If only you could meet him. Our beautiful boy with his daddy's eyelashes, his perfect lips, his precious nose, the tiny heart allotted a handful of beats, that smell. His coo when he heard John's voice for the first time. His tiny hand in a fist at his cheek as he slept. That holy moment where we met our baby and loved him so desperately. Where Jesus met us and held us as he held our boy just on the other side of the veil. How you would have loved him. How we love him.
And how we miss him just as desperately.
And it is in this missing him that the resurrection, while in every way perfect and profound, breaks my heart. Although the resurrection means the promise of finding all our joys and desires met in Jesus, including his promise of reunion with our baby, that feels so tragically far away on the nights when my arms, my heart, my hope for now are so very empty.
In these crashing, crushing, consuming moments, when hope has flown, there is anger. God has wounded us, and we are still recoiling. Blind-sided. Is there no balm in Gilead?
We are often weak. He knows we are dust. We feel it. We ache with the brokenness of being dust...fallible. And yet these songs rise to the surface. Songs I must sing to myself in the dark-- preach to myself, not out of obligation but desperation. If Jesus is asking "Will you leave me too?", I know my response still must be, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life" (John 6:67-68). So as Jesus holds out the cup of suffering to us, sometimes we sit in the dust. And sometimes it feels like there will only ever be dust, but sometimes there are songs:
"In the dark, in the doubting. When you can't feel anything, his love remains the same [...] As sure as the sun will rise, and chase away the night, his mercy will not end. His mercy will not end." (Ellie Holcomb, "As Sure as the Sun")
And how I doubt-- his goodness, our future, any good gift going forward, the promise of joy. In my anger and hurt, his mercy will not end. As sure as the sun will rise.
"Even through the night
Silver stars still shine
Hope of glory's light
That will wake us once again."
These silver stars of hope that are manifested in the form of our sacrificial church, loving people, a card in my mailbox... provide a little glimmer that we will wake again. My hope will some day be resurrected. He will lift my head and kiss my tear-stained cheeks. I will be able to delight in him again. But for tonight, we weep and watch the stars.
When we lost our first baby a year ago, almost to the day, from losing John Ezekiel, I could rejoice in the idea of God someday making everything right, but this time, to hope for future things feels impossible when even mustering hope for the moment feels like too much. But still the songs come:
"You're a good, good Father. It's who you are. I am loved by you. It's who I am. You are perfect in all of your ways." (Chris Tomlin, "You're a Good, Good Father")
Sometimes I clench my teeth and stand arms crossed in hearing these words. Other times, I say them slowly to myself to remind myself of truth, even when it grates against my anger. Sometimes I can whisper them, but always there are tears... for the gravity of our loss. For the gravity of our gain. "You're a good, good Father. It's who you are. I am loved by you. It's who I am. You are perfect in all of your ways."
How is he perfect in this way-- in offering something so sacred and tearing it away so quickly? No one can sufficiently answer. This mother's heart can sometimes find rest in knowing our baby is with a good, good Father, but sometimes it feels like in taking our baby, our Father gave us a stone when we asked for bread.
And yet in all these things, I know he's faithful. And sometimes, when these songs wash over me, I find that he is weeping in the dust with me and singing me his own songs in the dark. He's a good, good Father.
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