In 2020, while a child grew in me, I returned to the thing I had loved to do as a child. Writing poetry. And I wrote the years down. Infertility. My silent screaming. God’s history of love to me. My grief. The garden. The starkness of the bathroom floor. The healing. The escape from the grave. Hope Gives a Eulogy. How thoroughly God gives life! His miracles are many. His presence is everything.
It’s been one year since I published Hope Gives a Eulogy. What a gift to learn I could love God with all of me, fully trust Him and live in hope from Him without ever trying to make infertility the good thing. I could hate the pain without bitterness, grieve the loss extensively, and still completely love and be loved by God. I could experience His kindness without contorting His kindness into the brokeness of infertility. Anything good I experienced during infertility is because God changed it. He made the childless story different. He gave the barren woman LIFE. He didn’t let infertility stay the story.
And that was all before my my children.
And as I wrote my son in Hope Gives a Eulogy,
You were never missing,
But so many things were–
Joy and peace and healing,
Dreaming, breathing, being.
A real hopeful kind of living.
So I learned how to play
Hide and seek.
Sometimes, buried treasure
Is a box of lost and found.
And the garden is half-priced
Daisies in a grocery cart.
Maybe the eulogy is a prelude
For new life.
See what I mean?
I’ve got much more to tell you,
And I’m so glad you’ve come along!
I can’t wait to show you all the best
Hiding spots.
(There’s a lot.)
This is a story I’ll be telling forever. To my children, and should God give them, my children’s children. “Come and hear, all you who fear God,and I will tell what he has done for my soul.” Psalm 66:16
Truly God has kept my soul among the living! (Psalm 66:8)
It has been a profound journey of hope and healing. God turned my life into spring and then He gave me two children and expanded that springtime in huge ways. I know this story of God’s love and glory is far from over. I’m glad to have part of it written down. To have shared it with you. And here we are one year later.
To celebrate one year of Hope Gives a Eulogy out in the world, you can purchase this personal collection of 96 poems for half off the original price! This is the best deal to date and the offer goes through Mother’s Day should you find yourself or know a friend who is in a spring-less season this Mother’s Day. May these poems meet you wherever you are. Let me wait with you for however long it takes spring to burst in your soul again. And then some.💕
Perhaps the eulogy is, indeed, a prelude for new life.
-S.V.F.
Sierra V. Fedorko 