I put the wrong date in my calendar.

It was the would-be due date of the baby I lost to miscarriage this past spring.

I feel like an idiot, honestly.

Did I initially calculate it wrong? (on brand for me, if I’m being honest)
Did I click the wrong month when I put it in my calendar?
Did I subconsciously avoid looking too closely as the date approached?
Was I so busy tending to the daily needs of my family that I didn’t give myself the space to stop, feel, and grieve… unintentionally tucking the grief away and telling myself I’d come back to it later, when life felt quieter?

Probably all of the above.

I thought my baby’s would-be due date was January 30th.
It turns out it would have been December 30th.

Which means the day came… and went.

Quietly.
Unmarked.
Not acknowledged by me. Or by anyone, if I’m brutally honest.

And that realization hit harder than I expected.

I know, logically, that a loss can be honored on any day. I tell other women this all the time. A date on a calendar does not measure love or grief or motherhood.

I know that in my head. I can go back and forth with myself all day long:
Okay, literally, it’s just a date, Caitlin. You could dwell on the coulda-shoulda-wouldas forever, and it still won’t put your baby in your arms.

I can argue it theologically, too—not in a tidy or detached way, but in the way faith clings when grief doesn’t make sense. Scripture tells us that God knows the days of our lives before we ever do. He is not surprised by human error or miscalculation. He is not bound by calendars or timelines the way we are. 

And still, it can feel hard to reconcile that God does not spare us from all suffering. I won’t pretend that tension isn’t there. But I trust the God who does know—the God who sees the whole story and holds all things together, even when I cannot.

Scripture gives language to this tension—that God is present and purposeful even when we cannot yet see how the pieces fit together.

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”
— Ecclesiastes 3:11

And yet.

Some words have echoed in my heart during this season, lyrics from one of my favorite songs that seem to ask the very questions grief keeps circling:

“Do You remember?
Does it even matter?
Will this tell a story
Or just be a big blur?
Will all the sorrow
Be glory tomorrow?
Only You know
How it all matters.”
— How It All Matters, Bethany Barnard

 

There is something deeply human about wanting to mark a day.

For me, would-be due dates have carried weight for a long time.

Almost a decade ago, after experiencing my first miscarriage, the day that would have been our baby’s due date arrived heavy and uninvited. Instead of letting it pass in silence, that day became a turning point. Out of prayer, grief, and a deep longing to find purpose in the pain, Due to Joy was born.

It began as a blog—a place to process what the Lord was doing in my grief, to name the ache honestly, and to watch Him slowly restore joy in ways I never could have forced. A day that could have been marked only by dread became something I chose to honor, year after year, by holding space for remembrance and by finding new ways to support others walking through loss.

Some years, honoring that day looked small and quiet. A solo coffee date. A good book. Journaling. Prayer. Music blasting. Nothing elaborate—just intentional. Just present.

So when I thought about the due date of the baby I miscarried this past spring, I imagined doing something similar. Not because there is one right way to grieve, but because remembering has long been part of how I love, how I heal, and how I trust God with what I cannot hold on my own.

To pause.
To remember.
To say, “You were here. You mattered. You still matter.”

And when I realized I had missed what I believed was the “right” moment, I felt a strange mix of shame, sadness, and defeat.

As if I had failed at honoring my own loss.

That stings to even type.

When calculating a due date, you’re supposed to go off the first day of your last menstrual cycle. Somewhere along the way, I used the date of my miscarriage instead. An entire month off.

A seemingly small mix-up.

But grief is rarely just what we can see on the surface. Most of the story lives underneath, like an iceberg.

• The sting of feeling unseen.
• The deep, urgent desire to honor this baby well.
• The irony of spending my life helping others feel seen in their grief, while quietly believing I had neglected my own.

If another woman told me this story, I know exactly what I would say:
Friend, the Lord sees you. A calendar mix-up does not devalue your love or your loss.

I would say it and mean it with my whole chest.

It’s harder to offer ourselves the same grace.

They say the body keeps the score. I believe that.

Because at the end of December, before I realized the date mistake, I was in a dark place. Not in a dramatic, obvious way. I couldn’t name it. I didn’t reach out. I didn’t even fully let myself feel it.

I just felt heavy.
Withdrawn.
Quiet.

And the strange thing was that it was sunny. Bright. Not the kind of December you can blame on gloomy weather or seasonal depression. The sun kept pulling my gaze upward. My camera roll from that month is filled with photos of the sky.

Something in me was searching, even if I didn’t yet know what for. God’s nearness met me, once again.

 

Looking back, I wonder if my body already knew what my mind hadn’t caught up to yet.

One afternoon, I found myself on my back porch, my favorite place lately, lying flat on the concrete.

Just being.
Just breathing.

It’s where I meet God most honestly these days—no agenda, no words, just His presence.

And He met me there. He always does.

The nearness of the Lord in this season of grief has been one of the greatest gifts I could ever pray for.

I read my Bible, and He is with me.
I rock my toddler before her nap, and He is with me.
I clean up the tenth spill of the day (from said toddler), inhale, exhale, ask for help, and He is with me.
I lie on the pavement of my back porch in silence, winter air on my skin, sun-warmed concrete beneath my back, and He meets me there.
I sing worship songs in my car at the very top of my lungs, tears streaming down my face, and He is with me.

As I grieve, I cry out to Him with words I haven’t spoken to anyone else.

He is not distant from me in my grief.

He is near.

I do not picture Him looking down and saying, “You silly girl, you messed up the date. How could you screw this up?”

I picture Him kneeling down to sit beside me.
Wiping my tears from my face.
Steady.
Gentle.

“Child, I am with you.
I am not bound by time.
I formed this baby in your womb.
They are fearfully and wonderfully made.
Bring Me your hurt. Bring Me your frustration.
I will be your peace—I am right here beside you.”

I may have missed the date I thought I needed.
But my baby was never forgotten.
And the Lord never forgot me.

And if you’re reading this carrying a similar ache,
whether you missed a moment
or wish you had marked it differently,
hear this gently:

It is not too late to remember.
It is not too late to grieve.
It is not too late to honor a life that mattered.

You are not alone.
You are seen.

And if today feels tender, know this: your remembering does not have to be perfect. God is already there, holding the days you marked and the ones you missed.

There is something comforting about remembering that God is not startled by the days we miscalculate or the moments we wish we could redo. He is not bound by the way we mark time. He stands both within it and beyond it, holding every moment, even the ones we feel we missed.

“The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.”
— Psalm 34:18

Near. Not watching from a distance. Not waiting for us to get the timing right. Near in the confusion, the grief, the quiet realizations that come too late at night or too late on the calendar.

Scripture tells us that our days, and the days of our children, are known to Him.

"Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them." Psalm 139:16

And so I pray,

“You remember
You know it all matters
This tells a story
But it’s not the last chapter
All the sorrow
Will be glory tomorrow
Only You know
How it all matters.” 
— How It All Matters, Bethany Barnard