Through A Wound: A Letter to My Hope Baby

Tomorrow will be nine years without you. Nine years since we found out that we lost and heaven gained.

My heart has been a hurricane of emotion through the years, changing direction and intensity without warning or predictability. There have been days when I just couldn’t seem to back away from a cliff edge of grief and pain. And others where I have been gripped by the fear that as time passes and the normalcy of life continues to settle in around me you will be forgotten by others, or your life will be thought less significant.

But dear one, I have come to realize that the Lord has done an incredible work in my life throughout the past nine years, and since I know that in your own heart you now love the Lord above anything else, I know that you will understand when I say, I think I would do it all over again if I was given a choice.

Please hear me out. I miss you. Tremendously. My heart still aches every. single. day. And my arms have continually yearned to hold you on this broken earth.  But something your daddy said one night, as he was preaching on joy, has been echoing in my heart and mind ever since then.

“The Lord knows that the quickest way into our hearts is through a wound.”

In God’s great mercy to me, the Spirit has worked in my life in such a way that I have been compelled to allow Him access into my heart through the wound caused by our loss of you. And my love, since that wound was so vast, God has had an enormous door to walk through.

My heart is now so full of the faithfulness of God and alive with praise at the way He has day after day used the countless stream of tears to wet down this hardened clay of a mother in order to mold me into a greater likeness of His Son. My sweet baby, I am more like Jesus because I lost you. And as much as my heart aches for you, it longs for Jesus even more.

One of the most precious truths that the Lord opened my eyes to in my grief occurred the summer after you went to glory. That summer, daddy and I took a group of high school students from church to summer camp. During the first session at camp, as I stood there singing in the midst of 200 high school students, something about the song lyrics grabbed hold of me:

Holy, holy is the Lord God almighty
Worthy, worthy is Your Name
All of heaven joins the universe ever crying
Worthy, worthy is Your name

This same truth is woven throughout Scripture:

“Sing, O heavens, for the LORD has done it;
Shout, O depths of the earth; break forth into singing,
O mountains, O forest, and every tree in it!
For the LORD has redeemed…”
Psalm 44:23

“Let heaven and earth praise him…”
Psalm 69:34

Did you catch that? Heaven and earth. That’s us, little one. You and me. All of heaven and earth join together to sing about the worthiness of our glorious Savior! I cannot express just how deeply that penetrated into my heart. As everyone around me continued to sing, I was speechless. It’s a good thing the lights were off, so I didn’t make a scene as I sunk into my seat and began sobbing—all the while being washed over with unspeakable joy.

Some of the most intimate and precious moments as a mother have come while daddy and I snuggle up with your sister and brothers, raising our voices to sing praise to our Almighty God. Oh! How I love worshipping the Lord as a family. So to know that when we are approaching the throne of God in worship you are there as well—lifting your voice in praise for all eternity—I am blown away by such a gift. A gift made possible through Christ’s wounds. What joy there is in knowing that I am still able to experience this intimacy with you, that together we can forever cry, “Worthy, Worthy is His name!”

On days when my soul feels heavy and my feet are dragging as though they were made of lead from the weight of missing you, I take those thoughts captive as I turn instead to worship the Lord.

But little one, that’s not all He’s been doing in my life during these nine long years.

I have come to believe with the very fiber of my being that when He gave you the very best, I received the very best too. It just took my stubborn, grieving heart longer to realize it. But this sweet intimacy with the Lord initiated by His wounds and now pouring through my own has brought me greater depths of joy than I would have thought possible.  Yes, child of mine, even greater than the joy that would have come from holding you in my arms here on earth.

So let’s sing together, little one. You in heaven and me on earth until we are both face to face with our Lord and Savior, and then forevermore. Because you and me, we were made to worship. And only He is worthy to receive it.

I love you

-Mommy