Broken Hearts and Hope in Hands

This is the Truth Network. Welcome to Hope in the Morning, turning tragedies and tears into testimonies of hope. Welcome to Hope in the Morning. Today's episode is a really unique one.

So normally, I don't ask guests to come on here until they are several years out from their trial, and that's not because the trials necessarily get easier, but it's just part of it is out of respect for those early years, and part of it is just because. Man, those early years are tender and they're heavy, but today's episode is very unique. I've been talking with Mimi for about a year on on social media back and forth for a little bit, and she had told me recently that she thought she was ready to talk about it. She has faced Really, a life-shattering loss—not just the loss of one child, but the loss of two children in an accident. And her loss was only a year and a half ago.

So this is a this is a tender episode. This is an episode where we're going to sit together as as a group here. Everyone that's listening, everyone that's watching, we're going to sit together. We're going to cry together. We're going to we're going to hope together.

But we're going to talk about what. What does grief actually look like in real time for the believer? You know, it's easy to think that grief comes in this little package for the believer, and it's tied up in this bow, and it's clean and it's it's neat because of our faith. And that's not always the case. It's messy.

Grief is messy.

Sorrow is messy. And we're going to talk about that. We're going to just lay it bare. Today and in the hopes that this meets you, the listener, where you're at today. Maybe you're maybe you're in a similar season of sorrow where you're right there.

You're in those deep waters right now, and we're going to talk about it.

So, Mimi, thank you so much for being willing to join us today. Yeah, thank you for having me. I'm honored to be part of this. Yeah, I didn't know until yesterday in talking with you that you actually you've had more losses even than this. I mean, you have had.

A lot of losses. You've you've gone through six miscarriages, and infertility, and then you decided to become a foster mom. Can you tell us a little bit about your journey as a foster mom and how the Lord has used that in your story? Right, so my husband and I got married a little later in life. We were thirty when we got married, thirty-one, and so we knew we wanted to start a family pretty much right away.

But it was just loss after loss.

So we did some doctoring and things, but never really were sure how far we wanted to go with that whole process. And I had wanted to be a foster mom, adopted. You know, adopt kids. Ever since I was a kid, I begged my parents to like, please, let's be foster parents, and they just were not into it.

So my husband and I, we talked about that while we were dating, and yeah.

So soon after we started having, we just thought we'd have biological kids first, and yeah.

So we started the adoption process.

So our daughter Leah is now eighteen. We adopted her when she was five, and then her brother Carson was born soon. After we had her, he was born when she was four, and we got him right from the hospital. And then we had our daughter Alyssa again as a newborn, right from the hospital, and then our youngest Annika again right from the hospital. And then we closed our home, said we're done.

And then, about when Annika was about three years old, we found out that her birth mom had had another baby, and the agency asked us if we would consider taking him. And we were pretty sure the case would go to adoption, like Annika's had. There was it was simply like adoption right away.

So we did everything we needed to do to become emergency placements for him. Brought him into our home when he was just two days old, and we're told it would be adoption. And then a few months into the journey, the judge decided that they're going to try. Reunite, reunite, reunify, and when he was twenty month old, he left our home, and he was a full sibling to our youngest, so that was really hard for her, and it was just really, really hard because I felt like he kind of completed our family, and I remember, and and that was kind of the time period that I started with my. I need my Instagram here with open hands because I really felt like God was calling me to just open my hands and surrender what my family looks like to Him.

So that's kind of the start of where that started. And my friends, actually a friend of mine, I came home from a walk one day and she had sent me this beautiful little pottery piece of open hands, and that was back when when Robert, our little foster boy, was with us. And I just remember when when the Case worker came to pick him up, and Anik and I were the only ones here. The rest of the kids were in school, and we just sobbed and sobbed. And I like just held her little body, and you know she was so sad to be losing her brother.

And for me, it just—I remember making the comment to my mom. I'm like, I guess that's what the under—that's what it feels like if you know a coroner would be picking up your child, and it just literally felt like a death, a huge loss, huge loss. But little did I know that that was just the start of our journey. And but I really feel like looking back, I feel like that was just so much preparation for where we're at now. I continue to walk that with open hands, and I feel like you can't really wait until the big tragedy to say, "Lord, I trust you." Like it has to be a journey, and it has to be.

There's just been little moments of surrender all through my life, and yeah, I feel like that's really the journey that God has had me on with that. You shared with me yesterday that you can't really prepare for grief, which I agree with you. But you can learn to surrender beforehand, and that—that's a hard thing to learn to surrender. And I don't know that any of us, no matter how mature you are as a believer, I don't know that any of us fully arrive there where we're just like, Lord, anything you can take anything, and I won't struggle with it at all. I just we're made in flesh too, and our hearts, especially as mamas, we cling to those children.

That's part of what what makes us care tenderly for them because they are such an intricate part of our heart and our everyday rhythms and routines, just like Baby Robert was for you. And I think. Man, having having this little boy that you've had in your home since birth, and here you've had him for two years, and as you said, it was Annika's biological brother. That is that is a deep wound. That is like a death.

He's not in your home anymore. He's not going to be in your arms. He's not. He's he's not yours. To raise, right.

A friend of mine had just lost her son to cancer, pretty much right around that time or close to that time, and I just remember talking like it's probably because we're foster parents, like we have no say over these children, like we can't. We're not promised that we're going to be able to have them part of our family forever, and then she's like, "Mimi, I was not promised that either. With my son, he was 15 when he passed away, and it's not like you know, God. It's not like God gives us children and says, 'Hey, they're yours till they're adults.' And you know, we literally, whether they come to our home biologically or through foster care or through adoption or whatever, they're not ours to keep forever. Like they are ultimately, we have to hold.

Them with open hands. We just do. We have to hold like they are. We're not promised anything. Yeah.

