In the bereaved community, we often talk about the rainbow as referring to the storm being over, and many of us refer to pregnancy or live birth after enduring loss as being a “rainbow” baby.
So how especially invalidating might it feel for families who are bereaved, who are also LGBTQ+, to see a growing culture – the bereaved community – longing for rainbows, while simultaneously creating an exclusionary or hostile response to bereaved families who do not define themselves in traditional heterosexual relationships (and who, as such, might value the rainbow for this particular, different reason).
I am not at all shy about sharing my own personal journey, beliefs, values and lifestyle choices.
Most anyone who visits stillbirthday understands quickly that I, Heidi Faith, am personally Christian. I am not merely a Christian, mind you. I am Christian. There is a difference, much the same as saying “I am conservative” versus “I am a conservative.”
And regarding my personal decisions regarding life in utero, I do not have the luxury to lean on polarizing political or even religious positions. No, I have walked the walk. My very life has at one time been threatened – forcefully – at the news of pregnancy. Endangering both the life of my baby and my own, I know what it’s like to flee into hiding with a baby and I know what it’s like to live in a battered women’s shelter.
I say these things because we each have a particular lens through which we view life and from which we collect our values.
I have mine.
But, that does not stop me from being able to put down my own stuff, for 5 minutes, for gracious sake, to sit with someone who has a different lens than I do.
I am not scared that some psychological corrosion will rub off on me.
Nor am I motivated to trick someone into signing up for my values so that I can earn some sort of star on a spiritual point system.
I simply believe that the God who holds my own life with the most insurmountable and infinite mercy has enough confidence in His own merit that He actually delights in – and even supplies my very endurance to – give love, unconditionally.
So there you have it.
Every person impacted by loss has the right to receive love. Period. It is frankly and biblically and simply that simple.
I know God’s design for family, including His miraculous design of life in the womb and including His miraculous design of gender. But, I am even more aware and convicted by, what I know God designs for me.
And I hold to my Bible, my God, and my values fiercely.
And so, without further explanation, stillbirthday now holds a logo that is free to be included in all LGBTQ+ stories shared here at stillbirthday, to give recognition to this unique journey.
Thank you, Ruthie, from Birth Without Fear, for your brilliant creativity in creating it!
A rainbow in bereavement might be a sign of hope after the death of your child.
A rainbow in bereavement too, might be a sign of hope after the silence, rejection and abandonment when your lens looks different than others – including mine.
Stillbirthday. You just might find a double rainbow here.
