Believing and Trusting in God after Infant Loss | Episode 015 with Angie Smith
Grief and loss and finding hope after infant loss, 10 years later. | The Joyful Mourning Podcast with Angie Smith hosted by Ashlee Proffitt | The Morning: A community of hope for women finding joy after pregnancy or infant loss.
Meet Angie
Angie is married to Todd Smith of the Christian group Selah, and mom to five daughters. In 2008, the Smiths received news that their daughter, Audrey, would not survive after birth, and Angie began blogging to share those difficult days.
Angie now writes books and Bible studies and teaches nationally, but her passion is the same as when she blogged her very first words: to make the Bible feel accessible and relevant, and share her own faith journey as encouragement.
Angie holds a Masters in Developmental Psychology from Vanderbilt and is a best-selling author of multiple adult and children's books.
You can find Angie over on Instagram or her website.
Favorite Books by Angie for Grieving Women
I Will Carry You, The Sacred Dance of Grief and Joy: "Advised to terminate the pregnancy, the Smiths chose instead to carry this child and allow room for a miracle. That miracle came the day they met Audrey Caroline and got the chance to love her for the precious two-and-a-half hours she lived on earth."
Audrey Bunny: "A sweet children’s book about a stuffed animal named Audrey Bunny who fears her imperfections make her unworthy of a little girl’s love. She'll learn the truth soon enough, and young readers will learn that everyone is special and wonderfully made by God."
A FEW OF MY FAVORITE MOMENTS FROM EPISODE 015
[15:18] Ashlee: How can we encourage them (grieving mothers) that their baby's life wasn't in vain, even if they never see this bold evidence of the good that came from their baby's death? [17:21] Angie: to me the truth of the matter is, their life is never going to be in vain...
[20:23] Angie: And for me, it's just so important to think about, if I'm focusing so much on the physical and I'm believing and grieving and hoping to just to see the miracles that have come, whatever that is, if I'm relying on that to say: "and when that happens, my soul be at rest." We're missing so much of the way God is calling us to let our soul be at rest. And I feel so much of that myself. I really do. It's very convicting.
[24:27] Angie: And for me, yes, I long for heaven in a different way, but also I carry an ache. So I feel like it's a balance of expecting, anticipating, trusting, knowing that I will see her and also wishing I could see or here.
[32:32] AngieOn sharing your story publicly: And so I would just say be grateful and also cautious and prayerful about it kind of comments and things that you're hearing because it's easy to feel influenced by them.
[38:23] Angie's Prayer: Lord, I am so grateful for this time and I know that none of us would have chosen it. This is not what we would want to be talking about, but this is where we are. And so, Lord, first of all, I just say, this is where we are. And we're just calling on you to be present in that, in the right now. And that you would also, I love when you continue to give reminders of your goodness in places that we weren't looking and I would ask that you would do that for all of these women, that you would remind them that not only are they in a crowd of people, they are under a great cloud of witnesses, they are under you. They are not alone, and as much as we can not comprehend the reasons behind all of these losses, and the fact that as much as we want to say 'because of this, this happened and so it makes sense.' We know that that's just not reality here on earth. And so I pray that you would grant us the strength to walk, in spite of that, and that we'll just keep our eyes on a place where we know it will be made right. And Lord, for the women who are not sure right this second that you are good because how do you walk through this and say that's good. I just want to remind them that that it isn't good and that this isn't your ultimate desire, but You're good. And so for the women listening, my heart is with you. I pray that the Lord will just be so present and so tangible that it is undeniable. And then he'll just take you to the next step and the next step and the next step until we walk all the way there. We don't know what else to do but to believe in you. And so, Lord, help us do that today. And we pray these things because you're a mighty and holy, and we do so in your name. Amen.
Grief and loss and finding hope after infant loss, 10 years later. | The Joyful Mourning Podcast with Angie Smith hosted by Ashlee Proffitt | The Morning: A community of hope for women finding joy after pregnancy or infant loss.