When when your friend went through that loss of her fifteen year old son at the time, did you have thoughts in your head at all of like, I don't know how I would ever get through that if if one of my kids actually died. Like, what what was your instinct as a friend in her situation at that time? Right. I was like, well, that that's just crazy. How you can How you can have that attitude and just be like, Lord, you know, I surrender that.

I just cannot imagine. Like, of course, at the time, I couldn't imagine ever, ever having to lose any of my children, actually to death. I mean, yeah, Robert felt like a death, but he was still physically alive, which almost made it worse in a way. But and and the miscarriages were very hard. Yes, they were very hard.

But it feels like when they're Actually, a live little baby that you're holding—like, how can this ever be taken? Yeah, yeah. I mean, none of us know how we're going to respond to a loss. We've talked about that before on this show. That as believers, we want to be filled with humility because no.

How you're going to respond to something you don't know, the wrestling that you may have with the Lord if he calls, if he calls you to walk through a loss, and yet, Mimi, as I hear your testimony, you know, when we when we face losses, they never feel good. None of us ever say, "Bring bring me all you got, God." You know, take everything. We don't. That's not our natural propensity at all, and oftentimes. It's hard to even see the goodness in it.

We can believe that we can have the faith and the the theological understanding that God is good, God is only good, and yet when we're in seasons that that don't feel good, it's hard to see it. It's hard to feel that truth in our heart, and and yet. Using this first part of your testimony to look back and say, you know what, none of those things felt good. All of those things were tragedies in their own way, and yet God used them to prepare you for what He knew was was ahead. And I think as as we're going to get into the even heavier portion of your story in this next section.

I hope that our listeners will think about that as well. Think about that. You might be in the darkest season that you've ever been in, and you wonder, Lord, how can this be good? How can this possibly be what you look at and you think this is this is me and my loving kindness toward you? Man, it doesn't feel like that in the moment.

It's not, and. I hope that you will hear Mimi's story, and that it will remind you that God does intend good for us. God is compassionate. God is merciful, even when this life is just shattering. And when we come back, we're going to talk about the day that shattered your world.

Here, God had been preparing you through. What I can only imagine, you felt like, Lord, how much more can my heart bear after losing Robert and losing these six babies and losing, losing the biological family I thought we would start with? How much more can my heart bear? And yet, Second Corinthians four verse eight reminds us that even though we are tried and afflicted and perplexed, we are not crushed, and we do not have to be met with despair. There is a hope.

So join us again in a moment on hope in the morning. Do you have a testimony of hope? Perhaps you've walked through depression or addiction. Maybe you were diagnosed with a serious illness or have suffered the life-altering death of a loved one. If you want to encourage others with your testimony and share the light of Jesus, visit hopeinthe morning dot org and submit your story.

Your story might be just what someone else needs to hear to find hope in their morning. Do you have a heart to comfort the hurting? Do you want to show the world that through Jesus Christ we can have hope in all circumstances?

Well then, we welcome you to visit hopeinthe morning dot org and see how you can join us in these ministry endeavors. May you be encouraged by who our God is as you continue this episode of Hope in the Morning. To learn more, visit us at hopeinthe morning dot org. If you ever struggled to comfort a grieving friend, John eleven thirty five says Jesus wept. When Jesus was told by Mary and Martha that their brother Lazarus had died, Jesus wept.

Today on Hope in the Morning, we invite you to learn what it looks like to weep with those who weep. Learn what it means to sit in the ashes and be encouraged that even in our mourning, there's hope. His name is Jesus. Visit hopeintheMorning.org to learn more. Welcome back to Hope in the Morning.

I am joined today with Mimi, and we're we're just getting into. The real and the raw, the honest, the vulnerable of what does grief look like when you're still when you're still in the early stages of it as a believer and Mimi is only a year and a half out from having her world shatter and as I mentioned at the beginning, we don't normally even have guests on that are that that close from their sorrow because it's hard, you know. There there can still be wrestlings. It's it is. It's like it's like a raw wound still.

And Mimi, I appreciate you being willing to come on here and just be vulnerable about what does grief look like in real time for the believer. Can you take us to the day that changed your life forever in April twenty twenty five? Yes, we had my husband and I had decided to finally do a vacation with our family. It felt like we'd always been vacationing with you know extended family, and I was a school teacher, so we decided to go over Easter vacation to Myrtle Beach. We found a great resort down there, and we decided to leave at night and drive through the night so that the kids would sleep all night.

It's kind of the plan, like if you're a young family with kids who travels. And that's often how we did. We would just travel through the night.

So we left here around eleven thirty that night, and and as always, before we left the driveway, we stopped, and I think a few of the kids were already asleep. But you know, my husband just prayed and asked God for safety on this trip and for His traveling mercies, and we left. And I remember thinking, oh, I gotta stay awake. I want him to stay awake. I was so worried that he would fall asleep, and then we were about an hour and a half into our trip.

It was around one thirty, so maybe longer than that. We were in the DC area, and um, and I woke up from just I just remember trees just coming at me and just. Just sheer terror, and my husband saying, "I can't do anything. I can't do anything." And found out later we were hit from behind by a drunk driver. He was traveling at a high rate of speed, and he hit the back of our vehicle and threw it threw us into the woods there beside the roadway and.

I remember everything just coming to a stop, and just the surreal feeling, like absolute stillness, and just like, oh my goodness, what what happened? Like, just what happened? And. It was it was a little chaotic. I just remember it being chaotic then because our phones had automatically dialed, had sensed the crash, and so the the nine one one operators were with us.

And I right away turned around to check on the kids, and I was in the passenger seat, and so I I could only see like behind my husband who was driving, and I saw Alyssa, our thirteen year old, and. I mean, Aaliyah, our 18 year old, was directly behind him, and she was just sobbing and just saying, "I just want to go home. I want to go home." She was fine, and I looked behind her. I could see my daughter Alyssa, who's 13, and she had blood running down her face, and she was just like just staring straight ahead. She was in shock, and but I couldn't see behind me.

