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Brittany L. Bergman

Savoring motherhood, building marriage, and living simply

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Healing Blood

Apr 11 31 Comments

On Easter morning two years ago, I was filled with life and filled with fear. Newly pregnant and terrified of miscarrying, I made it a habit to check for blood every time I went to the bathroom. At seven weeks into my pregnancy, I no longer expected to find it, but I felt a strange sense of security and control in performing this routine.

But that morning, there was a smear of offensive blood where there should have been white. Filth where there should have been clean. Blood is the body’s healing agent, but instead of being life giving, it seemed to be taking the life right out of me.

I wept for the baby I thought I was losing, the tears falling hot and fast down my cheeks and over the curve of my chin. They continued to fall as I worshiped the Lord through it later that day. I knew the words I sang to be true, yet I struggled to believe them.

Because he lives, I can face tomorrow. Because he lives, every fear is gone. I know he holds my life (her life), my future (her future) in his hands.”

***

One year later, on Resurrection Sunday, the baby I thought I was losing wakes me at 5:00 a.m. I nurse her, feeling an overwhelming sense of gratitude that this is how I get to begin the day that felt so hopeless the year before. Again the tears fall hot and fast, over my chin and onto the blue floral pajamas my four-month-old daughter wears. The tears of gratitude are too sweet to hold back.

My little girl drifts off to sleep again, and I tiptoe to the bathroom. Expecting white, I am greeted with red, a frightening reminder that I am not yet healed and not yet whole. The trauma of my childbirth recovery is not finished, and I weep over the unwelcome blood.

***

I imagine Mary, mother of Jesus, at the cross: her feet aching and swollen from the walk through town and up the hill, her face tear-stained and puffy. She gulps down air as her body continues to heave and sob, heave and sob, and she eventually drops to her knees, scraping them on a rock as she hits the ground.

She doesn’t recognize her own Son; his blood, no longer red but an earthy brown, has dried and crusted on his marred body. The memory of his birth races through her mind, and she remembers what she shed for him—the fresh purple-red wave that ushered in his life. She’d cradled him against her skin, realizing she had nothing to clean him with then and she has nothing to clean him with now.

She can’t wipe away his blood. She can’t cradle him in the safety of her arms. She can’t save him.

He gasps a final breath. A soldier stabs him between two ribs, and a fresh wave of living red comes pouring out. Mary’s body begins to shake and she squeezes her eyes shut, her ears ringing as she buries her face in the dirt.

She doesn’t know yet that the blood pouring out of the Son she couldn’t save will, in turn, save her. The blood she couldn’t clean up will cleanse the whole world.  

For now, all she can do is hope that her healing will come.

***

As we approach Easter, I’ve found myself hoping that this year will not involve trauma or blood or heartache. That I’ll be able to worship my risen Savior without anxiety and with a sense of freedom and wholeness.

But before Easter we always have Good Friday; every Holy Week involves pain and trauma, blood and grief, injury and death. Who am I to try to escape it?

This knowledge quiets my heart: Easter is the story of salvation, the representation of all that was wrong and all that was made right. This most holy of holy days is the ending and the beginning of a great narrative, the light after the dark night of the soul, the being made whole after the being torn apart.

Regardless of where I find myself this Sunday—fearful and broken, or peaceful and free—I have to keep on learning and trusting that Jesus will heal me—he will heal us all—by his blood.

Easter is the ending and the beginning of a great narrative — and he will heal us all by his blood. Click To Tweet

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Filed Under: Faith Tagged With: childbirth, easter, faith, freedom, God, Jesus, miscarriage, pregnancy

« Armchair Chats // March 2017
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brittanylbergman

Brittany L. Bergman
This Very Cool and Very Silly little boy moved up This Very Cool and Very Silly little boy moved up to the early preschool room at daycare today, and he turns 2 in less than a month, and he says new words every day, and he pushes me away in the mornings so he can rest a little longer, and he’s outgrowing his 2T clothes, and he’s not really a baby anymore, and what I’m trying to say is I’M NOT OKAY.
Oh yes I did cry like a baby. 😭 One step closer Oh yes I did cry like a baby. 😭 One step closer to normalcy and very much feeling the weight of the trauma that has yet to catch up to us and the relief that’s coming on its heels. But mostly, feeling thankful for science and every single person who had a hand in creating this modern-medicine miracle. 💜💉
A poem in honor of #internationalwomensday. May we A poem in honor of #internationalwomensday. May we be a generation of womxn who embrace our humanity, our inherent power, and our purpose outside of the confines of capitalism. 💪🏼 🔥
✔️ Kamala shirt ✔️ Kamala pearls ✔️ Ka ✔️ Kamala shirt
✔️ Kamala pearls
✔️ Kamala mug 
✔️ Kamala curls

It’s a great day to witness the shattering of a glass ceiling, to embrace empathy and decency, and to breathe a collective sigh of relief.

The work is only just beginning, but today, we celebrate. Congratulations, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris! 👏🏼🎉💙
What a beautiful, exhausting, festive, heartbreaki What a beautiful, exhausting, festive, heartbreaking, cozy, chaotic-but-strangely-quiet Christmas we had. ✨🎄✨

That’s a wrap for me on 2020—I’ll be off social media until sometime in January. May you be filled with peace and hope as we close this year but still wait for the close of this chapter in our history. 💜
I have faced Christmases full of grief and loss; d I have faced Christmases full of grief and loss; depression and rage; exhaustion and loneliness. But I can honestly say this is the weariest Christmas I can remember. I say that not to shine a spotlight on me, but to say that I have a feeling this might be your experience too. I’m with you.
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And so the words to my favorite Christmas hymn hit me different this year. They resonate in a place much deeper, more tender and true than ever before. I rejoice in the giggles of my meltdown-prone child. I rejoice in stolen moments alone in the dark, the room lit only by the glow of the Christmas tree. I rejoice in every video and every social media post I see of a frontline worker receiving the COVID vaccine, our ticket out of this nightmare. I rejoice in the vision that next Christmas might look more familiar than this one does. I rejoice in the hope of Christ, whose universal, creative, motherly love holds the whole universe together.
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On this Christmas Eve, I’ll leave you with this quote from Howard Thurman. I hope these words bring a slant of light to your day.
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“The symbol of Christmas—what is it? It is the rainbow arched over the roof of the sky when the clouds are heavy with foreboding. It is the cry of life in the newborn babe when, forced from its mother’s nest, it claims its right to live. It is the brooding Presence of the Eternal Spirit making crooked paths straight, rough places smooth, tired hearts refreshed, dead hopes stir with newness of life. It is the promise of tomorrow at the close of every day, the movement of life in defiance of death, and the assurance that love is sturdier than hate, that right is more confident than wrong, that good is more permanent than evil.”
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Whatever and however you celebrate at this time of year, I’m sending you all my love and peace. 💫
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