Dear 2014

Dear 2014,

When you began, I was the wife of a teacher, mother of a 9-month-old, working part-time as a tutor.  I felt like I had hit my stride in this stage of life - I could keep a house clean, a husband fed, and a child cared for.  I was beginning to wonder if God would see fit to bless us with another child, but not expecting one anytime soon, since we had hoped quite some time for our daughter.  I didn't have long to wonder, as one morning at the end of January, I almost threw up when I smelled my coffee brewing. 

My organized household was quickly lost to first trimester exhaustion and nausea, though the nausea wasn't as bad this time, causing my mother-in-law to believe that I was carrying a little boy.  I got over the need for a daily nap in time to make a birthday cake and an Easter dress for my first-born.  By the end of April, things were looking up...no more puking, starting to be pregnant enough that I looked pregnant instead of chubby, just one more month of teaching for my husband and I, planning for a busy summer of getting ready for this new little life.

Then on May 1, we saw our little baby.  With an incorrectly-formed heart.  Plans for a date night with the baby name book turned into a drive to the pediatric cardiologist.  For the rest of May, doctor's offices and bad news ruled.  A heart defect, a diaphragmatic hernia, a bilateral diaphragmatic hernia, no way of knowing what caused so much to go wrong, realizing there was more likelihood that our child would die than that he would live.  The one funny moment in a very difficult month was discovering that the first sonographer, while correctly identifying that something was very wrong, incorrectly identified the baby's sex as female.  My mother-in-law was right - we were going to have a baby boy!  But we had to go on for months knowing that we probably wouldn't get to bring him home.

By the time school let out, we felt that we had experienced the bottom of 2014 and were now accustomed to living with uncertainty and anticipatory grief.  All the summer projects we had thought of - moving our daughter into another room, fitting two car seats into my car, and so forth, were tabled.  Instead we made more doctor's appointments, read about CHD and CDH, and tried to do normal things like go to the swimming pool, travel to a family reunion, and teach VBS. 

At the end of July, we heard conclusively what we had been expecting to hear based on our research and what the first round of doctors had told us: Arthur wouldn't be able to survive life support and surgery. 

August and September were long and hot.  I was very large and very preoccupied.  My husband started a new school year.  My daughter grew to be a toddler, complete with a will of her own and incredible verbal abilities in order to communicate said will.

In October, we waited.  We held Arthur.  We said goodbye.  We cried. 

November was a long, difficult month of physical and emotional healing for me.

December brought joy and sorrow all at once.  There was so much joy watching our daughter truly enjoy the Christmas season.  A year ago, she could neither walk nor talk.  Now she does both almost unceasingly, and greets every moment and experience with wonder and excitement.  But there was wistfulness in the moments when I allowed myself to think of what might have been.  And then sweet sadness as I pondered my loss and all that Jesus lost so that I could gain eternal life. 

So, here I am a year later, the wife of a teacher, the mother of a 21-month-old, working part-time as a tutor.  Just now feeling as if I can take care of a household again.  From the outside, things look so much the same as they did a year ago.  But a year ago, Arthur's body was not even formed.  Today it is buried in a cemetery. 

2014, I spent more than two thirds of you carrying my son.  Less than an hour of you holding him in my arms while he still lived. 

Just a couple of weeks ago, I realized how much of an emotional toll this year took.  After the shock of May, I felt that I was able to live life fairly normally for most of my pregnancy.  I guess I am less self-aware than I thought.  You see, earlier this month, my husband made a joke that sent me into those junior-high giggles.  When I caught my breath, I realized that I hadn't laughed like that since April. 

If I had been told a year ago what 2014 would hold, I wouldn't have believed it.  More than that, I wouldn't have believed that I would be here, on December 31, still functioning and able to trust and praise God. And I say that not to comment on my strength, but God's.

