Our Second

PLEASE NOTE: This was written in October the day I found out I was pregnant with our second baby and the day I told Michael. We lost this baby a week and a half later. We are not expecting. Yikes.

10/27/2015

When we were pregnant with baby we sat at church, my hand resting where my tiny baby was growing, and we listened to a sermon called “It Is Well with My Soul.” The sermon recounted the story of the hymns' author, Horatio Spafford. Spafford’s business had been ruined by the Great Chicago Fire. He had planned to take his family to Europe, however, he was held back and sent his wife and four daughters ahead via ship. The ship sank and his four daughters died. On his way to meet his grieving wife, he wrote the hymn which reads, "Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,It is well, it is well with my soul."

The sermon talked about how suffering is necessary. How God prepares us to deal with our suffering. How it grows our faith. A man that has cancer and his wife came to the stage to talk about their faith during this trying time.

I sat there holding the tiniest life and the best secret I have ever had, overjoyed.

God couldn’t be talking to me. 

Please, don’t be talking to me.

I went for a run the next morning. I listened to a sermon from The Crossing entitled “Living for the Resurrection”. Dave Cover bluntly says, “This life will always bring suffering. Maybe you are on a good stretch... I promise you this, everybody’s life ends sad. This life will always bring suffering. So if you are trying to hold onto this world...you will end up seeing suffering and death as the greatest threat to your happiness and as the greatest terror in your life. Which means you are going to lose your happiness and you are going to live in terror if you try to  hold onto this world.” He went on to tell the story of a woman with cancer and her faithfulness midst trials.

My mind raced. 

No, no, no.

I jokingly told Michael when I got home that I must have cancer. As I was trying to tell him about the sermon I became frustrated, unable to communicate the truth of my fears and what I knew would absolutely devastate me; what I knew I was holding on to tighter than God. I was terrified that He was preparing me.

After losing baby, I remembered those sermons. I looked back at the weekend we heard them, 3 weeks before we lost baby.

I was 7 weeks pregnant.

The week baby stopped growing.

His sovereignty takes my breath away.

When I first listened to that sermon from The Crossing I couldn’t get past the warning that suffering was coming. Terror stopped me in my tracks. This week I listened to that sermon again, Dave Cover goes on,

“But Paul says because Jesus rose from the dead you can stand firm. Because Jesus rose from the dead you can let nothing move you because you know nothing in your story is in vain. Nothing done in service to Christ, nothing done in faithfulness to Christ is in vain because there is a resurrection coming.”

Michael came home tonight to a box sitting in the rocking chair we got this weekend with a note inside that said,

I can’t wait to rock our baby

July 2016

God’s sovereignty takes my breath away.

July.