Purposed: Made For Eternity

“The LORD will fulfill His purpose for me; your steadfast love, O LORD, endures forever. Do not forsake the work of your hands.”
Psalm 138:8

I know that “purpose” is a big word—it carries some heavy weight. So before we really get into God’s purposes, I want us to consider this verse from Deuteronomy 29:29: “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.”

There are many things about God and His divinity that we can’t know—they are the ‘secret things’ that are for Him, for His glory. But sisters, He has revealed things to us through His Word. And these revelations are for us—for our comfort and knowledge, to give us hope and encouragement. So I want us to grow in knowing what is revealed.

In Psalm 139:13-16, we find one such revealed purpose for our babies. We can be greatly comforted and encouraged by these truths.

“For you formed my inward parts; You knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are Your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance, in Your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them.”
Psalm 139:13-16

What do we learn about God and our babies in these verses?

• God formed them
• God created them even when we didn’t even know they were there
• They were a wonderful creation
• God saw every detail
• God planned each of the days of their lives

Our babies were formed by God. The Creator God designed each of them; He purposed for their lives to exist. In Ecclesiastes 11:5 it says, “As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything.”

Did you catch that? The spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child. Our children are given an eternal spirit the moment they are conceived. God purposed for these little ones to live, forever. They were not an accident. They were not a medical anomaly. They were not the result of your body eliminating them because they weren’t “viable.” They were created by God, purposed for eternity. And for reasons we don’t know—the secret reasons of God—He chose for them to bypass everything broken here. He gave them perfection in heaven.

Knowing the truth doesn’t take away the longing,  sadness, and depths of grief. I don’t expect you to hear His truth and then just switch off your sorrow. Neither does God. But this truth can give you something to cling to—something to hope for. Our babies are real and whole. Our babies are in heaven with the Lord. And if you’ve chosen Christ and responded to Him, your precious baby is waiting in heaven for you, just as you are waiting to be reunited with them.

I’m praying that you will hear and receive God’s truth—the truth of God’s compassionate love toward you. The truth that your baby is alive and in God’s presence, supremely happy and at rest. The truth that God did not abandon you to despair, to a life of just “coping” with infant loss.

The truth that in Christ, we do not “cope” —we overwhelmingly conquer. The truth that you aren’t alone. Through the very presence of God’s own Spirit and the body of Christ, He will uphold you.

I hope, my dear friends, that what you see and hear here is really Christ. Because while we, at Hope Mommies, can listen, and love, and cry with you, our empathy will still fall short. But Christ’s will not. He not only knows you and your story perfectly, but He knows the recesses of your heart and longs to reach in and heal all of you. The tenacity of Christ is more powerful than your grief.

If you are unsure about where you are in your relationship Christ, I implore you: Don’t miss this. Don’t move forward with your day without knowing what you believe—even underneath the grief—about Christ.

This article was originally published on the blog on April 27, 2015

Erin Cushman is the founder of Hope Mommies. She is married to Blair and has four children: Gwendolyn, who has been with Jesus since October 20, 2010, Malacai, who is three, Gemma, born in June 2015, and Baby Cush. She loves photography, gardening, cooking, reading, playing with her children, and especially loves when all those things combine.

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