Because as I look back over the last year, it is God's steadfastness that stands out above all else, above the joy and tears, the busyness and the weakness.  In 2014 I learned that God's promises are not empty and those Bible verses about His love and faithfulness are not just pretty words. 

So, dear 2014, while I am glad to see you go, with all the heartache you brought, I will forever remember you.  I'll remember you as the year of Arthur.  And as the year when I really learned that I can trust God.  The depth of my heartache this year gave me a glimpse of the depth of His love.

P.S.: I think this is a good place to stop blogging for now.  The time may come when I need to start again, but for now I have some other projects in mind, and naptime is only 2 hours a day ;)  Thank you, whoever is reading, for your thoughts and prayers in 2014.  Thank you for taking the time to read what God has done in my life through Arthur Isaac Ramos. I pray you have learned a little of His love and faithfulness through my son's life, and that He will continue to demonstrate that love and faithfulness to you in 2015!

A Season of Joy While Grieving

Christ on the White Horse, Giusto de' Menabuoi

I was one of those annoying know-it-alls as an elementary schooler.  (Maybe I shouldn't say "was"...)  Teachers either loved me because I was a quick and eager learner or they couldn't stand me because I could and did point out just about every mistake they ever made.

Imagine my glee one year when I discovered that "Joy to the World" isn't actually about Christmas.  I had lots of annoying know-it-all fun informing people that they had failed to examine the words they were singing and had bought into the mistaken idea that "Joy to the World" is a Christmas song.

You see, if you have only heard the first verse, you might be like the unenlightened masses who think that "Joy to the World"  is one more rendition of what the angels sang to the shepherds in Bethlehem 2000 years ago. 

Joy to the world! the Lord is come;
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare him room,
And heaven and nature sing,
And heaven and nature sing,
And heaven, and heaven, and nature sing.

But it is actually a celebration not of Christ's first coming, as a baby, but of His second coming.  The rest of the verses make that clear. 

Joy to the earth! the Savior reigns;
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat the sounding joy.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.

He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders, wonders, of His love.

Sins and sorrows are still growing.  They were growing when Jesus was born, and they haven't stopped.  Thorns still infest the ground.  Jesus' rule and reign never really got off the ground in Jerusalem in AD 27...He didn't deliver the Jews from the Romans.  The only crown He wore was one of thorns.  He had no palace, no government, no throne. 

All that to say, I don't mind singing "Joy to the World" at Christmas time, even though it's not technically a Christmas carol.   It reminds me that Jesus has only completed half of His job of salvation and deliverance.  While we can rejoice in the spiritual salvation and deliverance that His life and death have bought us, "Joy to the World" calls us to imagine what it will be like to rejoice when Jesus comes back to this earth, bringing physical salvation and deliverance for our world.

This Christmas finds me a little bit like Jesus' disciples.  "Is NOW the time when You will establish Your kingdom?"  Sometimes it's hard to see the spiritual deliverance right before your eyes when your physical reality is screaming for some real, tangible deliverance.  "I'm glad You came to save us from our sins, but could You please get rid of the long succession of ungodly rulers who oppress, enslave, and kill us?" the disciples might have said.  Similarly, my heart cries, "I'm glad You came to save me from my sins, but could You please get rid of suffering and death?"

"Joy to the World" lets me rejoice in the future, when Jesus keeps His promise to rule the world in truth and grace, when His blessings flow far as the curse is found.  His first coming to earth didn't change our physical world that much.  But when He comes again, everything will be different.  Even when I don't feel like rejoicing about today, I can rejoice that Jesus is coming back, and this time He won't be a little baby who grows up to be executed by the oppressors of His people.  He will be a mighty king who rules forever and ever, who abolishes sin and death and all the pain that they bring.

I can rejoice in His first coming because it purchased my spot in the perfect kingdom of His second coming. I can rejoice in His first coming because it assures me that His second coming is imminent.  Right now, all I have is joy for my heart, but one day there will be joy for the world. 

I look forward to the day when this physical world repeats the sounding joy because it has been set free.