[accordion title="CLICK FOR FULL TRANSCRIPT"]Ashlee: 00:38 Hello friends and welcome to this week's episode on the joyful morning. This week's guest is a woman who tenderly and honestly walked me through grief after losing my son, but not in the way that you might think. She was in the midst of experiencing her own loss and she wrote so many beautiful blog post about her own journey through grief, and so while we never met in person, her real honest and raw words were incredibly helpful to me as I tried to understand my new reality. I am so excited to welcome Andy Smith to the joyful morning podcast. Hi Angie. Welcome.Angie: 01:13 Thank you so much for having me.Ashlee: 01:15 Thank you so much for joining me and for being willing to share your story with us. I imagine that 2008 is a year that feels very far away, but still like it was yesterday. That's how it feels for me. My, my son will be 10. He would be 10 in October and I'm. Audrey would have just turned 10, right birthday. Yeah, so doesn't that feel so strange? Ten years?Angie: 01:43 It does and I just feel like it's. It feels like it's a little bit, I'm sure you understand this then a lot of women who've been through this kind of last word, but time is a weird thing with loss. You know, there's a part of me that's like, that's not real. It just happened, you know, and then 10 years, it's like the double digit thing. Really. It really messed with me this year to be honest. It is a very strange thing.Ashlee: 02:10 Yeah, it is. It feels, it feels super bizarre. So if it, if there's somebody who might not know who you are, um, which would be crazy to me.Angie: 02:25 Angie has written at least one book that has ministered to me. Um, and then another book that we got for our children, for my daughter to read. Um, and so if you don't know her, you should know her, but I'm Angie, will you just tell us a little bit about who you are, maybe what you spend your days doing. What's a day in the life of Angie Smith look like?Angie: 02:54 Wow. Do you mind to hearing some of it because I've got several kids that the night last night and they're terrorizing my house. So I'm. Yeah, I'm Angie. Hey y'all. I am married. I have four living children and um, as we said, my daughter Audrey would have turned 10 on April seventh and right now we have transitioned into summertime. We homeschool our kids but um, because the school next year we'll see how that goes. Um, but so typically there's like a little bit more scheduled and kind of free for all right now and I'm kind of ready for them to be in school and his total pay off. I don't have it together over here at all.Ashlee: 03:39 I'm only two days into summer with my kids home and I feel like I'm about to lose my mind.Angie: 03:46 I want to know. I almost asked us to people and I feel like I feel like it's not like I'm an idiot ideal, but I want to sit with moms and just say, what do you do during the day? Seriously, are you on the ground playing puzzles, like are you like super attentive to your kids or you? I'm just curious, you know, because sometimes I'm like this, I'm such a terrible mom. I'm such a slacker and I wish I could sneak into other people's houses and just watch what a normal day look like. It's an interesting question.Ashlee: 04:16 I highly doubt that you are a slacker. I struggle with the same thing. Interestingly enough, I always am curious about how other people do things and I think for me, my mom didn't stay home with me so I don't have a picture of what that should even look like. I have no real, there's no framework for that in my mind, so I always just assume that I'm doing it wrong. That's just how I generally approach life. So.Angie: 04:46 No, but I mean you're doing more so...Ashlee: 04:51 I guess, but maybe I'm damaging them or by. I don't know. Is that the best thing? I Dunno. That's awesome. So I'm imagining that no two days look the same for you. Your life is just a little bit crazy. Um, if there is somebody who isn't familiar with your story and I'm your precious daughter, Audrey, would you be willing to share with us just as much as you feel like sharing about, about your story and about Audrey?Angie: 05:24 Yeah, of course. She, um, when we found out when I was pregnant and we're about halfway through the pregnancy, went on for an ultrasound and we already had three girls at the time. So honestly we were just sort of thinking that it was going to be a big gender reveal, you know, and so we were totally shocked when the doctor told us that she had multiple diagnoses that all consistent with the idea that she just, you know, the phrase they used was compatible with life and so we were really urged to abort her and um, and there's a little bit more in, in that part of the story that I'm happy to go into, but we decided not to you. And we carried her. And so she was born on April seventh, 2008 and she had bright red hair. She was beautiful and she lived for a little over two hours. About two and a half hours. So, um, yeah, that, that's our Audrey.Ashlee: 06:40 Yeah, she is, she is beautiful. She is. I felt like I was walking through this journey with you, but I found you in October of that year, I guess November when my son had died. And so yeah, I remember you. Um, I just, I, I very vividly remember specific posts that