This Season of Sorrow

I would be lying to say I am fine. I am still walking through this valley of the shadow of death. The world would say to me to toughen up that this is a common thing. My Savior would say to me face that which hurts and together we will walk through the agony of this time. In the wake of my devastation I still have a very real and raw pain. It is as if I can see the end but have not yet arrived. This was an incomplete season in my life by physical standards and when it is complete I believe I will finally place my foot on the base of the mountain at the edge of the valley - Thanks only to Immanueal who has carried me often or I would have sunk into the mire of depression and hopelessness.

Maybe incomplete season seems a strange way of stating it - so maybe this illustration would be better suited. When I was a child in Oklahoma my stepdad and his family and friends were cattlemen and farmers. One summer a severe drought hit - the kind that causes the huge lakes to grow stagnant and ponds to dry up leaving fish on the sand. Acres and acres of hay burned up in the scorching sun that year. As the crops failed the farmers became agitated, worried, restless - some even angry. They knew this would create a shortage in the winter and effect the cattle business. This one loss would have rippling effects that lasted through the winter months. As the season drew on and got closer to what should have been the harvest time they became more irritable, more restless, more worried how things would turn out. Hands and bodies that should have been busy with satisfying labor of cutting, raking, hauling, and storing hay were still. The hired hands went without jobs, farmers used to constant labor found themselves at coffee shops and gas stations. They were anxious just to get past harvest to begin the next season. They were ready to prepare the fields for the winter crops. They had to wait for the season to be completed in order to move to the next - and so they were restless. Even knowing they had the next season to look forward to - it was this one they were in that resulted in empty hours that would have been filled.

Explained: My season of pregnancy was cut short (my season of motherhood to Caleb cut even shorter). Though I fully realize God's season are not measured by man's and His are perfectly timed our physical world is accustomed to the seasons we have laid out and the expected ends we have become familiar with. This fact has been the most difficult for my mothering heart to grasp and reconcile to my faith in a perfect God. My season of pregnancy by our worlds standards should have been 9 months with an anticipated due date (April 27). So the anticipation of joy at this date has turned to a realization of sorrow - and beneath that a realization that though my arms are empty - heaven's are full. But oh how it aches here, on this earth. My hope rests in this - God is able to deliver me into His perfect grace. I also hope for the passing of this season to move on to the next. I do not hope naively, believing the next season will be without sorrow but I do believe that there will be a season of healing. And though this loss remain and I will sorrow at times for what might have been. I am eager to embrace the hope of what will be in the arms of Abba. I eagerly await the blessings whether they be times of sorrow or happiness. My joy and hope are anchored in the cross and my face is set on my Savior's and ever I feel him holding me close. For when I would have been content with just a touch of His garment He saw fit to draw me up into the full embrace of His arms and gently guide me through the valley. And just as he wept for his friends at the death of Lazarus I know He weeps too for me - not because of Caleb's death (for He knows that it was truly a ressurection to a more perfect life) but for the terreble ache I feel. I know too that He allows such brokenness to enter into our lives that we may be more perfectly conformed to Him - to be made more beautiful - So I surrender to His will and rest in His arms and walk this valley to its end with Him as my sustaining hope.

The Valley of the Shadows

The tragic beauty of the valley
Is in the songs that fill the air
The broken hallelujahs from
God's children walking there
In the midst of terrible pain,
and in the wake of shattered dreams
On the bank where tears have fallen
into flowing streams
There the children cling
to the hope they know is true
That God is a loving Father
who will carry them through
So up from broken hearts,
poured out of aching souls
Rises a redeeming chant
The Father already knows
He hears his children's cries
has counted every sorrow
Knows their very hearts
and has penned their tomorrows
And though the shadows press
and the enemy stands near
He offers them a shelter
from their devouring fear
He may not ease the suffering
or change the circumstance
But ministers to hearts and souls
causes aching feet to dance
He holds them in his arms
so gently whispers love
Reminds them of redemption
the perfect gift from above
He gently takes their hands
and guides them on the way
Down the path of sorrow
to a brighter day.

Such is the Kingdom

For such is the kingdom of God
This precious little one
Who came into this world
and was so quickly gone
How comforting to know Christ
greeted you with love
When so silently you passed
from here to heaven above
Your life here was treasured
and it has left it's mark
On our very lives and
deep within our heart

