Book Review: I Will Carry You by Angie Smith
This book I Will Carry You by Angie Smith was one that a friend recommended to me after our most recent miscarriage. I couldn't find it at our local library. Then I received a care package from someone I'd never met and of all the books they could've included... they included this one.
I read the book in one sitting. I found the story intriguing. To let myself get sucked into another's story of loss, to cry with them over their heartbreak... somehow this helped me to better grieve my own. The author and her husband were expecting their 4th child. During the pregnancy, they learned that their child has some complications and wouldn't live long, if at all. Although they were advised to abort the baby, they chose to carry her to term. Audrey was alive when born and lived for just a few short hours.
The author is very transparent with her grief and also her hope. She wrote the book not only to chronicle her own journey but to encourage others who are going through devastating loss.
The book is subtitled "The Sacred Dance of Grief and Joy." I have thought of that many times since first hearing it. I feel like my life is a dance between the two. I laugh at my 4-year-old's silly antics. I wipe tears from my eyes as he tells me he doesn't want to talk about babies any more (as much as I wish it weren't so, he's beginning to equate babies with death since that's been the majority of conversations about babies in our home in the last year or so). One moment I'm truly feeling gratitude for what I have, thanking God for this wonderful life. And then my mind can't help but wander to how different life would be if only my family weren't divided between earth and heaven. Nonetheless, I'm learning this dance, between grief and joy, smiles and tears.
In this book, the author shared numerous quotes about suffering, death, eternal life, etc. I liked these specific ones and wanted to share them too.
"If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probably explanation is that I was made for another world" - C.S. Lewis
I've heard that one many times. Always loved it. And more and more with each child I've lost, I long for heaven. I realize just how strong is my desire to eternity, for something lasting, for something this world cannot afford me.
"Joy in affliction is rooted in the hope of resurrection, but our experience of suffering also deepens the root of that hope." - John Piper
It's true. As much as I wish there could be another way, the lower the valley, the more we appreciate the mountain top. The rain makes the rainbows sweeter. My own suffering has deepened the root of hope in the resurrection, for sure.
Lastly, I found this word picture by Henry Scott Holland fascinating.
"I am standing on the seashore. A ship spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the ocean. I stand watching her until she fades on the horizon and someone at my side says, 'She is gone.' Gone where? The loss of sight is in me, not in her. Just at the moment when someone says, 'She is gone,' there are others who are watching her coming. Other voices take up the glad shout, 'Here she comes!' and that is dying."
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