My 10 year old daughter was directly behind me, and then my 13 year old son was behind her, and. I said to my husband, "I said check on Alyssa or Annika. Can you? Does she have a pulse?" And he looked. He said, "Looks like she's just sleeping." I turned around a little bit, and it just looked like she was sound asleep.

And I remember thinking, "I should wake her up and tell her we were in an accident. Like, does she know we were in an accident?" And so I told Alya, who was sitting right beside her, "I said check on Annika. Is she okay?" And Alya said, "I don't know." And then I said to Alyssa, "I said." Is Carson okay? Check on Carson. And she said, "Mommy, he's not here." And I'm like, "What do you mean he's not here?" And she said, "the The car's not even here.

Like, it had just sheared off the back that corner of our vehicle, pretty much." And, um, and and I just I'm like, "How?" And we found we found him. Um. He was thrown from the vehicle, and we couldn't. I couldn't find him. It was dark.

The it was the woods were everywhere, and I got out of the vehicle. My door opened. I was basically the only one who could get out. My husband and I were not hurt at all. Um, the girls ended up crawling out my side of the vehicle, and as I was coming out, there was this lady coming down, and she said, "I got everything on video.

I got everything on video." Um. They had been watching him and saw him careening all over the road, and and he took off. He didn't stay on scene, so she came down and tried to help us out and just get us to a safe place. And she kept asking me, and the nine one one operator kept asking me, like, how many, how many are in the vehicle? And and and I was just like, I can't find my son.

I my son was in here, but I can't find him. I don't know where he's at. And I just remember, like looking through the woods, and I could not—I just couldn't find him. And yet, I—I knew I couldn't just go walking through the woods looking for him. Um, and so the girls and I got out.

Annika was still in the car. I—I don't know why I didn't even try to get her out, which is so weird. Like looking back, I'm like, why didn't I? Did try to open the door, but the door wouldn't open. Um, but.

Uh yeah, pretty soon there were first responders on the scene, and um, I just kept telling them I can't find my son. I just I couldn't find him. Um, and then I saw one of the firefighters come to the car. And get a blanket from the back of the car, and took it off to a corner of the woods, and covered up a spot in the woods. And I'm like, "Oh my goodness, it's Carson!" Like I know he's dead because they didn't even like do anything to try to keep him alive.

Like something told them that he was gone. Um, and I don't really remember much. I just remember, I just remember the surreal feeling of like. What is happening? I don't know.

I was just in shock, and I got up to the roadway, and I started trying to make some phone calls to my family. It was the middle of the night. No one was answering their phones. I saw that my nephew was in was awake. He was in Thailand at the time, and so he was the first person I talked to.

Anyway, it just it the whole thing was just such a shock. But I don't know why I had this surreal peace just come over me, and I saw them take Anika out of the car. Actually, I didn't see them, but the next thing I knew, like they were driving off the road. They were driving down the road, and the doors were still open. Like they were, I saw them through the doors working on her, doing CPR, and I saw them like cut with the scissors up her clothes.

And I'm like, oh my goodness, I think she's gone too. Um, and yeah, just so much shock. Like, what is even happening? And Stupid little things like how are we going to get home? I remember thinking that our cars crashed.

How are we going to keep going to South Carolina? Like, like it was just, just that shock of your life just changing in an instant. But for some reason, and I don't know, people ask me how I did this, and I don't know. But I stood up there at the roadway, and the only thing I could think of is. You give and take away, and I just started singing that song.

I don't know how I did it. I don't, I don't know. But that song carried me through that next week. Um, I ended up singing it on stage at their funeral and with our worship team, and just saying, "Like you give and take away, blessed be your name." I don't know how I did that. I don't know.

Um, yeah, man. I mean. I don't think you can do that apart from the Holy Spirit, right? I I don't know. It was um, we got taken to, so my husband and our thirteen-year-old went to the children's hospital, and that's where they took Anika.

And then Aaliyah and I were in a different ambulance, so there were a couple ambulances on scene, and we went to a different hospital. And at that point, I there wasn't confirmation for sure that Carson had passed away, and Anika they were going to rush into surgery, and so I was just in the hospital and. My husband and I. Thank goodness, I had enough sense to grab my phone and my wallet. Like I just knew to get some of that stuff.

And there was a detective, which I didn't know this either. But there was a police officer with me the whole time. I didn't know they do that, and that was so comforting too. And then she was in touch with the other detectives who were also with my husband and with my other daughter. Um.

So anyway, then I was waiting on them to complete tests on me. They had done blood work, but they were going to do some scans and stuff. And my husband called and he said, "Honey," he said, "They couldn't do anything for Onaiga. They took her into surgery, and there was nothing they could do.

So they're just waiting on us to decide how we want to proceed." I'm like I've got to get to my baby. I have to get to my baby. Um, at that point, like my husband had, we had gotten hold of family then. At that point, and so many people were already on their way. Like uh, friends from church, my brother, everybody, my family showed up, and friends from church showed up.

And at that point, my brother was in the hospital room with me. I said, Jim, I've got to get to Anna. I have to get to her. And at that point, Aaliyah had been released. They had checked her out, and she was released.

She went to be over with Brad and Alyssa. And I finally said, "I can't wait anymore. I have to go." And so my brother said, "Okay, we're going." And he asked the doctor, and the doctor's like, "No, we can't release her. We want to do some, you know, some more testing and stuff." And I was like, "I've got to go." So my brother, and looking back, I'm like, "Oh, why wasn't I videoing this part?" But anyway, he put me in this like wheelchair gurney type looking wheelchair, and I still had my hospital gown on, and I should have just been dragging an IV pole behind me, but anyway. And he's like, we're leaving, and then the the lady at the the entrance said, "You can't, you can't leave." And he's like, "Okay," and just kept going and just pushed me right out the door, and we just left.

