Celebrating Life

It is hard to believe that it has been seven weeks since we were first told of David's diagnosis. I can tell you that time flies, whether you are having fun or not. In those first few days after hearing the shocking news, I remember thinking, "How will I get through the next four months of my life? How can I walk around pregnant with this little life kicking inside of me knowing full well that he will not come home with me from the hospital?" I was consumed by these thoughts and overwhelmed with grief. I remember telling my sister Jenn how I wished that someone could just put me into a coma for the next several months.

At the beginning, I cried and cried as I tried to envision the next year of my life. "How will I endure this torture?" I thought. Each time I went to see another doctor for another ultrasound, I secretly hoped that the baby's heart was no longer beating. Why couldn't this all just end? I remember one day as Tommy and I stood in the kitchen discussing these things, he turned to me and asked, "Wouldn't it be nice if we could spend these next few months celebrating his life?" This infuriated me. "Celebrate his life?" I thought. "How insensitive can you be? You are not the one who has to carry this baby for the next twenty weeks."

Well, over time God has changed my heart and brought me to a place where I am enjoying this precious time with David. His tiny kicks and flips bring a smile to my face. Even though I cannot hold him in my arms, he is with me every moment, part of every conversation, and I am making memories with him each and every day.

Tommy and I recently decided that it was time to tell Benjamin and Caleb about David's diagnosis. We wanted to give them every opportunity to celebrate and enjoy David's life as a part of our family. So, last Tuesday evening we sat them down on the couch and told them the news. I explained David's condition in very simple terms and told them that David will probably go to heaven when he is born because his lungs will not work. Benjamin did not want to believe me at first, but the reality soon hit home, and his eyes filled with tears. We cried together on the couch. He looked at me and said, "Mommy, I'm sad that Baby David is going to die." All I could say was, "Mommy is sad too ... Mommy is sad too."

I casually mentioned David a couple of times over the next few days. On Thanksgiving, we played the thankful game and took turns sharing things that we were thankful for. When it was my turn, I said, "I'm thankful for Benjamin, Caleb and David." Benjamin completely ignored my reference to David as he replied, "I'm thankful for Caleb." I did not press the issue because I did not want to push him. After all, it took me days to come to the place where I could speak a sentence without crying. Benjamin needed time to process and deal with the difficult news.

Today, Benjamin and I went to the grocery store together, and the cashier started to ask questions about the baby. She turned to Benjamin and asked him if he was going to have a baby brother or sister. "Oh no," I thought, "what will he say?" He casually answered that he was going to have a baby brother and that his name was David. I breathed a sigh of relief.

We put up our Christmas decorations today and hung a stocking for David. Tonight, Benjamin came and sat on my lap, rubbed my belly and said, "That's my baby brother David." "Yes," I answered, "he loves it when you talk to him." So, Benjamin began to 'tickle' my stomach and talk about how he was five years older than David. Then, he leaned over, kissed my belly and said, "I love you." What a priceless moment.

I pray that we have many more priceless moments together as we celebrate this Christmas season as a family of five. David is very much alive and part of every memory that we make. We love him dearly and will cherish every moment as we celebrate his precious life.

Wine in the Cellar

“Count it all joy when you meet various trials," says James 1:2. Count it all joy? Really? I think that we are told to be joyful in suffering because joy magnifies the worth and greatness of Christ, above all else. God told Abraham in Genesis 15:1, “I am … your exceeding great reward.” It is easy to say that Christ is my great reward in times of ease, but how can I know for sure that He is truly my chief treasure unless I am forced to surrender a very precious jewel?

This is not a test that I wish to take, but God in his infinite wisdom and goodness knows what is best for me. I suppose that one reason God ordained my present suffering was to establish my delight in Him in the face of losing my precious baby boy. The Word of God says that this momentary affliction is preparing me for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. I hold on to this promise.

When Barbara Youderian lost her missionary husband Roger in January 1956 she responded, “God gave me this verse two days ago, Psalm 48:14: For this God is our God forever and ever; he will be our Guide even to the end. As I came face to face with the news of Roj’s death, my heart was filled with praise. He was worthy of his homegoing.” What a testimony of grace in the face of tremendous suffering. I pray that God would grant me such abundant grace in the face of incredible loss.

A few years ago, I watched an episode of “A Baby Story” on television. The show depicted a mother giving birth to a child that died shortly after delivery due to respiratory failure. I remember sitting there weeping as I watched the show thinking, “That would be unbearable.” I have never watched the show since that time.

Now, here I am, facing the same scenario. We have been told that our David will probably die of respiratory failure shortly after birth. By far, this is the most difficult news that I have ever been given in my entire life. Nothing that I have experienced to date comes close to comparing with this heartache; however, it is not “unbearable” in the way that I once thought it would be. I know that the worst is yet to come, but God is showing me in very tangible ways that His grace is sufficient – for today.

I guess that I was both right and wrong. At times, the thought of losing a child is unbearable. There are moments when I feel as though I cannot continue to walk this journey; yet my Heavenly Father, in His grace, is carrying me through one step at a time. His grace is sufficient, and He is giving me joy in Him as He gently reassures me of His great love for me. Samuel Rutherford said that the Great King keeps his wine in the cellars of affliction – not in the courtyard where the sun shines.

