A Hard Image to Bear

I took a small hiatus from our walk through creation by way of grief’s highway. I need to finish. It feels incomplete.   

Want to step into the finale of day six with me? Here we watch as man is created in God's own image. We reflect His image to the world around us, and I can get lost in this. While that image bears love, hope, and joy it also bears the inscription of suffering. Suffering the loss of a child. Weekly, sometimes daily, I am reminded of others now experiencing this same suffering. It's all around me. It's all around you. Was I blind to it all before? Not blind, just not marked by it. My heart broke as much as it possibly could without calling it my own. And beneath it all was a fear; a fear I would one day call it my own. Now I do. My nightmare has become my reality. 

Suffering. Can I call it an honor to bear that part of His image? I want to. May that be sufficient and pleasing to Him for now while His Holy Spirit brings me closer there. 

His blessing on day six included "be fruitful and multiply". Children were part of His first blessing over mankind. What do you do when one of those blessings is lost or taken from you? It doesn't negate the blessing or the Giver. But it does feel cruel. Cruel because we live on the wrong side, the dark side of original sin. I cannot wait to join Jesus on the other side of this broken world. It sounds like a mother’s betrayal to write what comes next. I know I will see my baby again one day. I'm looking forward to that, but when I enter Heaven her face is not the first I will be looking for. My Jesus is whom my eyes will first seek. There is a comfort in that, but at the risk of sounding “less spiritual” it’s really hard to write. 

On that same note, it's a double edged sword in that as a believer I am comforted by the Father's perfect, tender care of my child. We are always hearing, "no one loves a child more than a mother does. No one will fight for a child the way a mommy does."  That's not true. My God does. So the other side of this sword is as a mommy living in the flesh of grief it hurts to think I couldn't love my baby or care for her the way He can. In a sense, it feels I failed. You could do all sorts of theological analysis of those last statements, and I know for a fact we'd find all manner of errors (sin even) in that thinking. Yet, it's how I feel if I'm just being honest. I'm not saying I'll always feel that way, nor that my feelings are theologically correct. The TRUTH of who He is and the love He has for me and my child far outweigh my pity party. But I'm still sad. And I think He's ok with that. And I know He will keep loving her, and me, through this. It's who He is. 

There are other blessings: including other children of whom we are so very grateful. We celebrate them. We rejoice in them. In our grief I don't know if they can always see that. That too makes me sad. Again, I know He will keep them and carry them through the humanity of their parents. They too are bearing the inscription of suffering. 

He also offers blessings in other forms that command or provoke gratitude. Just as He gave the first man physical sustenance which all the prior days of creation held, He feeds us as well. He feeds not just our bodies, but our souls! Praise God through whom all blessings flow! Does not the Giver of life also have the right to take? Does not the one giving life also have the right to receive it? It was His to start with, never really mine. Can I accept it? In the end my acceptance of what is true makes it no more or less true. 

Can I be a good steward of this grief, this sorrow He has entrusted to me? 

I'm reminded and brought back to Shane and Shane's "Though He Slay Me". 

I come, God I come

I return to the Lord

the one who's broken

the one who's torn me apart

You struck down to bind me up

You say you do it all in love

That I might know your suffering

(chorus)

Though you slay me

Yet I will praise you

Though you take from me 

I will bless your name

Though you ruin me

Still I will worship

Sing a song to the one who's all I need

My heart and flesh may fail

The earth below give way

But with my eyes, with my eyes I'll see the Lord

Lifted high on that day

Behold the Lamb that was slain

(chorus)

Though tonight I'm crying out

Let this cup pass from me now

You're still all that I need

You're enough for me

You're enough for me

(chorus)

I'm broken. I'm stuck down. I'm loved. 

I'm learning to know Him better in suffering. His was greater. 

My heart and my flesh do fail. 

I will one day see my Lord and all His purposes more fully still. 

I cried out. 

The cup didn't pass. It didn't for Jesus. 

I will choose to praise.

I'm ruined. I will choose to worship. 

He's what I need. All I need. 

He's enough. He will always be enough.