On This, Your Birthday, Letter Two
Written March 1,
2018
I would be 37 weeks. Aden would
be making his debut anytime now. Eli would be excited about his baby brother. I
don’t even know how to put words to the sadness- the loss, to never know what
his face would have looked like, or his laugh. To think of his poor body and
how it would have hurt, to wonder what the challenges would have been for his
body. I want to know. He was mine. He would have hurt. I want to know what that
hurt would have been. He was my child. He was created from my body… and he died
before I even got the chance to tell him how much I loved him. Is that selfish,
to wish he had lived so that I could hold him? See him? Tell him? Feel
him?? Is that wrong that I am sad that I
didn’t get these things when me getting them would have meant such pain for him
and such inconvenience and more pain for others around me? I know that simple
answers won’t satisfy. I need space simply to ask. To wonder. I don’t know how
to quiet the raging emotions within… I don’t have answers for them all. You
would have looked something like this, little Aden Zoe, my “fruitful life.”→→→ →→→→→→→→→
Aden,
a variant of Eden,
meaning fruitful
and well-watered in Hebrew, also being used for life. Zoe- Greek for life.
And you would have been us- part of our clan. You are part of our clan.
This is your daddy and your brother, and I am your mommy, and we miss you! We
miss you precious boy. And we are so sorry, precious boy, that your little body
hurt and couldn’t go on. We are so sorry and wish we could have helped you and
comforted you. We would have done anything for you precious boy…. Anything……
The Psalmist teaches us that pain is not meant to numb us and cause our
hearts to withdraw; pain is meant to draw
our hearts up to God: “From the depths of the earth You will bring me up
again. You will increase my greatness and comfort me again.” We are brought to
remember that God is all we have, and that He is enough.
“You have done great things.
Who
is like You, O God?
You
made me see troubles and calamities and will revive me again.
From
the depths of the earth, You will bring me up again.
You
will increase my greatness and comfort me again.” Psalm 71:19-21
Written March 2nd,
2018
Being at the workshop last night made me feel all-the-more-affirmed in Your sovereign hand which has given me exactly the good and pure things I desired as a young woman 11 years ago. Here we are church planting, being aided by Redeemer, in the city of Manhattan, moving into Manhattan. My husband is a pastor… we are doing homeless ministry. I am in the Asian context… ALL desires of my heart that I had no idea could ever come to be… all those desires of my heart that I even surrendered to you in tears because I knew they were my desires… but not what You currently had for me… all those desires… and somehow, out of the clear blue sky, I realize, they are coming to be! I moved to NY 11 years ago with no hopes of church planting, with no hopes of a husband to church plant with… I moved without prospect of homeless ministry… I moved to the Asian context, yes. But to work with youth, which was only a portion of the longings and desires of my heart You had been cultivating. And I had no idea how I would stay long-term in New York, how I’d support myself. I couldn’t even afford to live in the city! And through the years, I even forgot… I never pursued all these things. I simply did what You had for me… Yet You have brought this all to be, and I am amazed…. You have blessed us, providing us a church home- a incredible group of people to work with and support us (the body of GFC), family to support us, a place to live in the city! I could not be more amazed…..
…..Yet once again, I wake up this morning, with the
reminder that I am not pregnant, and I am wrestling with the knowledge that
this may be due to genetic complications… complications because of these two
people you have brought together, Jesse and myself. Your sovereign hand, so
intricately and so full of good in bringing together dreams of a little girl’s
heart, has brought us together, even when I didn’t know why… and even when (I
confess at times) I thought “man…did I make a mistake…?” Yet it is possible we
will not be able to conceive. It is possible that Eli was a miracle- a complete
gift. Indeed, I already feel he is. I don’t understand. It doesn’t make sense.
And I’m so sad. I long for another “Eli” to love. I ache over not appreciating
him more when he was a baby because I was so overwhelmed by being a new mom and
the chaos it brought to my ‘’controlled life.’’ I struggle to ward off lies
that I don’t deserve motherhood and more children and that I am not good enough—that
I couldn’t handle another child, as someone so close to me suggested…
But if I can handle this… losing my baby while raising
Eli and moving, and losing my grandmother and my cat, and facing challenges
with church ministry and the replant, then surely I would be strong enough to
handle having two kids… ??? Maybe? ……But perhaps You want us to be able to give
more of ourselves in ministry, and having more children would certainly create
for us more boundaries and obstacles.
