The Sun Barely Rose

I was at work. The phone rang, and I answered, "Clem's Collectibles. This is Regan. How can I help you?" It was Dewitt Women's Health. They asked me to meet my wife, Lindsay, at the hospital. They wouldn't tell me why. Lindsay was pregnant, and we were expecting twins. My mind figured that one of our babies had died. I walked out to the car and started to cry as I put my key in the ignition. I asked God, "Why? Why does this have to happen?" That was the first of many times.

I drove across town and twenty minutes later arrived at the hospital. Lindsay wasn't there. At this point I still had no idea what was going on. Confused. Sad. Worst case scenarios running through my head. They had mistakenly told me the wrong instructions. I was supposed to have gone to pick Lindsay up and drive her to the hospital. I went back down to my car. Turned on the ignition. The car roared to life. I continued to cry. 

Twenty minutes later, I went in to Dewitt Women’s Health and gave Lindsay a big hug. I don't remember what was said. We proceeded to get in the car. Held hands. And drove to the hospital.

All I remember from the hospital that night was the ultrasound. The saddest event of my life. All of the dreams we had of the future came crashing down. The death of a baby that isn't born isn't just a death of a life that hasn't taken its first breath of air; it's the death of every dream we have of a shared future. Dreams that my cold, clammy hands were clinging to. Dreams that I didn't want to be ripped out.

I sat in the corner of the semi-lit room. The floor was cold. The metal on my chair was cold. Everything seemed cold. Lindsay laid on her back. The ultrasound was out of her view, so she looked at me. Eyes searching so desperately for a sign that things are okay. Inside I wept. I felt that I had to be strong. For about an hour the ultrasound technician took photos of the babies. She measured their heads, their hearts, everything. I kept praying in my dark, cold corner that God would heal them. I wanted to see them start moving. I wanted to hear the heartbeats on the monitor. I wanted them to live so badly. I told God, "I will tell the whole world of this miracle if you would just give life back to them." They didn't move. Life could not be found. Life was lost. Lindsay and I left that room broken and filled with more sadness than either of us have ever encountered in our lives.

They moved us to a room in the Women & Children’s section of the building. In that room, while we waited, we could hear the cry of newborns, which became a bittersweet background noise for the next few days. Way more bitter than sweet. Those cries, a constant reminder of something we could not have. Something lost.

I ran into a happy, new father by the refrigerator in the snack room. He had no idea that I was going through hell while he was experiencing heaven. "Isn't this great?” he said. I replied, "Sure is." I didn't want to ruin his day. When we gave birth to our firstborn, I had no idea that someone in the next room could be giving birth to death. How close happiness and sorrow can be. Almost like they intermingle to create life.

Then we went home. We went to bed. I'm sure we held each other in bed and wept. The sleeping pill prescribed to Lindsay to help her sleep didn't work. She laid there in bed knowing that two lifeless babies rested inside of her. Two babies we had dreams for. Two babies we already loved. At some point during the night I woke and joined Lindsay. We decided, out of desperation, to go get some oil and anoint her with it. We wanted a healing. Desperately. We read Scriptures of healing and Jesus bringing back the dead. We prayed. It gave us hope. We wanted to go back to the hospital the next day and see that our babies were alive.

The next day came. The sun barely rose. We asked for another ultrasound when we arrived at the hospital. They thought it was ridiculous since they had confirmed the death of our babies the day before. However, the hospital staff humored us because of what we were going through. We returned to the cold ultrasound room. It was just as cold. Just as still. Just as haunting.

After many tears and prayers, the screens confirmed the same findings as the night before. No heartbeat. No movement. No life. They were dead. Lifeless.

We proceeded to a delivery room. We were placed in the same room that we were in after the birth of our first child. It all seemed so ironic. Dreamy. Surreal. Nightmary. Pills were given to induce.

