Sweet September Baby

Make sure you also read the post before this one! 

Today is without a doubt the hardest day of my life, Sweet September Baby.

The 9 months before today were hard. The two 1/2 weeks it took to lose you were the most painful weeks–physically, emotionally, and mentally. The day they wrapped me in a gown and put me to sleep while they removed what He knit together in my womb, I thought that was the hardest day.

Turns out the hardest day is today. Your due date. September 24th, with the perfect weather for bringing home a new baby.

I have experienced a side of myself this month that I never knew existed. I have been in rare form. I guess this is what they call grieving. I was sure I had already done that in February while crying out to God in the bathroom asking why in the world He chose this pain for me. I thought the grieving was over.

Sweet September Baby, I was anything but right to believe I was done with my grief over the lack of your precious existence. After talking to other moms that have miscarried, turns out your mother isn’t crazy. She doesn’t need professional help. She is just a normal mom grieving the child she never held. It’s incredible how much you can miss a person you never met face to face.

I don’t even have your first and only set of ultrasound pictures. They were never offered to me. I was only physically present the day the news was confirmed. My body moved, but my heart had stopped and my mind was fuzzy. Asking for your precious pictures was not something that came to mind that day. I’m so terribly sorry.

I just remember Jesus was there.

And really, what else matters at that point when you feel closer to Him this side of Heaven than you ever have?

You, my Sweet September Baby, are experiencing Him on the other side. I bet it is glorious.

We signed a lease on this basement apartment with you in mind. It has three bedrooms. The changing table has been in there since the day we moved our furniture in. That and all of my maternity clothes. But two days after we did all that moving we began to lose you. To be honest, adding a baby to this quaint home of ours would have been a challenge. A challenge that many families in third world countries would consider a luxury. It’s a first world challenge, nonetheless, that I would have welcomed with joy.

I don’t ask why. I don’t look at other pregnant women with envy or a hardened heart. I just trust that you were never meant for this world. Your purpose was to leave before you got here, so that I would be brought to my knees in complete dependence on our Father.

always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. 
2 Corinthians 4:10-11

Just like in Mercy Me’s song “The Hurt and the Healer”…I’m alive, even though a part of me has died. Glory be to my faithful God that by the blood of His righteous Son my sins are wiped clean and I have the promise and hope of eternal life. I will meet you one day and we will dance together on the streets of gold.

Speaking of streets of gold…I love these lyrics (video of song at the end of this post for your listening enjoyment):

To imagine you holding on to the threads of His robe…oh, how I love that image.  It reminds me of the story in Luke 8. A lady who is very ill and considered unclean wants so badly to be healed. She knows Jesus is in town and she crawls on the dirty ground, attempting to dodge others to keep from making them unclean, because she knows if she could just touch the fringe of His garment she would be healed (Mark 5:28). She is immediately healed. But the story doesn’t end there. Jesus is on his way to heal the daughter of Jairus when he feels someone touch his robe and he stops in the crowd to find that person. Actually, he didn’t feel anyone touch his robe. He felt power leave his body. That power, after it left him, was imparted to the ill woman and she was healed completely.

Jesus feels it, too, when we are healed. When He called your little life home, He felt your healing. As He is healing me, He feels it. What a comfort! What a God we serve!

Yesterday when your daddy and I picked up your sister from her class at church, she was coloring a picture of Abraham and Sarah holding their new baby Isaac. I asked her to tell me what she learned about them and this is what she said,

“Abraham and Sarah wanted a baby rrreeeeallllyyy bad and they waited a rrreeeeaaalllyyy long time. God gave them a baby.”

It is NO coincidence that she learned that story this particular weekend. It is the grace of the God of all our comfort that He would send us a great reminder through Lily that God’s promises remain true and steadfast regardless of our perspective of the situation. I am so grateful for the comfort and encouragement of the Holy Spirit. It is like no other.

Today we will be celebrating not just your little life, but more importantly, the hope we have for eternal life through Christ Jesus. Lily picked out red velvet cupcakes at the store. We baked them, ate a picnic lunch outside, then decorated them.

Daddy ate with us outside on his lunch break!

Sweet September Baby, we love you. We always have and we always will. And despite all the pain that’s been so new to us and has made for random moments of weeping and had me acting like anything but myself, we are grateful beyond words for your all too short life. You, my dear, are an avenue to a more intimate fellowship in my life with Jesus.  And anything that draws me to the feet of Jesus–whether I go there willingly or I fall at His feet out of utter weariness–is a blessing. Today and always we celebrate your sacred life because we love you, but more importantly, we are reminded by your death that our hope isn’t in this world. Praise God that this life is temporary and He is preparing for us a home with Him (and you) in Paradise.

Love you, my baby.