Devotion #13 - Why Do I Feel So Guilty?

Oh such a topic so close to my heart...the guilt I have overruns at times and I have no idea where to go or where to turn. This chapter talks so much about the guilt parents, especially moms, feel about why they couldn't save their baby. I have some of those feelings as I had wondered if I should be doing more to help my babies gain weight as suggested in twin books. I also kept a mild exercise routine up after my OB gave me the no walking, no lifting, no sex etc . speech. (but this was all to stop premature labour so really isn't applicable to me). I also feel guilty that I didn't educate myself more as I would have had other questions to ask, tests to insist on etc. But do I really blame myself for the loss of Cole...not at all.

Do I feel guilty about issues surrounding him...for sure. I've talked about them before here but today is a good day to really get into it and try very hard to press 'stop' and focus on the One who understands my suffering and can free me from this guilt.

First though for a list of the things that make me feel guilty:

1) I feel tremendous guilt that I wasn't overjoyed about being pregnant with twins...really about being pregnant at all. I was excited at times but so often the worry and stress overshadowed that joy. I feel like this negativity brought forth the troubles we had and the outcome of the loss of Cole.

2) I feel guilt that I am not always sure that isn't the way it was meant to be anyway...that we could never have managed 4 children, never have survived financially, emotionally etc and that is WHY this happened.

3) I feel the most guilt though because I don't know how to miss Cole...I say I miss him, I am so very sad that he is not here but sometimes I think I just do and say those things because the world expects that. I don't know how to miss someone I never met and someone who I wasn't sure how he'd fit into our lives. I feel horrible that I couldn't touch him, hold his flesh in mine, kiss him or look at him really when he was born. I feel awful that he really isn't even real to me anymore...I don't know how to deal with this confusion, this emptyness I feel. I wish he'd be born alive or born with hours or days of dying so that it would seem more real to me.

At first I didn't get the verses that go with this chapter...I won't type them out because the it's easier to just type what they are about...basically they talk about how God controls everything. I was sitting here thinking to myself 'but what does this have to do with my guilt...God controls that???'. And then I realized as I read further...it's not the guilt He controls but the action itself. He took Cole from us, He is all powerful, has supreme authority and power. He controls Everything!!! How does this change my perspective?....

Tough question for me at times. It changes it in that I know that I had no control over any of the things that happened to us. It doesn't matter that I wasn't overjoyed at the news, that I didn't spend the time with him that I would have liked or that sometimes I know it is easier. The guilt doesn't matter because I can't change anything. I can be angry about it if I want but anger is so powerful...but doesn't change things either. I didn't get to choose this for my family but I do get to learn from it. I can see now that we MUST be happy with the gifts God gives us...there is no point in not celebrating the gift of life inside of you...God put it there for a reason. I know that I didn't will Cole to die because I was scared and that God didn't take him for that reason either. I don't know the reason but it wasn't to 'teach me a lesson', punish me for my sins or because he thought I couldn't afford 4 kids. He doesn't work that way and neither should I.

From that I realize that I have no right to pass judgment on anyone. I don't have the right to say 'why did that woman get to keep her twins', 'why does that teenage mom who can't afford a baby have one', 'why does someone who doesn't care about her kids get to keep her child and I lost mine'....because I don't the right to question his actions!!! He has done this for a reason of his own and in time it may become clearer to me or it may take me till I reach Heaven to truly understand. Either way it is His decision.

Each time I feel the need to play back all the things that happen and question whether I made the right decisions, felt the right emotions, reacted the 'right' way I need to stop and remember that God is in control and He will guide me in the right path.

God;

Sometimes I feel like there are more things I could have done to save Cole but most of the time I just feel so guilty that I wasn't as excited as I should have been and didn't my pregnancy for what it was...a miracle from you. I keep replaying my emotions and reactions to the things that happen all the time. Please help me to press 'stop' and look to You. You are the answer, You are sovereign. Nothing can touch my life without Your permission. Free me from my blame and guilt. Help me to press stop on this tape when I feel guilty and to put in a new tape today and move forward.