you wrote and then portions from your book. And so it was beautiful to see the way that you celebrated her life and the way that you chose to give her life. You know, you made a hard decision. Tell. Tell me about what that. I, I imagine that there will be women who listened to this podcast who are receiving a terminal diagnosis or you know, they're hearing doctors say things like, your baby's life is not compatible with life. Walk us through what that, what that was like. Um, what, what were the decisions? How did you make those decisions? How would you encourage I a mom who's just received that diagnosis?Angie: 07:44 I'm sorry. I think a lot of people jumped in with this sort of plan or they don't know what to say and for me it's like just acknowledged first of all that this is awful. Um, and so that's the start of the conversation and for me personally and that community, I know for me to express this has to be a little bit cautious because I never want it to be misunderstood. But um, when the doctors told us that their suggestion was fresh to abort Andre, we waited until the next morning and prayed and consulted other people and we struggled with the decision even as a believer because the impression we were given at her diagnosis was that she'd been painting and there was something in me obviously as a mother that could not stand the idea of causing her to be in pain. And so there was that moment and I think what that night did for you first of all is give a whole lot of grace and determination. But I'm not intimately acquainted with, with people I don't know, with Pacific's I will never see. And it's, there's a grace that there's no manual for this. We're all trying to figure it out. Each one of us have completely different variables in stories and family and all of that.Ashlee: 09:21 I think that there's, there's a lot of fruit that comes from suffering and walking through walking through loss and one of those fruits is that ability to what you just said, um, to understand, um, that you don't know all of the details of what's going on in, in the decision making, that the piece that someone else has to make. Um, you said you had infinitely more grace for people walking through decisions that we just don't, we don't always know. And I think that that is such a helpful reminder as it is. There is good that comes out of these, these hard, hard, tragic moments. And one of the good, good gifts that God gives us is that he reshapes our hearts to be more compassionate and more empathetic, more gracious. I do think that that is true.Angie: 10:15 And I love the way that, you know, we were just talking about, and I think it's the perfect analogy for the whole thing is I would love to walk inside someone else's house and see how they live their day and I want to see how the mother and carrying a baby, losing the baby, still mothering. And so you're looking at these other people and saying, how do you mother, I don't know how to do that in this situation. And whether, you know, no matter where you are in pregnancy or. Correct, we're mothering and I think that's complicated and we want to feel like we're doing it right.Speaker 3: 10:54 Yeah.Ashlee: 10:56 Yeah, you're right. And I think even in the grieving at the. So for me it was, it was, it was a very different scenario in that, um, I didn't know the anticipation of death. I only knew death. I've, you know, my son died in his sleep. And so my grief experience is different than yours in that. But the, the desire to want to know what, what I should have, what I should be doing and how I should be grieving is very similar. I want to walk along some somebody and have them say, yeah, Ashley, you're doing okay. You're, you're, you know, you're a mess and that's fine. You're supposed to be. And IAngie: 11:43 think the other thing I'm thinking when you just said that as that, um, and that people are a little bit familiar with my story, they might know part and you know, the restaurant. But um, when we buried Audrey, my sister in law seen over her, she had been in it, my husband, things in a group called c'est La and she had been in the group for 10 years and had gotten married and was pursuing other things, but it's still very.Angie: 12:10 We were pregnant at very similar times and so she was holding her son newborn while she was singing over Audrey. And it was this incredibly difficult and tender moment that I'll never forget, but the rest of the story is that Audrey died on April seventh next month on May 27. Her suddenly died in his sleep. And so, you know, there are only few weeks between their debts. And so we walked through a lot of that together in our grieving processes were very different because of the situation. And again, it's every, every situation does look different. But again, also there was a different grades that came along with being able to be so close to someone who was walking through something much more, you know, similar to what you did and the way it just looks different.Ashlee: 13:08 No, there's so many things that I could talk about. What does it look like to, um, walk siblings through, through grief. Um, what does it look like for you to have established traditions around Audrey's birthday? Um, those, those things are important to me also. But I, one thing that I have