a line into a u-shape, alerting my mind to the possibility of faulty tests.

I cursed the invention of the early-detection pregnancy test as I fed the boys breakfast, preparing to make our way through the Target aisles for another box of tests. 

Irritated, I thought to God

What are you trying to do to me?


Haven't we had enough of the ping-pong emotions?


Could something just be or not be?


You know I've ached to stretch and swell again ...


my arms have longing to be heavy with drunken-nursing child dozing against my skin. 


You know, I whispered in my mind.

And then ... the question turned

on my own heart,

but did I know?


Am I really ready?

Had I really realized the depth of that ache, the lingering longing as I prayed and wondered what He'd have for our family


if we should grow in number or remain four.


Am I?


Ready?

****

The early summer fields spread out before us, I watched two birds flutter and twist in the sky side by side while driving home from the store.

Gracefully, in confidence, they swooped and fluttered and dove and lifted higher and higher, like mirrors of each other.

My heart beat in time with their early-morning dance, knowing too well the fell swoops of low and the ecstasy of high-bright sky horizons.

****

Three more tests, all negative.

Relief and calm whitewash my mind,

only to be tinged with the color of disappointment.

My mind races to the birds and their early morning dance.

No turns have taken you by surprise, Oh Lord.

Not one.

You've been following along with each turn of my heart's wing.

You've been listening to my cries for guidance.

Am I ready?

I find answered prayers in the aftermath of two faulty pregnancy tests coupled with three negative ones.

And I know He's answered.

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Reflect on the blessings that were apparent to you this week.

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Just Write: Target

It's in the middle of Target

   the baby aisle

that it hits me hard

square in the gut

as I'm touching the  pink

soft cotton ruffles

of a tiny short-sleeved dress.

Warmer weather will bring the gifts of sun

and a beautiful, anticipated baby niece

who will wear the purple and pink garb.

It will bring songbirds that sing of spring

and long, hazy lake days with two sets

of little footprints embed in the sand.

But my arms won't cradle

new fruit from my womb

like I'd twice hoped during a long fall.

I remind myself that ripe fruit

tastes just as sweet as that

freshly picked from the vine,

cup E's smooth cheeks in my hands,

thankful.

But there

in the baby aisle of Target

my stomach somehow feels

all the flatter,

and the months I thought

that separated me from the grief

of releasing two small gifts

seem merely like

elongated minutes.

Thinking, that's all: Hold the Light

There is great temptation in retreating into silence.

So many reasons - fear or shame or guilt or pride or minimizing - for concealing our wounds, quieting ourselves, never giving voice to the deep abrasions our hearts suffer.

I choked back the guilt swelling in my chest, asked my mom to take the day off Friday and come help while I rested and prayed and healed physically and John tried to order the house from an entire day of neglect and pay quality attention to our littles.

She reminds me that we have to accept help where help is freely given in love, embrace it with thanksgiving in our hearts.

We have to let the body function, be the body, if we are to really be a body united.

"From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work." Ephesians 4:16

Hurting in the silent recesses of the heart doesn't allow for love to come from the other parts of the body, doesn't let the body come in response to the pain and help aid in the healing with love.

Words.

Prayers.

Encouragement.

Flowers.

Tea.

Poetry.

Phone messages.

Arms to love on two boys.

Arms strung around my neck.

Each a different but beautiful gift from a different and beautiful part of the body.

Through this second miscarriage and then our ER trip with E after he fell and hit his head last night, you, our friends and family, have really shown me what it is to hold the light when exhaustion and doubt and hurt really set in.

So thank you. Thank you for holding the light for us.

"For where two or three come together in my name, there am I {Jesus} with them." Matthew 18:20

If I can take your burdens to His feet, please don't hesitate to share.

Pregnancy Loss: So we meet again

And so we meet again, wet tears dripping over smiling cheeks.

I sit on the couch bathed in a cocktail of gratitude mixed with more spiked grief on an early Thursday morning the first of December, both loss and blessing vividly apparent while my oldest son wraps tightly his arms around his mother's shaking shoulders, my youngest snuggled securely in between my arm and body.

I woke up seven weeks pregnant this morning, a small babe nestled within the still-deep confines of a guarded womb.

And I'm going to sleep tonight having sent another baby into the arms of Jesus.

