Her Name Might Be Rest

Last week we got possible bad news from the OB. This week this news was confirmed. My wife's hormone levels didn't go up after four days, we both knew what this meant. The nurse asked us to come in for a sonogram. I met my wife at my office and we drove together. It was a strange journey down to the hospital. We chatted, we laughed, I told her a story about getting on the radio today to argue a political point, but in our hearts, a growing feeling that God was leading us from Hope into Loss. As we drove we texted, Facebooked and Tweeted for prayers, we made phone calls, but again, in our hearts was an acknowledgment that God was in full control now, prayers wouldn't change this part of our story. I liken the feeling of the drive to a small child waiting in line for a roller coaster. This underlying fear that can't be shown in the line, this frantic feeling building the closer we found ourselves to the hospital, but little shown on the outside. It was polite more than calm, surreal but engaged. So hard to put into words.

The sono-tech showed us the baby this time. This tiny little pea. This really helped me. In my wife's womb was a tiny little being, God spared me the fear that we would see blackness where a child should have been. Hard to grieve blackness. Maybe it will be harder still to grieve the little pea, so much loss attached to such a little baby. We couldn't see an arm, or toes, not a face, just a little pea, mine, it was my little pea. We left the doctor's office, a practice full of Christian doctors, all who know that saying "God is in control" doesn't take away pain. They invited us to loss. God used these men.

We drove home, went to eat down the road, and took a walk with our 1 year old and our huge dog. Quivering in our hearts and working its way into our words was this feeling that grew as we walked as a family. This feeling, this loss mixed with pain yet Rest, a true humble moment in my life. It made words to my wife so hard. I wanted to tell her that I wanted to say this baby was a girl, I really want a little girl. I wanted to tell her that I want to name this little girl, Emily or Bella, or maybe Truth, something that makes a statement. Rest sounds good, her name might be Rest. But these words couldn't find their way out, much to much inside waiting to come out. The pond in our neighborhood wasn't the place.

We made it back home and I got dressed for a jog. We were trying to slowly allow loss to show on its own, I was okay if it showed while I jogged down the road. It didn't, God wouldn't have it that way. This was much to important. It hit as I read my twitter posts, people posting such amazing things, so much concern, Love, Grace, from people I've never met. God can create community within any structure, I've seen this. What took me down the road to full blown, heaving tears was a surprise. One person, Last Trumpet Living, said "Jesus is holding your baby right now." I say it caught me by surprise because I'm a counselor and I fully believe in the suffering, the pain, the loss. But this comment took me directly into, through and beyond this place of suffering, to a place of Hope that I can't put into words. This might sound cheesy but for the first time I think Heaven became real to me. In my life I have found it difficult to get the concept because I often say "it seems to good to be true for me, I believe in Heaven but it just seems to good for me." But for my baby, this tiny little baby that I've only seen on a black and white TV screen, Heaven is a proper place...she deserves that place.

Now I will find suffering in all of this and I am so glad to have lost it tonight with many tears, many hope filled tears. He was in that. But suffering must come....I have lost 50 years of time with this baby. Its funny what God uses to remind you of what you lost. My 1 year old was running down the hall on our wood floors, and what I have heard a million times suddenly stopped me cold and made me realize the pain that will come...the sound of his little bare feet. That is loss. He giggled as he chased the dog....that is loss. He hugged me before he went to bed, that is loss. I will never feel that with her...I will never hear her feet, her name, this little girl, might be Rest...I will let you know later. I will never hold that little girl. This will always be loss and I am at Rest in that, she is mine, but not to hold and see, to touch and laugh with, to tickle and pat her head. I hope He continues to lead me into this.

I will post more here, I hope that you don't mind that I work through this on such a public forum, but I believe in this, to be out there with what it is that God is doing in me and my wife. He has lead us into loss, but in this place is still Rest....what a Kind King we do serve. What a Kind King.......