Divergent paths

Two roads diverged . . .

Lately it feels like my life has two roads--one is the road with a (surprise!) fourth child and all that entails; the other is a road with three children, but with the fourth one mysteriously and suddenly absent.

Sometimes I lie in bed at night pondering each road. I should be halfway through my pregnancy now, wearing maternity clothes, putting on weight and changing shape, visiting my OB monthly, and we should have had the ultrasound to tell us if it's a boy or girl. I should be rearranging the house, painting a bedroom, planning the next few months and asking for help with Ben when the baby comes. I should be buying newborn and size 1 diapers, sorting through Ben's clothes (or asking my friends for girls' clothes), mulling over names and their meanings.

But the road took a sharp turn on April 16 when my baby began his own journey--a new life in heaven with God. The road we'd been on came to a T--the kind of stop where you have to choose which way you'll take next.

Yesterday, the girls were watching the Veggie Tales movie, "It's a Meaningful Life," which is based on the old classic, "It's a Wonderful Life." In it, a train engineer takes the main character, Stewart, to a place where the tracks diverge. He is able to see the differences between what his life is like now and what it would have been like if he'd just caught the football at the final game in high school. On this alternate route, he doesn't marry his high school sweetheart and she's still single. His twins have never been born because he didn't get married. The girl he and his wife adopted is still in the orphanage. The boys from the current football team don't have a mentor and are acting in unkind ways. Stewart realizes through the alternate look at his life that the one event that he thought would have made his life so much better actually would have made life worse for him and for so many others. His life now is full of love from his wife, twins, and adopted daughter. He's a mentor to those boys on the football team. He may be a regular guy, but he's so blessed.

God reminded me through the movie that He has perfect plans for each of us--including me. His plans are so much bigger than I realize, are farther-reaching than I will ever know. And His plans, His route is what is best for me and for others in my life. 

After our miscarriage, God showed me how He had been preparing me for that moment through Bible studies in which I got to know Him and His character better, and through a previous miscarriage experience. Afterwards, He was able to teach me so much about Himself and His sovereignty. He used this awful event in my life to mature and grow me in my faith in incredible ways. It is possible that hurting me in this way made me more open to the lessons He was ready to teach me.

I'm so thankful for the brief time I had with my baby. I wish desperately, at times, that he were here with me, growing in my body. But since I know where he is--in heaven with God as his Father and in a body that will never know pain or sin or suffering--I would never wish my baby away from that life. I am joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer (Rom. 12:12). And all this because I know God has great plans for me (Jer. 29:11). The paths may have diverged, but the path I'm on now has taken me straight to God's heart so I can know Him better. There's no better path for me--or for you.

The first thing I will do in heaven

For many years, I was just sure of the first thing I would do when I got to heaven: I'd find Eve and deck her, right on the kisser! She is certainly to blame for the pains of childbirth (and the recovery) as well as being the second in a long line of sinners. Yes, her hubby was responsible for not leading her, but she was the first gullible female in the world. (Did you know that if you spell "Eve" backwards, it says "Sin"?  Haha!)

Anyway, since I've been reflecting on heaven so much these past couple of months, I know now that is exactly the opposite of what I will likely do when I reach heaven.  I reflected on all I know about heaven, about God, about worship, about the glory and majesty and holiness that will be all-encompassing when I meet Jesus face to face. I now believe that I will not look for my heaven-born children, my grandparents, my friends who have gone on before me, . . . but I will be so busy worshiping and kissing the feet of Jesus, I won't be able to see a single thing else, at least not for the first thousand years or so.

I read this in Isaiah 6:1-7
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another:  “Holy, holy , holy is the Lord Almighty;  the whole earth is full of his glory.”  4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. 5 “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.” 6 Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”

Can you see His train filling the room, hear the glorious song the seraphs sing, feel the majesty of the moment, and then feel the sting of sin in your heart?  When we come into contact with holiness, we immediately realize the depth of our sinfulness and as believers, we want to do something about it. We know we desperately need cleansing, forgiveness. And God is so gracious to grant our request. He touches our lips with hot coals, cleanses us from all unrighteousness (I Jn 1:9), seals us with the Holy Spirit.  Oh, thank You, Lord, for allowing me to focus on what is the best thing about heaven--You! I'm so grateful my babies are there with You and I will be so thrilled to meet them for the first time; but You are the true, the single reason to want to go to heaven. You are the main event. You desire to be WITH us (Emmanuel), and we will then be WITH You when we arrive in heaven. The coolest part, in my mind, is that we will see You face to face and know you fully as we are fully known.

Consider it pure joy, my sisters!

In April of 2012, just 3 days after losing our baby Jenson at 6 weeks gestation, the Lord led me to read what I'd been studying in Bible Study Fellowship--James 1:2-4, which says, "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."

I knew that this trial was going to be incredibly difficult to endure, but God encouraged me that it wasn't for nothing--He was using it already to make me more like Him. I just had to be thankful that He was going to use it to mold me and change me, even though the circumstances were so hard to deal with. I hope you receive encouragement from these words. The Lord doesn't allow hurts into our lives to crush us or to hurt us, but to make us more receptive to Him and to make us more like Him.

Romans 8:28-29 says, " And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers."

In Bible study this past year, our teacher mentioned those verses and read them together, causing me to conclude that God works all things together . . . to conform us into the image of His Son Jesus, which is for our good. The goal of suffering is to become more like Jesus. And consider how much Jesus suffered--being born a human while giving up all the privileges of almighty God, having no place to lay his head (no possessions to speak of), being spoken of falsely by the leaders of Judaism (God's chosen people), being beaten, spat upon, mocked, a crown of thorns placed on His head, His hands and feet nailed to a tree for all to see his battered and broken body die. And all the while, His heart broke to know that though He was choosing to carry the sins of us all on that horrible cross, there would be many who would ultimately reject Him and His love and would choose to spend eternity separated from Him in hell.

I have lost two children to miscarriage--ten years apart to the month. Experience tells me that being angry with God for years does nothing to grow your relationship with Him, nor does it ease the pain. Only by growing close to Him and by allowing Him to heal me do I begin to feel peace, comfort, even joy! I know without a doubt that my children are ecstatically playing in heaven, cared for each moment by their heavenly Father. It thrills me to know I will meet them one day. Yes, it hurts quite a bit now to not have them with me here, but I take great comfort in the fact that they will never have to deal with sin--which means no broken hearts, no bad decisions, no broken bones . . . so much more. And when I compare my trials to Jesus' trials, I see mine are "light and momentary," as Paul says in 2 Cor. 4:16-18. (Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.)

So even though it hurts terribly, consider it pure joy, my sisters, that God has counted you worthy of suffering so that He might work His ways in you to make you mature and complete.