A weighty prologue:
Our baby died in July, when I was only about ten weeks pregnant with him. My husband and I earnestly sought God’s help in figuring out how to explain this loss to our four young children, and we discovered that once again God ministered to our hearts through our attempts to minister to our children’s. As we crafted a frame narrative big enough to contain the scope of death and redemption and small enough to hold our lost family member, we found our own souls growing in a hopeful faith in our Great Author and Creator. I share this in the hope that our joyous lament will help another parent, as well.
The True story we told our kids:
God’s our Great Author and Creator. For every single person, when He creates them, He writes their whole story. Some stories are full of happiness and some stories are full of sadness, but most of the stories are mixes of both. Some stories are long, but some stories are short. Right now, Mom and Dad are sad because we just found out that our new baby’s story is already over. When God created him, He said, “I’m going to create this baby, and he’s going to live for ten weeks. I’m going to give him to the Hohner family, who will love him so, so much. Then his story will end on earth. And it will be good.”
So, we’re sad today, but we’re happy and grateful today, too, because He gave our family the gift of having the baby for the whole ten weeks of his life. Dad and Mom know that some of the most beautiful stories ever written are short stories, even if they’re sad. And we also know that when we are in heaven with God, we’ll be able to read the Whole Story, and it will be absolutely perfect, and we will be so grateful for our small parts in it.
We’re sad because our little baby’s story is over and we’d been hoping for a longer time with him. And it’s ok and right to be sad—but it’s most important to remember that we’re also a part of a bigger story God is writing in heaven, where there are no sad, short stories. And when you feel sad, you should talk to Mom and Dad—but also, you know who wants to hear how you feel? God. God loves you more than anything, and He understands how sad you feel, because His son died, too. He would love to hear how your hearts feels. When Mom and Dad are sad, we tell God. And we remind ourselves that when we get to read the Whole Story, we will never be sad again. We’ll understand that even during the saddest and hardest parts of our story, God was loving us the whole time.
The worshipful epilogue:
Our baby’s story is over here on earth. He has joined the great eternal story, and we celebrate with grateful hearts because our lives touched his, however briefly. Weep with us, friends, and rejoice as well, because this is not the end.
Amen.
Featured picture by Montypeter
She changes diapers, disciples her kids at home, loves her husband, Max, and blogs at: https://raisingourebenezers.wordpress.com/
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Aww, that’s a really sorrowful, but sweet story! Thanks for sharing.
Thank you very much for this
That is beautiful, thank you for sharing.
We lost our baby at 17 weeks earlier this year. It’s one of the most difficult things I have dealt with but there was such beauty in the healing. My children learned how to have compassion, we bonded as a family, we talked a lot about heaven. While I miss the baby I should be holding right now, I take comfort in knowing he is in heaven and never experienced pain on this earth.
Amen, Rachel. Grateful to link arms with you in your grief and healing ❤️
Beautiful. I had a blighted ovum at about 10 weeks so for that long we thought we had a baby but didn’t. It was weird being told there wasn’t a baby there or if there had been there wasn’t one now. At 9 weeks they did an ultrasound on our daughter, our rainbow baby, and how exciting it was to see that she was indeed there! I love what you told your children about it all and wish I had thought Of something that touching to tell our son at the time.