Resting in God's Plan

I've put off posting on here for several days now because my thoughts have been all jumbled up, and I haven't been able to figure out a clear idea that I want to communicate. But since the clarity is still not coming, and I have a slew of things I want to process, I will just post a random collection of thoughts and occurrences.

Over the weekend I had an intense few days of emotions and grief. On Friday Bryan and I attended a funeral for the father and brother of a good friend of ours. It was a beautiful service and an honoring tribute to the two men. It reminded me how unnatural death is and how broken our world is. Evan, our friend and son-in-law/brother-in-law to the deceased, spoke about the parallel tracks of grief and blessing. He talked about how grief and blessing go hand in hand, and I could resonate with that on so many levels. We have experienced immeasurable grief in the last 6 weeks, but we have also been the recipients of more abundant blessings and outpourings of love than I have ever witnessed (and that's saying something!).

After the service, Bryan and I visited Samuel's grave for the first time since his burial. It was harder than I had expected it to be. We couldn't find his plot right away because we haven't ordered a stone yet, and the spot was unmarked. Somehow that was a little hard for me -- for Samuel to be in an unmarked grave. We finally identified his place by the newly churned dirt in a small area -- too small to hold the casket of an adult -- and by the stick on the ground that Caleb had been playing with at the burial. (We later went to the office and asked them to make a temporary marker until we can get a gravestone.)

Bryan and I stood there for a long time feeling pretty lost. What are you supposed to do at the grave of your child when you don't believe your child is truly there? I kept looking at the dirt thinking, "I know Samuel's body is under there in that little white box we saw, but I don't think that's really him. I know he's in Heaven and happy and whole. So what am I doing here? I don't want to talk to the ground like it's really my son. God, I guess I'll talk to You. I miss Samuel. Terribly. Please hold him close for me. Tell him how much I love him and miss him and wish I could hold him. And please hold me close and comfort me. I am so very sad..." I couldn't believe we were really standing on the grave of our baby. How could it be true? I never, ever imagined, in all the uncertainty we faced and all the fear of losing Samuel, that we'd be standing at a mound of dirt to "visit" our son. It's all just too horrible.

That night I ended up with severe pain in my back and neck and had the most dreadful night's sleep. I am used to back pain, but this was all together different. I would have called it an 8 or 9 on a scale of 1-10, 10 being the worst pain I've ever felt -- and I've had scoliosis surgery and delivered 3 children unmedicated. I am no stranger to pain. I felt so overwhelmed -- having lost Samuel, being in pain, and not sleeping. I was honestly pretty panicky in the night. I couldn't stop thinking about Samuel when he was on the paralytic and wondering if he was in horrible pain under the medicine and couldn't let us know he was hurting. I kept wondering if he was afraid and we didn't know it, and I couldn't get the images of his final days out of my mind. In an effort to calm myself down, I sang in my head all the songs we would sing to Samuel. Eventually I woke Bryan up and asked him to pray for me. In trying to tell him my despair, I broke down into gut wrenching sobs. In the words of Bryan, I "wept bitterly." It was a dark night for me, and a dark day followed it.

Caleb and Joel seem pretty in tune to what's going on. On Saturday at dinner I was sitting quietly at the table and not saying much. I was burdened with sorrow but wasn't crying. Joel looked at me and said, "Why you sad, Momma?" I asked with surprise, "Do you think I'm sad?" And he replied, "Yes. Why you sad, Momma?" "I miss Samuel, Joel." This led to the start of tears and ultimately a retreat to my room to cry alone.

Yeterday Joel started carrying around Cookie Monster, his beloved animal, and calling him Samuel. He would say, "This is Samuel. I wanna cuddle Samuel. He's my Samuel." And he'd hold Cookie Monster close and love on him. Caleb, likewise, has had Samuel on his mind. When my mom announced that she was going to the grave, Caleb asked her to please blow Samuel kisses and cuddles and to blow some to Pooh too. (Caleb picked out one of his animals to go in the casket with Samuel, and Pooh was his choice.) It hurts my heart to see my kids hurting too. I so wish they had their baby brother here to love and play with and to be jealous of. I especially hurt for Joel who was SO PROUD to be Samuel's big brother and so happy to see and kiss him, and he doesn't get the experience of being a big brother. I want that for him.

A week or so ago, Bryan asked Caleb, "What do you think of Heaven? Do you think it's a cool place?" Caleb's answer made my heart happy: "It's like Disney World!!" I love that in Caleb's mind, Samuel is in a fun place, the happiest place Caleb can think of. It brings me joy to think that Samuel is enjoying himself and is full of smiles and laughter. I realized just this morning that a good deal of my sorrow is about what Samuel endured in his month of life, but I recognize how backwards that is because Samuel is in Jesus' presence, which washes away all the hurt, pain, and brokeness of his earthly life. Jesus makes it all beautiful and right and good, and it's silly for me to be upset about those days and circumstances when Samuel can look back on them with clear eyes and see, instead of pain, God's grace, presence, and love covering each moment. No matter how awful they were when Samuel lived them, they are redeemed and beautiful now, blanketed in God's redemption.

And someday I, too, will look back on the 10 months I spent with Samuel -- in my womb and out of it -- and on the months of heartbreak following his death, and I will see it clearly. I will see God carrying me when I felt abandoned; I will see Him wiping away my tears when I felt alone; I will see Him standing over me and crying with me when I was weeping at Samuel's bedside, and I will see all the good and wonderful things that He brought out of those days and all this pain. I will see what He made new through Samuel and through me, and I will rejoice in His perfect plan and how He let me be a part of His story. Someday I will see clearly, and until then, I will trust Him, and I will find joy in knowing that His plan is good even though I don't understand it... yet.

"Now we see things imperfectly as in a poor mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God knows me now" (I Corinthians 13:12).