And it was a couple blocks. He got in his GPS, and he was like, "It's a couple blocks to the children's hospital." And so there we were, bouncing down the road, like over speed bumps, no sidewalks, like oncoming traffic. I'm like, "My word!" Somewhere this has to show up on YouTube somewhere. But anyway, um. And yeah, so we we made our way over a couple blocks to the children's hospital, and then there were more church family and friends there, and my husband was there, and um, and oh, and they had they had confirmed at that point that Carson was dead, which I knew he was.

I knew he had passed just because of everything at the scene, um. And so I checked on Alyssa, and she just had a few cuts and scrapes, but they had still kept her in the in one of the ER rooms. And then Brad and I went up to where Annika was, and I walked in that door, and I am like, "Oh my word, she is gone!" Like she did not look at all like herself. She was; it was just her face was swollen, her head was swollen to twice its size, and blood was still coming out of the top of her head. They kept covering it up, and I am just like, "She's gone." I know she's gone, and they said there's like nothing they can do for her.

Her her injuries were so traumatic, but we wanted. Then at that point, I was like, "Well, let's donate her organs." Like I'm like, there's something in me that wants her to keep living on, and I always was a big fan of organ donation.

So we met with the team, and they said, "Well, we can we can keep doing, keep her on life support till the next morning, and that gives us time to look for potential matches and all that stuff." Which we thought, "Great, let's do that." More family and friends were going to be coming down. We were going to do this big honor walk the next day before before we we before we make that decision and.

So I went to take a little break, sat with some friends out in the waiting room, and when I came back in, there were doctors everywhere, and I could tell something had happened. And they were like, "We can't, we literally can't keep her alive much longer. Her organs are all shutting down." Like, so at that point, the decision was pretty much taken from our hands, which almost we felt robbed of that then too. Like, so we did a little honor walk there in the hospital. And that was that was just precious.

Honestly, the staff and everyone just they made it such a beautiful, beautiful time. And you know, the whole time we were saying goodbye to Anika, I just was like, I didn't get this with Carson. He was just you know. But we did a few precious things. We got to hear her heartbeat and record her heartbeat and do handprints and just a bunch of beautiful things.

Hands were always so important to me. Um, and and um.

So yeah, so I'm going to stop you for just a second because if you're listening on the radio, join us on our podcast for the end of this to to learn not only how they have honored their children, but just what what the rest of the season has looked like after the loss of their children.

So join us again on the podcast portion of Hope in the Morning. Good.

So we did a little honor walk around the the floor of the hospital there. And then when we came back, they made room for for me to get on the bed with Annika, and they started turning off all the machines. And I just held her, and the room was full with so many friends and family. And we just recited Psalm twenty three, and I sang all the little little bedtime songs I would sing. I mean, she was my baby, and she was out of all of our kids.

She was definitely the most attached, and like followed me everywhere, and was with me everywhere. I was teaching school at the time, so she would go with me to school in the morning, and she would stay with me after school in the afternoon. She was just a mama's girl. Yeah, there's a thousand losses that happen when you lose a child. And I hope that our listeners, if you haven't lost a child, that you will understand and and hear me out on this.

That if you have friends or family members who have lost a child, it's it's a lifelong thing because you're constantly thinking, oh, they would have been, they would have been 13 today, they would have been 16, they would have been 18, they would have been graduating, they would have been going to prom, they might be getting married now. I wonder what job they would have had. It's it's a million little losses along the way, and Mimi. One of the things that you had talked about just now is the fact that you didn't even get the full amount of time to make the decisions for Annika that you had hoped to, because. You wanted her to be able to be an organ donor.

That was your desire. Was that part of your children, Annika and Carson, would live on and help other children who needed that? Can you tell us a little bit about the loss that kind of blindsided you in that when you when you got the the teddy bears and the the honor y of of their desire to be donors? Yeah, they sent us a box then of the, um, the the I forget what it was called, the the the company or the team, the program of the life of the organ donation thing. Um, but in the end, nothing of theirs could be donated.

Um, they weren't able to even use any. They had thought they could use some of their skin and for different skin grafting things and different things like that, even for Carson. But in the end, they said their injuries were just too severe, and there was nothing they could save from them.

So that absolutely felt like a second, like whatever, like we have to. They won't even live on in anyone else's. Not that they would have lived on, but I don't know. There was just the thought of, like, oh, Annika's heart is out there beating somewhere, or absolutely makes sense. Yes, and then just to have that stripped away too was like.

Fine, I was. I was almost more angry about that than than I don't know. No, I wasn't. But yeah, it was. It was just another blow.

Mimi, what what did your wrestling with the Lord look like in that season? Because even as you were telling me that when you and your husband left for this for this trip, and hear your husband praise, Lord, please give us traveling mercies, protect us, and Yes, God did protect you and your husband and Aaliyah and Alyssa, but God chose something totally different—a different form. I don't want to say that He didn't protect them because we know that that they are in heaven with the Lord, and that that is a good thing. And obviously, that is a sure hope that we have. But as a mom, you look at it and you say, "Lord." Yeah.

Did you not? Did you not hear the prayer we said before we left? Like, I can only imagine some of the things you must have wrestled with. What did wrestling look like for you? A lot of of anger and a lot of building up trust in God again.

Just yesterday, I there's a grief group that I meet with, and just yesterday, I told the ladies there. I said, I still have a hard time praying. Like I can open my Bible and read my Bible, but what's the point of prayer if God doesn't? God just does what he wants anyway. I still, I still wrestle with that.

I one of my favorite things through this has been the story of Job, and I feel like his what he said has been such an example, or such a part of what I'm feeling. When he said, and I shared this in church just recently. I'm one of the worship leaders at our church, and that was something I had to step away from for a little bit. I just I just had to. But when he after after everything was stripped away and taken from him.

What did he do? The Bible says he arose, he tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground. He was angry. He's like, I'm done. I mean, I can just picture him.

