Yesterday, I made my way back to church. To worship. To listen. It’s been awhile since I’ve attended church regularly, but I’ve recently felt comfortable, ready. So, lately I’ve been going. Somewhere new. Somewhere safe.
Yesterday, as I signed Camille and Magnus into children’s church I overheard that it was baby dedication Sunday.
NOPE. NOPE.
I didn’t know in that moment if I should be brave. Stay. Just leave then. I immediately felt the familiar lump in my throat. I began to panic. I ushered my kids down the hall to their classes and zoned out. What am I going to do??
I can’t possibly watch beaming parents holding their precious babies and bounding toddlers teetering around the stage all while hearing about how children are a gift from God and such a joy… I can’t. I just can not take it.
Isabella would be two in one month. Spring is already hard, Sunday was the first day of this new season, things coming alive and blooming– yet here I am feeling nothing but the heaviness of death. The constant looming reminder that my child is not here.
As Camille entered her Bible class her teacher, who happens to be my very best of friends since forever, caught my eye and said “Good morning, how are you?”
I bawled into her shoulder, “I overheard in the hallway it’s baby dedication day.” “I am not going in there. I can’t go in there.” The warm tears streamed down my cheeks and the heat rose up from my chest. It was hard just to say, to admit, I didn’t want to be in there. All the while I was thinking- Why can’t I just “face my fears” or “just be brave”
“You don’t have to go in there. Just stay with us. You can stay in here, with the second grade girls and maybe go into church after worship. If you want.”
“You don’t have to.” I don’t have to face my fears. I am being brave.
It was a simple thing, but she gave me permission to stay safe. I didn’t have to run away, but I didn’t have to sit in church and sob.
As it would happen, on this emotionally driven morning, I also saw a dear friend, in the hall as she was dropping off her son. She is a trusted confident and I told her no, I wasn’t heading down to worship. It seemed too hard, and like too much. I told her I felt all the feelings again that had kept me away from church for these two years.
Why am I even trying? This is too hard. No one can even possibly know how I feel. Church is too heavy.
“Maybe you are right where you are supposed to be.”
I didn’t run away. I didn’t subject myself to something that would be triggering and really, really hard to sit through. I found people to surround myself with and who gave me permission to feel my feelings and told me I was going to be okay.
My friend texted me when the song portion of the service was over and I went into church as soon as the sermon started.
The sermon was a lovely reminder. It was what my soul needed. If we say we believe in the sovereignty of God then EVERYTHING we encounter is either caused directly by God or God allowed it to happen. That’s it. Those are the two choices.
A hard pill to swallow. Something to think on, as a believer.
So it’s all being redeemed for his glory and our good, even the death of my daughter.
Job 11:7 “Can you find out the deep things of God?
Can you find out the limit of the Almighty?”
Isaiah 55:8-9 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
It’s taken me a long time to be able to even listen to these verses. Much less mediate on them. Or consider them. These days are still hard. I still have bad days. I miss my little girl with each milestone my other kids reach. My heart aches when I see a little girl I assume is around the age she would now be. I know I’ll always wonder what if, I know I’ll always want her here. Even if that was never her story. She was my child, and always will be.