A Perfect Little Angel

“Living as a person of faith means trusting in advance

what will only make sense in reverse.”

I shared that phrase with you a few months back after I had spoken at a Remembrance Service at Omaha Children’s Hospital. They are words that run through my mind quite frequently. I lived by them for the entire month of May. I’m clinging to them now as Matt and I make about a billion major/stressful changes in our lives all at once. I silently mumble them to myself when one of “those days” comes along and my heart is exceptionally sensitive to grief.

Yesterday was one of those days where those words were repeated over and over.

“Trusting in advance what will only make sense in reverse.”
“Trusting in advance what will only make sense in reverse.”
“Trusting in advance what will only make sense in reverse.”

And as I said them, I realized that yesterday I was witnessing both ends…trusting in advance, while at the same time making some sense out of things (even if just a tiny amount of sense).

Yesterday some very good friends of ours welcomed two beautiful little boys, Mason and Abram, into the world. They weren’t due to be born until about a month after Baby Boy Ritchie, but apparently they had some plans of their own!  Mason is currently in the NICU working on growing big and strong. All reports have been that he’s doing very well… such a strong little kiddo (no surprise knowing his mom and dad!). Mason’s brother Abram blessed this world with his presence for about an hour before he earned himself a very special pair of angel wings. He was born with Trisomy 18 and also had a “broken” little heart like our Charlotte. Our own hearts are breaking for our friends and the rest of their family as they grieve the loss of one child and fight right alongside another. I can't imagine how to even begin balancing those emotions.

Yet again God has orchestrated a series of events that require us to “trust in advance”…so what did I mean when I said that I’m starting to make some sense out of things? I’ve told you before that the challenges that Matt and I have been given in our own life make absolutely no sense to me. None. Why would a God who loves you unconditionally bless you with a child, make you watch them fight for their lives and then take them away from you? I don’t understand it—but at the same time I trust. And as far as making any semblance of “sense” out of it, I think that in this situation Matt and I have been given an opportunity. We obviously can’t fix things or come up with justification for why, but we can take what we have learned from our own struggles and channel it into simply being there for our friends. We don’t “know” what they are going through…but we do understand what it feels like to hold a child in your arms and to be forced to say good-bye. We will pray for them, cry for them, sit in absolute silence with them, and celebrate ALL of their children with them…whatever they need.

I know that today Charlotte and Abram are playing together on Heaven’s ultimate playground and that in another two weeks Mason will have a little Ritchie boy to grow up with. Though it hurts, that thought makes me smile. I feel SO BLESSED knowing that each of my kiddos, in totally different ways, will grow up with a Metzler!