What I believe

Ten days ago I had a miscarriage. I was 16 weeks pregnant.

That past few weeks have been filled with emotions from one end of the spectrum to the other.

Agonizing pain at the loss of a child {I feel like it was a girl, so I think of her as such, although we may not ever know}. Gratitude for my healthy sons. Anger that my body couldn’t sustain this little life. Relief that this didn’t happen later in my pregnancy. Fear that there was something I could do to stop it. Frustration that I have to “start over” getting pregnant. Guilt that I even care about something as petty as starting over. Sadness at the dreams that won’t come true. Regret that that I didn’t sing to her yet, or think about her more. Heartache at the memories of experiences I had while pregnant that now mean more than they did before. Overwhelming thankfulness for my friends in Seattle that poured out love to me and my family in Atlanta that all showed up on our doorstep that weekend. Grief. And above all, hope.

These are the moments in our lives where theology crashes into reality and we look at what we say we believe and weigh whether we really believe it or not.

Here’s what I believe. Jesus died because death is the wages of sin. Where sin is, death is close behind, demanding its payment. Jesus paid death with his own life. But Jesus is stronger than death. He rose. And he rose with a real body, a body that people could really see and really touch. So I know my little girl has a real body. She isn’t floating somewhere, she isn’t an ethereal spirit that ‘hope’ I get to see one day. She has a real body, real hair (probably blond like her big brother Rohan), real, sparkling eyes (probably green like her mama), and one day she is going to give me a real hug and tell me that she is so happy to meet me and daddy and has been waiting to show us where she lives. And we are going to walk, hand-in-hand, as she shows me the beautiful new earth God has redeemed, and we’ll eat amazing food, and watch clouds, and play games, and laugh, and spend time all together as a family. But right now she’s already there, playing with her cousins and her best friend named Eleanora. She is really alive, and really happy, and she doesn’t know that there is something like pain, or fear, or death. That’s what I believe.

I believe death is our enemy. I hate when people say death is a natural part of life. Have you ever experienced death? I am the first to say that what Phil and I went through and are going through is on the low end of tragedy. To lose a child later in pregnancy, an infant, a young child, an old child, parents…all of those are more tragic. But if you have experienced death at all, you know that it is the most unnatural thing we as humans face.

It rips us up. It destroys something in us. Humans throughout history have spent time, money, resources, and lifetimes trying to avoid death. We write about it, we watch it on TV, we sometimes even let it entertain us, all in an attempt to have some control over this thing that we know we will one day face. And that one thing is what we fear above all else. Because we were never, ever made to face death. Is goes against everything we were created for. Death is our enemy. It prowls around, looking to claim us.

But you know what else I believe? Death loses. There is a verse we don’t hear often, 1 Corinthians 15:26, and it makes me smile.

“The last enemy to be destroyed is death.”

Death is real. It is a normal part of life in the sense that we all will experience it. But it is not natural. It is our enemy.

And it does not win.

It didn’t win two thousand years ago with Jesus and it didn’t win last week. My baby slipped right through death’s grasping, desperate fingers into the arms of Jesus. And I have news for death. It won’t ever, ever win with my family. We serve the Author and Creator of Life. We are on a mission to reconcile the earth back to God and be a part of His story of redemption for all mankind. We bring light into dark places. We live to destroy death.

We belong to Jesus.