When death steals your song God prepares the way for joy and light to return

In Psalm 42 we’re given a poetic description of a man who is suffering unbearable circumstances. He pants and thirsts. Tears have been his food day and night. His soul is downcast. Can you relate? I can. 14 years ago, I gave birth to my daughter in a silent hospital room. There was no sweet cry of a newborn, only hushed voices. Joy and light left my world the moment death entered. Her little body was so perfectly formed by the Creator. I held her and wept as I admired every single feature. 22 weeks with her wasn’t enough. 

Even now, there are moments I cry tears I didn’t know I had left to cry, still longing for what was lost. Mothering a child in heaven is complicated and sacred. My body remembers the trauma, the sorrow, the grief. The sleepless nights lying awake, begging for God to grant relief. It was in those moments that I made a choice. Rather than becoming bitter and angry toward God for not saving my daughter, I decided to pour out my grieving heart to a God that I knew would never leave or forsake me. 

Death had stolen my song, but it couldn’t stop me from singing. As I held onto the hope of heaven, I was slowly relieved and comforted by remembering God’s faithfulness. I recalled the various times He had provided for me in my past, the multiple instances I had seen Him show up and work in the lives of my loved ones, and the many stories in which He delivered His people in the Scriptures. I learned God always asks His people to trust Him, and partner with Him, as His very presence walks with them and makes ways where there seem to be none. I learned that answers to all my questions isn’t what my grieving heart needs, and that healing looks quite different than I thought it would.

When my baby died life got dark. It took faith to believe in what I couldn’t see and to sing myself forward into hope– believing that a faithful, sovereign, and loving God was working all things together for good. When I recall His faithfulness and raise my song in the night, I declare, against all my feelings, that God reigns over the darkness, that God is at work in the darkness, and that God is still worthy of worship in the darkness. He alone can make my dark night of the soul bearable, and the songs I sing in the night are one way He lifts up the valleys, makes low the hills, and prepares the way for joy and light to return to my life, and He will do it for you too!

“Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls: all your breakers and your waves have gone over me. By day the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.”—Psalm 42:7-8

With hope,
Jennie

Jennie is the Executive Director for Hope Mommies. She and her husband Brian live in Washington State and have four children together— Trenton, Paige who has been in Heaven with Jesus since 2010, Mason, and Cora. If you were to knock on her front door today, you’d find her in something comfortable drinking a hot cup of tea, while trying to figure out how to balance all the things that make up a life. She enjoys spending time in God’s word, fresh flowers, board games with her kids, cooking, and evening walks in her neighborhood. She adores being a new creation in Christ and prays she reflects Him well on this earth.