Why I Believe: Lindsay Schlegel

I believe because other people prayed for me when I couldn’t pray for myself. In 2012, I lost a child to miscarriage. I wasn’t angry with God; I didn’t fall away from my faith. But I’ve never been so quiet, so at a loss for words as when I tried to pray. I found I could be still. I could accept that God is my Lord and that this pain was somehow part of His plan. But I couldn’t see what the next step looked like. My other child was sixteen months old and needed me to get out of bed each morning. The prayers of my family and friends gave me strength to do that. Sometimes their prayer was their physical presence. Other times it was a spiritual support that upheld me when I felt more lost than I ever had before. I knew I’d never be the same. I also knew I wasn’t alone. I knew there was a bigger plan. It was pure grace that got me through the months between the loss and my next pregnancy, and then through that pregnancy to term. When I held my next child in my arms, I experienced pure hope. I saw that he—and all of us—are gifts from God. Life is never earned. It is never guaranteed. God is Lord; He is in charge. And He is kind. He is loving. He walks with us when we’re in pain. We can see it when we open up our hearts to Him. He is also there when there’s a happy ending, even when it doesn’t look like we thought it would. There will always be a gap in my heart, in my life, where that child was. But God has used my suffering for good. I’ve connected with many other women who have lost children. We’ve built community together, creating bonds that are so close because of the magnitude of what we’ve lost. We’ve seen that it’s when we’re weak that we are strong. We’ve seen that grace is not our own doing, but on God’s time, in His way.

LINDSAY SCHLEGEL earned a bachelor’s degree in English and German from Boston College in 2008. She lives with her family in northern New Jersey. For more on Lindsay’s work, visit lindsayschlegel.com