The show must go on.

I have spent almost the entirety of my life as a professional performer. I am all too familiar with this saying. I left immediately after my mother’s funeral so I could make it to a dress rehearsal for one show in the afternoon, and perform in another show that night. There was just no time to stop.

Do you ever feel the pressure to just suck it up and move on? There are times in my life where I have had to just swallow my feelings, stuff a reaction to something, or just plain ignore something major because there just wasn’t time to deal. Or so I thought.

Not only have I done this myself, but as a pastor I regularly encounter people on that have experienced something major and their instinct is to hide it and move forward while pretending they are just fine. Most often the reason for this response is that we simply don’t trust ourselves to “go there” because we are afraid of what it may dig up. We often don’t feel safe to grieve and we certainly don’t know how.

As women, we have often been chastised for our emotions  and so we have learned how to squash them, afraid to make waves or cause a scene. So we just move on. We feel the pressure to not drop the ball. We have jobs, families, and responsibilities to attend to and the pain of our experience never really gets the attention it deserves. The truth is, pain is real. Feelings are real. Lost dreams are real. Grieving is vital and I love when something comes along to help us learn how to do it, and do it well.

Loved baby is a 31 day devotional by Sarah Philpott, PhD. Through sharing her own experience and the contributions of those in the Loved Baby tribe, this book meets needs of one who has lost a baby to miscarriage.

What I love about this book is the gentleness in which it is covered. She writes from a place of knowing, caring, and deep faith in a good God. This journey is intended to help you, “move through the loss rather than stepping over it.”

Philpott walks the reader through the emotional and the practical sides of grief. She offers advice on: how to respond to insensitive comments, what to do with the promotional material that will come in the mailbox, the potential pain of mother’s day, the loss of plans and dreams, and even how to love and honor the father in the process.

Loved Baby isn’t overwhelming or threatening. It’s manageable in it’s size and content for each day helping the woman to take slow and grace-filled steps toward healing. It is not overly preachy but it is sensitive to a variety of women in all manner of stages of their faith journey. What I also love is that at the end of each day, she offers a short prayer. I see so much value in helping someone who is grieving by offering an example of what one could pray. People regularly complain that they just don’t know how to pray in moments like these, and this is a gentle and loving way to begin.

There is such a great need for this book! As a pastor I am so thankful for a resource I can recommend to any woman walking through this situation, in fact I have already given it out!

If you have lost a baby, do yourself a loving favor, get this book.

If you know someone who has lost a baby, get this book, and offer hope, healing, and love.

We do not love ourselves or those around us well when we hide, or stuff our emotions. When we experience loss, there is hope and healing. Grieving is not a waste of time.  I am thankful for tools to guide us.

Sharing hope and healing joyfully,

Season