Tomorrow marks 8 years since we welcomed our first son into the world. I remember lying in my dark hospital room a couple days after he was born, recovering from the emergency C-section I had just had. It was night and I was wide-awake, wondering what the future held for this tiny, 2 pound boy who came 2 and half months early for some inexplicable reason. The doctor who delivered Zion came into my room after checking on him in the NICU- the only baby in a small, upstairs room of the hospital that really had no rules about who gets to come in and touch preemies. She sat down and sighed. "I'm worried about Zion," she tells me. Take a number, I thought. "You need to prepare yourself, Lisa." Prepare myself for what? For the possibility that my son might die? How does one prepare for that, exactly? "Doctora," I replied. "I don't know what's going to happen with my son. I am praying that the Lord will heal him. But, even if He chooses to take my son to heaven, I know and believe that He is good and that He loves me." Little did I know at that moment that a couple weeks later, I would have to walk out that belief. That's where it gets real. And sometimes ugly.
Every once in a while, I force myself to dredge up a painful memory from when our little boy was on this earth. I want to make sure I'm still processing, still asking myself to do the hard work of healing (with the help of the Holy Spirit, of course) and checking my own heart to see where it is in this journey of a mother who has lost a child. It can be easy to slide into the waters of sadness when I do this. But, my gracious Lord has done enough healing in my heart that I can move quickly back out and into thankfulness for all that He's done in my life as I walk this road of faith. I can honestly say that I trust Him more now than I did before I had Zion. Even as I type that, I know that if I were to be confronted with losing another child, I would be gripped with fear. I would ask "why". But, I also have the hope that learning to trust that God is good in the face of Him taking something precious from me, would be where I would eventually land. And, I'm so thankful for that.