You know, everything was taken from him. Everything was stripped away. But he worshipped. He did all that and worshipped, and he said, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return." The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

In all this, Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.

So I think grief, and I know grief can be worship. Grief is worship. Like God sees our tears, He sees our grief, and that is. That's worship, but you know, honestly, the practical side of it is—it's still hard for me to sing one of my favorite songs, "The Goodness of God." Like I, that song is still so hard for me to sing. But that Sunday in church, just a few weeks ago, I did sing the song "You Give and Take Away" again.

That was the first that I had been able to really sing that song. I sang it at the funeral, and that song carried me through that first you know week or so. And then I was just. I don't know. It was just a surrender again of still choosing that.

And I tell people, like, yes, I have a choice, but I don't have a choice because I refuse to choose the other choice. I'm not gonna just. To me, it's no choice. I only have the choice to surrender and to. What right do I have?

This is all stuff that God has given and provided. What right do I have to say nope? This is how life should be done. This is what I deserve. This is no, no.

Yeah. It reminds me, in in hearing your story, and just the the even just the losses I've experienced in my life, it has reminded me so much of the story of Jacob wrestling with God in the story in the chapter of or the book of Genesis, because exactly what you were just saying, Mimi, that Jacob wrestled with God. He wanted that blessing. He wrestled with God, and ultimately. God, God did bless him, but he left with a limp.

He left that he left that wrestling with a limp, and he had that nearness to God. He had that encounter with God, and yet he was left with a limp. And in Hosea, it tells us further that he wept in that and pleaded with God. And you know, it doesn't give us a direct correlation with grief in the scriptures when you're interpreting it, but But I think that there is something to be drawn from that. That when we suffer deep sorrow, and and you do know the Lord, I actually think that there is less of a wrestling with the Lord when you don't know Him.

Like when you don't know God, absolutely. But when you when you know God and you love God, man, there is that wrestling of God. This is who I. This is who I know you to be. In your words, this is who you say you are.

This is who I've trusted that you are, and yet this doesn't feel like who you are. And again, as believers, like we cannot, we cannot base things on our feelings, but we also do have to acknowledge, especially as the outsiders looking in on people that are grieving, that feelings are still real. Like we still, they're there. And I actually read something just a couple days ago that I thought was so good that it's by C.S. Lewis, who's one of my favorite authors.

And he said, he said, I sat with my anger long enough until she told me her name was grief, and that is that is something that I think can be hard to understand the element of anger until you have grieved deeply. And I think there's such an interwoven, entangled relationship between anger and grief. Oh my goodness! Just as you read with Job, we we don't want to sin in our grief, but we have a God who is so compassionate and patient, far more patient than we are with one another. And I think that He sees our weaknesses and our frailties, and He has mercy.

On us in those wrestlings, and Mimi, I can tell you too—you're not alone with with the struggling with prayer. I've struggled with that. I know other people who have grieved deeply where it it does feel like that. I don't know if it will always feel like that. I don't know if it always feels like that, and I would assume it doesn't.

I would assume we get to a point where it's like, okay, Lord, you mature, and our prayer life matures with it. But I think there is almost, almost like how how little kids can be, sometimes where we think, well, I didn't get my way, and so I'm not going to ask anymore. Yeah, I'm not even going to ask you any. You know, and I've noticed that in my own heart and my own heart posture. That I'm not saying that you responded like this at all.

Yeah. But I have noticed it in my own heart that as I took a step back, I'm like, oh. I'm kind of like a kid throwing a tantrum because I didn't get my way, and you know there there has to come a time for acknowledgement of that. But we have to be allowed to lay it bare before the Lord. And this, I think, would be a good time for you if you're willing to read us the poem that you wrote very shortly after your two precious children died.

I mean, like a month. No, no time passed at all. Can you read us that poem? Yes. Yeah, that was very shortly after.

Sorry, I have to take my glasses off. It is called "What If." I always did like writing. Music and poetry and that kind of thing.

So, writing is such a good way for me to express my thoughts and my my feelings. What if? And this was on May twenty seventh.

So about about a month after the accident, I watched Cursor Blink Blink Blink. How do I describe grief that doesn't shrink? It fills my brain, so I can't think. The pain feels like the cut of a knife. It's so black and dark, with no end in sight.

I know I'll miss them for the rest of my life. I try to shout. I try to cry. My head hurts from all the tears in my eyes. I can't help but ask him why, oh why?

All of the what ifs fill my mind. What if we had left at a different time? What if no alcohol he could find? What if no vacation had been planned? What if we'd been spared by a touch of his hand?

What if there was no sin in the Land, two little ones going so fast in that mess. What if we had left ten minutes more or less? What it would it have ended with us in distress? Deep down, there's light at the end of the day. Things at this moment, I feel I should say, but honestly, right now it sounds so cliche.

Tonight, things are dark as black as the night. This path is too hard. I fear I can't fight. No end, no end to this pain and sight. I know.

Oh, I know that peace will be found. That the thoughts in my head will all be bound. But tonight, tonight, I weep on the ground. Maybe when I when I read that poem on your Instagram, I thought there was something. Just heartbreakingly beautiful about the fact that you were able to put such deep sorrow to paper, and what you said is so true that there's a lot of healing that that can happen when people write things down.

For some people, it's journaling. For some people, it's songwriting or poetry. But having having an outlet, and even what you said in your poem, saying like, "I know, I know that peace will be found." We know that. We know that our spirit knows that. You know, when you sang that song, "He gives and takes away by the side of the road," that is the Holy Spirit within you testifying to that.

But it takes it takes. Our minds and even our bodies—time to catch up to that. And those that are listening that have been through grief, grief, grief hits you in a tangible way too. I mean, it makes you exhausted. It can it can make your brain literally not function like it once did.