I could play the “what if” game forever, and that is not really what You’d
have me to do… Even
that is my meager attempt at seeking control. I wanted it to be now…I
wanted to be pregnant by now so that I could say “If Aden hadn’t passed, I
wouldn’t have baby _______.” Once again- I just want a tangible reason to try to
assuage grief rather than have to sit in grief and bear it… like the Man of Sorrows…
In 20 days, it will be my due date… I fear my time is running out… yet through
it all, my eyes are on You. My eyes are on You, and it well with my soul. I
mean that… I trust in You. I put my trust in You, my God. I know You can get me
through it. I just don’t want to go through it at the moment. But I know You
can carry me through, and that I will not be shaken apart. Because “If [I] who am evil know how to give good gifts
to my children, how much more will my Father in heaven give good gifts to those
who ask Him.” Matthew 7…
For so long, I did not understand that You were my good Father. Living
here, and once again being met with ‘’don’t feel that way,’’ or ‘’don’t be weak’’
when I was in pain and lonely during the early years of ministry… when I was
lonely and depressed and reached out only to have my calling to ministry
questioned, I didn’t know how to fight back against that lie then. I was not
strong enough to call out the false Gospel and stand strong in faith. So I just
kicked and screamed and isolated, and I battered myself with contempt. But You
were my Good Father. You carried me through and lifted me up and taught me and
showed me You cared. The answer I should have received back then was that You,
my Good Father, would meet me in my loneliness as a young, single-woman in
ministry in New York, feeling the pressure to perform in her ministry and not
feeling fed. Because You don’t just expect us to carry our crosses and ‘’deal
with it.” You care when life is hard. You do ask us to carry hard crosses
because this world is a broken place, but You are our sympathetic and
EMPATHETIC Father. You are with us in the pain. You give us the strength to
bare up.
My pain now is that I miss my baby. And I fear I may not have the
chance to create another child. I am so sad over that. I know that adoption is
possible, and I know it is Godly…You adopt us, but I grieve over the
brokenness. Yet You call us to feed Your sheep. We don’t get a break from that.
You ask us to do it. That’s it. And
You give us strength to do it. And it moves us outside of ourselves and
refocuses my mind outside of my pain and onto the larger, bigger picture of
redemption and Your plans… and my life and my pain is but one tiny portion of
the grand scale. Your Spirit gives abilities I cannot fathom. You can do
anything- and so You are at my weak body’s disposal. I have only to ask and to
seek You. For You deliver the needy when he calls on You. The poor and him who
has no helper, You have pity on. You have pity on the weak and the needy. From
oppression and violence You redeem their lives, and precious is their blood in
your sight. It is easier to preach the Gospel than to take the next step, in
our kitchens, in our devotion, in our study, in our duty, when we are not
filled with vision and feelings of enthusiasm. It takes far more the grace of
God then and conscious drawing upon God to take the step then… far more grace
than simply to preach the Gospel. This life, living the Gospel, requires drawing
from Your grace and great Faith in You. It is where I fight my battles because
I find myself there and I find myself tired… and scared… but if I were not scared,
I could not be courageous…
Written March 12th,
my baby would have been 39 weeks… God, help me steward the pain. I want just to
push it away- deny it- concentrate on being something else, building a nice
apartment, things I can master. But when I do that, at the end of the day…
I am not thoughtful
I am not compassionate…
I miss chances to just BE with
people…
I am depressed inside…
I fear silence and not having
something to occupy me…
Eli is getting older… I fear I have missed certain parts of his youth,
that I couldn’t enjoy them because of how enslaved I was to idols, so overcome
by how I had to become unattached to my idols to care for him. Lord God- what
do you say here? To this? I need You…
John 15… every
branch that bears fruit, I prune… layer by layer, torn off, till I am raw, but
then I grow strong… Mark 10:28… we can’t leave all, abandon all, because
we want “things.” (aka God’s gifts). We must only leave all and abandon all in
order to get GOD. That must be my motivation. Deliverance from sin….being made
holy- all of that is a RESULT
of being right with God, but it can’t be what I abandon to God for…
Before, I was going through life so unaware of true beauty and so caught up in deceitful beauty that is false, in things that fade. Aden, being inside me, living, and then leaving, grounded me and opened my eyes. If you had not left, dear Aden, I would have been less of a mom to Eli and to you… You left, so now I am more of a mom to Eli, but I can’t hold you. I would appreciate you so much more now. Instead, I appreciate what I am doing. We are moving into our new apartment, moving into the city. All these new relationships are being cultivated, a new life is being created. You’ve allowed it. You are all over every decision, reminding me that each decision is JUST a decision. You aren’t just all over the nursery, but because of how your death has changed me, you are all over the wall colors and the furniture. You’ve changed even how I made choices. You are everywhere. The entire apartment reflects you Aden.
