There’s something to be said for truly and fully giving your grief over a loss to God.

Last week, we held our annual women’s retreat in Ruidoso, NM. One of the breakout sessions I attended was on the subject of releasing your grief to God over a loss suffered directly or indirectly due to death, sickness, accident, divorce, etc. The part of the class I was most interested was the symbolic balloon release that happened after the class. All the participants were given a balloon and the opportunity to “name their grief” on the balloon. After the balloons were ready, everyone went outside where the class leader said a few words, prayed and then allowed people to release their balloon “only when they were ready to let it all go.”

As many of you already know from earlier blogs, my husband and I lost a baby due to miscarriage earlier this year. Earlier this week, Oct. 30, was the original approximate date given for our baby to be born. I’ll be honest and tell you that I was not looking forward to this date AT ALL!! I compared it to how I felt on Mother’s Day this past year. I was really looking forward to Mother’s Day until I had the miscarriage. It was a pretty rough week leading up to the day, but I did survive it with the help of my husband, family and friends. For Oct. 30, I was expecting myself to be a blithering mess, not able to work for all the tears and sniffles and just not fun to be around for anyone.

But, that was not the case. The day came and went pretty uneventful. I told my husband that evening that I believed it had a lot to do with the balloon release the previous week. I said above that the balloon release was during our “women’s” retreat, but my husband is one of the few men in our church that attend to help us out with heaving lifting, hanging decorations and security during our weekend event. Since I knew he would be there and the loss was shared by both of us, I asked him to do the balloon release with me; something we could do together.

As with others there, we cried, we hugged and held on tight to each other. Letting go of the loss of a child we never met, never got to see, with the exception of the few weeks we saw the baby on the ultrasound monitor, but a baby we loved so much and were ready for the changes the little bundle of joy would bring to our family life was a freeing experience. We both held on to the balloon and when we were both ready to “let go”, we let the balloon named “baby boy Hyden” float into the air…up, up and away into the clouds.

I never expected that experience to be as freeing as it was. And it didn’t really feel “freeing” at the time. But as the retreat ended and I’ve gotten back into the normal busyness of life, this week has also come and gone. I thought of my baby often this week and especially on Wednesday, but never to the point of utter and uncontrollable sadness. I still cry and still get sad, but God has taken my grief and replaced it with His peace. The kind of peace only He provides.

“Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything you can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.” ~Philippians 4:7 (NLT)