I thought, this time, I would still be growing the gift we'd been given; I had hopes we'd have an early Christmas present to share -- one wrapped tightly with in the safety of a growing abdomen, glowing mother set to be opened and exclaimed over and loved sometime in mid-July.

We don't always get to open our gifts in the ways we expect.

Our hearts are heavy.

But they are also free.

Because we're still celebrating the birth of a Baby King -- and because that Baby King grew into a man who lived and died to love and redeem, I know that on the other side of heaven I'll go to both of the souls we've bid farewell earlier than expected, arms opened for the holding.


And so we'll meet again.

{Please don't feel the need to say anything, but please do offer up prayers of healing on our family's behalf and prayers of thankfulness for the blessings we enjoy and the One that has given us the ultimate Joy. I'll be taking a break this weekend to catch my breath and heal.}

Bigger Picture Moment: On Being Kind to Ourselves

Just days after I felt like my body had gone haywire, miscarrying the baby we'd hoped would be snuggled in our arms come May, I felt the need to snatch up some sort of control and make the best of things.

So I jumped right back into active dieting on the Curves Complete program, vowing to lose the last of my 10 pounds ... while I was still in the middle of miscarrying.

In retrospect, it was a poor attempt at trying to grasp onto some control over my body and its functioning.

Also it was a poor attempt at listening to what my body really needed: healing.

The last thing my body needed was to be thrust into living off of restricted calories and engulfed in so many added self-imposed "rules" while I was in the process of recovering from such an emotional and physical trauma.

It only {ha} took the stress of E shoving playdough up his nose followed by a super-sized panic attack complete with an entire weekend's worth of tightness running through my chest while my heart beat erratically, breaths short, mind and body exhausted to give me the hint that maybe I should just.let.go and rest.

I tweeted my intentions to allow my body rest, complete with the #EatPrayLose hashtag on Twitter.

Kamille, a soul-sister of sorts, a fellow sojourner on the very same unfortunate journey of loss, messaged me saying that she could sense a peace in that decision.

And that these next few weeks?

These next few weeks were about extending kindness to ourselves, bathing in grace and rest, not throwing all of the hard work of getting healthy by the waste side, but freeing ourselves from living under the stressors of more rules and expectations than what are actually necessary in our jobs as wives and mothers of small children.

And then, in an almost eerie but soul-refreshing fashion, another friend and then another  and then another {!} reminded me -- all in separate communications -- that I needed to be kind to myself, patient, gentle ... none of which I'm really all that great at acting out, especially toward my own body.

I demand a lot from these muscles, this mind, this heart, and demand must give way to rest, prolonged rest, especially after great strain and stress.

Probably, I won't be eating chocolate cake every night after dinner, but this past weekend when John and I were celebrating our anniversary, which actually turned out to be a restoration getaway, I said yes to tea and dessert together.

Sure, it was still relatively healthy-- greek yogurt ice cream and fresh blueberry sauce -- but what I really said yes to had nothing to do with food and everything to do with kindness toward myself; what I really said yes to was relaxing while sipping tea with my husband, enjoying his conversation amid candlelight and freshly-pressed white linen table cloths while letting go of the expectations I'd barraged against an ailing heart and body.

Just as we must know when to be self-disciplined for the good of giving ourselves health, we, too, must also know when to show our selves kindness to help our bodies heal.

And, actually, I don't know of anything that ever healed without it.

Have you seen a glimpse of the bigger picture through a simple moment this week? Share with a community of other women on the journey of intentional living by linking your moment at Lenae's!

Five-Minute Friday: Growing

I want to linger in summer, this year especially, the way I page through pictures in memory books, running my fingers over the softness of first haircuts, running my mind over first steps, first kisses, first heart thumps.

I want to soak in sun, thirsty skin drinking every ray before we move further from the source and days become longer, darker, damper, colder.

Last week today, I woke up ready to welcome in fall, ready to swell, full with new life, pull both feet out of summer and step into the newness of autumn, growing fuller, wider by the week.

But, with the dream of that fullness, wideness faded, instead, I grow deeper.

I grow roots deeper in His promise, into the soil of Truth and Life.

I grow deeper in love with the Creator of the souls I love so much.

I grow deeper into communion with the Healer, the Restorer.

I grow. Not how I expected, but nonetheless, I grow

and I step into autumn, with both feet, embrace what the newness of this dawn brings

and what is yet to come.

