I fell asleep last night on a pillow soaked in tears, fists wrapped tightly around crumpled hankies, and I know I wasn’t the only one.

Yesterday was the first time I experienced that moment of trepidation when the nurse assures you, “You’re only 11 weeks and two days – it’s still a little early to hear the heartbeat sometimes.” That sinking knowledge that you’ve heard in the past the little flutter of a heartbeat can be heard on that small machine at just eight weeks. And you’ve always heard it before. That moment of fear when the ultrasound machine shows what seems to be a rather empty cavity where there should be life and the flow of blood. And that look on the doctor’s face as he has to say the words he always dreads, “I can’t find a heartbeat. The baby is only measuring at eight weeks. I’m so sorry.”

Yet it was different for us, because what I wanted to do in that moment was reach out my hand to the mother sitting beside me. It was my womb on that screen, but it was her tiny baby lying motionless in black and white. And my heart broke into a million pieces watching her fragile, broken and pieced-together dreams shatter once again.

It’s not fair. And it doesn’t feel right.

But I know He has a purpose. I’m not going to claim to ever know what that purpose may be, but I know He has opened this road before us and I’ve always known we were called to walk it, without knowing how far it might carry us or where the twists might come.

We never know where the twists might come. But faith doesn’t require us to know the outcome before we choose to obey.

In our ladies Bible Study we have been studying through the book of Isaiah – which is not always easy with its warnings of destruction and despair. Yet, under all of these dire messages is one of hope – a future peace that is to come, even after everything falls apart. Isaiah 32 is one of those chapters – there is hope, there is sadness, and then there is hope again – verse 19 assures us, “And the effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust [security] forever.”

I don’t claim to be righteous by any means, but this path we have walked has been walked in obedience. And I feel His peace, His quietness, His security.

But I also feel pain. A little for me, and the death I can feel in my own body – a betrayal, almost. Mostly, though, a pain for these precious parents who have endured too much already. I pray today for them. That they, too, would feel this peace and security, but even more that they would feel comfort wrapped around them. Their journey has been more difficult than I can fathom and this the latest in a long string of mourning and loss.

We will move forward, but right now we rest. And quietness and trust will be our strength (Isaiah 30:15).