Written March 15th,
2018
I think about you everywhere. I am glad you were, but I am sad you are
gone. Not many people will just listen to me talk about you. They get
uncomfortable I fear. I miss you. I don’t know how much sadness is okay. I don’t’
want to feel any sadness, but I don’t want to forget you. Will there be a time
I just feel thankful and joyful and not sad about you? And what is healthy?
When is it not healthy? When am I thinking too much about you? Is that
possible? My precious Aden, my little life. My tiniest baby, with your tiny
fingers and toes and nose and mouth that were forming… I would have loved you
to the moon and back as well. We would have run and jumped. We would have
laughed and snuggled and taken silly pictures together. I miss you sweet one.
Today I just wish you were here. I can’t be okay and content. I just want you
back.
Jesus Christ had to fathom
every sin and every sorrow man could experience, and that is what makes Him
seem strange and the man of sorrows…
March 18th, 2018
Your way, God, was through the sea. Your path was through great waters;
yet your footprints were unseen. You led our people like a flock by the hand of
Moses and Aaron. “God’s way runs counter to our intuitions. He works in
defiance to what our puny minds predict. The cross is the supreme answer to this.
In the Old Testatment, His way was through the sea. In the New Testament, His
way was through the cross. The gracious provision of God confounds us even as
it delivers us…” -The Psalter
My soul had been bereft of comfort this week as moving and renovation
and physical health and self-induced work pressures all push in on me. I have
been cast down- pushing myself and thinking about the fact that Aden would be
arriving if this was not a broken world. What does it mean that You are a Man
of Sorrows? Simply that since You bore pain, I should muster up courage and
endurance and simply take it? No! It can’t be that. That is how a bitter person
thinks- no compassion. No love. No empathy. But Scripture says You are not a
God of that type of character. You bore sorrow to show me that You care. You could have left us alone to
bear the pain of a broken world. After all, we trespassed and broke the
world. But you entered, out of love, because of who You are. When Eli gets
dirty, I enter and expose myself to dirt to make him better, to clean him up.
Because I love him, and he is mine, I dirty myself. You entered our sorrow. You
enter it now. You bore it. You bear it now. Your way is through the waters
alone. You tell us in Isaiah that when we pass through the waters, we will be
with YOU and that the flames of fire will not consume us. You tell us not to
fear. You have redeemed us. You call us YOURS.
Because you walked through the waters alone. Because you were consumed by the
fire and did not defend Yourself. And then… in the end… You rose… You rose from
the grave. Hallelujah- Death is beaten. On
that Cross, my salvation! Your blood poured out over me! Now the curse of sin
and the pain and sorrow have no hold on me. You have set me free. The stone is
rolled away. Behold the empty tomb. You have risen from the grave. God Be Praised. So I am willing to cry myself to sleep
because that is reality. That is the world…
But…
But…
I
have You. We have You. And we have one another. And the church must rise up to
meet her people right there in the face of their deepest and greatest hurts…because
that what You did… and that’s what You do… amen.
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