Finding Grief in a Season of Joy

The Massacre of the Innocents, Francois-Joseph Navez

I bet you've never heard a Christmas sermon with that title.  In December, unhappy people are called Grinches and Scrooges.  If you're not super-religious, fa-la-la and tinsel are supposed to make all your troubles seem miles away.  If you are devout, the thought of God becoming man to secure our salvation should cause you to rejoice all season long.

 I think that in our joy we forget that Jesus' birth was not all angels and expensive presents.  If you read the Christmas story, there is much grief and pain as well.  The first Christmas was not a day of flippant happiness, but rather a bittersweet time for all involved.  Since my Christmas this year is more bitter than ever but also more sweet than ever, I'm glad that God didn't just record the cheerful highlights for us in His Word.  In the last couple of weeks I've been pondering the grief of Christmas, since every time I see a Christmas card with a little baby boy on it I have to hold back tears.

I've already waxed eloquent on how much Christmas cost God, so I'll not belabor that point.  Besides, sometimes it's easy to write God off as, well, super-human.  But the humans who played a part in Christmas suffered quite a bit too.

First, there was Mary.  How many dreams did she have to let go of for the Christmas story to be written?  The dream of a trouble-free marriage in her little town.  The dream of having her first child in her new home with the village midwife making jokes about whether the baby looked more like his mother or father.  The dream of seeing her own mother and father's unbridled joy when they held their grandson for the first time.  In a time when childbearing was seen as the height of a woman's existence and when adultery was punishable by death, to have her hopes for a beautiful, normal family dashed must have been very difficult.  How many tears she must have shed as she coped with her never-the-same-again life!  Then she gave birth in a barn and had no bed for her first-born son but a feed trough.

 And Joseph.  How many disparaging comments did he have to endure for the rest of his life because God became man?  For this young couple, the grief that resulted from the Christmas story lasted all their lives. 

When they took Jesus to the temple on his 8th day, they met a prophet named Simeon.  Seconds after praising the Lord for sending salvation through this tiny baby, Simeon looked at Mary and told her that, because of her son, a sword would pierce even her own soul...just the kind of thing a first-time-mom wants to hear.  That verse in Luke 2 is NOT the one we put on our Christmas cards.

 But the people you might never have considered were all the families living in Bethlehem and the surrounding areas when Jesus was born.  You see, any baby boy 2 years old and under in the region was murdered by Herod's soldiers because Herod didn't want anyone challenging his kingship.  This part of the Christmas story always struck me as grotesque when I was a young girl, and now as a mother, it breaks my heart.  As a mother who has lost a baby boy, it makes me sick to my stomach to think of what that day in Bethlehem must have been like.  How many women "refused to be comforted" (Mat. 2:18) because of Christmas?

The first Christmas brought great joy and great sorrow.  Jesus was an incredible gift who came at an incredible cost - to the Trinity, to His earthly family, and to many other families as well.  Don't let the jingle bells keep you from contemplating the grief of Christmas.  It won't make you a grinch.

Little Lamb

This is the poem that my husband set to music and his students sang at Arthur's service. 

I was hoping to spend this Christmas season marveling at the incarnation while holding a little baby in my arms.  I wanted to ponder how amazing it is that God would become a little child.

But Jesus called Himself a lamb because He came to die for us.  The incarnation is beautiful and sad all at once, just like my memories of my son. 

"The Lamb"
from Songs of Innocence
William Blake

  Little Lamb who made thee
  Dost thou know who made thee
Gave thee life & bid thee feed.
By the stream & o'er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing wooly bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice:
  Little Lamb who made thee
  Dost thou know who made thee  

  Little Lamb I'll tell thee,
  Little Lamb I'll tell thee:
He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a Lamb:
He is meek & he is mild,
He became a little child:
I a child & thou a lamb,
We are called by his name.
  Little Lamb God bless thee.
  Little Lamb God bless thee