Review: Stretched in Love: Hospice of the Womb

Have you ever miscarried or know someone who has?  Are you (or they) still grieving?  Here is a book for you and all women and men who may have lost a little soul ... lost a little lamb.

Stretched in Love: Hospice of the Womb by Maura H. Harrison is a small booklet, 32 pages, packed with love and God's grace ... filled with tenderness and faith in God's love and care for each one of us.  Harrison's fifth child died in utero at six months of gestation.  This little lamb, named Agnes Cecila, led Harrison and her family and friends to a much deeper understanding of  sacrifice, obedience and, most importantly, in a deeper faith in God.  Harrison came to see, as quoted in Stretched in Love, that:

Agnes was a great blessing because you have been stretched and have been led to where you must rely on God more ... or rather, to where you realize you need to rely on God absolutely.

I had two miscarriages six years ago ... I too greived and still grieve.  Some folks couldn't understand why it would be hard to miscarry -- I had five healthy children.  But what the world sometimes doesn't understand is that EACH and EVERY life is a precious gift from God ... and we miss that gift when it is taken sooner from us then we're ready for, whether the loss occurs in utero, a young child, or even when the loved one is old and gray and "way past their prime".  My miscarriages were such a heart-rending time.  Harrison's was even tougher since her baby was six months along; and yet she has given us this gift of her journey ... her search for understanding ... her acceptance of God's will ... her ability to give back Agnes Cecilia to a loving God.  She published this booklet about her journey 8 months (to the day) after Agnes Cecilia's funeral -- an eight-month gestation of healing which gifts us all.

I highly recommend this book for all who are grieving or know others who are grieving over the loss of a baby.  This would be a great book for parishes and priests to have to comfort others who experience this sudden loss.  This book will cradle each reader in God's hands ... 

Thank you Maura Harrison for sharing this with us all!