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It was Ash Wednesday of 2020. I was bleeding as I preached.
“The world calls us to a posture of pretending everything is fine,” I said, in remarks prepared before the bleeding started, “but Jesus calls us to the truth of confession and redemption. The truth will set you free. When we name mortality aloud, we become free to receive grace.”
I felt mortality in my body. It was the fourth day of bleeding; I knew my pregnancy was ending. And though I miscarried two days later, I did not tell the people at church. I kept pretending. I was conscious of the cognitive dissonance between my preaching and my example. Yet I could not bring myself to share.
