The Grace That Blinds Us | A Story of Loss and Hope

A while back I read an article from The Magnolia Journal magazine (a guilty pleasure of mine). I saw the article when I first flipped through the new Summer issue... but something in my heart told me to take my time with this one. I waited until my schedule was free. Tyler and I were in the kitchen and he was probably doing dishes or something. I whipped out my magazine and started to read out loud. I may have cried through the entire thing!


The story was titled "People Who Inspire." It told of a heartbreaking and inspiring journey one couple had to endure while building their family. After reading their story, it was easy to fall in love with the hope and faith they described. Some of their words, I pray, will never leave me.

Sara and Billy Brawner's story starts off like many others, a newly married couple expecting their first baby. The wife creatively announces to her husband that their family will soon be growing! Together they day dream about the changes to come only to be crushed with the devastating news that this pregnancy would end in miscarriage.

"I always knew, along with everyone else, that Sara was kind and funny and gentle; but I don't think I knew her as confident until I watched her grieve our first baby. No matter how many people told us it was common, Sara refused to sweep it under the rug. [...] She felt and still feels that our first baby's death was worthy of grief. She was confident in being broken and in knowing that the world is not how it should be, confident that her grief was worthwhile." (Brawner, Billy Jack. “Sara Brawner.” The Magnolia Journal, Summer 2017, pp. 57)

Such a beautiful thing to be confident in being broken. Where do we learn that our grief is not worthwhile? Why do we often times dismiss our pain and strive to move on even when it doesn't feel right? Who is ranking our suffering from small to great? Isn't pain still pain?

Eventually Sara and Billy became pregnant again only to loose this baby as a stillborn- a pain I could truly, never imagine. I loved the way her husband put it when he said that,"even still, she grieves [that loss] with grace- messy, hard grace." (pp. 58) This to me, illustrates the raw image of the beauty in brokenness.

The story continues as the couple decides it's time to look into foster care and adoption.

"Adoption had always been a plan A for us and never felt like a fix or a replacement or a filling of some void. It just made a lot of logical sense to us; a simple equation: Kids need love and a home, we have love and a home, let's give kids love and a home." (pp. 58)

Together they start the long process of becoming foster parents. In the middle of everything they discover that Sara became pregnant for a third time! The story recounts their experience, sitting through a training, learning how to deal with children that come from heart wrenching situations, when Sara began to miscarry again.

"It was the first time that we felt stupid for getting our hopes up [...] But we were reminded that we want to be the sort of folks who get their hopes up. We want to feel the weight of the world in its entirety, in its beauty as well as its brokenness, celebrating all of the life and mourning all of the death." (pp. 59)

That phrase, of wanting to feel the weight of the world it its entirety, has repeated it's self over and over in my head. If we truly want to love greatly and live bravely, I don't think we get to pick and choose when to feel strong emotion. I call it the "pendulum effect." If you're only a little crushed that things didn't work out, you might have only been a little excited if it did. However if you're willing to put yourself in a position where you know you could either feel immense joy or complete devastation depending on how things work out, that to me seems like a life worth living!

The Brawner family's story continues as they gain their first child from foster care, experience a fourth miscarriage, adopt three siblings from foster care, and eventually give birth to a healthy baby boy.

Towards the beginning of the article Billy Brawner says, "...If I'd known what the story had for me, I never would have auditioned for this role- too much self-regard and not enough courage. I'm thankful for a grace that blinds us to what's to come, as well as a grace that cues us in on the Final Act." (pp. 57)

If rocky roads are what lie ahead, I'm grateful for the unknown. Perhaps it's our blindness to the future that is our greatest tender mercy. None of us know what twists and turns may await. Most of us may only have a glimpse of our destination. Who's to say what experience tomorrow holds? That's why, we call it a journey.

Pieces of this story were extracted from The Magnolia Journal Summer 2017 Issue 3.

If you like what you see don't forget to like, comment or share!