Man of Sorrows

After we lost our baby this summer, I asked myself if there was anything else You could possibly teach me through grief and pain. There was also a part of me that wondered if my heart could still be as confident in your goodness if you allowed us to walk that road again.

I never really thought we would. And I never imagined that just nine months later I would find myself filled with that same familiar ache… fourteen weeks pregnant, my insides caving in as I hear that another precious one has gone to be with You.

How can my heart hold any more pain?

There are days where it seems like You are asking more of me than I want to give… more than I feel capable of giving.

I’ve arrived at this place of inner conflict again when what I wanted and hoped for doesn’t line up with Your plans. And as I wrestle to understand how Your power to have prevented this sorrow and Your compassion for me in the middle of it work together I find myself echoing the words of Peter in John 6:68…

Lord, where else could I go? It is YOU that hold the words of eternal life.

It is only in You that every cry of my aching heart is answered.

I am broken
I hold everything together. (Col. 1:17)
I am weary
Come to Me. I will give you rest. (Matt. 11:28)
I am hurting
I am near to the brokenhearted and will bind up your wounds. (Ps. 147:3)
I am weak
I will uphold you when you are falling. You will not be shaken. (Ps. 145: 14, Ps. 16:8)

And in the midst of it all you gently beckon me closer as you ask,
“Will you trust me with this heartbreaking sorrow?”

And I know that I can. I know that You give hope and can heal every heart that is broken because You Yourself were acquainted with deepest sorrow. (Is. 53:3) You have been there. You can lead me through this pain, because You have felt it too. You, my joy and my comfort, were called “a man of sorrows.”

As I sat with the ultrasonographer watching her face fall as she searched for what wasn’t there…while my heart was screaming, “I know You have the power to do things differently, to choose a different plan, to accomplish this work in my life in another way!” I remembered that You asked for those same things in the garden “with loud cries and tears” (Heb. 6:7) before Your death, yet still surrendered to the Father when the answer was no. And because Your cries and tears preceded my own, I know that through You, Man of Sorrows, I can arrive at that same place of surrender.

As I spend each day in Your Word, longing for it to strengthen and comfort me, begging that it will help me to hold fast to You, praying that it will moment by moment transform my heart with the truth that You are good and Your ways are best, I know that it will. Because as you entered Your darkest hour, You prayed for me to be sanctified by the truth of Your Word (John 17:17). In the midst of Your own sorrow, Your heart was looking ahead to me.

So as I am living in this paradigm where the days and months take me further away from our little ones even while they bring me closer, I will choose to wrap my life around your life. Because You have invited me to take your yoke upon myself. You have promised that You will shoulder my burdens as I walk through this sorrow connected to You.

And I will trust You, because death lost its sting when You conquered it through Your resurrection. And as I wait and long for Your eternal rest, I can do so with confidence in Your goodness because “You are making all things new,” and with great comfort because You have said “Behold I am coming soon.” (Rev. 22:12)

Come Lord Jesus