Mixture of Grief and Wonder

I wasn’t prepared for the email I received this morning.  I’m not sure there is any way to prepare.  All I could do was read it to my wife, sit, and weep.  When a friend looses a child, the range of emotions is indescribable, uncomfortable, and unsettling; all while delivering a pain that screams for some type of escape…some type of future hope. 

The little girl, who tossed about in her mommy’s belly for nine months, didn’t take a single breath of this world’s air.  Our Lord saw fit to take her before that happened.  And we all fall back into the reality of depravity, this-world’s-fallenness, our finiteness, and our longing for redemption.  A day that began with so many going their own separate ways, ended with so many focused on a common mission of tangible faith, hope and love.  The Body of Christ is together through thick and thin – through life and death.

I was asked what I (as a minister) am to say to those who have lost a child.  I really didn’t have an answer.  Seminary cannot give such lessons.  My pastor gave me the greatest advice, undoubtedly from decades of experience.  He said, “You just have to be there.”  I believe the Spirit of Christ carries us during times like this.  He makes us feel our need of Him.  Yes, He makes us all feel our need of Him.

I do believe we are all jars of clay.  This is what Paul teaches the church in Corinth (2 Cor 4).  For some reason, God chooses to store His treasure there.  Having preached this passage a few times, I knew (intellectually) why.  But today I experienced it.  When you break clay jars, the Treasure falls out.  And that is why broken people make the best Christians. 

God, in His sovereign, mysterious, providence decided to break my friend and his family.  And through sorrow and grief, the Treasure flowed freely.  Here is the email that he sent just hours after his third daughter was stillborn:

It's with a mixture of great grief and awestruck wonder in the greatness of our God that I'm writing this morning to let you know that S delivered our 3rd girl during the night, but [she] was stillborn. We need your prayers, love, and support. I believe we're grieving well right now, but will obviously be faced with various challenges and opportunities in the days ahead. Feel free to check in with us as you have opportunity…

Holding my dead infant daughter was a stark reminder that we are fallen people living in a fallen world. But in experiencing that grief I am still able to praise God He has seen fit to take "our" girl to be with Him - and spare her the pain and sorrow this sin-filled world and our sin-filled hearts create. Jesus, the resurrection and the life, says whoever believes in Him, yet though he dies, will live again. Our hope is built on nothing less...

May He keep us all in the faith!