He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever. (Revelation 21:4 NLT)
God’s promise feels a long way off some days.
It has been twenty years since our season of infertility.
The loss of five babies—and their absence from our lives—is always with me. I’m not sure why this year the pain feels a bit heavier, why the tears come so quickly. Twenty years feels like a lifetime. If our babies were here now, they would be in their early twenties.
The other afternoon, Donny and I were walking home from the Christmas parade when I suddenly burst into tears and cried, “I miss the babies.”
As we walked, we talked about what life might have been like if they were here. Would we be visiting grad schools, moving them into first apartments, or planning weddings? Maybe the boys would be hanging Christmas lights with Jonah or hunting with Jed. And Joy, I can almost see her texting Malady and Jordan to set up girls-only weekends.
Some days, the only thing I have is hope.
Hope that when I step into eternity, there they’ll be—the babies who lived in me for a few short months, then were gone.
The vision of Jesus handing me my five missing Ringers keeps that hope alive.
We will spend forever together, living life whole at last.
The hope of forever fills me with the peace of Christ, and it is that peace that allows me to live here fully alive until we meet again.
There’s a saying: “Time heals all wounds.” It’s not true. Only the blood of Jesus heals our wounds. Only at the Cross do we exchange the pain that comes with loss for the peace Jesus died to give us.
This is where I grieve. This is where I invite you to grieve your losses too.
Much of what I’ve learned about grief, hope, and meeting God at the Cross was shaped in those years of waiting and loss. I later gathered those reflections into a book, Waiting for Jedidiah: How to Experience God’s Healing After a Miscarriage, for others who might need company in that place.
