Ain't even grey and she buries her baby. . .

When my time comes, please bury me according to the words of this song:

Tribute that I wrote for Benjamin's funeral today: 

Benjamin was just shy of 20 weeks old in my womb when his heart gave up and stopped beating.  Such a short life story, but I still don't know where to begin, so I'll begin by asking, "Where o' death is your victory?"

   We were not created for this world.  This is a truth that has always brought be great comfort.  We were created for a life free of sin and evil.  A life where we are in perfect communion with God.  A life with no pain and no tears.  Sometimes I wish we could just bypass all of this inbetween stuff and just  go to that place.  

   I carried my son for 18-some weeks before he passed from all of this madness and into that glory.  During those weeks Kyle and I were filled with so much joy.  We wanted this baby so very badly.  We were so excited for Jonathan to have a friend for life and could not wait to meet him. 

All of that came crashing down on July 7th when we went in for our much anticipated ultrasound where we would find out the sex of the baby.  The baby had been measuring small since our first ultrasound and despite trying I had been unable to gain any weight.  The instant I saw my baby on the screen I knew something was wrong.  He was still too small and was curled up.  The nurse started asking the questions you never want to hear and finally said that there was no heartbeat... that the baby had died weeks ago.  We cried a lot that day, but despite all that sorrow there was a strange glory about everything.

  The thing about the truth is that it has a way of making itself known and it kept coming bak to me that we are not created for this world. I truly believe that inside of everyone that there is a God shaped hole and that we are all longing for heaven and for God to fill it. So, despite myself wanting so very badly to be mad at God and wanting to say "this isn't fair," I instead saw that my child  passing  from my broken womb and into the loving arms of the only one who can fill that brokenness and the only one who can really take care of him. What better father is there than the Lord?  And he is the one raising Benjamin!   Not the “son of my sorrow” as death would wish it, but the “son of my right hand.”

I began to be filled with this sense of peace and happiness as I was comforted in the idea that my children are so sweet and precious that God wanted some cuddle time, too. After all, we took his son from him and did the unthinkable.  We tortured him, He who had not sinned, who truly was innocent and then we nailed him to a tree and left him there to die while we went off and denied that we ever knew Him.

 Jesus was someone's son, the Son of the only God that has the power to control anything... and yet He died too and his Father didn't get to hold him and when He died He was so covered with our sins that even His own Father could not see him.  Now that God is taking care of my 3.7 ounces of a boy.

Do I think God killed my son so he could have him? No.  Rather, he took something ugly, something caused by the curse that sin brought into this world and He made it into something beautiful.  That's what it says in Romans 9:20-23.

“But who are you, O Man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show His wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of His glory –“

So let us find comfort in that glory and rest in the idea that His Grace makes all things beautiful.