In the past few months, I have had 2 friends lose a child. One was at the beginning of her pregnancy and one was at 7 months. I don't think it matters when something like that happens, the people involved still mourn the loss. The only difference is that, as Christians, we know we will see these blessed children again one day. Now they are in Jesus arms being loved and comforted just like their parents.
A few years ago, I attended a Women of Faith conference. Natalie Grant gave a fantastic concert. She sang the song "Held", but first she explained what led her to write the song. She knew both families that suffered loss, one lost a child and another their husband/father. This happened within days of each other and both families were friends of Natalie. I have no idea how she gets through the song without bawling. I cried through most of it. I still do every time I hear it. She reminds us that God did not promise us an easy life. He just promised to be with us every step of the way. "I will never leave you or forsake you." Joshua 1:5b
My heart is filled with compassion for these people who lose their children here on earth. Although we know God is holding them, we still need to mourn and heal.
My youngest son spent the 2nd week of his life in he NICU in Overland Park Regional. He was one of the largest babies in there. He was 9 lbs at birth. We met many couple fighting for the children's lives. We became friends with a couple whose twins were born at 28 weeks. They are 2 years old now, and thriving. At the time we met them, they were barely over a pound each. Their lives were spared, but for a while no one knew what would happen. I don't know how God decides which babies to take with Him and which one to leave here for a while. I only know that with God, many of these families become stronger. My friends that lost the child at 7 months got to spend one precious day with their son before he went to live with God. She blogs about it and I believe it helps others that have been in that situation.
I guess all this is to say that these special women have handled their situation with grace and trust in God. It makes me love them all the more for the wonderful example they have shown to others without even trying. I tell myself that my babies are really God's children and I am only keeping them for Him. I still cannot imagine my life without them or how their loss would affect me. I only know my heart aches for these special people.
I am reading a blog about a family that may lose a child. The baby has a disease that was detected in the womb. They are chronicling (sp?) the baby's progress throughout the pregnancy. She was so afraid to buy clothes for this baby boy because she didn't know if he would even be there to wear them. When she told her husband this, he went out and got some clothes for their baby boy the next day. They are trusting in God, no matter the outcome. I pray that all of us could have that kind of faith. God is trustworthy and he will not fail us.
I received this email from a good friend today and it makes me amazed at God's love:
A cold March wind danced around the dead of night in Dallas as the doctor walked into the small hospital room of Diana Blessing. She was still groggy from surgery.
Her husband, David, held her hand as they braced themselves for the latest news.
That afternoon of March 10, 1991, complications had forced Diana, only 24-weeks pregnant, to undergo an emergency Cesarean to deliver couple's new daughter, Dana Lu Blessing.
At 12 inches long and weighing only one pound nine ounces, they already knew she was perilously premature. Still, the doctor's soft words dropped like bombs.
"I don't think she's going to make it," he said, as kindly as he could. "There's only a 10-percent chance she will live through the night, and even then, if by some slim chance she does make it, her future could be a very cruel one." Numb with disbelief, David and Diana listened as the doctor described the devastating problems Dana would likely face if she survived. She would never walk, she would never talk, she would probably be blind, and she would certainly be prone to other catastrophic conditions from cerebral palsy to complete mental retardation, and on and on. "No! No!" was all Diana could say. She and David, with their 5-year-old son Dustin, had long dreamed of the day they would have a daughter to become a family of four. Now, within a matter of hours, that dream was slipping away
But as those first days passed, a new agony set in for David and Diana. Because Dana's underdeveloped nervous system was essentially 'raw', the lightest kiss or caress only intensified her discomfort, so they couldn't even cradle their tiny baby girl against their chests to offer the strength of their love.
All they could do, as Dana struggled alone beneath the ultraviolet light in the tangle of tubes and wires, was to pray that God would stay close to their precious little girl.
There was never a moment when Dana suddenly grew stronger.
But as the weeks went by, she did slowly gain an ounce of weight here and an ounce of strength there. At last, when Dana turned two months old. her parents were able to hold her in their arms for the very first time. And two months later, though doctors continued to gently but grimly warn that her chances of surviving, much less living any kind of normal life, were next to zero, Dana went home from the hospital, just as her mother had predicted.
Five years later, when Dana was a petite but feisty young girl with glittering gray eyes and an unquenchable zest for life. She showed no signs whatsoever of any mental or physical impairment Simply, she was everything a little girl can be and more. But that happy ending is far from the end of her story.
One blistering afternoon in the summer of 1996 near her home in Irving , Texas , Dana was sitting in her mother's lap in the bleachers of a local ball park where her brother Dustin's baseball team was practicing.
As always, Dana was chattering nonstop with her mother and several other adults sitting nearby when she suddenly fell silent Hugging her arms across her chest, little Dana asked, "Do you smell that?" Smelling the air and detecting the approach of a thunderstorm, Diana replied, "Yes, it smells like rain."
Dana closed her eyes and again asked, "Do you smell that?"
Once again, her mother replied, "Yes, I think we're about to get wet. It smells like rain."
Still caught in the moment, Dana shook her head, patted her thin shoulders with her small hands and loudly announced, "No, it smells like Him. It smells like God when you lay your head on His chest."
Tears blurred Diana's eyes as Dana happily hopped down to play with the other children.
Before the rains came, her daughter's words confirmed what Diana and all the members of the extended Blessing family had known, at least in their hearts, all along. During those long days and nights of her first two months of her life, when her nerves were too sensitive for them to touch her, God was holding Dana on His chest and it is His loving scent that she remembers so well.
God Bless!
