Jeremiah 29:11-14 (NIV)
After learning about the couple that had lost their child, only three weeks away from actually having it, I was in a daze. I constantly talked about it to my husband. I told him, "Imagine, your first child, three weeks away from having it..... and you lose it." I pictured the woman lying in the hospital bed, quietly mourning their loss. Lying there with the incision that the baby was pulled out of, and now having to recover for nothing.
I again went to my husband. "Can you imagine, what would a couple do? How could they cope?" He patiently listened to my ramblings over and over again. "Oh, just think of their agony! Going through all of that and then holding a baby, that's life has already been finished." My husband kindly said to me, "Maybe this was the number of days that the Lord declared for this child."
Job 14:5 (NIV)
5 Man's days are determined;
you have decreed the number of his months
and have set limits he cannot exceed.
I quietly listened as he comforted me and my on-going thoughts.....The number of days.....
When my now 11 year old son was 18 months old, there was a story in the local newspaper about how an 18 month old boy had gotten run over in the driveway. The father was backing up and unbeknownst to the him, the little boy was behind the vehicle. The precious child was killed instantly.
I talked to my cousin soon after that and she told me that this family attended her church. She explained to me that the couple, without knowing how to cope, went to the Bible to find the answers. They sadly, but strongly declared that they were getting comforted by knowing that the Lord knows the number of our days. That the day we die, is the day that has been declared by him to die.
I went home and thought about this for a long time. It was a fact that I really had to wrestle with, and I still do sometimes. I sat there crying with my 18 month old son in my arms and wondering when the carpet would be pulled out from underneath me.
But is it that the "carpet gets pulled out from underneath" us? If we look at it like that, then this life is just a game show that God is controlling` where whenever He wants to "Whammy" us, He will.
But if we can step back~ if we are able to in hard, difficult times like that,~ if we understand the sovereignty of Christ, we can see this hope that this couple had found at the time of their greatest sorrow.
But it's hard. It's hard to see and understand Christ's plans for our lives. Sometimes the road is easy, other times it's harder than anyone can fathom~ like the loss of a child........I asked my husband about the randomness of this baby's death, and he pointed me back to the Word of God. He explained to me how purposeless everything would be if we didn't have the Lord to show us how very purposeful life actually is.
This very baby, that had just three weeks left in the womb, died within that mother's womb. This very baby, was there for a reason. This tiny miracle didn't come purposelessly into this couples lives. This very baby came for a reason, unbeknownst to us mere humans, and we will only understand why it was here when we meet Christ face-to-face.
Matthew 10:29 (NIV)29Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father.
So, I will hold onto the Word of my Father. I will try to understand better when things like this happen. I will pray for this couple as they go through this monstrous forest that they are facing right now.
Most importantly, I will trust in my Father and hopefully respect His authority over my life. I will go to His word and know that He is sovereign even when my life doesn't seem to make sense.
Job 13:15 (NIV)
15 Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him; "----------------------------------------
Psalm 71:5 (NIV)
5 For you have been my hope, O Sovereign LORD,
my confidence since my youth.
~B
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