Heart of Worship.

That title is shamelessly stolen from the Matt Redman song. The beautiful, beautiful song that it is. I’ve been worshipping recently and have been playing songs I haven’t played for a while. One of them tonight is called You’re Worthy of my Praise, it’s on ‘The Best of Passion’ (2006). I downloaded the album in March 2014 when I was laid on our sofa downstairs at our house in Chesterfield, I hope it’s not too upsetting but I was miscarrying at the time. I was having pain in every way and worshipping because it was all I could do. I was crying out to my God and he answered but not obviously at the time. The lyrics are ‘I will worship’ (I will worship), with all of my heart (with all of my heart), I will praise you (I will praise you), with all my strength (all my strength)

It’s safe to say I was heartbroken both then and for a long time afterwards but “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18). And although it didn’t feel it at the time, he was and he does. It was strange, I’ve always been a worshipper, ever since I first came to know Jesus, I was saved partly through the words of a worship song called ‘Salvation’ by Simon Brading and those words were ‘God stepped down and lifted me up’. When I miscarried and for the short time afterwards, I worshipped and I worshipped, I also bought a bottle of booze but was then unable to drink it, unable as in I tried and then didn’t want it, because that just wasn’t me any more, God had changed me. All I needed was him. He loves and holds us like no one else will ever, ever do. I worshipped and I read the bible and read about the bleeding woman who was healed when she touched Jesus’ cloak and thought that when I went back for my check scan in a week, maybe just maybe, there would be a new heartbeat. There wasn’t. I don’t know what I felt really, I was hurting so much I wasn’t really able to process anything. My baby, our baby, had gone. All the plans we’d had, all the feelings, the ‘knowing’ you were pregnant, the expectation, gone, just like that. Just gone. I was empty.

I know some will think, why write about it now? it’s done, it’s gone. I will tell you why. It’s important to know that there is hope, there is always hope, no matter what is going on, there is always hope. There is heartbreak experienced in so many different ways and God can be there with you in it. You’re also to grieve. We come to God exactly how we are and He is always there. We don’t need to be anything or do anything or act in a certain way, we just need to come to Him. He is a good father. To be honest when I remember the details of what happened, it still breaks me, but not in a way in which I can’t go on. In a way that I really hope that I can just be there for others and maybe help in some small way. All I really wanted was to be held and loved and to be able to express my grief. Church were great, they even did us some meals to take the pressure off. Thankyou whoever reads this.

After the second scan, I found it very hard to worship God, I loved Him and I wanted to but my body was heavy, my hands were heavy, to lift them felt like I was lifting lead and when I worshipped, the tears fell and fell. On reflection, that’s good. That’s how it’s supposed to be, but being human, you feel self conscious and just want God to minister to you, not always other humans. Or sometimes I just wanted to run out or off. It got easier as I went on, I can’t remember exactly what happened but I just worshipped and tried to let it all out, all the pain.

A few months later we were in a meeting and the preach was just starting, the preacher started and then just stopped and said ‘Cathy, your womb is healed, your womb is healed now!’. I was like ‘what?’ and then realised what he had said, he was also someone I trust and trusted to hear from God. After my very quick initial ‘no way’, I repented of that and received the word and believed it. That very day, I started feeling strange sensations in my abdomen, butterfly type sensations and as time went on realised I was pregnant. That pregnancy went well and our lovely J came along. God had kept his promise of healing, just not how I thought it was going to be. He is the only healer, he is the real deal, and He heals in every way, never just in the singular.

God is God, we are not 🙂

Edit- This bit is added on… I wanted to honour someone. The day I miscarried or I should say, the night after, we went to our church prayer night and I froze in the passageway to the room, just froze, I was so overcome I couldn’t move, I was panicking and one of our elders walked down and he just held me and let me sob on him. His shirt was soaking, so thank you Peter. I think it’s one of the most caring things I’ve ever known in a world (and sometimes church) that isn’t good at confronting pain. God is though.