noticed that I wanted to get your thoughts on. I have this community of women who are walking through similar grief and I noticed that often we want to see immediately the good, the good things that are going to come out of such hard things. And sometimes that isn't the case. Sometimes we aren't able to see that, you know, the immediate, you know, I'm thinking the Sunday after. So my, my husband is a, is a pastor, my father in law is a pastor and the Sunday after my son died, my son died on a Saturday morning and that Sunday my father in law preached an incredible sermon in people just ran to Jesus that morning, you know, people got saved and it was just this beautiful, amazing miracle that we just got.Ashlee: 14:24 It was as if God was saying he didn't die in vain and for a long time I clung to that. I clung to this like God allowed him to die because he was going to save these people through it. But I'm wondering about the, the women who might not ever get to see that kind of fruit on this side of heaven. And I was thinking specifically after Audrey was born, I remember you wrote a letter to her, um, in the letter you said, do you know that you changed the world? And I, I remember I wrote a similar letter to my son and I, I said something similar, you know, like through you and your life. God did this amazing thing. Um, but I'm wondering how we can encourage women who there they may not get to see this, like bold evidence of God moving. How can we encourage them if their life, their baby's life wasn't in vain even if they never see that kind of thing?Angie: 15:25 That's a great question. And I can I be really blunt, yes to everything as far as the freight and how difficult that is. But I will tell you this. I have a ministry where I get to talk to women and I get to share my faith and my daughter and a million other wonderful thing and I have the same answer every single time someone says try, look at the ministry has come from her and I just want to say, well, I'd rather have her back. You know. So for all these beautiful things that looks like for you in my mind, I think, but he could have done it another way and God. And so sometimes I, I honestly I restful and obviously there are situations like what we're describing, which completely took me up. There are situations, but I think for the folks who don't see that immediately there, it doesn't change the weight that their children had and I think I didn't have to be really cautious with my sort of if then assumptions sometimes because if you know, then it would be easy to say if I don't see this physical or whatever evidence than it was in vain and you have no idea how many women I talked to you to say that and they're looking and to me the truth of the matter is if it's never going to be in vain and in my opinion it will never be completely redeemed.Ashlee: 17:31 Hmm.Angie: 17:34 Arenas, we felt no matter how many is it just to me it's just such a. it's complicated because it's so beautiful and it's still, it's an ache, you know, and so I don't think there's ever going to be anything but you are in horrible club group where we can step back and just say, got it. That makes it all worth it. You know, for that. And I don't know, a mother who would ever say that, so I don't even know if that makes sense.Ashlee: 18:10 It definitely makes sense. It's interesting. As you were kind of working that out, I was thinking that it, it's just like anything in life that we just like, we keep pursuing thinking that that will fill our hearts. It the same is true in this instance where we would, you know, keep pursuing validation of our babies safe and just what you just said is so true. It will never though those things will never fully redeem, you know, Audrey not being here or my son not being here. And so I think that, that. I think that that is helpful in knowing that we can just keep chasing after whatever the thing is I'm thinking, you know, we want us, we want to honor our babies' lives. And then I think sometimes that gets a little bit twisty into, um, I just, I'm, I'm just trying real hard to make sense out of this and to redeem what's been lost and only God can fully bring about redemption. And so I do think it's helped. I think that that is really helpful.Angie: 19:20 I just think when we're thinking about these kinds of things, it's easy for us to feel like at some point is going to get better. And on Sunday are our pastor preached about um, Luke 12, I was trying to find this number so I could code it. But basically he's, he's saying that he's going to keep building out bigger things and it's going to store grain and obviously it's a parable, but what's happening is that essentially he says I'm going to keep doing this and in English translation that we used that and finally my soul will be at rest and so in his mind or something difficult he be doing and his goal was to get to the place where his soul rest and there's so much to be said and I don't, don't write this down yet. Y'All all keep it quiet. But I'm working on a book that sort of has to do with this idea of kind of live in the present. And for me, it's just so important to think about, if I'm focusing so much on the physical and I'm believing but not, you know, whatever it is, and grieving and just to see the miracles that