Babies that God named

Every year, about this time, I think about the two babies I’ll never meet this side of eternity. I think what brings them to mind is that there are two little boys in my church that would be about the same age as the second baby: this year they turned 9.

When I lost the first of those two babies, I had a lot to learn.

I had been praying that that the Lord would not bring a baby if we were going to have another return of my husband’s cancer. I miscarried that baby at about 10 weeks, and I grieved the loss of that little life. I grieved that I didn’t know if it was a boy or a girl, and didn’t know how to name him or her. Holding me as I cried one night, my dear Dave said, “We don’t have to name that baby: God has given that baby a name.”

Two months later, Dave’s cancer returned. So I also grieved that somehow I had prayed all wrong. If only my faith had been stronger, and I had prayed for the strength to have a baby AND deal with cancer, maybe God would have allowed that little one to live. But slowly, and increasingly, day-by-day, I came to realize that no matter how I said it, God knew what was best. My faulty prayer was not more powerful than my loving Lord. That baby, the tiny one with the full-sized soul, was God’s before he or she was ever mine. And God’s love was so deep and high and long and full for that baby and for me that this difficult death was best for that baby and for me, and was meant to bring glory to God, too. It was a hard comfort, a throbbing sort of help, and left me afraid for a time to pray for God’s will to be done. After all, he was not a tame God, but an almighty one. He was not predictable, but holy and powerful. Slowly, his perfection dawned upon my grief, and I learned to trust him again, in a deeper and higher and longer and fuller way.

By the time the second little one that God named came along nine years ago, I had been through that first loss, and had looked Dave’s cancer in the face, and walked with him and the Lord on a journey of faith that was dark and frightening. But again, as always, God was sufficient for our needs—and more than sufficient, his grace proved to be abundant and overflowing. This time, I experienced the physical pain of an ectopic pregnancy that left me for one long hospital-night wondering if I would, indeed, head for heaven. My faith was rattled and shaken in a whole new way, but I knew experientially that God would be sufficient. And he was. So as we grieved that second loss, we grieved, but not as those who had no hope.

Before either of those losses came along, God had placed two blessings in my arms: two wonderful sons. Having them in hand didn’t alleviate my grief, but oh, what joy God has brought me through them, and how difficult it was to become too self-focused in my grief when they were near. God knew I would need those boys.

So, this spring, as I thank God for my two boys on this side of eternity, who now have wives or fiancées and the hope of children of their own in the near future, I again, quietly, remember those two other babies that I hope to recognize in eternity. And my arms, so full now of God’s abundant blessings to me, ache just a little to hold them.