Saturday 9 October 2010

FACING MISCARRIAGE: PART NINE: At the Cross

I wrote this series of posts a couple of months ago. Now things are settled we want to share them, as an encouragement to others who may face similar experiences.


As we start to look forward now I am mindful that walking in grace is a daily decision. Lots of our friends are pregnant and / or have small children. I think we know 8 people who are pregnant right now, and lots of our friends already have one or two.

Everything that makes our loss sad is what makes their blessing good and we are determined to enjoy, honour and celebrate the good with them. But there is a cost, and we need to walk in grace to allow us to do it.

God’s grace is sufficient for all of us. Somehow, by some great mystery the light shines in the darkness and we rejoice with them as they mourn with us. We will make it work.

I said at the start I cannot rely on the hope of having a healthy family in the future to give me meaning now, or make this all ok. I need to find peace now, and I have.

When the darkness envelopes you, you see the light. It draws you. It energises you. It comforts you. It guides you.

The last few weeks have shown me the sheer helplessness of man. It has shown me the corruption and brokenness in creation. Processes that were meant to work do not work, and we don’t have an answer and death is the consequence.

The darkness can be bleak.

And yet into that darkness came a man who lived as a carpenter in Nazareth. A teacher who taught with authority and love and grace. A man who was falsely accused, endured an unfair trial, and was brutally tortured and executed by an occupying power.

The sky went dark.

3 days later.

The light comes. The tomb is empty. Something has broken forth.

A new start.

A new day.

This death, this brokenness, this pain and darkness that we see all around us in creation, and if we are honest, inside ourselves has been overcome by the One who conquers death itself.

In doing so not only does He conquer death as a force that stands against humanity, but He conquers the death that stands within each of us. The brokenness. The godlessness. The mistakes and the shame and the things we wished we never did.

So as He walks to the cross Jesus takes all the darkness of our hearts, all the mistakes and the stuff we have done wrong and they go with Him, to be dealt with once and for all.

But it does not stop there.

The redemption does not finish with my heart.

It extends, and keeps extending forever.

For one day all of creation will be made new, all of it made right.

All the things that now don’t work that should, all the processes that stall at seven weeks and the scans that come back empty, will be made new.

The cross was not just for me and Esther, it was for our baby.

The baby we never knew, He does.

In the darkness, hopelessness and lostness of today comes a future hope, won for us by a Saviour who has walked our road, and felt our pain.

The cries we cry out now, are the cries all creation cries out, and they will come to fruition.

Jesus will come again and then it will be made new and things will be as they were meant to be and these tears will cease because our loving God will make it right.

That is our promise. That is our hope. That is our destiny.

I don’t know what will happen next. I don’t know we will have a family.

I don’t know it will all fall into place and I don’t know if I will ever have a child to take to the game but I do know that a loving God gave everything for me and for the pain I face.

The light shines in the darkness, just like His disciple said it would.

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