All I remember is waiting. Both sets of our parents arrived. It was hard on everyone. At times when we were alone, I remember climbing in bed and hugging Lindsay, weeping uncontrollably. We took turns weeping. We shared times of weeping. We wept. All the while, the cries of newborns echoed through the halls.

The delivery doesn't stand out much in my head. It wasn't until the 2nd full day in the hospital that our babies arrived into this world. They were so small and they came out so easy.

We held them. We kissed them. We longed for them to be alive, to see their lungs move up and down with life. To see their rib cages bounce from a beating heart. They were placed in a little basket like Moses once was. Yet unlike them, they sat there at the foot of the bed. No water to float on. No life.

We had to reach the point where we were comfortable with giving them to God. At the risk of being a heretic, I baptized them. It wasn't for their salvation. It was just a crazy idea that I came up with that would be an outward sign to God that we were okay with him having our babies. Our parents and Isaac joined us in the room as we sprinkled the babies and shared a prayer together. I wept while leading prayer. Everyone understood.

Uncontrollable weeping followed. Life was dreary.

We went home. The sadness didn't stay at the hospital.

I went back to work, and the sadness was even there. I couldn't get away from the sadness. I would just weep when nobody was in the store. Life seemed like it would never get back to normal. Every dream seemed to be gone. Our future needed to be reconstructed.

Some friends sent flowers. Some sent money to help with the expenses. Others sent gift certificates to restaurants because they lived too far away to give us meals. We were blessed and so thankful, and still are, of the support that was shown to us during that time. The saddest days of our lives sort of shine because of the love showered on us by friends and family.

We named our next boy Elisha Zane. Elisha means "God is generous." Zane means "God's gracious gift." He is a blessing we wouldn't have if we hadn't lost the babies. He will turn ten this month. We have struggled to find good in the midst of this tragedy.  It wasn't easy.  But if we look hard enough and with eyes wide enough, it is there waiting to carry us through.  It’s that way with all tragedy.  It’s that way with your tragedies.

Andrew Peterson's Lullaby

A Series Of Doubts

I wish that I couldn’t honestly say this, but I can and should if I am to be honest with myself and others. I have a lot in common with the Israelites in the Old Testament. I doubt.

They saw God miraculously deliver them from the hand of the Egyptians with the ten plagues. Afterward, they find themselves backed up against the Red Sea with the Egyptian army coming after them. They come up with what would seem to be a rational conclusion given their circumstances: God brought them out there to die.

I remember God providing miraculously for me to minister in Antwerp. Three times now our church has peered over the precipice of being financially broke. Each time, I despaired. Did you bring us this far God just to close this church?

And then God parted the Red Sea. Miraculously, the Egyptians walked across dry ground to get to the other side. And in the process, God even took care of their enemies.

It’s been nearly a year now since we last peered into the precipice. God is good. And each time that we have peered into the precipice, we have received what would seem to be nothing sort of miraculous provisions from God.

Soon after the Israelites reached the other side of the Red Sea, they accused God of bringing them out the wilderness to die. They felt that it would have been better to die as slaves in captivity than to starve to death in the wilderness.

Then I sit down and watch a tragic documentary taken from live video footage of the 2004 Tsunami. People dying. Helpless. Standing there one moment and disappearing into the ocean the next. I wished that it was some fake Hollywood film. And in the back of my mind I can’t help but wonder if there really is a God. And if there is a God, why did He allow that to happen?

Then God miraculously provides manna from heaven for the Israelites to eat. These miracles don’t make sense. Food appearing on the ground in the morning. Food enough for the day but that will rot if you save it for the next. Miracles don’t have to make sense. That’s why they’re miracles.

And God reassures me through a hug from a child that He still loves me. It doesn’t make sense. The death and the tragedy of what I just saw makes God’s love hard to believe. But something is going on with the Spirit in that little hug from a child, and God uses that moment to reassure me.

