A Hart-felt Tribute

When Hart was born, my amazing sister and her awesome family were living in Beijing, China. She was unable to come back to the states when he was born, but made the long, arduous journey when he died. My deep need for her to be there felt physical. I needed her like I needed to breathe and for my heart to beat; I needed her to survive. 

There are two people whose words have always brought me comfort and healing. Two voices that are a soothing balm whenever I call out. Their love feels like home to me. Fourteen years ago, as we were preparing to bury our child, I needed to hear those voices, their words, their wisdom more than ever. I knew that others would also be consoled by their curative prose. My brilliant sister and my extraordinary friend Tanya, both graciously agreed to speak at Hart's funeral. I don't know that they have any idea what that meant to us, but even now, when I think about the enormity of their gifts, I am overwhelmed by love and gratitude.  

The following is what my sister said at Hart's funeral. Rereading her words bring me comfort at various times in my life and apply to many situations.

I am finally alone, I have a sixteen hour trip ahead of me. Lord, I really need this time... solitude to think, time to talk with you.

You know how hard it's been for me to be away from Erin and her family, halfway around the world. I can't get there fast enough... but I am also staring my complete inability to make it better right in the face. 

I want to fix it. I want to bring your peace and comfort to them. Sometimes the pain seems more than we can bear. I thank you Lord for those moments of joy, in spite of our broken hearts. 

The psalmist writes, "I cried out- I'm slipping, and your unfailing love O Lord, supported me. When doubts filled my mind, your comfort gave me renewed hope."

So we come to you Lord, as Paul writes in Hebrews, "Let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God, there we will receive his mercy and find grace to help us when we need it."

We thank you that we can come to you Lord, unafraid, raw, honest... and lay it all down before you. Thank you that we can say: this hurts, we don't understand, This Stinks! We can scream, cry out and this doesn't change how much you love us. Nothing can ever separate us from your love. You will never leave us, you will never forsake us. 

Thank you Father for the miracle of Hart. Thank you for choosing Erin and John to be his parents, and Curtis, Grace, Annabel, Satchel and Felix to be his brothers and sisters. You knew from the beginning that they would love him unconditionally and not hold anything back, even though they knew his time here would be short and how hard it would be to say goodbye.

Against all odds he survived the pregnancy, he made it through labor and delivery and lived with his family for 24 days! We thank you for his 24 strong, healthy and joyous days.

I love Psalm 139 where David says, "You saw me before I was born, every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed."

So many of the truths we know Lord, but sometimes we need to convince our broken hearts to embrace them. Our hands ache to hold, our arms feel empty.

Give us your grace in full measure. Let us feel your hand on the small of our backs, and help us console each other. Take us through this as only you can, to embrace our pain and Hart's death and still embrace life, to go on trusting and loving, knowing that you are faithfully meeting our every need.

I pray that you will flood our hearts with your light and may your peace wash over us like a holy flood.

Amen

You're Not Angry at God?

You're not angry at God?

I was asked that question, tinged with incredulousness, many times while I was pregnant with Hart and quite regularly after he died. As I tried to wrap my head around everything that was going on, I went through a myriad of emotions: sadness, fear, doubt, confusion, helplessness, determination, acceptance, joy, awe. But I don't have any recollection of being angry. I reread all of my journal entries from that time-no sign of anger there either (although I did find a couple of entries that were clearly written for the sake of posterity-or the inevitable VH1 Behind the Music episode of my life -because obviously) but, never anger.

I never felt as though Hart was a tragedy that God "allowed to happen"-like He sometimes allows bad to prevail and we lost some big celestial coin toss. Nor did I feel that He took a terrible situation and made lemonade from lemons. I believe that every part of Hart was God's plan. His life and death were all part of a divine, purposeful intention, exactly as it was. I came to understand that, although Hart had the "too many" chromosomes, he was perfect. He was fearfully and wonderfully made. My soul knows very well the wonder of His works and my grasp of what that looks like grew infinitely. And while my mama's heart would give anything to still have Hart with us, and I miss him like crazycakes every single day, that wasn't God's perfect plan.

When our desires match up with God's will we call ourselves blessed. We humblebrag about how blessed we are, complete with pictures, on social media. When we just miss personal tragedy or hear of the misfortune of others, we exhale in relief and count our blessings. But, when what we want and what God wants for us don't align, are we any less blessed? No, we are blessed, not by what our hearts long for, nor by the serendipitous aligning of those desires with God's will, but we are blessed because we are.

As a Christian, I am commanded to love God and to love others as I am loved. That is what I strive for (and fail at) daily. It's the "as I am loved," part that trips me up. I don't know that the unconditional love of God is something that we can truly understand, let alone practice, but that is the aim. Is it possible to truly celebrate that each of us is made in His image and for His glory, then proceed to parse out to whom that really applies, who is worthy? How often do our ideals become stumbling blocks preventing us from loving others unconditionally? Anger, fear, doubt, pride all get in between us and love. We preserve our love and sparingly dole it out to those we choose, those who earn it or we deem worthy. Why do we try so hard to conserve something that is infinite and made to be given in abundance to others unconditionally?

I felt, and still feel, as if God chose us to be Hart's family. When he entrusted us with this awesome gift, as cheesy as it sounds, I got a glimpse of divinity. In addition to the change in me,  I witnessed God's love and how he changed others through Hart. "Seeing" God so intimately affirmed and strengthened my faith in ways that are too big for words to hold. It also shed a layer of the humanism that is woven (I believe by divine design) into our relationships with Him. Perhaps that layer was anger.

It is in loving Hart, in holding him, in seeing the perfection in him, in seeing the reflection of God in him, that I experienced awe instead of anger. That awe is with me every day. It brings me peace and comfort that my faith cannot be restrained by my understanding,  that it is beyond the capacity of words and emotions!