In Your Grace/
You know where I walk/
You know when I fall/
You know all my ways/
In Your Love/
I know you allow/
What I cannot grasp/
To bring You praise...
- Joel Sczebel and Todd Twining, SGM
We haven't written much lately. I hesitate to begin telling a story without an appropriately happy ending. Struggles sound so much better after some sort of resolution. Christians are supposed to have hope in the midst of hurt. And, joy...and a host of other things that make us different than we used to be. But, I don't sometimes. Then, it's easier to stay silent. So, I do. Usually.
Our baby died early this May. We hadn't yet told people of his existence. The depressing lack of symptoms seemed so similar to our first miscarriage that we only half hoped for the best as we more than half braced for the worst. Together, and alone.
God does use hard things to glorify Himself. He has before; He will again. I could compile a list of the positive truths of which He has reminded us and subsequently reinforced in us. At this point it would probably sound like I was trying to convince myself that the pros outweighed the cons. Then you might be misled into thinking that the hard part ends the first time the scales tip in the right direction. It doesn't.
Most (if not all) of you have been confronted with life-changing loss in varying forms. You already know that grief rarely presents us with tidy conclusions or satisfying epilogues. Rather, it ebbs and flows on a not-entirely-predictable timetable. It causes tunnel vision for a time which fades gradually even as it colors the way you see everything else. It has a nasty habit of returning with unanticipated intensity during socially awkward moments. It really hurts.
Knowing God now is the difference between flailing and sinking.
**
In order to be able to type the kind of where-we've-been-what-we've-done sort of newsy-news I've felt compelled to wait until I could compose something a bit more substantive.
Now you know.
Thanks for listening.