have come, whatever that is, if I'm relying on that to say and when that happens, my soul be at rest. We're, we're missing so much of the way God is calling us to let our soul. And I feel so much of that myself. I really do. It's very convicting.Ashlee: 20:58 I think that's incredibly helpful. Speaking of Bible verses that I wanted to ask you a question, I'm kind of switching gears. Not totally, but sure. I came across this verse that just this morning, um, and it's in psalm 71 and he is writing, dishonest is writing. And he says, your righteousness God reaches to the heavens. You who have done great things, who is like you got. And then he says, though you have made me see troubles many and bitter, you will restore my life again from the depths of the earth. You will bring me up again. Tell me, when you hear those words, do you believe that that's true, that God has in the, in the throes of loss and grief when he has allowed us to experience these many bitter troubles? Do you feel like he has restored your life again? What do you think about that burden?Angie: 21:56 I think it's beautiful. Um, I also think that sometimes we're not, we're not going to see that here and that we're not going to be fully brought back up, but the words, and I love that he's saying that it's different, you know, the sense of like, I do acknowledge that and ultimately I know that it will be for your glory and also it will be redeemed. But I wrestled the same. That was complete conviction here in my own, you know, inability to comprehend God. Sometimes I say those words and quite translated to my heart.Ashlee: 22:48 Yeah. Yeah. I think that's, it's a good reminder that on this side of heaven, full restoration isn't possible. Right. I think when, when the expectation is that we can, we can be quickly discouraged here, but if, if our perspective is one that we understand that full restoration happens not here, but in heaven when God makes all things new and then our expectations here are probably a little bit more realistic like that there will be days that that hurt and things that feel bitter and things that feel hard and um, maybe it makes us hold this world a little bit more loosely.Angie: 23:41 Yeah. I thinkAshlee: 23:43 that that kind of leads to a question that I've asked a few different women, but how has Audrey's life and her death impacted the way that you see the world now?Angie: 23:59 Yeah. It's again, I, I'm probably the wrong person to have on here because I feel like there are so many great quotes to an amazing Bible verses. And I said this before when I was teaching, I think that a lot of great embroidered until. Oh, but they, they felt really. And for me, yes, I long for heaven in a different way, but also I carry an ache. So I feel like it's a balance of expecting into the painting, trusting, knowing that I will see her and also wishing I could see or here. Yeah.Ashlee: 24:50 Do you feel like that, that perspective was the same in the early, like your early days of, of the, of Audrey's diagnosis and then her, um, her dying and the months after that, do you feel like your perspective was the same then that it is now? Because I think in my experience I would have given that pillow embroidery answer in the first months after because I was this good Christian girl who I was a pastor's wife and I gave. I knew all the right answers in my hope is in Jesus and you know, I feel like I can give a more honest answer 10 years later.Angie: 25:36 Right? Yeah, I can see that. I think I was probably, I think I probably did a little bit of both, but I'm sure people could pick up on this, but I'm really okay with the wrestling as far as I know where I land. But I also know that for me, when I was going through it now, I'll never forget everyone coming into my house the day that we buried her and they had these like amazing cloud as she is and like, and it's not that I wasn't grateful for their heart because it was very sincere and my brother in law had traveled and you walked in the door and I hadn't seen him yet and he stood at the bottom of the stairs as I was coming down. He was like, you know, an Eng this silk. And it was like, yeah, okay, like, let's go there.Angie: 26:29 And so for me it, it, there was always sort of been that combination of like, I think that women appreciate so much more. You saying it that way and not like, you know, because I did meet a couple people who right their last or even down the road, it was like, it can know what this is. Again, it's not that I don't believe them. I just started hating myself a little bit because I don't do that. And what I've come to find is that as beautiful as that is, I also find a lot of comfort and consolation and the people who are able to say, you know, I believe that, but I'm really struggling to believe it. In fact, there's beautiful precedent set in scripture for that. So I think whatever feels true to you is the best way to express it. And I think probably for you Ashley, like coming out of the fresh days, it might've just been that you were talking to yourself, you, you wanted to study yourself with scripture, you know, and that it wasn't inauthentic. It was just you saying, okay, not just to be the fake right answers, but to say like, remind yourself that that's your solid ground. And so