Recently, my world felt as if it were crashing around me. I was so angry I think my rage could have burned a small village. Unfortunately, that rage was directed at God though I knew that wasn’t what I needed to be directing toward Him. He owed me nothing then, and He owes me nothing now; however, my heart was shattered, and for a while, it seemed as if my faith was crumbling with it.

I stopped going to church. I stopped praying. I stopped all positive feelings and allowed myself to succumb to the pain and the anger. When we buried my son, Ezekiel, we buried a piece of my soul, and it felt like we buried me.

I was over the moon to find out we were pregnant with our third son, but I immediately came crashing back down when I found out there was no heartbeat. December 27, 2021, two days after Christmas. My mama instincts told me something wasn’t right, but there was nothing I could do. 

RELATED: A Mother’s Love Can’t Be Measured In Weeks

We spent New Year’s Eve in the hospital, and we buried my little man a few days into the new year. Ezekiel Canaan. His name literally translated to God’s Strength and Promised Land. We decided on his middle name not long before we lost him, and I know that choice was no coincidence. My anger was so consuming that it took me months to see this as God’s way of comforting me. He knew He would need that precious boy, but He also knew we needed him. He knew we would be crushed by losing our baby, so He comforted us even before we needed it. 

Our pastor pointed out his name’s meaning at the memorial, and I knew without a doubt that was God. However, I wasn’t in the forgiving mood. We laid that tiny little grave in the ground, and I felt like I had laid down with him. It wasn’t until April that God sought me out. The visiting preacher spoke from the book of Ezekiel, which I later found out was a spur-of-the-moment decision on his part. I knew God was calling to me, so I came obediently and rested in Him.

Fast forward six months to a positive pregnancy test. Our rainbow baby. We hadn’t been trying, and I was scared. We found out within a week of the positive that we might have had a second miscarriage, but it was too soon to tell.

My nerves were shot, and I was feeling that anger trying to burn through me again. I held back since we didn’t know for sure anyway. We were told to come back in a week to see if there was growth. The day before we were set to go back, my youngest and I tested positive for COVID. I asked God why.

I’d unburied my pain and had given it to Him, so why was I being put through this again? I selfishly lashed out and questioned, but in the end, it didn’t do any good. We’d lost another baby, and I felt like even if I had tried to take up my cross this time, all the nails in the world couldn’t hold up my pieces. There were just too many at this point, right? Wrong.

I realized something shortly after our second loss. He doesn’t want us to bury our burdens, our fears, our hurts. If we have buried them, He asks us to unbury them and hand them over. All of them. No matter how battered and bruised your heart is, no matter what has caused you pain, God wants it all.

RELATED: God Actually Does Give Us More Than We Can Handle

I kept asking why He left me and why He would put us through that multiple times, but I was the one who left. I laid myself in that grave with my baby, and I piled the dirt as high as I could to try to separate myself from God. I left just enough in my shell of a body to be there for my kids and maybe a sliver for my husband, but that was it.

God was in my corner the whole time, waiting for me to turn around and run back to Him. I had to choose to accept His comfort. He will never force it on us. Jesus says to take up your cross and follow me (Matthew 16:24).

We have to choose to take it up. I believe He wants us to hang every scrap of ourselves on that cross for Him just like Jesus did because only He can take away that pain. Only He can take those burdens from us. Buried or not, they stay with us, or rather, we stay with them. When we give them to God, we are free of those shackles. Friends, unbury those burdens and let God unbury you.