We chose a specific day to share the news of our pregnancy with our church family. July 2nd, to be specific.
This day was also special because Jon gave a message on Hope. Right before starting to preach, He announced the news that we were now a family of three, and the entire congregation rejoiced with us. This is the church where Jon grew up, the church where we got married. They are family.
When he started the message, he explained how the word “hope” is used in the English language as a way of saying “I wish this happens”. He exemplified this by saying “for example, my wife is pregnant and I HOPE it’s a girl, but this is not that I’m talking about”… the congregation laughed.
If you have time, I recommend you listen to Jon’s message. As he is an amazing speaker (objective opinion 😉 ) and it clearly shows the work the Lord was doing in his life, to prepare him for what was going to happen 23 days later.
We had a small memorial service with our church family two Sundays after Noah’s death. And on that day I woke up thinking “we have been given the opportunity to literally live what we preach”.
In his message, Jon taught on how our Hope needs to be in something that cannot break our hearts, our Hope needs to be placed in Jesus, who lost all hope so we could have hope.
Noah’s not being a girl is not what broke our hearts (maybe had he continued to be alive, and was here with us, it would have broken our hearts… as we would have been “disappointed” we didn’t get the girl we wanted). What broke our heart was losing him, was losing the dream I never knew I had, of having a little boy in my arms.
But at the moment the doctor told us there was no heartbeat, we had a choice. Not a choice to bring our baby back to life (believe me, I wish). But the choice to hold on to the only Hope that doesn’t change. The choice to place our eyes on Jesus and not crumble, because He crumbled completely for me, and defeated the scariest thing I could think of, and my new reality: death.
My faith in Christ is the only reason why I am not a glob of silly putty in the corner of my room. Even though at times I feel like that.
If you think this is weird, if you think this is crazy, please, reach out to me (I love getting emails) I will be more than happy to talk to you.
This is not being “religious” or “numbing myself to the pain”. Believe me, the pain is there, it is real. This is me choosing to believe there is more than this material world. Me choosing to believe that this is not all there is, and I wasn’t a bad mother for leaving my poor baby in the cold hospital. Since I believe that was just his body, and he is living the BEST and only TRUE life there is, and that’s being with our Creator.
This is us believing that even if Noah was born alive and was healthy and we got to see him graduate college and get married and live a happy life, he would still have broken our hearts if we placed our hope in him instead of Him (Jesus).
In the darkest moments of our lives, we have been given the unique opportunity of loving God for who He is, not for Him being useful in our lives and giving us what what we want. And by doing this, we are able to experience His Love like never before.
