A Small Glimmer
This weekend we had our annual Fall Retreat with our students and it was quite the weekend. A whirlwind. And baby's first time at a conference of some sort -- something that is very regularly a part of our lives! In fact, Lord-willing, our sweet little one will experience at least two more conferences in his/her life between now and baby's birthday.An exhausting weekend on all levels, it was healing in many ways for me as well. I definitely overdid myself, and have the lingering cough to prove it, but I am so, so thankful for our time.A bit unintentionally in terms of how we planned & prepared, each of our speakers' main points left us with a resounding sense of: "but Jesus is better." Talk to talk we were pointed to Scripture to hear of Jesus' radical presence in the world, the hope only offered through Him, and that God is with us. That He's near. That knowing Him far outweighs any gifts He could give us.As we worshipped together and prayed together and heard God's word preached together, I felt my heart - raw with emotion already - begin to take a shape of something that I wasn't expecting.In the midst of the hurt and the pain and the truths that I was hearing (let's be real, the first talk on Friday night was entitled "Jesus in the Storm" and you can only imagine the content and how it directly applied to our reality), I experienced my first glimmer of joy, of hope, of life again. A bit fleeting, yes, but a hope I cling to.The past few weeks have felt especially dark, and I've felt as though it doesn't matter how I keep walking, it's just going to get darker. But for the first time since August 26th, my heart began to beat for something different - not the same joy I had once had before the news, but of something different, of something more real.As our main speaker addressed how our circumstances do not define us, I began for the first time to realize that what he was saying - "your circumstance - your condition - does not define you" - doesn't just apply to me and to John-Mark. Our baby's condition does not define our baby. God does.And as the psalmist writes in the famous Psalm 139,
If I say, 'Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,' even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you. For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me when as yet there was none of them.
I started to bold the parts I loved in there as I was typing it out. But let's be real. The whole thing was about to be bolded... so I'll recap:Even the darkness is not dark to you... you formed my inward parts... you knit me... I am fearfully and wonderfully made... my soul knows it full well... my frame was not hidden from you... intricately woven... in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me...All of those things are true for me and you. And all of them are true for our baby.Even though our baby seems to be knit completely imperfectly, and even though it feels so dark, even darkness is not dark to God. And our baby IS being intricately woven. And the days that were formed for our baby are written, every one of them, in His book. Our baby's condition does not define our baby. God does.Oh the sweet purpose for our baby's life that I've been longing to see exist. There is a purpose. Our baby was not overlooked. For some reason, God has chosen to knit our baby as is and still considers it a wonderful work. Our baby has a purpose.That brief moment of clarity, and the tears that flowed freely during the following worship set, felt like a tiny glimpse into healing. The part where not everything is dark and not everything is threatening to swallow me up whole inside, but where there's a hope that can come alongside that. I know that the grief will be there - always, in different forms - but there is hope that comes along with it as well."We often want to skip the crucifixion to get the crown," said our speaker boldly. Yes, it's true. We can't have True Life without death. There's always a bitterness with the sweet. And in this case, the sweet with the bitter.