The riches of God’s grace are experienced most fully in the moments of my deepest pain, and I think that I am beginning to taste the wine of the Great King in this cellar of suffering.

One in a Thousand

The other night Tom and I were driving home from small group, and a song came on the radio called "Heaven Is the Face" by Steven Curtis Chapman. I had never heard it before, but I discovered that it was written by Chapman after the sudden, unexpected death of his little girl last year. The words brought me to tears. I could identify with his feelings of confusion, grief and hope.

The following day, I turned on the radio and this same song was playing again. I thought to myself, "Hmmm, I am starting to see a pattern here ... maybe I should buy this song." When I went online to buy the song, I noticed that Chapman had written an entire album about the depth of his grief over the loss of his precious daughter and God's faithfulness in it. As God would have it, this album was released just last week. Coincidence? I think not.

You see, I discovered this album just a few hours after seeing another ultrasound of Baby David. During the ultrasound, the physician said, "You know, medicine is never 100% certain, but I am as close to 100% as one can be about the certainty of this diagnosis." He said that David has a form of lethal skeletal dysplasia that causes his bones to be very brittle. He showed me several places where it appeared that David's bones were badly fractured. My heart broke all over again. This news had gone from bad to worse.

Before seeing the pictures of his little broken bones, I had thought that the pain of this suffering was only affecting me and Tom. Now, we were faced with the possibility that this precious child may be experiencing pain because of his broken bones. I was overwhelmed with sorrow. As the tears streamed down my face, I asked the physician if the baby was in pain. He said, "No one really knows how babies in utero experience pain." Another stab to my heart. Instead of answers, I was left with more questions.

Why God is allowing this to happen, I do not know, but I am confident of this - God is good. His kindness is beyond measure. He knows the number of hairs on David's tiny head. If He sees when a sparrow falls to the ground and He clothes the lilies of the field in beautiful splendor, He most certainly knows every fracture in Baby David's body. The Father's love for my precious baby boy is far greater than I could ever imagine. So, I am praying and trusting that my gracious God is taking care of this precious child. I feel so helpless, but I rejoice all the more gladly in my helplessness because I know that when I am weak, my God is strong.

In listening to Chapman's album, I hear his brokenness, and I imagine that he must have asked many of the same questions that I am now asking. I am sure that he and his wife Mary Beth have wondered many times why God allowed their little girl to be taken from them. John Piper says that God is always doing thousands of things that we cannot see. He never has only one purpose in what He does. He always has thousands of purposes, in everything He does. He is infinitely wise, and everything He does relates to everything else that He does sooner or later. For those who love Him and are called according to His purpose, all of them work together for good.

My mind is small, and I cannot see or understand the thousands of things that God is doing. I find comfort in the knowledge that God could use the unexplainable tragedy of the death of Maria Sue Chapman to minister to me in my time of need ... and I am just one in a thousand purposes that God is working together for good.

Like a Child

Thankfully, God was gracious to keep our Benjamin from asking any questions about Baby David for the first couple of weeks after learning the heart-wrenching news about his condition. I did not want to talk to Benjamin about the baby, and I prayed that he would not ask questions. Benjamin saw me crying from time to time, and he would say to me, "Mommy, do your eyes hurt?" "Yes," I would say, thinking to myself that I was telling him the truth because my whole head ached from continuous crying.

I tried to avoid wearing maternity clothing. On the days that I did not go to the office, I wore warm-up suits since I could camouflage my stomach under a jacket. I hoped that concealing my belly would make Benjamin, and everyone else, forget that I was pregnant. "Don't ask - don't tell." That was my new philosophy. I no longer wanted to be referred to as "cute and pregnant." I just wanted my belly to disappear, for it was a constant reminder to me and everyone else of the life inside of me.

A few of days ago, I had to take Benjamin to see the doctor. Remembering that the last time we went to the doctor was for Baby David's ultrasound, he asked, "Mommy, when is the doctor going to take out your baby?" If you are not familiar with five-year-old dialect, this question can be interpreted as, "when will the baby be born?" My heart skipped a beat. "Oh no," I thought. I guess I was hoping that he had forgotten about the baby. Trying to answer his question as calmly and casually as possible, I said, "Oh, it will be a long time." After all, four months is like an eternity to a five-year-old.

Continuing on with the conversation, Benjamin said, "Do you mean March?" "Yes," I answered, worried that he had caught on to more detail that I had anticipated. I explained that March was still four months away and quickly changed the subject. I was afraid that Benjamin may begin to entertain more questions to ask about the baby. What would I say? How do you explain to a five-year-old that he may never get to meet his tiny baby brother?

Since my grandmother passed away this past July, Benjamin is somewhat familiar with the concept of death. He brings it up from time to time, usually stating that Grandma died, and she is now in heaven. I am glad that he seems to understand this concept, to the extent that a five-year-old mind can grasp such things. However, I am almost certain that he thinks that death only applies to old people. Oh, how I wish that this were true.

Tom and I agree that it is not yet time to share the news of Baby David's condition with Benjamin. Since we can hardly comprehend this tragic news ourselves, we do not have the capacity to try and explain it to our son right now, nor do we think that he is ready to hear it. I know that God will provide the grace when the time is right, which may not be until the time of David's birth. Until that time, I am hoping and praying that God will prepare his little heart to understand. I am also praying that God will prepare my heart to understand "like a child" because I truly do not.