My name is Anne Weil.  I’ve always thought of myself as a writer, but I’ve never really published anything.  After my first miscarriage, all I wanted to do was write; writing afforded me time and space to gather my thoughts and express them.  No feeling or phrase was out-of-bounds for my journal, and I could write down the things I knew I could never say.  But then I never shared them with anyone else.  I was too afraid to actually speak honestly about what I really felt, or I felt guilty about burdening someone else with my pain, or I felt guilty about my own feelings.  Over three horribly painful years, I have learned that I trapped myself in self-pity and self-hatred.  I’m still a long way from home, but I’m not as afraid anymore.

My greatest desire is that God would use this mess to help someone else either avoid it altogether or at least not wallow in the mire as long as I did.  I firmly believe Romans 8:28, “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”  Miscarrying four babies does not seem like good, and most days, it doesn’t feel like anything good can come out of that experience.  But so far, at least one good thing has started: I am slowly, but surely, learning to love myself, which is dramatically changing my outlook on life.  If one single person can learn from my mistakes, or learn how to heal along with me, then God’s promise will have been answered.

Along with being afraid to talk about my pain, I was terrified of sharing anything I write with more than a few family members until I started blogging, which I’ve done, hit or miss, for several years now.  In the most recent begin-again of the blog, I plan to use Mabbat to share a journey of creativity in spiritual growth and emotional healing for anyone who needs a place to cope.  There is a Facebook group made for sharing, so search “Mabbat,” and you should find the group; it’s a closed group so that it can be well-moderated and a safe place to share.

One last note – you may notice that I tend not to capitalize pronouns referring to God; I’m not going to change this habit, so if it bothers you, I’ll apologize ahead of time.  I was a Spanish major, and I dabbled with Hebrew, too.  Spanish has a beautiful, intimate manner of referring to God with the informal tu, and pronouns referring to God are not capitalized.  My limited knowledge of Hebrew indicates to me that the names for God are holy and reverential, so those names are capitalized in English (and Spanish) to signal respect.  My lower case pronouns are just my way of tutear-ing in English.  As one of my favorite Spanish teachers explained the Spanish grammar, “How can you speak so formally to God?  It is such an intimate relationship with the being who created your soul and loves everything about you.”