November 2, 2010: An email to a friend

I must begin by saying I serve a mighty and compassionate God who has touched my life in a very personal way. On October 26 we went in for our 14 week (4month) OB appointment. At this time we were told that little Caleb's heartbeat could not be found. Devasted and numb I sat and listened as the doctor told us that the bleeding had become so bad that clots and blood had filled the uterus and blocked Caleb's blood supply. My heart shattered and my world felt as if it was shifting on it's axis. Wildly I groped in the blinding hurt to grasp hold of the cross, just to hide in it's shadow and feel the Father's arms around me rocking me and to hear his tender voice whispering words of comfort only He can speak. We took several days off with our children, just to be alone and pray as we had some decisions regarding the delivery of the baby (whether to wait it out - up to two months - to deliver naturally at home, to have a D&C - which we were told the baby may be too big for, or to have an induced labor using laminaria and medication - very painful. After several days and much prayer we opted for the last option and labor induction was begun on Monday Nov 1 at 4pm.....Caleb Levi Riddle was born on Nov 2nd at 12:36 am, weighing 8 ounces (he had lost some mass due to the time between induction and his death), and 3 1/2 inches long. We were able to see him and the hospital took his tiny hand prints for a keepsake of his life. We will be burying him at a beautiful church cemetery close to our home this weekend. God has been so faithful through this pregnancy that even in Caleb's death I see the provisions that God gave us. Just two weeks before we were able to count finger and toes on the ultrasound and hear a beating heart. Through it all we have been afforded many times to testify of God's unending provisions of grace and mercy and love and comfort. Even now we are looking at the fact that God brought us to this mountain and deep and dark valley to show us a need for a ministry to those who have early miscarraiges (before 20 weeks). We found it difficult to find a place to bury Caleb and found almost no resources or ministries in this area for this particular type of loss (as so many do not see life as beginning at conception although this is perfectly clear in Psalm and Jeremiah 1 when it is recorded that God knows us before he places us in our mother's womb). We are praying that God provide us the finances to purchase land here in Texas to open a memorial cemetery for miscarried babies (those born before the 20th week). We hope to begin a ministry to offer grief counseling and support to family members as well as a place to bury the baby or (in the case of D&C when the body is not available) at least place a memorial of some sort. Our ministry is to be called Caleb's Mountain Memorial Ministry - as Caleb of the bible said "Give me my mountain" - and miscarraige is truly a steep and scary and often lonely mountain to climb. Though my pain is deep ad my heart is broken I am ever thankful that my faith has been tried and refined in the fire and strengthened and redefined by the Father and through is grace and mercy. I am thankful for his answered prayers and His comfort. Please pray for the finances to come through and pray for us as we begin a new family ministry.

One Month

Today it has been one month since we laid Caleb's tiny body in the grave. I look back and see God's grace upon us. My husband preached his son's memorial and then carried Caleb's body to the cemetery. There with our dear friends Karissa and Jonathon and our children we prayed and the men lowered our baby into a grave that was so small under the branches of a baby tree in a country cemetery. I will never forget the ache in my heart that day, and the numbness to reality I felt. I wanted so badly for that to be a nightmare that I would wake from. As we began to pull out my youngest son Justin (2 years old) began to scream "I want my baby brother!" and between racking sobs he pleaded "please don't leave him there, please don't leave him there!" Justin was worried because the grave had not yet been covered over and he realized the finality of what was happening for the first time. Between choking tears my older son Chase tried to comfort Justin explaining that only Caleb's body was there, Caleb was already in heaven. We only drove a little way down the road before turning back. Brent and Jonathan began to fill in the grave themselves waiting on the men to get there. Another heart breaking moment - my husband, my hero, the father of my children with his best friend filling in a grave of his infant son. Even though this was a difficult task he did it to comfort his remaining children. I watched, this was my life. This grief that I did not chose had shattered our world, this loss I would have avoided has changed forever our lives. This child that never took a breath outside the womb, opened his eyes to see this world, or cried his first cry has made tiny footprints across our hearts. His life has changed our life....his death has changed our faith. He was a blessing from our Lord and because of him we have seen our Lord in a new way.

Today my husband stood before a group of people at a holiday memorial service at a local funeral home to deliver a message. Strange how these things work out. 15 minutes prior to preaching our son's memorial he had received the call to preach this one, and now exactly one month after our son's memorial my husband stood to deliver a message to hurting people. Sometimes in the midst of our shattered hearts and dreams we are called to serve, and in that service God makes something more beautiful. We met a compassionate couple there today. They had experienced the loss of her mother and also the loss of twins a few years before. Only God can set up such divine appointments. I am ever grateful to my Father who sees to it that I am never alone. God is good.

Caleb Levi Riddle

How precious was your tiny life
Created by God divine
Handed down as a gift of His
to bless this life of mine
So short the time I had with you
here upon this earth
So sad to say tears of grief
were shed upon your birth
What should have been a joyous thing
met with excited smiles
Seemed a journey in the shadows
that lasted many miles
Your spirit had gone to be with God
before I held you, dear
So instead of smiles and joy
I greeted you with tears
I can not know the reason
your time here was so brief
But take comfort in the knowledge
that you will never know such grief
Your days will long be filled
with angel's songs so sweet
And you'll have a chance before I do
with all the saints to meet
I imagine you will dance
in the inner courts of praise
And sing your songs of joy
with tiny hands raised
You are so loved by all of us
that remain still here
We can not wait to meet you
when we finally get there
For now I say good-bye
for but a brief time
And thank you for the blessing
you are to this life of mine.

Hope in the midst of the storm

Lamentations 3:22-26
It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning great is thy faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him. The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. Is is good that a man both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.

I am ever thankful for the eternal, unconditional love of my Father! In Lamentations we see that because of His mercy we are not destroyed by the things of this life. He is our salvation. Even in the midst of suffering and pain scripture reminds us of this unfailing, everlasting love. It gives the believer hope in the midst of the storms of life.

There is one condition of all of this. It is that we must know our Father, not know of our Father with a head knowledge, but rather we must have a personal, intimate relationship with our Father. We must invest in this relationship, spend time with God - in His presence. We must desire His word. Lamentations tells us that the "Lord is GOOD to them that WAIT for Him". We must learn to be still and wait for Him to speak, we must seek His presence. The verses conclude that we should hope and wait for the salvation of the Lord. This is our hope: He has said that He is our salvation and strong tower and He can not lie - therefor we will pass through this storm if our focus is on him.

This verse is dear to me. I am learning more to look to Father for everything. I would not have made it through the initial onslaught of my storm had I not hid in my Father's arms and stayed at the foot of the throne. Even now, I find my favorite place is before his throne in prayer or focussed on His face as I walk.