Lessons in Life - Hope

So many of us are experiencing changes. Changes in jobs, changes in finances, changes in health, changes in life............
2009 has brought many changes to our family: a new house, new responsibilities, a few new friends, a pregnancy....and a miscarriage.

I was so excited! I wanted another child so much. We have four so far: three girls 12, 8,5 and our little boy who is 2.
On July 10, 2009, we found out our newest little blessing was on its way and due to arrive in March 2010.
However, one month later, August 10, 2009, this little one went to be with Jesus.
It has been a very hard adjustment for us. I'll write more on my thoughts and feelings in future posts.

but for now, If I may, I want to share with you what my husband wrote for a memorial service we had here with a few of our friends. For all of you out there who have experienced this loss that no one else can understand unless they too have experienced it. May these words comfort us all.
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I've been thinking and thinking about it for a couple of weeks, and I knew I needed to do something but wasn't sure what. It wasn't that I felt an emotional need to closure or release or anything like that. It was just that something felt not quite right. I tried to express it to my friends like this - "It doesn't seem right that someone should pass through this world and noone acknowledge it." And even that doesn't fully express what's on my heart. I just don't know quite how to say it.


Knowing that our get together was tonight, I went to bed with that on my mind. And while I slept, I had a dream. I was talking to a man about various things, and was impressed with his answers. At one point during the conversation, I look directly at him, and I realize that it's Jesus. I immediately stop talking and grab him and hug him. Tears flow from my eyes and "I love you" comes from my lips. "Do you really?" he asks me. The verse "if you love me, you will keep my commandments" springs to my mind, and I begin to think of all of the things that I do and know I shouldn't, and all of the things that I don't do and know I should. I search that depths of my heart and return with the answer "yes," fearing what his response will be. He looks into my eyes with love and replies "then feed my sheep." At this point, my stupid phone goes off and I am abruptly woken up to take care of some stuff that's running late at work.

As I sit in front of my computer waiting for things to finish, I can't escape the realism of my dream. I ponder how I fail to measure up to God's standards and yet he loves and accepts me anyway. And how he loves and calls to others too, even those who hate him. In him we have hope, for we are called his children. We are brought into relationship with God and are given a promise and a future.

As I ponder what being in the family of God really means, and bearing his name, it dawns on me one of the things that has been bothering me. My baby doesn't have a name. My baby passed through our lives and changed them forever, and we haven't given it a name. We don't even know if it was a boy or a girl. But it was here, for however brief a time, and it made a difference and an impact, and it mattered to someone.

I tried to think of a name, of all of the things that had been rolling through my mind, and the name that seems most appropriate to me is Hope. We don't know what has happened to our child, but our trust is in the one who always knows the truth and does what's right. He loves us. He cares for us. He has made us His children. Our hope is with God.