In 2010, I was pregnant with our second child. Natty was 2 years old and we were thrilled to be having a son. About 7 months into the pregnancy, I went into labor and our son was born a week or so later, at 30 weeks gestation. Up until this crisis, I would say that my life was pretty easy. I grew up in a loving, Christian home; I had good friends; I never lacked anything I needed or wanted; I had the opportunity for a good education; I found an incredible, godly man who agreed to marry me and we began a missionary life in Bolivia together. My first pregnancy was easy and my daughter was born without major complications. The Lord had blessed me immensely and I had very few major trials along the way. Until now. Before our son was born, I was on strict bed rest for almost 2 weeks in the clinic. The Lord impressed a verse on my heart in that time, Phillippians 4: 6-7: "Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." I committed to living that verse out while I waited to see what would happen with our baby. I felt the Lord’s peace in that uncertain time. And then Zion was born. He was tiny and frail and I was terrified. Would he survive? Well meaning friends came and read scripture to me. I remember one verse in particular from Ephesians 3 that spoke of the Lord being able to do more in us than we can think or imagine. Surely that meant He was capable of rescuing my little boy! Another couple came and said that surely the Lord would graciously take care of our son because we were missionaries and had given up our lives to serve Him in Bolivia. I knew as the words came out of their mouths that God doesn’t always work that way. Every day we visited Zion in the hospital, prayed with him, read the Bible to him, sang with him. We pleaded with God on a daily basis for his life and asked the Lord to calm our hearts in the waiting. He died 19 days after being born.
That’s when the real struggle started. Those pillars I had constructed that I thought were based on faith in God, were shown to be false supports that were based on a relatively easy life up to this point. On a belief that this level of pain isn’t supposed to be part of my story. I was obviously incredibly sad and depressed. But I also began a search in my heart to reconcile a good God with a God who would take my baby away. I asked myself and others, How is this part of a good plan?? The pain was so intense for months and I cried out to God to help me trust Him; to help me understand. I never came to a final conclusion about why...but I’ll tell you what I did learn. I learned about community. The weeks of bed rest and time in the hospital after Zion’s birth was filled with God’s people showing up and serving us. They took care of Natalie, they cooked us meals, they called us and prayed for us and offered to help us in every way possible. I experienced His body living up to the call He’s placed on us to love one another.
God taught me about hope. He showed me that my hope up until that point was based more on things going well for me and not so much in the person of Jesus Christ giving us eternal hope- the only sure and safe thing in our lives. Imaging my son in Heaven also made that place more real for me and took my eyes off of the temporal cares of the world.
He showed me that His greatest act of love came through death- the death of His own son for us. The idea that death and love can work together was a hard one to accept. But, as I contemplated the idea that His greatest love was shown through sending His own son to die, I began to slowly believe that maybe my son’s death could possibly be an act of love as well. Also, I found comfort in knowing that my Lord knew that pain of losing a son. He is not a God who stands far off during our suffering, but knows what it’s like to lose. But, we have to be willing to believe that His ways, even when they include pain, are for our good. This took me a long time to be OK with.
As time went on and my heart started to heal, I found that I had a deeper compassion for those who were suffering in any way. Before, as someone who had not experienced deep pain and sadness, my compassion was superficial. But now, I could enter in to the pain of others and feel deeply with them. Through that, I was able to develop more profound relationships with people.
Even as the Lord healed me, I continued to struggle. For a while I believed that the Lord was only going to teach me through painful experiences. That if I was to learn from Him, it would have to be through trials. He graciously showed me that I was wrong and that He would also continue to bless me in mighty ways. 6 months after we lost Zion, I got pregnant with our daughter Jubilee. I was terrified that she would be born early and die. I was incredibly scared and literally expected one of my girls to die every time they got sick. I realized that I needed to learn to trust the Lord again. And, not just to keep my kids safe, but to believe He was for me and that no matter what He brought into my life, I could have a deep and unshakable belief that He is good and loves me.
Through losing our son, I was forced to take a deeper look at myself and at God. I began to know the God of Job, who said, though He slay me, I will hope in Him. I was challenged to let my treasure be in Christ alone, not in any other person or thing or circumstance in my life that will eventually fail me. I realized on a practical level what it meant to die to myself, pick up my cross and follow Christ. His way does not promise that everything will turn out like what we want, but He is a God who humbled Himself, subjected Himself to death on a cross for His own creation who despised Him. John 15:13 tells us that greater love has no one than this; that a man lay down his life for a friend. Now I walk more closely with this friend who laid down His life for me and because of losing my son, this friend is closer to me than He ever has been before.
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