A Bit of Honesty

Thank you for being so supportive and lifting us up to the Lord in prayer during this time of trial. As I meditated on the death of our unborn child, my heart rejoiced at knowing that our child went to be with the Lord. It is wonderful to think of him or her being with God in heaven, a place free of sin and pain and death.  The more I thought about our child in heaven, though, this joyfulness was intermingled with sadness.  My hopes of worshiping God together with my child were dashed as I contemplated what little I knew about our child. The baby didn't live long enough for us to find out if it was a boy or a girl.  The only glimpses that we saw were the ultrasound images, which showed something resembling an alien more than an actual human being.  We never got to hold our baby and gaze into its eyes and comb its hair.  We don't know if it would have had blue or green eyes, red or blonde hair. There was no special feature that I could use to distinguish my child from any others in heaven.  How would I ever recognize my child?  I struggled and struggled with this question in my thoughts, too embarrassed to actually express my concerns to anyone lest they really see how small and weak my faith really is.  On Saturday, I lay in bed crying and crying and praying silently, when my husband came in and asked me why I was crying (and why I wasn't tending to our children).  At that point, I was so desperate for an answer that I just blurted everything out between wails. David was very gentle with me and didn't rebuke me for my lack of faith, but simply asked, "Who is our child with right now?"  OK, I knew the answer to that one, "Well, God."  "And God knows all things, right?  (rhetorical question...he didn't even give me the opportunity to answer!) God is going to make sure you know your child.  You will be able to worship God together!" I really believe that David was the Lord's messenger to me that day and that the Lord used him to bring comfort to me.

The way David handled this situation reminded me of something I read recently.  The day before we found out that our baby was not doing well, David gave me the evening off.  One of the things I did during that time was to go to Cha for Tea to read my Bible.  One verse I read that evening was Matthew 11:29. Jesus says, "...learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart..."  I must have read this passage many times in my Christian life before, but, on this particular night, I questioned, "Why does Jesus describe himself this way?"  I couldn't find anything helpful online.  I was so troubled that I couldn't sleep, so I looked this verse up in a commentary.  This is what Matthew Henry says,

He is meek and can have compassion on the ignorant, whom others would be in a passion with. Many able teachers are hot and hasty, which is a great discouragement to those who are dull and slow; but Christ knows how to bear with such, and to open their understandings. His carriage towards his twelve disciples was a specimen of this; he was mild and gentle with them, and made the best of them; though they were heedless and forgetful, he was not extreme to mark their follies.