I have never been asked a harder question in my life than this one.
My answer, hesitantly, is always no. I do not have any kids. I do not have a child. I do not wake up in the middle of the night to a hungry baby. I do not change diapers. I do not have to change my own clothes due to unsuccessfully changing a diaper. I do not embrace my manhood while carrying a diaper-bag. I am not sleep-deprived, calling baby-sitters, or attending soccer practice. Our friends with kids live a beautifully-frantic, cram-packed life, and although they are tired and are under house-arrest by the sole authority of a toddler, I am deeply jealous of them.
We had been married just under a year last December when we found out Bailey was pregnant. We shared the news with family and close friends. We began discussing how our rhythm of life would change. I began preparing dry toast and a half-portion of coffee for Bailey to help smooth out morning-sickness. We spent Christmas with my family in Orlando. We skipped rides that advised against pregnant participants. Bailey, my sister Amberly, and my Mom spent a day shopping and bought our first newborn outfit (my Dad, sister Heather and myself were downing butter-beer and flying on broomsticks). We also picked out our child's first stuffed animal, a Winnie the Pooh bear. After the long drive from Florida to Arkansas we turned around and visited Bailey's family in Texas, where Bailey spent some time shopping with her mother for some infant clothes as well.
Just before our vacation was over we had our first ultrasound appointment.
Wednesday January 4th.
I have never been more anxious in my life as I was at that moment. The ultrasound began and the room fell silent. There was no sound, no heartbeat, no joy. The technician quickly let us know she was going to go get the doctor. His added skills with the ultrasound instruments did not matter.
No sound. No heartbeat. No life.
Bailey had carried our beautiful baby for 10 weeks. There was no way to know when the life ended. There was no way to know why the life ended. We had briefly tasted parenthood.
We celebrate our first child's life and we praise God for the life our child had, for the brief moments that we were a family of three, the brief moments that we were parents.
We cried, a lot. We cried together, with family, and with our community. People surrounded us, served us, held us and loved us as we mourned. We were comforted. But by far, our strongest comfort came from our God who knows the pain of a child's death. Verses such as John 3:16, which I had become desensitized to through years of Vacation Bible School, Bible Drills, and RA's, came flooding into our hearts with fresh new meaning.
For the first time, I understood that God not only suffered pain from Christ's death, but he chose this pain.
God chose pain in choosing us.
The world might see the loss of our child as God inflicting or allowing this terrible tragedy to happen. What I know now is that God is fully involved in pain and tragedy in order to one day fully redeem all suffering, all pain, and everything that separates us from Him.
Revelation 21.1-4
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear rom their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away."
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