I mean, I I would I would think that this has probably happened for you too. But I've been in seasons before where I literally am like. What season of the year are we in? You know, like you catch yourself on some days. You are like, are we going into winter?

Are we going into summer? I can't remember, and it feels exactly like you said at the accident site. Like it doesn't feel real, and I think a lot of our listeners that are in the depths of it right now, whether they're feeling like I feel so numb, I feel like I should be crying more or would be crying more. Feeling them is normal. That there are seasons of that, and in some ways, it's a mercy of the Lord to give us seasons like that where it doesn't feel real.

And it's also one of the reasons why it's so important to check in on people for the long haul. Be long suffering. I don't think that that our culture as Americans. We're not naturally long-suffering. Our attention span is literally, literally, scientifically shorter than a goldfish.

Like I think a goldfish is right. Insulting, but true. I think a goldfish's attention span is eight seconds. Oh my goodness! Studies to show that that the human adult.

Attention span, maybe even probably child is even less, but six seconds, and so it takes it takes intentionality for us to say, "Man, I'm going to remember Mimi and her family, and I'm going to remember them for the long haul," and that means that that you don't you don't stop bringing a meal two weeks after, you don't stop praying for them six months after, and you don't stop checking in after the first year. Yeah, many. You're a year and a half out now. What, what, if anything has changed in your grief process from that one year mark to the one and a half year mark? Oh, so much has changed.

Like it's gotten easier, and it hasn't gotten easier. It's it's it's weird to say. We have had we've been incredibly blessed by a huge community of support. I I literally had to tell them to stop bringing meals like a few months in because yeah, and and and even flowers. Please don't send any more flowers.

They just die, then I have to figure out what to do with them. Like we have just had an incredible, incredible amount of support, and we've been so grateful for that. And and we still like I still get people checking in, or we kind of made a thing footballs and daisies that was kind of our slogan, and so I get that so much. People see something pictures of a daisy and they'll send it to me. Hey, thought of you eleven eleven.

You know, I've gotten so many just yesterday, just this morning, even, and people just constantly letting me know that they're thinking of me. But I think the key is I let people in. I. If you don't talk about your grief, people don't know how to help you. People don't know how to care for you or how to walk alongside of you.

If I would never say anything about it again, everybody would think I'm fine. I'm not. Fine, I'm still missing my kids every day, and I will let you know that. Like, and I feel like we've just been taught to stuff everything. Like, you know, yeah, this happened, and you know, God is still good.

Yes, He is, but I'm still angry. Like, I'm still frustrated, and and it's okay to be real with that. And I think we've just been taught to just you know be okay.

So grief looks a lot different, but it's still still very very hard. But it's it's not in the forefront of my mind all day every day. Like there's little things throughout the day. I'm constantly thinking of them, but it doesn't bring me to the point of tears anymore, like it used to. I mean, I would cry all day.

Yeah, pretty much in the beginning, like so many tears, and I still cry a lot. But it's not like now I can look at something and be like, "Oh, that's really cool." Like Carson would love that, or and and it doesn't bring on this like deep sorrow like it did at one time. If that makes sense, yeah, yeah, it makes me think about where you were talking about in Job and your own reaction right there on the hill at the site of the car accident where you're saying, "He gives and takes away." Blessed be the name of the Lord. And I think sometimes when we hear that, and you're on the outside, you think that they're thinking He gives and takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

But instead, a lot of times you are broken on the ground, saying He takes away. Exactly, and it's out of brokenness is where we worship, and we can't be, we can't be cared for, we can't be put back together if we weren't broken and. I don't know. It's it's it's been a journey. Even reading about the story of Jacob, I was reading that that.

It had like God was basically breaking him of his self reliance, and He gave him a new name in that wrestling. He gave him the name Israel in that wrestling, and that is what God does for us in in our grief and and the new name He has given you is not lost, Mom. That's not the new name He's given you. He has He has given you the new name, redeemed and refined and. And that's the thing.

It's like when we, when we are broken, there's nothing, nothing left for him, but for him to hold us together. You can't hold yourself together. You don't even. I mean, you don't know if you're gonna be crying in the grocery store aisle. You know, you don't know.

And that literally, not only is it the Lord that holds us together when our our frames are so fragile and tender, but It is the Lord that holds our faith together, and there are moments. And if you are listening to this again, if you are going through something heavy, there are moments when you might question, like, "I don't know if my faith will make it through this." But I am telling you, if you are a child of God, it will. It will not because of you. It will because of him, and because of the fact that he will sustain you. And we've talked before about the song.

I don't know if you ever heard the song, Mimi, but have you ever heard the song? He will hold me fast. Yes, man, I love that song, and I think that that is one of those songs that when you are in the deep grief and you feel like, Lord, I have nothing, nothing. I have empty hands. My hands, my hands that were filled with children are empty.

My hands that were filled with good health, they're empty. My hands that were holding my spouse, they're empty. And yet, the Lord says, "Let let me fill you. I will. I'll fill you.

I'll hold you." And there is something so peaceful, like Scripture tells us about how we will have that peace that surpasses understanding. There is something so peaceful in knowing that. Our salvation is not dependent on us. The Lord is good. The Lord is gracious, and He will hold you fast, even in the storms.

And, Mimi, I wanted to ask you also something that I hadn't even intended on asking you, which is just I know that you recently shared, and I don't know if it was the first time, but you recently shared your testimony with with a church group, and and now here you're on the podcast sharing your testimony and. And again, you're not far out from this at all. I mean, I've learned like anything within ten years is like very fresh. Um, probably even beyond ten years, but I just know, man, anything within those ten years is fragile and fresh. And how has sharing your testimony been used by the Lord in your own life?

Honestly, every time I get to talk about my kids and share my testimony, it's been just another part of healing for me. And I always was—I always loved, maybe an oversharer in some degree. But I always, my parent—I think I get it from my parents, just being open about life and being not afraid of hard discussions and. I feel like that's just been in me, and that's something I choose to do.