Then Moses goes away too long. Too long, yet all of this takes place within one hundred days of the exodus, the parting of the Red Sea, and the manna from heaven. But their leader disappears. He went up to the mountain, and he still has not come down. They despair and build a golden calf to worship.

Sometimes I think that we, ministers, don’t express our doubts enough. We’re scared that we will lose our job if we do. So we pretend at times to have super faith, one where we never doubt. And in a weird, twisted way, we are wrongly setting ourselves up to be an idol rather than direct people to the true mentor and Father of us all. And we despair in the fakeness of ourselves.

If we sit still in the midst of all of our searing doubts. If the baby doesn’t move on the ultrasound. If our dearly loved one parts. If that ailment won’t lighten up. If our house is gone from under us or we find ourselves without a job. If during our darkest hour, we take time to be still and silent. If we would just tell God that we want to see Him, we will be satisfied.

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” Matthew 7:7-11 (ESV).

It’s God’s Fault

Have you ever noticed the tendency that we have to blame God when bad things happen?

Now that is not to say that He is not partly liable. He is God after all. If he can turn water into wine, protect Daniel in the lion’s den, or part the Red Sea, then He is powerful. And if He has the power to stop a tragedy yet allows it, then we cannot just say that He is not partly responsible.

If we did not want to lay the blame at His feet, we would have to say that He is not all-powerful. But if God is not all powerful, then is He really God? Or we could say that He doesn’t care. But if He doesn’t care, then is He loving? We could just say that we live in a fallen world and that the tragedy around us is just the consequences of the fallen state of everything. But then why does God intervene and do miracles at some times and not others?

Imagine that you were walking down the sidewalk and saw a toddler playing in the road. You looked around and did not see the kid’s mom or dad anywhere. Further down the road, you saw a semi-truck going full speed. You had plenty of time to safely get the toddler out of the road and to safety, yet you also know that the semi would not be able to stop in time to avoid hitting the kid. So you decided, despite having the power to stop the situation, to just stand there and enjoy the gory show. Would you be at fault for that kid’s death? Is God at fault for the suffering in the world?

Yet we read in the writings of John, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love” [1 John 4:7-8 (ESV)].

How can we reconcile all the pain in our lives and the suffering in the world with a God who is loving? How do we watch footage of the Japanese tsunami destroying house after house and still say that God is loving? How do we see starving children in Africa and say that God is loving? How do we deal with the personal pain of the death of a loved one and say that God is still loving?

Often, we don’t. We ignore the question. As if by ignoring the difficult dilemma, everything will be the way it was before the disaster or tragedy struck. We continue to go through the religious motions, saying all of the right religious sayings while inside we no longer truly believe that God is good. Oh, we continue to give lip service to that religious supposition, but, deep inside, we have stopped believing it. The idea that God is good has just become an intellectual concept that we utter without meaning while ignoring the life changing impact that truly believing it can have on our lives.

Other times, we don’t ignore the question but conclude that the best course of action is to hate God or pretend that the God we blame for causing our tragedy does not exist. After all, if God is powerful even to stop tragedies yet allows them to happen, we know that he shares responsibility. Maybe not direct, but at least indirect. What can we conclude about a God who allows tragedies to happen all around him - tragedies of the worst kind - yet has the power to stop them?

Maybe we are looking at it all wrong. Are we being bamboozled by the physical while ignoring the spiritual underpinnings to everything that goes on around us? Could tragedy, suffering, and pain actually be good for us?

God is working out things behind the scenes that we cannot see. When we ask why God intervenes some times and does not at other times – even if we were given the answers, we would not be satisfied. No answer could ever make me happy with some of the tragedies in my life, and I am sure the same could be said for some of the tragedies in yours.

What are we going to do when tragedy strikes? Are we going to ignore that the bad happened? Are we going to distance ourselves from God? Are we going to justify away how God does not hold any responsibility? Or are we going to totally give ourselves over to God, seek His will and plan, and allow Him to work the terrible situations toward good through us? The choice is ours. We can try to change our perspective.