each step I think looks different and then you're moving along and you're like, no, wait, okay, now I still believe it, but this still is really wobbly right here or whatever. And so yeah, that, that's a roundabout answer. ButAshlee: 27:56 I think that at each stage I gave myself just a little bit more freedom to ask hard questions that I probably had never allowed myself to ask before in one of the reasons was because I sat down with a woman who had lost her daughter and she said something along the lines of, this sucks, like probably in a more profound way that. But she just, she gave me the freedom to say, you know, this is, this is. She said this is heinous. Like what, what burying a child is, is heinous. And um, I just remember thinking that that was the first time that I had allowed myself to even question God's, what he deemed as good or the things that he had allowed to happen, you know? Yeah. To verbally out loud, say something like that.Angie: 28:59 I think it's amazing that you were able to do that because it completely changed the way you continue to process it. Yeah.Ashlee: 29:06 Yeah. One question that I had for you, um, was that when you, when you began writing Audrey's story, you very quickly had a, had a big audience watching you grief, you know, for lack of better words there, what, you know, they're coming alongside and they were praying for you, but they are watching you grieve. And I think now women who are walking through this journey, many women are choosing to do so very publicly because of social media. Just our access to putting things out there. Um, is there any encouragement or wisdom or advice that you would give to someone who is, um, kind of grieving in a, in a public light? I don't know if that is that question even make sense. I'm like, what? Anything that you would be cautious of or um, anything you learned from that experience that would be helpful for someone who's choosing to put all of that out there?Angie: 30:12 Yeah, and I think some people want to and some people don't. Obviously there are certain people who are like, I'm holding this close to my chest. It's private and there are other people who being able to have other women speaking to them and sharing and what they're going through is, makes things easier in the moment. Um, my story is just a little bit weird because a lot of people knew who todd was because of his thinking and so it was a little bit like people are asking questions and I just don't know how to answer all of them, you know, to each person if I'm getting these phone calls or emails or whatever. And so it was like, I'll just kind of do it this way and that way they can keep up with it. Obviously it was never intended to be what it is.Angie: 31:02 And I think that's part of, I don't know that I would call it a caution, but just the awareness that anytime you open yourself up, there's something beautiful to be said about. Obviously allowing people into that intimate part of yourself that they can start to make presumptions about their right to give opinions or um, to be critical. And there also, I mean, I don't know how frequently this happens now, but I will tell you that I had probably more than I could count on my hand, the people who told me stories that were completely made up and sort of like hold me on the line sun for weeks and weeks and weeks and that I, you know, that I believed were true and they weren't. And so there were a lot of people who kind of, I don't want to say take advantage of me, but sought attention from me in ways that were unhealthy and it took me a little while to figure that out.Angie: 32:09 And so it's a beautiful way to stand up and see that you are any crowd of other women who are standing up in a room in that community. But I would definitely say it's sorta the same caution with it in that, you know, that's, that's what we're living in right now. That's such a big part of how we communicate that you're not eye to eye and not sitting down. And so I would just say be grateful and also cautious and prayerful about it kind of comments and things that you're hearing because it's easy to feel influenced by them and her even. I don't have very thick skin. And so, um, there were a few I, I can, I can recite them to you verbatim now I can tell them to word for word that, you know, that stuck with me and they were really hard. SoAshlee: 33:08 I think what you said to just be very prayerful and cautious just prayerful and slow, I think in a culture where we just are really quick to do everything and where everything feels very immediate. There's a generation of young mothers now who will be very easy to just post things just very, you know, without thinking maybe through or praying through that. And I think that's just a good word of encouragement to just be very prayerful about what you're putting online, you know? Yep.Angie: 33:49 I don't know that that's helpful or that I need to be paying attention to that or putting energy into it, you know?Ashlee: 33:57 Yeah, I definitely agree. I think, um, I don't know many grieving mothers who would say they have thick skin, you know, like everything feels tinder, everything. I mean just um, I think like two, um, two falls ago and in how Halloween I posted a picture of my son in his costume. He was only four weeks