Catching Up. A Letter to my Baby. A Prayer to my God.
Dear Baby,
I don’t know whether you are a boy or a girl, but for some
reason I feel like you are a girl, so that is how I am going to address you. I’m
pretty sure that Heaven is interesting enough, and God is big enough that you
actually won’t mind if I’m using the incorrect pronoun in my writing. What’s
interesting is, if I REALLY believe what I say I believe, REALLY BELIEVE my
theology, you are getting to be with God and meet God before me even though I’m
your mommy and technically ‘’older’’ than you. And I do believe the things I
say I believe. I do believe all that ‘’theology.’’ I really do. Yet you are now
understanding more fully and rightly than I do because you are with our Father.
That is incredible.
You have changed my life so much. I thought you were going
to change my life in many ways when I first found out about you on July 10th,
but actually, God intended to use you to change me in ways about which I hadn’t
a clue…. And I am sure I will continue to be changed by you in ways I cannot
predict as of yet. Already, you’ve given me so much perspective. It’s almost
like you have awakened me from a dream state. I am sorry that my sin runs so
deep that it took a death, your death, to jostle me. I know you understand,
however. I believe you are at peace with your purpose as we all will be when we
are with Him. I’m embarrassed, honestly, to state the things you have put into
perspective for me because I am ashamed of how trivial, how vain, how
short-sighted, how selfish, I have been living my life. I am now deeply
repentant of how far I have let my mind slide into being a mind influenced by
things of the world. I am wrought with the ridiculousness of the fact that I
have been concerned with these things rather than being renewed daily in the
Gospel and by the Word. I cared about things such as how much weight I would
gain in pregnancy, how cramped we’d all be in a two bedroom apartment in the
city. I thought, “I REALLY wish we’d gotten the 3 bedroom.” I worried about how to set up a
room for a toddler and a baby to share at the same time. I wondered if I would
go stir-crazy being a mom of two kids and not have enough ‘’me’’ time. I contemplated
whether I would lose myself and the part of me that identified herself in
ministry once I was mothering two children. I wondered if I’d be able to lose
the baby weight ever and ever feel comfortable with my body again, if I’d gain
too much weight and look like a freak for 9 months, and how much more ‘’poochy’’
my stomach would be afterwards. I worried about ‘’private rooms’’ at the
hospital and how to maintain all the conveniences I wanted even as we moved
into the city. I thought about how much harder it would be to travel. I
complained about having to ‘be pregnant.’ I actually invested time and thought
into these things. I entertained them. But after I found out that you had
passed, it was like a rock hit me clear in the face. I know that isn’t an
analogy that sounds pleasant, but literally that is what it felt like. I was
STUNNED, and it seemed like everything suddenly FELL into place. I’m thinking
of those little 99cent puzzles and trinkets kids get. The kind that one holds
in his hands; there are little tiny balls encased in plastic squares, and you shake
them, trying to get all the balls into their appropriate little notches and
crevices. So when the reality of your death sunk in, the reality that I had
been carrying a life inside my womb but that now the life was gone, I felt like
all the little balls of my mind and world that continuously rolled around SLAMMED
RIGHT into place, and then at that moment, everything froze in time. There I
stood- staring at all these things, and understanding them with a level of
clarity I had only ever dreamed I’d be able to have. They literally did not
matter anymore. In comparison to the importance of your life being saved, I
would suffer through any of the discomfort. And as I explain it now, I feel
like I am understanding more than ever before exactly how Jesus felt. He would
give His life because of His love for His Father, and God would give His Son
for us, as a ransom. I would bear any discomfort, sacrifice any earthly
convenience, if it meant that you would be alive. Life matters so much more
than comfort. And these fleeting comforts idolized by the world….. well, I stand now suddenly enabled to see them for
just how empty they are. Meaningless, like Solomon writes.
So perspective is something you have given me. Perspective
that enables me to live more fully, actually be present in the moment, instead
of in my head trying to figure out how to best make the moment comfortable. I
feel you shook me into being able to learn from each moment and appreciate
circumstances as opportunities, whether good, bad, hard, easy… You stopped me
from needing or wanting to control everything. All of the variables I obsessed
about in my head on a minute by minute basis mattered so much less. I hate that
it took your death to awaken me from my immature stupor. Thank you for doing
this to me though. I was living as a fool in so many ways. You have opened my
eyes. Your death has given me Life. I fear, however, that in my pain and
sadness at having lost you, I will become weak and fall into the pattern of
life that I have lived for so many years. I fear I will forget the clarity that
you gifted me. I pray to God that in each moment, He will strengthen me and
remind me of TRUTH, that He will strengthen me to stabilize myself in the RIGHT
understanding of the world around me and think less of myself and the space I
am occupying.
I will close for tonight my child. I pray God will enable me
to continue to live in the conviction that your life has given me. I pray I can
honor you and thus allow you to live through me as I endeavor living
differently than I would have lived had I not been blessed with your life and
then your death. It is such a dichotomy that your death is a tragedy to me and
brings such pain, that your death is something I would give anything to
prevent; yet, at the same time, it is such a blessing to me, and I am indebted
to you. I am enabled to be a better mother because of your life and death; however,
I will never be able to watch you experience the physical fruits of this
blessing you’ve been to me, at least not on this earth. Perhaps in the New
Heaven and the New Earth… Perhaps there is more in store for us. I hope… I love
you so. I am glad you were spared the pain and suffering of life in this world,
but selfishly I wish I could have enjoyed with you the parts of this life that
are redemption as in a mirror dimly. I
will continue with the juxtaposition of these thoughts and emotions, and will
endeavor to speak them for the purposes of honoring you, and glorifying our
Creator.
Love, Mommy
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