So whether I do that on Instagram or with groups of people, I, um, I get so healed and so refreshed. Just healing, hearing from other people too who have been like, "I've been there," and thank you for giving me hope, and thank you for letting me see that it's okay to be angry. It's okay to be, you know, angry and upset, and, um. It's okay to still miss my kids ten years later. Yeah, it's okay, and I feel like just us sharing gives each other permission to to be, yeah, to be in that that hurt and to be vocal about it.

I don't know, so I feel like. Just even here, this opportunity on this podcast, even just sharing hearing from you and your testimony too, has just been so good for me. Like, and and just the things about Jacob, like we can learn so many things from each other. And I feel like if we just keep our stories to ourselves, we're not helping anyone. A few years ago, I'm part of a big group of foster and adopted moms, and so that was the first big group I spoke to in only a few months after the accident at the field retreat and.

The theme of one of her retreats was stories, and I sat there as I heard all of these horrific stories of what people, girls, went through, like as far as foster kids and stuff. And I'm thinking, why is it so fascinating to hear other people's pain? Why are we so drawn to hearing stories about what other people have suffered? And then it hit me. It was like because we see the goodness of God through it, and because we see hope in it, and so if we can see someone else walk through something, you know, and and be raw, then I have hope for myself in my journey.

And I think that's that's what gives me hope when I share. I think that that's absolutely true. Is that not only does it give other people hope that they can go through it, it also may give them. It may give them someone to confide in. You may find that people come to you ten years down the road when they're going through the loss of a child, or, um, or maybe they're fostering, and that foster child gets removed from their home, and they say, you know what?

Because I heard Mimi share her testimony, I'm going to go to her and ask if she'll have coffee with me and sit with me and cry with me because she gets it. And, you know, there there is such a A depth of compassion that comes when we've lived it, and we don't all have to live each other's sorrow, but we all will live sorrow, and Jesus did. I mean, Jesus was called the Man of Sorrows, and here he was God's own Son, and yet God, in His infinite goodness and in His In in His incredible redemptive plan for us, for for those that have turned our back on God, for those of us that say I'm too angry to pray to You right now, for those of us that say I'm going to read Your Word, but I don't know if I trust it. Right. Those those are real things that go through our sinful minds, and yet.

God said, "I'm not even going to spare my own son from suffering, in order that you might be reconciled to me and redeemed from your sorrows." And I hope that we sit with that for a minute and just let that sink in, because He is not deaf to our suffering. He He's not. He's not indifferent to it, and sometimes I think we think he is.

Sometimes when we go through these heavy things, we think, "God, where were you when I prayed for traveling mercies? Where were you when we could have left ten minutes earlier, and maybe that wouldn't have been our fate? Where were you in those things?" And yet, he was with you. He was with you on that mountaintop when you say he gives and takes away. He is with us.

In these in these valleys, He's with us in these storm tossed oceans, and those are things that absolutely give one another hope. And the other thing, Mimi, that I see in your testimony, and I see even in your Instagram, that you do that I think is important for us as believers to do is that we don't need to tidy up. Our, our pain and our feelings for the Lord.

Sometimes I think we do. I think that we've that we think.

Well, you know what? When I've kind of handled what's going on right now in the jumbled mess of my thoughts and my heart, then I'll go to the Lord. Then I'll talk to the Lord. That's not what Job did. Job went in the messy.

Job went and Job did question God. And yes, God, God corrected him. God said, "Where were you?" Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Yeah, and where were we? We where were we when when Annika was knit in the womb?

Where were we when Carson was knit in the womb? When little Robert was when God decided that little Robert was going to come be in your home? Where were we? Yeah, the Lord gives and the Lord takes away. And man, like a good father, he wants us to pour it out to him.

And we might initially feel like, man, that feels kind of scary to take everything to the Lord and say, Lord, this is really like the ugliness of my heart right now, and just I feel like I'm bleeding out, and yet. There is such comfort—comfort like nothing else. You won't get that comfort from anybody else. You're not going to get it from a counselor. You're not going to get it from a therapist.

You're not even going to get it from a pastor. You're going to get it from the Lord Himself, and that the veil has been torn. We can go directly to Him and say, "God, I don't have the words, and I certainly don't have them tied up neatly." But this is what I'm feeling. This is what I'm struggling with. This is this is what my heart is wrestling with, with who you say you are and who I feel like you are right now.

And leave it in His hands. And, Mimi, the the title of your Instagram with hope in hands, man, like what a what a neat. I mean, that shows your your poetic gift. I don't think any of us are are perfect at at having those open hands. Have you found that since the loss of Carson and Annika, do your hands open more easily?

It's interesting because in a way you kind of feel and like I kind of feel invincible. Like what else could you possibly? Take, I mean, you know, like, like surely he won't take my husband from me now, like not after this. Surely not another. Like, but I don't know, I don't know.

Um, so is it easier in a way? Like, it's just kind of been part of my life to be here with open hands, and and maybe you know, I don't know. That's a good question. Maybe in a way, I am kind of hanging on to what I have left.

Well, I ask that exactly because of that. I think that. Tell me if this happened to you because when when you lost Annika and Carson, did you find that you almost had a fear initially of was God going to take next? He could take my other children. He could take my husband.

He could. What's next? Was that a fear that you had at first? Absolutely. Yeah.

I mean, yeah, yeah, absolutely, and in a way, almost the opposite, like. How dare you? Like you wouldn't dare take it. Like you gotta have this this bargaining with God. Like you already took so much.

Please, sorry. I think if we're honest, that is our initial reaction to things. And again, it's a pruning process, and it pruning pruning is like is a painful thing. You know, I mean, you've got those weeds that are like. Intwined with the good stuff, and so you got to kind of finagle them.

