Today

March 9^th. We should be celebrating. We should be joyous. We should be tired, but wonderfully so. Instead we are grieving, we are heartbroken, and we are tired from the tears we’ve cried. Today would have been my due date. But instead of celebrating, we are remembering the life we lost in August, our first child.

This past August, our lives forever changed when we learned that after 5 years of infertility, we were pregnant. I heard and saw our baby’s miraculous little heartbeat, a sound I never thought I’d hear or see. I saw our baby’s little form in my womb. This mountain that seemed immovable, God had finally moved. But the next day, we lost our precious little baby and our world shattered into a billion pieces.

The past 7 months have been the most difficult of our lives. Our faith has been rocked, our marriage has been tested, our call to be overseas has been questioned, and our hearts have been broken. We’ve gone back and forth between being angry with God for giving us this miracle only to take it away and being thankful that we were given this gift if only for a short while. I’ve struggled with shame and blaming myself. B has struggled with feeling like he failed me. Our days have been wrought with doubt, grief and emptiness.

Yet as hard as this has been (and still is), we know that God has been there every step of the way. He allowed us to go back to the States to grieve with our families. He provided plane tickets so we could also return in December. He has given us little assurances of His presence. He provided friends to see us through those first few days. He has sent encouragement and prayers through friends and family. He provided little pieces of joy in those first few weeks, things we could cling onto when the wave of grief would push us under. He provided assurance of our next steps as we wondered if we should come back to our place of service. Even in the midst of our initial grief, He gave us a name for our baby, John Theodore (JT) which means God’s gracious gift.

Photo by Clary Pfeiffer Photography

So today, March 9^th we will remember our JT. We will thank God for the beautiful child that he gave us. We will thank God that He is holding our baby in His arms until the day we can finally hold him in ours. Of course, we will cry and grieve, but we will also cling to the promise that He will bind up our broken hearts. And above all else, we will remember that God is our good good Father who loves us more than we could ever fathom and who will continue to carry us through as we trust and lean on Him.

Photo by Clary Pfeiffer Photography