Bigger Picture Moment: Wholeness of Truth

I wonder how many of us grieve our losses -- however varied and different-- in silence.

How many of us smile, respond with OK when asked how we are doing while we feel anything and everything but fine. 

I wonder how many, and I wonder why. 

I wonder why my first thought was to tuck away my sadness, the loss, bury it deep down inside the deepest wells of my heart ... why I thought I could, well, rather, should walk this journey alone. And the more I thought, the more I questioned. 

Don't I know yet that there is comfort in arms wrapped around my shoulder, in words spoken, in stories shared, in love given freely?

That there is nothing more scarring than letting the battles wounds of life sit in the darkness of heart wells?

That there is healing in the Light?

I wrote my hurt into the pages here, etched the words of this piece of our story into the white and shared because I thought it would somehow maybe help someone else who felt like hiding her hurts way down deep. 

I thought maybe I would be a hand in the darkness of those wells in the heart stretched out offering to pull someone else out of those depths. 

But the wholeness of truth is, and I didn't quite know it until so many friends began showing up in so many ways, that sharing would continue the work He's already started in layering salves on a healing heart. I didn't know it, but I needed some other hands to reach out, clasp mine after I emerged from that darkness, sun blinded, a little shaky and raw. 

Thanks for being His hands and feet and His arms and mouth --pulling me up and embracing me in the steadying of my own two feet and walking beside me as I take baby steps forward into the light of a new day. 

I likely won't ever forget it. 

"For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them." Matthew 18:20

Have you seen a glimpse of the bigger picture through a simple moment? Share at Melissa's this week.

Life Unmasked: Joy in the Mourning

At first my knee-jerk reaction was to let these words remain only in the black on white of an unpublished draft, let them fade into the archives, left unread, unspoken.. 


But this  weekend, in my sadness, in our loss, I've found comfort through the experiences of other women who've walked this same road of miscarriage  ... and this? It's been the elephant in the room of my mind for the past almost week as I've tried stepping around it.


And He moves me. He moves me from weakness to strength. So with caution to any pregnant mothers and those with very tender hearts to perhaps skip reading this one, I press the publish button for the prelude to what I wrote last Friday morning. 

I am watching two adorable little boys play trucks infusing their play with a side story of Finding Nemo.

I should be on the floor with them, playing, enjoying, living.

But I am bleeding, being initiated into a secret club I didn't want to join.

Bleeding. The tinge of pink darkening to red, after not one, not two but three positive pregnancy tests.

I am supposed to be closing in, wrapping up this week of being newly blessed with child.

I am supposed to be heavy with new life in my womb instead of heavy with emotion.

I am supposed to be ...

right where I am. I resign again, whisper that God is God, and I am not.

And because I don't understand why

why, why, why

I throw myself into a tailspin, turning and turning and turning, kicking up dust and sputtering on it.

There is guilt mixed with grief.

There is thankfulness interwoven into guilt.

And then there is guilt bleeding back into grief.

Everything bleeding -- the lines of positive tests, my body, my mind, my heart.

I have two adorable little boys playing trucks infusing their play with a side story of Finding Nemo nearby.

And I am thankful that they are still at my feet, able to be scooped up into my arms for kisses and cuddles and giggles.

I circle back around to grief, wishing May 2012 could somehow still bring a new tiny baby born fresh from my body and into our arms, snuggling in for kisses and cuddles and giggles.

And then swoop back to thankfulness for two little boys

and around to guilt again after thanking God for gifting us with their sweet little lives ...

I have two adorable little boys playing trucks infusing their play with a side story of Finding Nemo, and I slip onto the floor next to them and cry out for Him to break me out of the rounds I'm circling.

Because right now, that's taking me nowhere fast; I need to go somewhere good even faster.

I make the slightest cry, and He hears.

So, slowly, gently, He moves me from spinning in the circles of a dusty, dirty roundabout of fear and sadness back to the paved road through His truth and the truth spoken by my husband and the words shared from a friend ... He moves me, layering salves over a wounded, heaven-homesick heart, to the next rest area on a journey where there is grief, yes, there is sadness, yes, but, too, there is both joy in the morning and joy in the midst of mourning.

"My soul clings to the dust;
give me life according to your word!
...
Make me understand the way of your precepts,
and I will mediate on your wondrous works.
My soul melts away for sorrow;
strengthen me according to your word."
Psalm 119: 25, 27, 28