Obviously, the initial news of losing you was a complete shock. It knocked the wind right out of us, and right now it feels like our breath will never come back. But I need to be honest about what I was thinking in those few moments (read: eternity) that we stared at your unmoving image on the ultrasound screen.
If one could have read my mind, no doubt they would have labeled me a bit bipolar, because it went something like this:
No. No. Not again. This cannot be happening again. I am NOT losing another child.
God, I trust You.
I don't understand. This has to be a mistake.
I know Your ways are higher than my ways.
What about 10/10/10? God, we had a deal. I know You were listening. What happened? Were You just smirking during all of my prayers? Was the peace I felt just hogwash?
I know Your thoughts are not my thoughts. I know You. I trust You.
I don't understand. Why would I have to go through the entire first trimester only for nothing? It's not fair!
You have a reason for everything. You will bring good from this just like You have brought good from every other tragedy in my life. You love me. You know what You're doing.
What in the world are we going to tell Gideon? He is too young to be touched by death, and now, at 3 1/2 years old, he's already having a piece of his innocence stolen from him. It's not right.
We'll tell him that Your ways are best. That even when life is sad, we can trust You because You love us so much. That Your sovereignty is greater than Your mystery.
Please, let this be a mistake.
God, I trust you.
Let us wake up from this nightmare.
God, I trust you.
Why, God, why?
God I trust you.
But, why?
Trust.
Why?
Trust...
And on it went, while your heart remained firm in its decision not to beat, and the cold jelly seeped into my treacherous tummy. My womb was now a tomb, and I didn't like it one bit.
I tell you this because it explains my relationship with God. I don't understand Him all the time. I can't see the full picture of His plan. But I still love Him anyway. But this love I have is not because I've read about Him in the Bible. It's not because I know about God and Jesus and the Cross and Grace.
This kind of love doesn't come from reading Bible verses. It comes from my relationship with my Abba Father. I don't know about God. I know Him personally. And while I've never seen His face or been held in His arms, like I'm sure you have, Sweet Baby, I've still felt His love for over 25 years. And that's why I can trust in the midst of such tragedy.
Am I mad at God for taking you from me?
Honestly... No.
I remember when I was ten and my mom died, I thought the natural thing for me to do was to hate God. But I didn't. And I remember being so confused because I'd always heard of people losing someone to death and "hating God" for it. I thought that if I didn't hate God, maybe that meant I didn't love my mom as much as I should have.
I know now that's not the case.
God is God and I am not. He doesn't have to answer to me or explain Himself to me or ask my permission for anything. But because He is the very personification of LOVE, I can trust Him and love Him back even when I don't understand His ways.
After Dr. Nguyen turned off the machine and talked to us a few minutes, he gave us some time alone, and your Daddy and I just cried together. We talked about how we could both tell you were a boy, and I told him, "I was just so sure God was going to give us our 'perfect baby.' I was just so sure..."
And your daddy, who loves God just like I do and trusts Him even more, put it all into perspective. "Emily, He did," he said. "He did give us our perfect baby. Just think about it. He'll never get into trouble. He'll never disobey. He'll never have any regrets... He's already in Heaven, so in some ways he's already the most perfect of them all."
And I could see right away that he was right. God DID answer my prayer for a "perfect baby." Just not in the way I expected.
"The Lord gives and the Lord takes away; blessed be the name of the Lord" (Job 1:21).
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