January Guest Writer: Heather Butler

We've gathered 12 guest writers to add HOPE to your inbox in 2021! We're honored to have author and speaker, Heather Butler, as our first guest writer this year.

Here we are—2021. So many have eagerly anticipated a new year—hoping that those new numbers on the calendar will bring with it a new start and some new normalcy. We are so over the isolation and separation...and ready for our lives to go back to normal. But not all of us get that “new start.”

Some of you have had to walk through pregnancy and baby loss alone. Your partners unable to sit beside you during routine appointments; not allowed in the hospital room as you experienced the greatest loss imaginable. Moments when it is vital to have a support system, you had to do it alone—tapping into a strength and courage you didn’t know you possessed. But here you stand. You did it. You may still need time to process and heal, but you are doing it...one step at a time.

And now, the new year has arrived.

For many of us, those new numbers bring a new heaviness. They further separate us from the few, precious moments we were able to spend with our heaven babies.

After you experience a loss, time is one of the only things that help you feel connected to your baby. When the grief and pain is fresh, so is your baby’s life. But as time increases, so does the feeling of separation. In one fell swoop, the year that held so much rawness and heartache— and also great love—is no longer documented on the calendar.

When a new year arrives, that flipping of the page can feel as if we are moving on from our loss(es). It is one more thing that keeps progressing when our hearts feel frozen in time. Our bodies unintentionally move forward with the ticking of the clock, but our hearts remain still— quiet and silent in that sacred place of loss.

But can I share something with you? Something that I’ve learned over the course of 8 years of knowing baby loss intimately?

Time cannot contain the life of your heaven baby or the love that you have for him/her.

In fact, at this very moment, your baby is in heaven with his/her Creator...and time doesn’t exist. The date on a calendar does not define how real your baby’s life is or how tender your grief is—both those things continue to live no matter the day, month, or year.

Your baby’s life has changed you and you will never be the same. But we honor that change— because it made you a mother. We celebrate your baby and your motherhood—today, tomorrow, and always!

The God of the Bible gives us a hope unlike any other.

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
Psalm 34:18 NIV

When others are celebrating the newness of a new year, remember that you also get a newness, even though it may look differently than others around you. Your hope is renewed. Your joy is renewed. Your faith and strength are renewed.

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:16-18 NIV

Oh, sweet momma, this new year is bringing you closer to your baby. A new year isn’t a giant, solid object, it is actually a gentle movement bringing you closer—closer to being renewed, closer to healing, closer to your heaven baby, closer to glory.

Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!
Luke 1:45 NIV

You are loved. You are seen. And you always have a seat at our table.

Love your fellow loss momma,
Heather

We invite you to connect with Heather on Facebook, Instagram, or her website, www.thatsideofheaven.com