Joy Attmore pours our her heart, considering how we respond to the story of our lives, when it gets written in a way that breaks our hearts and isn't what we wanted.

The last blog I wrote was entitled, 'Three Simple Steps to Seeing Your Dreams Come True'. Three days after it was published, my husband and I miscarried our second baby. Cue the sound of screeching brakes and tires and the image of jarred, gritted teeth. This dream of having children wasn't meant to crash again, so suddenly and traumatically; it was meant to be continuing to grow and thrive. Yet here I sit, contemplating the irony of my last blog post and my current life experience.

It's been a month now since that night of birthing and dying, but that isn't actually what I wanted to focus on as I write to you now. Instead, I want to share with you the unexplainable peace that has followed and the revelation I have been receiving in the stillness.

Phillip and I miscarried our first baby, Promise Joy, at Christmas time of last year. After learning of what had taken place within me, I was consumed with anger and grief for several weeks as my confused heart tried to wrestle with what had happened. We found out on Easter Sunday that we were once again pregnant and it felt like our dreams were being redeemed and resurrected, from the ashes of the new year. Then we suddenly lost our second baby, Victor Peace, just as we had come to the end of our first trimester.

I don't think loss and its timing ever makes sense, and I am not about to try and figure out why this has happened. It seems to be a mystery set aside for the other side of eternity, when I will finally get to meet my sweet children. I can testify, however, to the grace that can be found in immeasurable amounts in these moments here on earth.

I love this song, 'First Love', by Antioch College Worship. The lyrics sing of this desire to be taken back to how it felt to be first in love with God; first encountering His presence and discovering His goodness.

In the book of Revelation, God speaks to seven different churches and gives instruction in response to their behaviour. In chapter two, He addresses the church in Ephesus and tells them that they have abandoned their first love. They basically get admonished for not maintaining their love for Him.

In the past couple of weeks, the phrase 'take me back to my first love' has been playing over in my mind and I have begun to find great joy in rediscovering that, both in regards to my relationship with God, but also with my husband, Phillip.

When we first fall in love with someone, the very mention of their name is electric and we are willing to move anything if it means getting some time in with them. Fast forward a few years and some of that initial excitement may well have been replaced with a contented schedule and almost ritualistic relationship. We are also likely to have stepped out of the 'honeymoon phase' and instead to have encountered a few challenges and disappointments together.

The same can be said for God.

I remember the first time that I really felt God's presence. It was like I was walking on air for a whole week! I was 12 years old at the time. Then life takes over, in the way that it sometimes does and I haven't stopped to really think about how close to God I was feeling. Fast forward 16 years and I'm suddenly remembering that sweet time.

In the aftermath of having two miscarriages, and also being made temporarily homeless due to a bad sublet, I am discovering what it means to fall in love again with my husband and also with my God. It is bringing me to a place of contentment where I can say, "Even if I never have my own children, you God are enough. Even if I remain homeless, you God are my home."

If I was the author, this is not the way that I would have written it, but as a character in this story, this is how I choose to engage.

When everything is not all good and your heart has lost much, it is important to remember what you still have, because there, in your tired, broken hands, there is life.