It's not just this easy little pruning process. It's not, and it's no different with our hearts. And I have felt the same way before, Mimi. Where you lose something precious to you, and your initial reaction—we think in our hearts—we want to have those hope, those those open hands, and we do. Our hearts desire that, but in the flesh, man, when something that is precious to you is taken.

I think our initial reaction is not that you can't have that too, you know. And the Lord, the Lord refines us, but it's not an easy process. I was thinking about that this week. Like you think about the process that gold goes through to be refined. It's not on a vacation, you know.

I mean, it's it is in the hottest fires to melt away that which is impure in it, and Man, I hate being in the fire. That's just—I'm going to put it out there. Like, I don't like the trials. I don't like them. I don't like being in the fire.

I want my faith to be pretty and glittering, and like anyone does. Yeah, but I—I think that sometimes we forget that as much as we hate the fire, that is how God refines us, and and we can help refine each other. By sharing our our testimonies like this, and I just I I so appreciate you being willing to to come on here and talk about this. And before we close out, I did want to ask you, what can you tell us a little bit about Carson and about Annika? What what made them special?

What did you just absolutely adore about each of them?

Well, that's my favorite thing. With Carson, and I miss them in different ways. With Carson, I miss Watching him grow up because he was so excited to grow up. He, he, he was thirteen and could not wait to hit puberty. And he, like, we had a very close relationship.

He still would sit on my on my lap in the evenings, like, like would still want to snuggle. Loved that, and um. Yeah, mornings he would come up and he'd like stick his underarm in my face. He's like, "Is there any hair in there yet?" You know, and and like, or he'd come up and be like, "Mom, I think my voice is changing." And I'm like, "Oh my goodness!" Like he was just so excited to grow up, and that's been that's been so hard. Like I miss I miss that part of him.

He would have graduated from eighth grade. He'd be in high school this year, and just this week was homecoming at our at our local school, and just to see all his friends, like all dressed up with their little girlfriends. I'm like, who would have. He taken, you know, like like that was kind of the first big thing after graduation. Just I I just miss watching him grow up.

He he was a wonderful brother. Was so protective of his sisters, and that's why I'm kind of glad that he's with Hanukkah in heaven. Like he he she was again the baby, the family, and he looked out for her too, and. The two of them were the most into sports of all of our kids, and so he he was on to sports, football, basketball, all the things, baseball, just constantly wanting to go. And then Anika, it's funny because I would always tell her, like, I would always just be like, just always be my little girl, like just push balls, you know.

And then I feel guilty now that I wanted that because it's what I got, like, but I don't really miss the fact that. I won't see her getting married, or won't see her. I don't know. For me, it's like I just miss my little girl. I don't really.

I don't look at her friends and think, "Oh, that would be Anika." Not really. Not in the way I do Carson, which is kind of weird. I don't know. That'll probably come, but I just miss her presence and her unconditional love. Of yeah, she just.

She was just my baby girl, and. I my house is so quiet. Like I just I really just miss her. Um, yeah.

So, they were both great kids. We just we were so blessed. We didn't have any of those, you know, horror stories like people sometimes have when you go through adoption and foster care. We just were blessed. Um, yeah.

So, I we miss them so much. But their friends miss them too, and their friends take care of me, and I love that. Like. Their friends checking on me. That's special.

I noticed in your Instagram pictures, even when you went back to the crash site and you put their little crosses up and the teddy bears and the flowers, you guys had a lot of friends and family there with you. And I just thought that that that was a beautiful picture of people coming around you guys and. Also showed how how loved Carson and Annika were, and when when we air your episode, we're going to be putting a picture of your kids on our Instagram too, so they can see them. Because oh, good, they were beautiful kids, and in the pictures that you guys took as a family, you can just tell that they were joyful, and that you guys you guys were a very loving, tight knit family. And I hope that people will go and follow you as well, and and Just kind of walk alongside you in this.

You know, some people may be encouraged by your walk, and some people may come alongside and encourage you. And so, where where can they find you? What what is the best way for them to contact you?

So on Instagram, I have I'm here with open hands on Instagram, Mimi Roman. I'm on Facebook. I'm in the process of writing a book, so I'm hoping to. It'll be a couple years, but I'm working on that and just sharing more of my story in that. But yeah, that's pretty much where you can find me.

Yeah, I would I would definitely encourage you to go find her because. Again, if you're in the deep waters, Mimi is very you're very transparent about all of it, and I think there's there's something healing about that for other people too to see that it's okay to be transparent. You don't you don't have to hide everything from from one another, and you certainly don't have to hide it from the Lord. And if you're listening today and you feel like man, my grief is just it's it's not tidy, it's not pretty, it's not tied up with a little bow. Me too.

You know that that is that's life. That's humanness, and I hope that you will be encouraged, though, to. Bring it to the Lord to have that honest wrestling amongst the weeping, amidst the weeping with the Lord, and you know, I mean, for a Christian, grief and hope—they're not opposites—and we can mourn deeply because death is an enemy. It's an enemy, and so it's okay. We don't have to be thankful for death.

We don't have to be thankful for cancer or for the chronic illness that you have, but you can be thankful for what God is doing through it. And what God is doing in you, and we we have a confident hope. Because Christ came, and not only did Christ come, but He resurrected from the dead. He defeated death. He defeated that enemy.

And, Mimi, that is why we have hope that not only will you see Carson and Annika again, but those of us that are in Christ will get to meet them face to face. What a beautiful hope that we have in Christ—that goodbye is not forever—and what is broken here will be mended. And in the meantime, we will be helped. Mimi, thank you so much for joining us today on Hope in the Morning. Thank you.

I loved being here. Hope in the Morning is a nonprofit ministry that seeks to encourage the hurting, equip those who walk beside them, and evangelize the lost with the hope of Jesus Christ. To partner with our ministry or to make a donation in your loved one's honor, please visit hopeinthemorning.org. Your donation helps keep these stories of hope on the air and helps tangibly meet the needs of the hurting.