Rejoicing In The Word For Ladies – On Abigail’s 2nd Birthday (April 2022)
Change is a certainty of life. Even now, as spring blooms, there is a delightful, fragrant, refreshing change in the air and the landscape of our daily lives. Change around us is sometimes more noticeable than change within. Most often, it is the steady drip of time that wears new patterns and grooves across the bedrock of our frail human existence. But on rare and fearful occasions, an event may occur that is so traumatic and sudden, the shock is felt immediately as our foundation shakes and quivers, and the person we have been is changed forever after. Two years ago today, April 23rd, 2020, I gave birth to my sixth child… a tiny, precious baby girl. And I was grieving. Other people remember the spring of 2020 for Covid, but I remember Abigail. From the morning we received the phone call of Abigail’s diagnosis of Trisomy 18, to the moment of her birth, followed by sixteen days (a lifetime) in the NICU together, barely 8 weeks passed. But time crawled. Life was mostly waiting, and doctors, and fear. When I look back, I see that the grieving began before the birth. Some weeks after Abigail had passed through that thinnest of veils from the world of the seen to that which is yet unseen, I made a list of the things that grieved me most. Here are the sorrows, in no particular order, which I penned in my journal:
1) I am more afraid of the future- afraid of the bad thing that may be coming next.
2) I miss the healthy baby I was expecting for most of my pregnancy- the one I shopped for and planned for.
3) I sorrow over the loss of my beautiful Abigail Hope and the terrible truth of Trisomy 18.
4) I grieve for the sickness, pain, and surgery she suffered while on this earth.
5) My heart aches for the absence of a baby, – and all the joys and responsibilities she would bring.
6) I feel guilty that life is simpler and easier without her here.
7) It hurts that this is my last pregnancy, my last baby,- that after the joys of bringing five healthy babies into the world, it ends like this.
8) It grieves my soul that I have so few happy memories with Abigail, that our time was so short, that I never heard her voice after the cries of her birth.
If the Psalms were my consolation and meditation in those first months of grief, then the book of Job was my instruction and education. So many of my friends and family have seen suffering in these last two years. Some sudden, some gradual, some continual… all significant and painful. Suffering comes either from enduring that which we do not want, or it is a response to a loss (large or small)… that which has been taken from us, or the empty hole of what might have been. In Job, we find a servant of the Lord, an upright man, who has been devastated by tragedy. We are told in Job 2:13, “…his grief was very great.” I want to share a few characteristics of grief I have observed in the life of Job. There are some in the list to which I relate very well, perhaps there are others in which you will find your own struggles. I pray you will be blessed to know the God Who created you sees each need of your heart.
Grief is fear. There are a host of fears that I must battle against in my mind, where fear lives. “For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.” Job 3:25
Grief is heavy. “O that my grief were thoroughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together! For now it would be heavier than the sand of the sea…” Job 6:2-3a
Grief is hard to speak aloud. The words are buried under the weight of sorrow. “…therefore my words are swallowed up.” Job 6:3b
Grief pierces our hearts. We feel wounded by our God. Our limited humanity cannot see His infinite plan or rationalize His holy love. “For the arrows of the Almighty are within me…” Job 6:4a
Grief poisons our spirit. Consider the expression “out of his/her mind with grief.” The words in the following verse convey the idea of one who is no longer in possession of his own mind. “…the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit: the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me.” Job 6:4b
Grief is sorrow and suffering. “The things that my soul refused to touch are as my sorrowful meat. Oh that I might have my request; and that God would grant me the thing that I long for!” Job 6:7-8
Grief is despair, sometimes to the point of seeking destruction. “Even that it would please God to destroy me; that He would let loose His hand, and cut me off!” Job 6:9 (Can you also see in this verse that despite everything, Job knew God still held him?)
Grief forgets hope. “What is my strength, that I should hope? and what is mine end, that I should prolong my life?” Job 6:11
Grief says things it does not mean. “Do ye imagine to reprove words, and the speeches of one that is desperate, which are as wind?” Job 6:26
Grief overtakes us in the night. “So am I made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed to me. When I lie down, I say, When shall I arise, and the night be gone? And I am full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning of the day.” Job 7:3-4
Grief turns to torment when the body is afflicted. “My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust; my skin is broken, and become loathsome. My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and are spent without hope.” Job 7:5-6
Grief makes one a burden to oneself. “…I am a burden to myself.” Job 7:20
Grief cannot see that morning will come. “And why dost thou not pardon my transgression, and take away mine iniquity? For now shall I sleep in the dust; and thou shalt seek me in the morning, but I shall not be.” Job 7:21
Grief is questions and confusion. Repeatedly, we see Job questioning, “Why?” Why would the hand that made him destroy him? “I am full of confusion; therefore see thou mine affliction.” Job 10:15b
Grief is full of darkness and shadows. “I should have been as though I had not been; I should have been carried from the womb to the grave. Before I go whence I shall not return, even to the land of darkness and the shadow of death; A land of darkness, as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is as darkness.” Job 10:19, 21-22
There is no escape from grief. But there are two things God gives us that will carry us though the process. First, He gives us truth. In all Job’s grappling with God and arguments with friends, we see Job clinging to the truth revealed to Him. There are times we are so paralyzed by grief, we fail to act on the truth we know, but we must at least hang on! Job speaks three truths in chapter 19 and verses 25-27: “For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me.”
1) There is a Redeemer.
2) There is a Resurrection.
3) There is a glorified body.
The second thing God gives that allows us to endure the storm of grief is the healing help of His Word. When the word of the Lord comes to Job in chapter 38, He reveals Himself to one of His choice servants. And in humility and acceptance of God’s omnipotent, omniscient, sovereign power, Job finds peace. In Job 23, he tells us, “But He knoweth the way that I take: when He hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold. My foot hath held His steps, His way have I kept, and not declined. Neither have I gone back from the commandment of His lips; I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.” God’s Word is rich in its healing power. “He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.” (Psalm 147:3) In the heart of our sorrows, we may enter into communion with the heart of our beloved Savior, Himself the very Man of Sorrows, that we may find comfort and healing in the Living and Written Word.
I want to remember my beautiful Abigail Hope today on the occasion of her 2nd birthday. Thank you for remembering her with me. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead! Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.” (1 Pet. 1:3,6-8a) – Valerie Kae Starnes (VKS)