old or something and when I posted this picture it was around his birthday and I was saying something like he would be six or seven or whatever and some, some idiot, some stupid comment about his costume and like you said, I can literally remember it for them and I just remember my best friend saw the comment before I did and she just went bananas. Yeah. So if you are listening and you were a friend of someone who is walking through this, be that person, be the personAngie: 34:59 you are listening and you would remotely think to do that. I'm pretty sure no one listening whatever.Ashlee: 35:05 Right?Angie: 35:07 But also really genuinely to be prayerful about the way you respond because you and I both know as the, you know, every year of a woman who has gone through this, even with good intention, people say stupid things, you know. And so even I've caught myself like responding and just thinking like I don't think that came across. Right. You know, or that didn't feel gentle enough or you know, so even though it's not that blatant, even for me, there are times where I'm like, Oh shit, you know, I hope that wasn't hurtful or whatever. It's the whole thing is a mess a little bit, you know, we didn't get a guide.Ashlee: 35:47 Yeah, you were right. Um, I have so many other things that I would love to talk to you about, but I think let's just finish with one last question and you've kind of, you kind of mentioned this briefly at the beginning, but um, what's one thing or one encouragement that you would give to another mom who has lost a baby or is looking at a future where you know, she's received that terminal diagnosis?Angie: 36:18 Gosh, I feel like immediately when you said that about 10,000 things.Speaker 3: 36:23 Okay,Angie: 36:24 well you can say, um, I don't know that it's exactly what everyone would want to hear it, but I guess we're kind of close with this. Sometimes when I teach I'll ask people to stand if they've ever lost a child baby, whether it was an abortion, whether it was, you know, teenager killed in a car accident or whatever it was, and not to clap and applaud this terrible thing, but I just asked them to stand and it's very rare for a less than maybe half of the audience.Speaker 3: 37:01 Hmm.Angie: 37:02 To stand up. And so I guess in saying that we're all in this room and we're all looking at each other and all the other women who are standing up. And so I, I think in my heart, the first thing I say is you're not alone.Speaker 3: 37:25 Yeah.Angie: 37:26 And you know, there are people who've walked ahead of us and ahead of, you know, those people and those people and those people. And as long as horrifying as it is that we would have to cling to each other for this reason, I think it's really beautiful to you.Speaker 3: 37:47 Yeah.Ashlee: 37:48 I love that reminder that we are not alone and I'm grateful that you shared that with us today and I'm grateful for the women who will be encouraged by that truth and all of the other sweet words of wisdom that you gave us today. I'm Auntie. Would you, would you mind praying forAngie: 38:10 totally putting you on the spot? No, I wouldn't mind. I don't really like. I don't know. I was glad to see you too, Ashley. Okay. Thank you.Ashlee: 38:23 Okay,Angie: 38:23 Lord, I am so grateful for this time and I know that none of us would have chosen it. This is not what we would want to be talking about, but this is where we are. And so, Lord, first of all, I just say, this is where we are. And we're just calling on you to be present in that, in the right now. And that you would also, I love when you continue to give reminders of your goodness in places that we weren't looking and I would ask that you would do that for all of these women, that you would remind them that not only are they in a crowd of people, they are under a great cloud of witnesses, they are under you. They are not alone, and as much as we can not comprehend the reasons behind all of these losses, and the fact that as much as we want to say 'because of this, this happened and so it makes sense.' We know that that's just not reality here on earth. And so I pray that you would grant us the strength to walk, in spite of that, and that we'll just keep our eyes on a place where we know it will be made right. And Lord, for the women who are not sure right this second that you are good because how do you walk through this and say that's good. I just want to remind them that that it isn't good and that this isn't your ultimate desire, but yYou're good. And so for the women listening, my heart is with you. I pray that the Lord will just be so present and so tangible that it is undeniable. And then he'll just take you to the next step and the next step and the next step until we walk all the way there. We don't know what else to do but to believe in you. And so, Lord, help us do that today. And we pray these things because you're a mighty and holy, and we do so in your name. Amen.Ashlee: 40:35 Amen. Thank you Angie. Thank you for listening friends. And until next time. [/accordion]PLEASE NOTEThe full transcript is provided by an online app and while I do my best to catch any transcription mistakes it is highly possible that a few may have been missed. If something is not clear please refer back to the audio for reference.
