He gives Life

My wife and I are currently in waiting. We are waiting to see if God takes our unborn baby's life or gives it to him/her. I have a one year old son already and I think he has made this process so profoundly different for me. I know what it is that resides inside of my wife, a life of joy, hope, love, grace, a life, a little tiny life who can sweep us off our feet with the first glance. Each time my son giggles at me or the dog or the box or at the dust-bunny on the floor, it makes me realize what is inside of my wife. Each time I get up with him (he's teething) and he lays in my arms and touches my face, smiles, strokes my hair and nuzzles my chest, I know what is inside of my wife. Life. This tiny little being who I haven't met yet has called my heart to an amazing place with our Father. I can only describe this with words but it will be far to inadequate. This place that I have found at the feet of my Father because of my unborn baby, a place called Rest.

Our visit to the OB wasn't what we had hoped, the sono-tech's face and questions began to make our chests feel anxious and tight. A flood of fear, loss and despair immediately hit us. "Are you bleeding or cramping? This doesn't look right." She said it as if asking about our food order, "Do you want your steak rare or medium?" Time began to crawl and Julie and I met a gaze that said why would this happen, I was terrified that this was going to happen. The doctor came in and gave us "hope" but it is far less than that. "We can do nothing but run these tests and see, it might be a real pregnancy, but we have to find out for sure." Wrapped up in his words were hope and despair all at once. Julie and I felt like a ping-pong ball when we left, bouncing off this wall and that one. Many tears, lots of broken words, all trying to come out while we were driving home. We were beyond stunned but simultaneously grasping for Him. You see, I believe these hard times, this terrifying place we find ourselves, is not without meaning.

The meaning I have found is that I am being invited by the One who gives and takes life to be humbled at His feet. Not out of dirty submission and shame, but from a place where I acknowledge that He is the only One who can show up for me. He is my only answer and place to run. We wrestled all night and I very quickly came to Rest. I realized that my fear was not of the pain but that I would refuse to enter into the pain. My fear was that I could lose that little life inside of my wife and not be profoundly affected by it. I can do that. I have always been able to ignore enormous pain. However, this was a different place, a place where as a dad already I understood what I might be losing. So I choose Hope, the Life Giver, because I believe in this situation, before there is loss, the only invitation from Him is to Hope. I choose that, to fully embrace and feel hope so that if He chooses to take my baby's life so soon, I can FULLY feel the loss. There is no middle ground here. I can either hope or feel despair, I can not choose to stand in the middle when there is no middle. The middle does not exist.

I am prepared to enter into suffering only because I have chosen to hope in the midst of bad odds. And if I am led into suffering it will be to strip away the false and to leave only the One who loves me most. I have been missing from His lap far too long my friends. Far too long. If He chooses to take my baby away from me, before we have met, I will be angry for a time. But this will HAVE TO YIELD to a movement towards Him for He will be my only Refuge. I am desperate to meet this unborn baby, to hold him/her and to get to know who they are. I am desperate to love this baby and to hold this baby late at night when I have had far too little sleep. And because of this little unborn baby I have been led to know that I am deeply desperate for Him like this too, only from more humble and real places in my heart. Ultimately He is my King, my Abba, my Daddy, He gives me life and all that matters and is good. So as I rest at His feet, I humbly ask He who gives Life, He who loves me most, that I can have that which has started as Life inside of my wife. I wait. He will show up.